by Hilary McKay
“Mopping the bloody floor again?” inquired Saffron, when she came in a minute later.
“Yes, thank you, Saffron.”
“When we have sore throats Mummy gives us hot lemon with honey in it,” said Saffron. “It makes you better.”
“It sounds lovely.”
“So could I have some now?”
“Why?”
“I’ve got a sore throat.”
“Are you sure you don’t just want hot lemon and honey? You can have that without making up a sore throat, you know.”
Saffron sneezed and wiped her nose on her wrist.
“Saffy!” exclaimed her father, turning round in surprise. “Was that a real sneeze? Let me look at you! Tell me about this sore throat.”
“It’s sore. But not like Indigo’s. Indigo says his throat is itchy.”
“Good Lord in Heaven!”
“And his ears ache,” said Saffron, and sneezed again, and it was a proper sneeze, because this, her father realized, was a proper cold. The swollen-nosed, long-lasting, infectious kind that goes on and on.
“Everyone at school has got it,” said Indigo. “Even my teacher.”
Bill put Saffron and Indigo to bed with hot lemon, hot-water bottles, earache medicine, and four chapters of Roald Dahl read aloud with no complaining because he felt so guilty about doubting Saffron’s sore throat.
Once they were in, his thoughts became wild. Of what happened to children with colds at boarding school. Of boarding school, and how in principle he did not believe in it, and how much it would cost anyway. Of hospitals, where sore throats and earaches were not welcome. Of all he could be doing in London, if he were in London. Of how on earth he would occupy Saffron and Indigo all the time they would be home.
In all Bill’s wild thoughts, never once did he think of doing what Eve would have done, which was to stuff the invalids’ pockets with paper handkerchiefs and send them to school to sneeze in company with all the other sufferers. The next morning, to their great delight, he kept them home. There he gave them a lesson in hand washing and not spreading germs, checked their temperatures, dosed them with vitamins, listened to Indigo read three pages of his reading book, dragged Saffron (squirming and complaining) through ten lines of hers, found them an education channel on TV, and disappeared with his laptop to the lair he had made for himself in a corner of the big bedroom upstairs.
“If we are poorly enough to stay off school, we ought to have medicine,” said Saffron.
“Cough medicine,” agreed Indigo, who had had some once before and never forgotten the delicious burnt-cherry taste of it.
“Yes, cough medicine,” agreed Saffron, and she fetched Bill’s latest bottle of red wine (opened out of habit but hardly touched because he never knew when he would have to find his car keys and drive to the hospital) and poured a dose for herself and another for Indigo.
“Lovely, lovely,” said Indigo. “More!”
“No, you’ll get drunk,” said Saffron bossily. “Now we’ll do music with Caddy’s recorder.”
Entirely by ear, and with no reference to conventional fingering, they took it in turns to improvise, long discordant tunes, pausing only to shake out the spit now and then. They discovered an ear-numbing screech that could be produced only with high-pressure blowing and competed to see how long each could make it last. Now and then Bill shouted beseechingly from his lair, but they took no notice until he came down, removed the instrument of torture, and suggested lunch. He made them neat triangular cheese sandwiches, produced orange juice and yogurt, and obligingly helped drape tablecloths to turn the table into a cave. They furnished it with bears and cushions and lay around snoring.
“Lunch,” said Bill, but they did not seem to want to eat until he went back to his lair. Then Indigo looked very thoughtfully at the orange juice, hunted out a sieve, and sieved out the bits.
“Indy!” exclaimed Saffron admiringly. “How clever! Can you do the yogurt too?”
“After I’ve cooked the sandwiches.”
“Cooked them?”
“Mmmm. Cooked will be better for our colds.” Indigo opened a tin of beans, poured them into a saucepan, balanced the sandwiches on top, and turned on the heat. The beans bubbled, the cheese in the sandwiches turned to goo, and the bread went beautifully orange and soggy. Jubilantly Indigo scooped his creation onto two plates.
“I didn’t know you could cook, Indy,” said Saffron, quite overwhelmed.
