by Judi Curtin
I sighed. I knew that this wouldn’t turn out to be as simple as Alice expected. Nothing ever did.
‘OK. So you pretend to be sick, and your mum cancels her date tomorrow. Then what happens?’
Alice smiled brightly. ‘Oh, I haven’t decided yet. Something horrible though, that’s for sure.’
The sick feeling that hit my stomach right then wasn’t one bit fake.
Chapter ten
That night, as I had feared, nightmares from the medical encyclopaedia kept waking me up. At one stage I was dreaming that one of my eyes was all purple and puffed up like a basketball. I must have been crying out in my sleep, because Alice threw one of her cushions at me and snapped me out of it. It didn’t help though, because when I went back to sleep, the dream was still there, waiting for me. The night continued like that until Alice finally ran out of cushions, and I slept restlessly on through my nightmares until morning came.
Anyway, after all that, I was really tired in the morning. I lay on the spare bed in Alice’s room with my eyes closed. How I wished that I had a normal day to look forward to – a trip to town, or maybe to the cinema. Even a day tidying the apartment would have been better than Alice’s plan.
Still, maybe Alice had got sense in the night and decided that her plan wasn’t going to work. Maybe I was going to have a real holiday after all.
No chance of that though. Alice shook me out of my daydreams. ‘Get up, Meg. Get up,’ she said. ‘We have a plan to put into action. Remember?’
How could I have forgotten?
I didn’t bother arguing. I just got dressed and followed Alice into the kitchen. Veronica and Jamie were sitting at the table. I helped myself to a huge bowl of cereal. I didn’t even bother to look at the packet – anything that wasn’t porridge was fine by me. Alice sat next to me. She didn’t take any cereal at all, and I could see that she was trying to look sick. Veronica didn’t notice though. She was too busy seeing to Jamie’s endless whims.
‘I want sugar.’
‘But, darling. There’s sugar in that cereal already. Look, it says so on the packet.’
‘I want sugar.’
‘OK, darling. Here’s some.’ She poured a spoon of sugar over his cereal.
‘I want more sugar …’
‘But, darling …’
‘I want more sugar, dummy-head!’
Veronica patted his hand. ‘OK, darling. Here’s some more, because you’re such a good boy.’
Hello?? What planet was she hanging out on? When was Jamie ever a good boy?
Alice made a face at me, and I made one back at her. Even when they lived in Limerick, Jamie had always been a bit of a pain, but now he was completely horrible.
Alice gave a big, loud, exaggerated sigh, but still Veronica didn’t notice. She was too busy trying to stop Jamie from pouring yet another spoon of sugar into his bowl.
Alice gave a huge, theatrical moan. At last Veronica looked up. ‘What on earth was that awful noise?’
Alice leaned forward and held her stomach. ‘It’s me, Mum. I don’t feel well at all.’
Veronica made an impatient clicking kind of noise with her tongue, and then she got up, and walked around the table towards us. Jamie saw his opportunity. He put his hand into the sugar bowl, and grabbed a fistful of sugar, and tried to pour it into his mouth. The sugar streamed down over his clothes, across the table and down onto the floor. Jamie looked in surprise at his empty fist. Then he took his milky spoon from his cereal and dipped it into the sugar. In a matter of seconds he had stuffed three huge heaped spoons of sugar into his bold little face. My mum says that sugar gives you worms. If she’s right, it looks like Jamie will be able to set up his own worm farm some time very soon.
Veronica put her hand on Alice’s forehead. ‘You don’t feel hot.’
Alice moaned again. I thought she was going a bit over the top, but Veronica didn’t seem to notice. ‘Have you a pain somewhere?’
Alice nodded weakly. ‘Yes, right here.’ She put her hand on her left side. She never had been very good about right and left. Luckily, Veronica had looked away for a moment, so I shook my head at Alice, and pointed, and she put her hand on the other side.
Veronica smiled at her, ‘Maybe you’re just a bit constipated.’
Yuck. I really didn’t want to be part of this conversation.
Alice shook her head a bit fast for someone who was supposed to be so sick. ‘No, Mum. It’s not that. It’s a really, really, reeeeally bad pain.’ As she spoke she leaned forwards even more and gave a fairly good impression of someone who was about to roll over and die.
