by Adam Baron
‘What’s going on?’ I said.
But they were both so riveted that neither of them answered me. I asked again and got the same result – so I gave up. I went to play Subbuteo, on my own (which had to be five-a-side because half my players were recovering from hippo-related injuries).
It would be better at bedtime, though – I was sure. I already knew that Dad would be sleeping on the sofa. I was looking forward to being with Veronique in my room – so that we could talk about the burglaries. Maybe we could work out what the burglars might have been searching for. But, once I’d finished cleaning my teeth, I came out and saw Mum in there: and she wasn’t just sorting out Veronique.
Ellen was in there too.
‘You don’t mind do you, Cym?’ she asked, though I didn’t know what she meant. I presumed that Ellen was just coming in to say goodnight or something. Veronique was already in a sleeping bag, on the camping mattress. But then I watched as, almost in slow motion, Ellen did something that I couldn’t quite believe I was seeing.
She climbed into MY bed!
‘MIND!!!’ I said. ‘Of course I mind! What do you think …’
‘Come on, Cym,’ Mum said. ‘It’s probably more appropriate this way.’
‘Appropriate? What does that mean?’
‘Well, being girls.’
‘Girls? You’re always telling me there’s no difference. And it’s true. Vi and Daisy, for instance. They play football even more than me! And they foul! Vi nearly kicked my leg off on Saturday, and Daisy elbowed me in the head. Twice. Anyway, you say I should be friends with boys and girls.’
‘I know. But …’ Mum paused, and ushered me out. On the landing she whispered, ‘Ellen and Veronique are getting on really well.’
‘I’ve noticed that.’
‘Ellen doesn’t have any friends around here yet, does she?’
‘So?’
‘She needs some. To make her feel at home, don’t you think?’
‘Not if they’re MY friends! Tell her to get her own.’
‘How, Cym?’
‘Don’t ask me. She can put a notice in the window or something. “New Girl Requires Friends Who Won’t Mind That She’s Horrible”. I don’t care. And she’s in MY BED. You are SO going to have to buy me a new one tomorrow.’
‘A new bed? Why?’
‘Well, I’m not sleeping in that one again NOW, am I? EEUURRGH! And aren’t you forgetting something? Now that you’ve kicked me out of MY bed, and MY bedroom, where am I supposed to sleep? On the sofa?’
‘Your dad’ll be on that.’
‘Then …?’
‘You can sleep with ME, Thimbeline!’
Mabel. I was surprised that she’d said it, actually, seeing as I was the Friend of a Unicorn Killer, and everything.
‘It’s okay,’ she said, after Mum had practically shoved me into the boxroom. ‘I like you again now because you’ve given Veronique to us. But go on.’
‘Go on what?’
‘You know, silly!’
And so I had to do it – sing Mabel’s ‘Night-Night, Unicorn’ song. She didn’t want anyone else joining in, but did want the same amount of goes through. So I had to sing it six times, Mabel making me start again if I either mumbled, or wasn’t loud enough. It was so embarrassing, especially when I heard giggling coming out of my bedroom.
‘Lovely,’ Mum said. ‘But hop into bed now, you two.’
So we did, Mabel on one blow-up mattress and me on the other. She fell asleep straight away, but I couldn’t. For a start it was like she was Dad’s daughter, not Stephan’s – she SNORED TOO! It was like lying next to an episode of Peppa Pig. Also, I’d left Not Mr Fluffy in my room and couldn’t bring myself to go in there to get him, not after Ellen’s ‘teddy-weddies’ comment. Then there was the raining sound. I kept needing to wee again and, when I came back after the THIRD time, Mabel had half rolled out of her bed and was lying over mine. I hissed, and went downstairs to get Mum to move her (Stephan was still out). Mum was in the living room. I could hear her through the closed door, with Dad. Oddly, they weren’t arguing, though.
‘Definitely 2009,’ Dad said. ‘That was the best year. Springsteen was unbelievable!’
‘Not as good as Blur!’