They ate with spoons and reverence, licked their plates bare, and prudently washed the saucepan and put it away. Sieved yogurt was not such a success, though. However much they poked it, it stubbornly refused to pour through the sieve.
“Never mind,” said Indigo, the new family cook. “We’ll turn it into trifle.”
The simple addition of smashed-up biscuits turned the yogurt into trifle. Saffron, who only the evening before had refused to eat ham because she could see the edges, and fresh pineapple because she’d never had it before, scraped up the pinkish-grey goo with gusto and asked, “What’ll we do next?”
“If we had anything dead, we could dig graves with square corners,” said Indigo.
Hopefully they hunted first through the garden, and then through the fridge, but without any success. Evidently whatever frightfulness their father planned to perpetrate in the way of supper that evening had been very well concealed. In the end they had to settle for the most worn-out-looking bear in the cave. That was Old Panda, who over the years had become so badly unstitched under his chin that his head was half off.
“So he must be dead,” said Saffron. “Anyone would be.”
Old Panda’s funeral took most of the afternoon, and Old Panda’s exhumation after Indigo woke up hysterical at one in the morning seemed to take most of the night. Locating the grave, by fading battery flashlight, was almost impossible. Bill unearthed more than one dead fish before he hit the right spot. He refused to let anyone help with the digging and ordered them to bed. Saffron and Caddy watched the shadowy figure in the garden from their bedroom window, but Indigo took the opportunity to give himself a few more doses of cough medicine. Bill caught him merrily glugging down the last one and was not pleased. Saffron and Caddy had to rush down to defend their little brother, which they did by shouting a lot and slamming doors.
The last traces of Bill’s patience vanished at half past three in the morning. Caddy was asleep on the sofa and Indigo (snoring happily) had been carried upstairs, but Saffron was still wide awake. She stood over her father, beady-eyed and critical, refusing to go to bed until he sewed on Old Panda’s head.
“Ouch!” said her father, stabbing himself.
“Are you bleeding?” demanded Saffron. “Don’t drip on Old Panda if you are.”
Bill put down Old Panda, picked up Saffron, removed her muddy shoes, and, gripping her firmly by the ankles so she couldn’t kick, carried her up to bed.
“Go to sleep instantly,” he ordered, and went back down to post Old Panda into the washing machine, and then to finish what was left of Indigo’s medicine. Caddy woke up just as Old Panda began to bubble and her father took his first sip.
“What if you have to drive to the hospital?” she asked sleepily. “Suddenly. Because it’s an emergency. What would you do?”
“Taxi,” said Bill. “So don’t worry! We’re still managing, aren’t we, Caddy? More or less?”
“Yes,” agreed Caddy, as she fell back asleep to the sound of Old Panda’s churning. “I suppose we are. Managing. More or less.”
Chapter Fifteen
IMPORTANT TUESDAY
OLD PANDA HAD BEEN REMOVED FROM HIS GRAVE ON A Monday night, four weeks exactly after the frightening Monday night when the firework baby was born. Tuesday was an important day for him: the start of a new life with a securely attached head.
It was an important day for other people, too. It was the day that Ruby read the academy prospectus and Beth discovered Mars bars. Also the day that Alison’s life began to change. And the day
that the firework baby had been waiting for.
On that morning Ruby had a large white envelope in the post: an invitation to spend a day at the academy. There was a school prospectus in with the invitation, deliciously fat and glossy, full of lists and pictures and articles and maps, so exactly the sort of thing that Ruby liked to read that it might have been written with her in mind. It made her feel trembly to look at it.
“Something interesting?” inquired a grandparent, who had seen the envelope but not the contents. “Or just the usual junk mail?”
“Just junk,” said Ruby, and stuffed it hastily in her schoolbag and out of sight.
On the same morning, on her way out to work, Beth’s mother paused to look at Beth and remarked, “You never seem to take Treacle to the riding stables anymore.”
Beth stared at her in surprise. It was true, she didn’t, although she had hardly noticed it herself.