Veronica suddenly saw what Jamie was doing. ‘Jamie, stop that, please,’ she said, very crossly. Jamie ignored her of course. By now the sugar bowl was almost empty so it didn’t really matter anyway.
Veronica turned back to Alice and patted her arm. ‘Alice love, why don’t you go and lie down for a while?’
Alice nodded weakly, and left the room, grabbing a bulb of garlic from the vegetable rack as she did so.
I followed her. ‘What on earth is the garlic for?’
‘Pay attention, Megan. Remember the book said if you have appendicitis you have bad breath too? And there’s nothing better than garlic for foul breath, is there?’
I didn’t think that was exactly what the book meant by foul breath, but I wasn’t in the mood for arguing. I was just too tired.
Alice sat on her bed, and used her fingernails to peel the skin from two huge cloves of garlic. Then she shoved them into her mouth, and chewed, making a horrible face as she did so. She gulped and swallowed, then leaned towards me, and breathed in my face. ‘Bad enough?’
I jumped backwards. ‘Yes! Revolting! Truly gross.’
She shoved the garlic skins under the bed, and then jumped into it, and pulled the covers over her, and practised looking weak. I sat on the bean-bag, and we waited. And waited. And waited. Outside, we could hear endless rows, as Jamie threw tantrums, and Veronica tried to console him. I heard the sound of something breaking on the kitchen tiles – probably the sugar bowl. Much, much later, Veronica put her head around the bedroom door. She had her make-up on, and her hair was all neat and tidy.
‘How are you feeling now, darling?’
Alice clutched her stomach. ‘Oh, I’m worse, Mum. Much worse.’
Veronica went over and sat on the bed. ‘Phew. What is that smell? Your breath smells foul.’
She turned away for a second and Alice gave me a thumbs-up sign. I wasn’t brave enough to do one back to her.
Veronica leaned towards her again. ‘You smell of garlic. But why on earth would you smell of garlic? We haven’t had garlic all week.’ Alice gave a weak little shrug. ‘I don’t know. Maybe it’s something to do with being sick. I wonder what kind of sickness gives you foul breath?’
Veronica patted her on the head. ‘How would I know? I’m not a doctor. Anyway, darling, I have to go out in a little while. I have a few things to do. You’ll be OK here with Megan, won’t you?’
Alice shook her head violently. ‘No, Mum, don’t leave me. The pain’s very bad. Don’t go, please don’t go. Don’t leave me.’ She grabbed her mother’s hand and squeezed it hard.
Veronica looked puzzled. ‘This came on very quickly.’
Alice gave a small cough. ‘I know, but Mum …’ She stopped and held her stomach again, moaning loudly. I knew she was faking, but even so, it was very, very convincing. Alice had always been the best in our class at acting.
Veronica got up from the bed. ‘I’ll just drop Jamie to his crèche, then, I’ll only be gone for a few minutes.’
We had expected this. Alice had decided that if Veronica went to drop Jamie off, she’d get the opportunity for a few sneaky moments with Norman before she got back. For the plan to work though, they had to be kept apart altogether. Norman had to think that Veronica was totally trapped by her kids, and couldn’t escape for the smallest moment.
Alice doubled over in the bed, and moaned even
louder than before. I wondered how thin the walls were, and if the neighbours would start complaining.
Then she popped her head up. Her hair was all over her face. She spoke in a thin, whiny voice. ‘Please, please don’t go. I beg you, Mum, don’t leave me. Just stay here. Please Mum, just stay here. I need you.’
At this stage, my mum would have been in a total panic, calling the doctor and the ambulance, and probably even the local priest for good measure. Luckily Veronica was made of tougher stuff. She just looked at her watch, and sighed, ‘All right darling. I won’t go anywhere. Jamie can stay home too. We can all just have a quiet day together. I’ll just go and phone …. I mean I have to … You see …’
Alice and I looked at each other. We both knew who she needed to phone, but Veronica didn’t know that we knew, so she couldn’t tell us.
Veronica thought for a moment and then she spoke again in a rush. ‘I’ll just go and phone the crèche to tell them Jamie won’t be in today.’
