Alice by Accident

by Lynne Reid Banks

  Then I felt more friendly with her and read her my cactus story. She said it was dead soppy. She said magic was rubbish. I told her about the competition and she said “I bet if you wrote a proper story with no magic in, you’d win. Write one about me.” I said what about and she said, “pretend I really stole the bike and got caught and then read it to me and I’ll make you take out the soppy bits.”

  She left before Mum came home. I didn’t want to tell Mum she’d been but Mum noticed all her things had moved so I had to. She well told me off for letting Peony in and she said I wasn’t to invite anyone home when she’s not here. She was furious about Peony messing with her things and said I mustn’t play with her, she said even Sharon said Peony was a bit wild.

  Her own mum said that, and she doesn’t even know about Peony going on the rob. And Mum doesn’t know that we went outside and I helped hold Peony on her bike either. When it was getting dark. She’d go spare if she knew that. But nothing happened to us and it was fun.

  The Girl Who Robbed a Bike

  by Alice Williamson-Stone

  Poppy was a thief which she had to be because she didn’t have a family. Her dad died and she had three little brothers to look after and she was only nine. She knew Social Services would take the boys away if she let them. So they lived in a shed in a garden and no one knew they were there. (No one lived in the house it was in.)

  She went on the rob everyday for food. She robbed baked beans and bread and pot noodles and apples and sweets and milk for the baby. She made picnics for them in the shed and in the garden which was over grown and had high fences. She made them all be very quiet. They played no-noise games like grandmother’s steps and hide-and-seek (silent counting and no I’m coming). At night she tucked them up in sleeping bags and told them stories in a wisper. They did everything wispering even when they cried for their dad. When the baby cried they all lay on top of him and said “SHHHHH!”

  Poppy dreamed of a bicicle with a basket so she could do the robbing easier and go whizing along if someone chased her which they often did. She went to a bicicle shop and told the man she wanted to try out one of the bikes. The man said,

  “How do I know you’ll bring it back?”

  She said,

  “You can come with me on your bike.” So they went for a ride and suddenly Poppy whized through a red light and nearly got killed by the cars crossing the crossing but she just about didn’t, and the bike man couldn’t chase her and she got away and came home.

  One of her brothers thought she was brilliant and she taught him to ride in the back ally behind the shed. Her other brother said “What would Dad say if he knew you’d nicked it” and that made her conscience hurt and she was cross and forgot to wisper, “You don’t mind when I rob food for you” and he said

  “But a bike’s different, that’s a wanna have not a gotta have. Dad said you have to know the difference and that stealing’s wrong.”

  Poppy wouldn’t speak to him but that night she dreamt her dad saying “Take the bike back Poppy.” So very early in the morning she started to ride the bike back to the shop (before it opened) but when she got there a policeman was waiting. He grabbed her and said “I’m feeling your coller!” (He ment he arrested her.) She tried to run but he put handcuffs on that were very heavy and took her to the police station and put her in a cell with bars and she was so scared. He said, “Where do you live and what are your parents called?” But of course she couldn’t answer.

  She sat in the cell and fell into dispair because she knew she would be there for ever because who would come to get her out? But someone did come, it was the bicicle shop man. He said “You should be ashamed to be a thief, I hope they put you away for a long long time” and she said “It’s not fair because I was only looking after my brothers.” And he said “What brothers, tell me all about it.”

  So she did and he told them to let her out of the cell and she took him to the shed and he looked at the boys and said “I have always wanted a family.” The boys’ names were Tommy, Clifford and James by the way, James was the baby. He took them home with him and said they could call him Dad and after that Poppy didn’t have to go on the rob any more.

  I looked up all the words I wasn’t sure of and I don’t think I made a single spelling mistake. I read it out loud to myself and copied it two times in my ultimate best cursive to make it perfect and then I asked Brandy if I could have a form for the competition. She said “But I’ve sent your story in” and I said “I’ve written another story.” She said can I see it and I said I’d rather just send it. So she gave me a form and I read the rubric and filled it in, with my name kept seprate from the story. Then I read it to Peony.