“You used to like going,” persisted her mother. “You did those courses, didn’t you? Jumping and cross-country riding and pony first aid. Shouldn’t you like to do something like that again?”
“Oh,” began Beth. “I don’t know . . . I hadn’t thought . . .”
“Bethy, are you worrying about money?” asked her mother. “Yes, you are! I knew there was something wrong! You needn’t, darling! And anyway, Gran was asking only a day or two ago what on earth she could get you for your birthday. She suggested something like that, since, as she said, the only thing you really care about is that pony! Beth? Bethy darling . . . ?”
Because Beth was staring at her in complete astonishment. Money? Who was worrying about money? Not she, Beth. In all her many worries, that particular trouble had never shown its horrible face. What she was worrying about, and the unacknowledged reason she had not been to the stables for so many months, was that there she would be bound to encounter some horsey and tactless person who would take one look at her and Treacle and say, “Goodness, Beth, you are getting very big for that little pony!” All in an instant, Beth realized that. Also in that instant, another fact became clear: If she was not worrying about money, then her mother certainly was.
“What were you saying about money?” Beth asked.
“Nothing, nothing that matters at all,” said her mother reassuringly, knowing, as she did, what an infectious worry money was when it got loose in a family. “Oh dear! Oh, don’t look so surprised! Promise me, Bethy, I just thought . . . I should never have said a word because actually we are managing very well. Very well indeed! And I have those extra hours now too . . . so!” And then Beth’s mother had kissed Beth and rushed off to work, eager to do those extra hours.
Like people were when they were worrying about money.
Beth sniffed a bit as she set off for school that morning, trudging behind in Juliet’s exuberant wake. The trouble with a Norman diet was it left you constantly on the verge of tears. Were the Normans always in floods of tears? wondered Beth. Did they snivel a bit as they buckled on their miniature suits of armor or measured out their tiny doorways? Did they drip and hunt for hankies as they marched toward Hastings in 1066? Were their Norman breakfasts sufficient to fortify them against such lapses? Beth doubted it. Her own Norman breakfast had left her weak with self-pity. Toast, one slice, with Marmite, one scrape.
At least I must be very cheap to feed, thought Beth, remembering her mother’s anxious face that morning. Not that her mother would be pleased at her Norman efforts, Beth knew. Furious, probably, would be how she would feel. It was very lucky indeed that Juliet was as un-Norman in appetite as a person could possibly be. Juliet ensured that the right amount of food disappeared from the breakfast table; her breakfast of Sugar Puffs (most of a family-sized box) and chocolate spread (half a jar) dug out with a spoon and spread on bananas (three) nicely balanced Beth’s nearly naked slice of toast.
Remembering Juliet’s banana-bulging cheeks made Beth feel worse than ever. There was her sister, stuffed as a cushion, far ahead cheeking the crossing guard. And here was she, starving.
Starving right beside the sweet shop that cunningly opened every morning just in time to part scholars from their lunch money and diets.
For one minute Beth disappeared from the pavement. When she reappeared it was with a Mars bar in each pocket and another in her hand.
The first went in three bites and three painful gulps. The second was almost as fast. She was gnawing the third as she hurried down the road to catch up with Juliet, swallowing the last traces as she caught her up, swaying by the time she reached school, and dreadfully sick the moment she made it to the girls’ bathroom.
“Did you have breakfast?” they asked in the office as she lay on the sickroom couch, pale and clammy.
“Yes. Toast.”
“Just toast?”
“And three Mars bars on the way to school.”
“Three Mars bars!” they said. “Serves you right!”
Beth stayed on the sickroom couch until eleven o’clock, when she was issued the standard emergency school breakfast for the faint and hungry (two Weetabix crackers, one carton of orange juice, one cereal bar [optional]). Having consumed this feast and survived its consumption, she was issued a sick bag (just in case) and sent back to class.