She went out, and I saw her taking the portable phone into her bedroom. She closed the door firmly behind her. A few minutes later she came back. ‘That’s it. All appointments cancelled. It’s just us for the rest of the day.’
She looked kind of disappointed, and for one small moment I felt sorry for her. Maybe it wasn’t her fault that she couldn’t be happy with her husband. Maybe Norman was the first real love of her life. Maybe they deserved to be together. Maybe I was helping to ruin the best romance in the history of the world.
Then I looked at Alice, all miserable, curled up in her bed, still whimpering softly. Then I heard Jamie shrieking in the kitchen, and slamming doors loudly. I looked at the photograph of Alice’s dad that she kept in a frame beside her bed. And I decided….
Well, I’m not quite sure what I decided – it was all too complicated for me. But I had a horrible day, cooped up in the small apartment with a cross Alice who had to keep pretending to be sick, a horrible Jamie, and a bored Veronica.
I think it was the worst day of my life.
So far.
Chapter eleven
Next morning, Alice made me get up even earlier. I wasn’t very happy about this. After all, I was supposed to be on my holidays. I was supposed to be allowed to sleep late. Alice ignored my arguments though. ‘Come on, Meg.’ she said. ‘It’s after eight o’clock. The day is half over.’ She sounded exactly like my mum. I thought it wiser not to mention this.
I was dressed before I had the courage to ask the dreaded question. ‘Tell me, Alice, why did you make me get up so early? What exactly are you planning?’
Once again, I wasn’t sure I really wanted to know the answer to my question. I could have saved my breath though, as Alice wouldn’t tell me anyway.
‘I’ll tell you later when we have more time. But now we just need to get to the shop quickly.’
‘Why?’
‘Duh! Because I need to buy something.’
‘Well, double duh to you! What do you need to buy?’
‘You’ll see, I promise. Just come on. There’s no time to waste.’
And so I obediently followed her down to the local shop. As soon as we got there, Alice started to examine the labels on all the sweet packets. I had to laugh. She was just like my mum. Aaaaagh! Maybe she was turning into my mum. What a horrible thought. It would make a good movie though – The day my friend turned into my mum. Then I decided not – it would be far too scary.
I watched Alice until it seemed like she had examined every sweet packet in the shop. ‘What exactly are you doing? Looking for e-numbers?’ I joked.
‘Yes, actually, I am.’
This was getting just too crazy. I stepped between her and the counter. I folded my arms and tried to look tough. ‘Come on, Al. This isn’t fair. Cut the mystery stuff and tell me what’s going on.’
She shrugged. ‘OK, so. If that’s what you want.’
I tried not to look too surprised – Alice didn’t usually give in so easily. She pulled me into a corner, and whispered in my ear. The shop was empty except for the little old lady at the till, so the whispering was a bit dramatic, but I let that go.
‘Well, you know how Jamie’s a bit wild?’
I nodded. Actually, he was more than a bit wild, he was often completely out of control.
‘Well, if you think he’s bad normally, you should see him after he’s eaten some of these additives. He goes totally loopy.’
I was beginning to get the picture. ‘So you feed him a big load of sweets, and he goes loopy?’ She nodded. ‘Yep. And the great thing is, it works really fast. If we get home and give them to him quickly, he’ll be crazy by ten o’clock.’
‘Yeah. But your mum will just take him to crèche and let them cope with him, won’t she? And how will that help you?’
Alice shook her head. ‘Trust me on this, Meg. I know what he’s like. He’ll be so bad that even Mum wouldn’t bring him to crèche. She wouldn’t dare. So she’ll have to cancel her date again. Norman will be getting really fed up.’
And then I realised that I shouldn’t be arguing about whether the plan would work or not – I should be making Alice see that it was just a really, really cruel thing to do. I could hardly believe what I was hearing. I’d been listening to my mum going on about additives all my life. I knew how dangerous they could be. How could Alice do this to her brother?
Alice held up two packets of brightly coloured sweets. ‘Will we get red or orange? Come on, Meg, you choose.’
Suddenly I was really, really angry. This was wrong. This was cruel. It was unfair on Jamie. And it was unfair on me. If my parents ever got to hear that I had been part of this plan they’d ground me for about a hundred years. For my mum, giving Jamie sweets like that was almost as bad as poisoning the child. I had to stop Alice. I just had to.