  I really thought she’d go for it. But when I’d finished she said, “It’s max till the end. The end stinks.” I said why, and she said “Because it’s soppy. You’re so soppy Alice, you think everything comes out all hotsy-totsy all the time but it doesn’t. It should have a sad ending like Spoonface to be more real.” (This gives away that I’d let her in the flat again and played more tapes with her which makes another secret.) When she said Spoonface I thought she might be right because Spoonface dies. I said “How would you end it?” and she said, “The bicicle man should adopt the three boys because he’s a man but he wouldn’t want Poppy.” I was well offended and I said, “How do you know what he’d do,” and she said, “Like my dad took my little brother with him when he left but he didn’t want me.”

  So I changed it and made Poppy end up as a begger child in the streets with a card saying

  * * *

  HOMELESS AND

  HUNGRY

  * * *

  without even her little brothers. She cried terribly but no one even gave her any money. In the end I sort of pulled back like a movie camera in the writing, and left her sitting there all alone.

  Then I had to go to the post office for a postal order for the £2 to enter the competition and 50p for two big envelopes and 68p for stamps. So I couldn’t go straight home from school, I had to go to the shops which are the other way. And even then I didn’t come straight back. I walked around a bit all by myself and tried to imagine I was Poppy with no home and having to beg money. Once I sat down on the ground outside a shop just for a minute to see how it felt but when people looked at me I jumped up again, it felt so awful and deplorable.

  Then I rushed home and read my story out loud one last time with the new ending, and I started crying it was so sad. It’s funny I don’t mind crying over Spoonface but she was someone else’s. Poppy was mine. I thought of the gods like Zeus. I had power, I could change it, I could make things come out right for Poppy. I wondered how the person who wrote Spoonface could have let her die, they must have been very hard hearted. I couldn’t leave Poppy like that so I went back to my old ending. Of course I had to copy it all out again. I was well fed up with Peony specially as I thought she maybe was right about my ending, it was a bit soppy but I couldn’t leave Poppy a begger girl.

  Then I had to go out again to post it and it was such a lovely day I got my bike out and went for a ride round the block all by myself. Nothing bad happened except I wobbled and made an old lady go off the pavement but I said sorry and she said, “Don’t worry love, we all had to learn. You should get a bell to worn people.”

  This is the first time I’ve written in my ortobiography for nearly three months. And that’s because I nearly died, and that’s not made up. While I’m writing this I’m thinking, I nearly didn’t write these words. I nearly wasn’t in the world any more. If you don’t believe in heaven that is a very scary thought. Maybe even if you do.

  Mum told me I ought to write about what happened to me. She said write it just for yourself if you don’t want anyone else to read it. I’m going to write it in here and then I may show it to Mum, I don’t know yet. I know who I will show it to and that’s Peony because without her I wouldn’t be here.

  Background. Peony started meeting me nearly every day after school and we�
��d do things. I never went on the rob with her but we did go to the shops. She learnt to ride her bike and then she wanted us to go to the park. It was a long way but she said we’d be OK and she kept on at me until I did. Luckily Gene had given me a Swatch watch so I always knew when to go home so Mum wouldn’t know. Of course we rode on the pavement but when we had to cross a side road she rode and I walked and pushed my bike and she always laughed and made rabbit’s ears at me. So in the end I rode across too.

  We took picnics in my basket. I bought things like sosage rolls with my pocket money and Peony robbed some choclate bars. At first I wouldn’t eat them but one day we were sitting on the grass and she pushed me over and pushed a Dime bar into my mouth and made me taste it. After that I ate them sometimes. I never knew how I felt about Peony. I liked her but I was sort of scared of her because she was wild, but she was never boring.

  We fratched alot (A LOT), she said I was snobby and a goody-goody, and sometimes we didn’t speak and she didn’t come after school for a bit. But then she’d turn up again. I never told Mum about her because I knew Mum would say she was a bad influance. So that was another secret.