‘You kidding? The Boss every time. And neither was as good as the sight of you sitting in that puddle when you fell off my shoulders!’
‘Fell off?’ Mum screeched. ‘You dumped me. You SO dumped me!’
I had no idea what they were on about, but it was great that they weren’t trying to kill each other. I decided not to bother them and went through to the kitchen for a glass of milk – only remembering that we didn’t have any when the light in the fridge came on. It lit up the kitchen and all of our homework on the worktop. I saw my picture and I remembered that I still hadn’t found out how to do shadowing. I wanted to show it to Miss Phillips in the morning and I turned towards the living room – but Mum was still laughing.
‘And we got in that tent and fell asleep …’
‘But it wasn’t our tent!’ Dad roared.
No. They were still talking gibberish, but I’d leave them to it. Mum’s mobile was on the side, though, sitting on Veronique’s maths sheet.
Would there be a picture somewhere? One I could copy?
I tapped in Mum’s PIN and went on the Internet.
Google search: Elizabeth I’s medal.
Nothing.
My mind went back to Hall Place and the helper. ‘The Phoenix Medal’. That’s what she’d called it.
I typed that in and up it came, the medal I’d seen that very day, and which I was making a copy of. It was part of something called ‘The British Museum Permanent Collection’, though it was currently out on loan – which is why I’d seen it. I clicked on the image and it filled the screen, the little bits of shading clearly visible. Glad that I was right about that, I turned the kitchen light on and sat down, adding a little bit of shadow to my picture and then glancing at the phone, the picture really coming to life in front of me.
Until I stopped glancing.
I’d been about to turn the phone off. I’d finished my drawing and I was really pleased with it, but tired. I didn’t care that Mum and Dad were laughing. I’d get Mum to move Mabel and then I’d go to sleep.
But the roses.
The RED roses and the WHITE roses.
In the picture on Mum’s phone, there were fourteen of them – like in my copy. I counted twice to make sure.
Yes, fourteen roses.
At Hall Place there had been EIGHT white ones and SIX red ones.
But HERE there were seven red roses.
And seven white ones.
There were EXACTLY THE SAME number of each.
What could it mean?
Mum and Benji came back half an hour after the woman had left. Five minutes after that, the man from the council actually arrived. He and Mum went from room to room, making notes, Mum’s face falling further with every passing minute.
‘That much?’ I heard her say at one point. When he’d gone, I asked about the nursery.
‘Is it nice?’
‘It’s fine,’ Mum said.
‘So is Benji going there?’
‘I don’t know. The fees are higher than Apple Trees. After my travel, and my tax … I don’t know. Anyway, what did you two get up to?’
I was about to shrug and just say homework, but Milly came in from the lounge – and she told her. She described the lady and how we’d been careful not to let her in. Mum winced.
‘But you gave her the teddy?’ Milly nodded. ‘I’m sorry, girls. I shouldn’t have done it. You found something that cheered you up and got you excited. Something that was just … nice. I overreacted, though some little boy is going to be pleased at least. Mrs …?’
‘Rose.’
‘That’s right. Well, I’ll make it up to you, I promise.’
I said not to bother and turned to Milly, not quite able to believe the way she was acting
. I was PRETENDING not to mind about Mr Goldy because I didn’t want Mum to worry about one more thing. But Milly looked like she actually didn’t CARE. She was either a much better actor than me, or the teddy didn’t mean anything near as much to her as she’d said. I was cross with her and I wanted to tell her off, but that wouldn’t bring Mr Goldy back, would it?
One thing did bother me, though.
‘Mum,’ I said. ‘How did Mrs Rose find you?’
‘Oh. I got a text. She said she’d tried to contact me on WhatsApp the other day, but I didn’t get that. She said her son dropped his teddy in the river.’
‘Oh. She told us it was her grandson.’
‘What?’
‘She said her grandson dropped it.’
‘Then I must have got that wrong. Or maybe she’s the main carer. What does it matter? Someone will be really happy, though I’m still very sorry. That bear, it really was cute, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes.’