Alice waved the sweets under my nose. ‘Come on, Meg,’ she said. ‘Choose which ones we should buy.’
I stamped my foot. ‘No way, Alice! No way! I’m not choosing. You can’t do this to Jamie. Even he doesn’t deserve this.’
Alice kind of stepped backwards in surprise. She wasn’t used to me disagreeing with her. ‘But–’
I continued. ‘This is a crazy plan, Alice. This is even crazier than what we did at Halloween. We’ll both end up in loads of trouble. And it won’t even work. It couldn’t work. Why don’t you forget about Norman? Maybe your mum will fall out of love with him. Or he might fall out of love with her. You don’t have to get involved. I think that sometimes it’s best just to stand back and wait to see what happens.’ Alice was looking at me strangely, but she didn’t say anything.
I still kept talking. This was turning into the longest speech of my life. ‘Come on, Al. Put down the sweets.’ (I felt like a cop on a tv show trying to make the bad guy drop his gun. Would it sound too weird if I said ‘step away from the sweets’?)
Alice still said nothing, so I continued. ‘Please, Al, let’s go back to your place and have some breakfast. Let’s have a good day together. Let’s do some of the fun stuff you promised.’
‘Megan …’
I was glad that she’d said something at last, but her voice was quiet, and kind of scary. I was expecting her to be really angry with me, but she wasn’t. She said ‘Megan …’ again, and then she put her head down and started to cry. I’m not talking small little whimpers here, I’m talking huge, loud sobs. The woman behind the counter gave us a funny kind of look, but then she went back to reading the paper. After a few seconds Alice looked up. Huge fat tears were rolling down her face and onto the front of her jumper. She grabbed my arm which was still sore from the day before. ‘Please, Megan, help me,’ she sobbed. ‘I’m not stupid, I know it’s a really mean thing to do, but I have to do it. I just have to. And it’s not only for me. It’s for Jamie too. And Mum. And Dad. Everyone will be better off as soon as Norman is gone from our lives. I’m doing this to save our family. And you’ve got to help me. Please, Meg. Please.’
What could I say to all that?
I’d never seen Alice so upset before. All her toughness and her bravery seemed to have vanished. She just looked like a very, very sad girl. It would have been cruel to abandon her.
And, right at the back of my mind, I had a horrible feeling that if I walked away now, I’d lose my best friend forever.
And so, I very quietly said, ‘OK, let’s do it.’
I couldn’t bear to choose which sweets to buy, so Alice ended up buying both the red and the orange packets. She handed them to the old lady behind the till. The old lady smiled at her. ‘Don’t eat all those at once young lady, or you’ll be jumping around the garden.’
Alice smiled sweetly back at her, like the angelic child she wasn’t, and we set off for home.
Veronica was up when we got back. ‘Well. Alice,’ she said, ‘I’m glad to see that you’re feeling better this morning. Where have you been?’
Alice smiled. ‘I’m much better today, thanks Mum. I needed some exercise after spending all yesterday lying around, so Megan and I just went for a little walk.’
Veronica gave her a strange look. ‘Well, that’s a first. Now will you two go down to Jamie’s room and get him up for his breakfast?’
Alice grinned. ‘We’d just love to, wouldn’t we, Megan?’
I nodded slowly and followed her to Jamie’s room. Alice closed the door behind us, and went and shook Jamie gently. He sat up and rubbed his eyes. ‘Go ’way, Alice. Freako.’ He went to hit her, but Alice jumped out of his way. She turned to me with a smile. ‘Years of practice.’
I didn’t smile. Jamie was being horrible as usual, but he didn’t deserve what was about to happen to him. But I was afraid to upset Alice again, so I just sat on the end of Jamie’s bed, and watched.
Alice reached into her pocket and took out the two packets of sweets we’d just bought. Jamie’s eyes lit up. ‘Can I have one?’
Alice grinned. ‘Of course you can. You can have lots and lots, …’
Jamie reached towards one packet, but she took his hand and held it tightly, ‘…but first you must promise never ever to tell Mummy that I gave you sweets. OK?’