  Peony talked a lot about her school. It’s a regular state school, not like my private one, and she said it was pretty grotty. But she likes her teacher who’s a man. Brandy’s strict and makes us work and sometimes I can’t stand her but Peony likes her teacher because he makes them laugh. He’s always telling jokes, like “Why are there no asparin in the jungle? Because paracetemol.” (Parrots eat em all – she had to explain it.) Still maybe it’s better to have a strict teacher. I found out why Peony likes me to read to her, is because she doesn’t read very well herself.

  Once Peony and me talked about not having dads, she said she hated her dad for leaving her mum and her, and I said I didn’t hate my dad because I’d never seen him. Then I told her about the photo I stole and I showed it to her. I thought she’d say something sneery but she didn’t. She said he looked really nice. Next day she brought me one of her and her little brother and her dad and her mum all together. They were all laughing and he had his arms round them. I never thought till I saw that how there was not one photo of Mum and Dad and me as a family.

  Peony’s dad and mum were married and he lived with them before he left them so that makes a difference. Still when I thought about it I thought maybe I should hate Dad for not loving Mum even if you can’t order love (as Mum says). I still don’t understand why they did sex together if he didn’t love her but in films lots of people do. Maybe he thought he did.

  Anyway Peony saved my life. Cos one day in May we were out in the park and I’d been feeling funny all day and once I’d gone to the toilet to throw up at school and I didn’t want to go to the park but Peony wanted to cos it was such a nice day. May’s my best month. All the greens are still different (I did a picture of trees in May in Art and I used five different green crayons, two yellow and a sort of red).

  It was so hot we took off our tops. We were lying on the grass and Peony said “Look at the chestnut candles, all pink and white, you’d like drawing them” and I tried to look up but I couldn’t because the sun hurt my eyes. I felt all sick and spinny and I just lay there by my bike and wouldn’t eat our picnic or play and Peony said “What’s wrong with you, you look really bad,” and then she said “what’s that on your chest? It looks like a beetle.” I tried to look down but I couldn’t move my neck and I suddenly felt really, really scared. I put my hands over my eyes and started to cry and I felt Peony touching my chest.

  Then I don’t remember anything for a bit and then I felt something wet on my face. I tried to open my eyes and saw a little dog licking me and then I saw a woman beside me doing something to my chest and there were voices calling and someone picked me up and next thing I knew I was in the ambulance. I knew it was one because I could hear the siron but I was really out of it. I don’t remember much after that except it hurt a lot and whenever I woke up (sort of) it was horrible and muddly and I was all joined up to tubes and stuff. But I wasn’t really awake much for a long long time.

  What had happened was, Peony saw some big blackish spots and she’d seen this programme on TV and her teacher had talked about it at school so she called to a woman who was passing and said “I think my friend’s got meningitis” and the woman did the glass test with her glasses (you press glass against the spots and if they don’t go white you’ve got it) and then she called the ambulance with her mobile phone and that saved my life.

  I was in the hospital in intensive care for six weeks. And after that I wasn’t so out of it because I was getting better. I got hundreds of get well cards, I couldn’t believe how many, nearly everyone at my school sent one or a class one. And I missed prize giving. Not that I was going to win anything but I wanted to see Gene. I wanted to see her so much. Sometimes when I was ill I thought I really saw Gene but I was so out of it I knew at the time it wasn’t real.

  When I was very ill before I started to get better I dreamed about prize giving. My dream was she stood on the school stage and I waved to her and said to everyone “That’s my grandma.” But she didn’t reconise me or pretended not to and I felt all crazy and ran up on to the stage shouting “Give me a prize, give me a prize!” even though I hadn’t won one. I dreamed that dream about a hundred times. So I was releeved as well as disappointed not to be at prize giving in case that really happened.