‘And soft after you’d washed it. It was really …’ Mum was searching for the word.
‘Fluffy?’
‘That’s right! Fluffy. It was really, really fluffy. But I suppose you’ll just have to move on, okay?’
I said okay, but then thought about Mr Goldy and how he’d felt, between Milly and me, after she’d climbed in my bed. And I thought about Mum talking to me at the hospital, and how it had made me feel much older than I was.
I wanted Milly to get in that night, and I asked her. But she said, ‘No, I’m Gucci.’
I laughed. ‘Can’t you learn some more “cool” words?’ I said. ‘I’m bored of that one.’
Milly just went ha ha, and I expected her to stick her tongue out at me. She didn’t, though. She was completely covered by her duvet and she stayed that way. I listened to her scruffling about before she went to sleep.
In the morning, I could tell that something was different. When I walked downstairs, I saw what it was. The house was bright and busy, like I was late for something. Mum had obviously been up for hours. Cupboards were open and drawers pulled out. There were piles of toys, clothes and books everywhere.
‘I’m having a clear-out,’ Mum explained from the top of a stepladder.
‘Now?’
I pulled my slippers on, then picked up some pairs of really diddy socks from the nearest pile. It was hard to believe that they’d fitted all of us once. I put them down and looked at a little board book that even Benji was too old for. It had lived on the side of his buggy and was a bit battered. Then I picked up what looked like a small cooking pot, long, thin forks Sellotaped to the side.
‘What’s this?’
Mum turned her head. ‘A fondue set.’
‘What’s fondue?’
‘Something we never make, which is why I’m getting rid of the fondue set.’
I put that down and picked up a green corduroy dress that had been both Milly’s and mine. It was too small now but still pretty, and it seemed like a waste to be getting rid of it.
‘Benji wouldn’t care,’ I said, holding it up. ‘Perhaps you could stitch some dinosaurs on the front.’
Mum laughed. ‘I don’t think so.’
I put the dress back – and then frowned. There was something sad about all this stuff leaving our house, even if we didn’t need it any more. ‘Where are you taking it all? Oxfam?’
Mum made her way down the ladder. ‘No. I thought we’d try to sell it. There’s a car-boot sale at the station on Sunday. Can you dig some things out? There’s loads of stuff you don’t play with any more.’
My first instinct was to say no, but I knew that there actually were things I didn’t want. I said I’d do it after school.
Milly came down then, and we had breakfast. Back upstairs I saw, to my surprise, that she’d got my school uniform out for me. It was really nice of her. I put it on and by the time we were both ready we had a surprise: Dad was downstairs. And he was dressed. He was insisting on taking us to school, though Mum wasn’t sure. Brighton (where we live) is really hilly and our house is at the top of one. Our school is at the bottom and Dad couldn’t possibly walk back up. Not the way he was feeling. But he said he’d drive us.
‘I know I shouldn’t, but maybe just for a week or two. Till I’m feeling better. I’ll drop you at the hospital after, love, okay?’
Mum hesitated but nodded. Once she’d walked Benji round to Apple Trees, the four of us got in the car. And I was pleased – to begin with. Dad drove and for a minute or two it was just like it always had been (though we never drive to school). But, when we got there, it was strange. I thought Dad would drop us off, Mum maybe taking us in or just kissing us goodbye in the car. It wasn’t like we didn’t know where to go. But Dad insisted on parking – so that he could come into the playground with the other parents. And I swallowed. He’s always been amazing, Dad has. He’s tall and fit. Until recently, he still played loads of football, as well as watching his beloved Seagulls (the Brighton team). He used to do park runs on Saturday mornings and once did a half-marathon along the seafront. We made a big banner for him! At the school fair he’s always in charge of putting the outdoor stage together, not needing any help to lift the huge pieces into place. It doesn’t matter what size you are of course (I should know that!), but I’ve always loved the fact that he’s big and strong. It makes up for me somehow.
But now he was anything but strong.