“Today,” said Alison’s mother, “is an important day for me.” She had begun cleaning the house at dawn. By the time Alison left for school she had reached the vacuuming stage. She shadowed Alison down the stairs, vacuuming her footprints off each tread. It looked like a show house. In the bathroom not even a toothbrush was visible as a sign that anyone actually lived there. In the kitchen all traces of cooking and eating were completely removed. Outside, the garden looked more than ever like a dollhouse garden. The lawn was newly mown, and over the weekend the flower beds had been planted with winter pansies—purple, white, and yellow, mathematically placed.
“It’s a pity about next door,” said Alison’s mother, and she glared disapprovingly at the Casson house windows, with their bright, mismatched curtains, and the Casson house garden, all trampled grass and newdug graves.
“Is it a pity?” asked Alison.
“It’s none of my business, but I would very much like to know what was going on last night out there. Or did you sleep through all the noise and lights?”
“No.”
“Of course they’re artistic,” said Alison’s mother, and she said it a bit wistfully, knowing she wasn’t. “And She always smiles . . . I don’t know about Him.”
“Everyone likes Caddy,” said Alison, looking across at Caddy’s friendly window.
“You’d make new friends.”
“Hmmm,” said Alison, not at all enthusiastic about that idea. “I might. Or I might not bother.”
“A fresh start in a different school . . . just what you need.”
“School is school,” said Alison with loathing.
“It might be much better.”
“It couldn’t be much worse,” agreed Alison. “Nag, nag, nag! Moan, moan, moan! ‘Alison, you are part of a community here!’ ‘Alison, we shall have to contact your parents again!’ Last week this dismal old hag in a sack said, ‘Alison, what makes you think we should alter our very high standards to accommodate you?’ So I said, ‘Stand beside me looking into a mirror and say that. And anyway, what makes you think I should lower my very high standards to accommodate you?’ ”
“Alison!”
“I’d done my eyes in four colors and she made me take every bit off before she let me into the dining hall! She guarded the door. You’ll probably get a letter about it. Don’t worry, though. I’ve thought of a revenge!”
“I hope you haven’t!”
“Wait and see, then!” said Alison, and ran off to school before her mother could ask any more questions.
After all the excitement of the night before, the Casson family found it hard to get up that Tuesday morning. Caddy was the one to go to school on time. Her father woke up enough to see her off, but then, despite having planned to spend a day o
f wonderful efficiency, he fell asleep beside the telephone. Saffron and Indigo discovered him there two hours later when they came down hunting for breakfast.
“Only it’s nearly lunchtime,” said Saffron. “What’ll we have? Cereal?”
“Boring,” said Indigo, and searched through the kitchen. “Rice pudding,” he announced. “With jam. Pie thing I found in the fridge. Daddy’s special cheese.”
“Daddy’s cheese is moldy,” objected Saffron.
“It’s lovely mold. It tastes like bubble bath. I tried a bit.”
Saffron tried a bit too, her first taste of Stilton. It did taste of bubble bath; it was very nice. So was the rice pudding, made purple with black-currant jam. So was the pie thing, despite being laced with yucky asparagus and poisonous olives.
“We can pick them out,” said Indigo, but in the end they ate them.
“Your cooking is much better than Daddy’s,” said Saffron.
“I know. Poor Daddy.”
They looked at him compassionately for a moment, and then dismissed him from their thoughts.
“What’ll we do?”
“I’m going to school,” said Indigo.
“Are you?”
“Well, I’m not poorly anymore. I had all that medicine and it made me better. Are you poorly still?”
“No,” admitted Saffron.
“Come on, then. School.”
“What about Daddy?”
Indigo wrote a note:
DerDAddySa
ffronadn Me argon to.
ssSSssK HooL lov
IndigoXXXadn SaffRON
X
They laid it by his hand and tiptoed out of the house.
“Ought we to lock the door?” wondered Indigo.
“No.”
“What if there’s burglars?”
“They wouldn’t want Daddy.”
A few minutes later the ringing of the telephone (on which Bill’s unshaven cheek lay pillowed) nearly frightened him to death.
“Darling!” said a voice when he groaned into the receiver.
“Eve!” said Bill, after a pause for thought so long that his wife was alarmed.