  But one day when I was getting really better, Miss Brand came to see me and said there was good news. I’d won third prize in the competition, with my Poppy story, not the cactus one. £30!!!! Brandy said the brilliant thing was I won in the 10 to 14’s when I was only just ten and my story would be published in a special booklet with all the winners in. Then she said, “So you’ll be a published auther Alice, and I have to confess that your cursive handwriting was specially comended.”

  Then something really really strange happened. Into my head came these words “Gene would be proud of me.” And at the same time, just like when Peony and me heard the tape of Angela and Diabola, Mum said, “Gene is very proud of you.” I was surprised and said “How does she know?” and Mum said, “Because I told her.” And I said, “Does she know I’ve had meningitis?” and Mum said “Of course, she came to see you a lot and sat by your bed, don’t you remember that at all?” I shook my head and Brandy said, “She was great at prize giving, Alice, and she menshoned you in her speech. She said she was your grandma and that you were one of her favourite people in the world and asked us all to pray for you to get well.”

  I just boggled my eyes at her. I knew that couldn’t be true. I said, “She didn’t say pray.” Brandy thought about it and said, “Well, perhaps she said “send lots of cards and think strong get-well thoughts.” And then I believed it because Gene wouldn’t say pray but she would say about strong thoughts, she believes in those.

  Then I knew why I’d got so many cards. And that I’d really seen Gene and that my horrible dream was rubbish. Gene would never not reconise me. I was thinking about that so much. Then Brandy gave me a kiss and said, “I’m going to miss your weird stories.” She ment because we won’t have her next year.

  Peony said if I’d done the begger girl Spoonface type ending to my Poppy story I’d have won first prize instead of only third. She says things never come out all hotsy-totsy. I don’t want to believe that. Maybe it’s true sometimes but it’s not true always. It can’t be.

  When I came out of hospital I knew things were going to change. For one thing I’ve sort of had to learn to walk again because the meningitis did something to my toes. I know I’m lucky it wasn’t my fingers or that I didn’t die but I hate them. I even put my face flannel over them in the bath. I don’t think I’ll ever go swimming again, people would stair and make remarks. (I can still ride my bike though.)

  But still I thought I’d have two grandmothers again and that things with Gene would be the same as they’d been before the Big Row, but it didn’t exactly happen.

  Mum
was so desprit when I was ill she thought nothing else mattered. She rang Gene up and told her about my meningitis and Gene came from the country to be with me. Grandad came. Nan came from Liverpool. But this is what I can’t stop thinking about. Even my dad came. He and Johanna came all the way from Holland when they thought I was going to die. But when I didn’t he went back again.

  I couldn’t believe it when Mum told me that. I couldn’t believe it that he’d come and I couldn’t believe it that he’d gone again without me seeing him. I was inconsoulable. I yelled at Mum, “Why didn’t you keep him here? Why didn’t you wake me up? Why didn’t you make him love you?” Mum said, “I’m sorry, Alice. I would have tied him up to keep him here for you but his life is in Holland and besides, Johanna is going to have a baby.” (Yes, she said that then, and I didn’t even notice I was in such a state!)

  I said, “did Gene tell him to go back?” and she said “I don’t know. But I wouldn’t blame her. If he tried to be your dad properly it would be like trying to be two people in two places. He would mess up his life and maybe yours too.” I shouted “It wouldn’t mess up my life, that’s crazy,” and she said, “Well crazy or not that’s the way it is and we both have to accept it.”

  I shouted at her more. I knew it was unfair to blame her but I couldn’t stand it that he’d been next to my bed and held my hand and I never knew it and now he was back in Amsterdam. I was sure then that Peony’s right and happy endings don’t happen.

  And then Mum told me a few things about money. While Gene was friends with us she put money in some trust thing for my school fees but she’s stopped adding to it now. There’s enough in it for three or four years at my school and after that Mum’ll have to start paying and it’s thousands of pounds a year. AND I found out that Mum’s still paying back money she borrowed from the bank for studying to be a solicitor. So maybe we’ll never have any money and have to go on living in this poky little flat for ever.