When Dad got out of the car, it was a real struggle for him. He had to take a few breaths, leaning against the open door. Then he hobbled up the street towards the gates, his face pale, some sweat on his brow, Mum holding on to his arm.
‘Dad,’ I said. ‘You don’t have to. You can say goodbye here. It’s fine.’
‘No!’ he said. ‘I can do it, love.’
I just stood there, wincing with every movement he made, feeling TOTALLY and UTTERLY ashamed of myself.
You see, I hadn’t told Dad to leave us there to be nice to him. Or to make sure he was okay. I’d said it because I didn’t want him to come. Kids were already looking at him. Two mums stopped to let him past, one pulling the sleeve of the other one’s coat and whispering. When we got into the playground, even more kids started looking at him. A football flew towards him and he made this USELESS attempt to pass it back. It was worse than I would have done. He made a joke about being so bad he could get in the Brighton team, but the kid just looked a bit scared. He took the ball and ran away. Then, when Dad held his hands out to me, to say goodbye, I winced: because they were shaking. I didn’t want to go to him. I didn’t want to kiss him goodbye. That made me feel worse than I’d ever felt in my whole life.
And it was a feeling that lasted all day.
What was I like? What sort of person was inside me, making me feel these things? My dad was my dad and I loved him, so why was I … ashamed of him? All morning I was quiet and at lunchtime I sat in the playground on my own, thinking about this secret self inside me that was really and truly horrible. Then I had a worse thought – what if Dad had been able to tell? What if he’d guessed that I was feeling the way I was? About him? I took a long, cold breath, the thought almost too much to bear. I’d make it up to him. Whatever I felt, I’d hide it, not just from him but everyone. Who would ever want to be my friend if they knew what I was thinking about my OWN dad?
‘You all right, Jess?’
It was Mr Michaels, our music teacher. He was on playground duty. I just nodded, once again horrified that I could feel the things that I was feeling. Then I ran inside.
The secret sat inside my stomach for the rest of the day like a lump of wet clay. It was still there at home time. I’m allowed to walk Milly home after school, but I had a sudden fear: that Dad would come to meet us. When he wasn’t there, I was relieved, but that relief seemed to twist and turn inside me when I realised how bad it was of me to feel it. But I did feel it and, when I looked round at all the other parents, picking up all the other kids, I couldn’t help wishing that Dad was like them: normal. With noth
ing wrong with him.
‘What’s the matter?’
I turned to Milly and stared at her in horror – because what if SHE knew how I was feeling? I said, ‘Nothing,’ and told her that we’d better get a move on.
Which we did, though we didn’t go straight home.
We walked up Elm Road and turned right past the church. A girl from Milly’s class lives there and we waved at her as she opened her front door. We walked on, a few raindrops beginning to spatter down around us, the pavement soon like giraffe skin. We turned up towards our road and then stopped to get our coats out of our bags. Milly had left hers at school, though, so we hurried on, raindrops hitting us in the face because we were walking into the wind. When a few more came, Milly stopped, looked at me. And then we RAN. It was a good idea, but too late, because then it REALLY started, huge ticks leaping up from the pavement, hammering off the parked cars. Soon there were more ticks than a teacher would give in a lifetime and I could barely see.
Milly grabbed my arm. ‘In here!’ she cried, dragging me off to the left.
She meant the corner shop. I didn’t think we needed to go in because we weren’t that far from home – but Milly was already running towards the shiny windows. Before I could stop her, she’d shoved the door open, Mr Hájek’s buzzer sounding when she trod on the rubber mat just inside. I followed as Mr Hájek looked up from his counter.
‘Hello, girls!’ he called out.
‘Hello!’ we replied, as we wiped our faces with our hands. I took my coat off and hung it on the back of a shopping basket.
‘How’s the ice hockey, Mr Hájek?’ Milly asked.
Mr Hájek loves ice hockey. He supports the Czech Republic and watches them on a little TV beneath his till. Today, he said, the Czech Republic were playing Romania and it was going well.
‘Voráček,’ he said. ‘He’s really slapping it. That puck is flying!’
