by John Newman
I sat up in bed, breathing very fast, my heart racing. It was just a dream, Mimi, I told myself. I wished I had remembered to bring Socky with me.
Then I heard the knocking again. I was awake now, and there it was again. A knock on my window — and then a louder one. I pulled the blanket over my head but the knocking did not go away. Knock, knock, knock on my window.
I climbed out of bed, pushed my feet into my slippers, and tiptoed to the window. Knock again. I was afraid to open the curtains. I thought about fetching Granny and Grandad, but they were old and they might have heart attacks. Knock again. There was nothing for it. I had to pull open those curtains myself.
It could be a hobgoblin. I had been told once about hobgoblins stealing your soul and bashing in your brains. Well, that’s what Conor said, anyway. It was a bright sunny day when he told me that, and I hadn’t believed a word of it, but now it was dark night and there was a knocking on the window and I just knew that there was a hobgoblin outside. Maybe more than one.
I grabbed the curtains in my fists and counted to three, then yanked them open and jumped back — which was a good thing because a stone came right through the window, smashing the glass all over the carpet.
“Oh, God, now I’ve gone and done it!” said a voice from the garden. Sally’s voice!
I ran to the broken window and looked out. There was a big moon shining all silvery over the garden, and I could see Sally looking up at me. “Sal —” I started to say.
She put her finger to her lips and hissed, “Shush! Don’t wake Granny!”
“What are you doing in the garden?” I whispered as loudly as I dared. If the broken window hadn’t woken Granny and Grandad, nothing would.
“Trying to wake you up!” whispered Sally back. “I’ve been throwing pebbles at your window for ages! You’re completely deaf, you know!”
“That wasn’t a pebble — that was a rock!”
“Yeah, well, whatever. At least you’re awake at last. Now sneak downstairs and open the back door,” Sally hissed. “I’m freezing out here!”
My grandparents could sleep through an earthquake. Every step on their stairs squeaked as I sneaked downstairs, but they didn’t stir. The back door had about four locks to pull back, and every one of them squealed.
“Hurry up, Mimi!” Sally whispered loudly, hopping up and down on the step.
When I did pull open the door, she jumped inside and gave me a big hug and I gave her a big hug back, and it was as if she had been gone for years instead of just one night and a half.
Then she went straight to the fridge. “I’m famished,” she said. “I’ve only had a few éclairs to eat since I left.” She found a cooked chicken leg and started munching it like a starving animal.
“Where were you?” I asked. “Everybody has been looking all over for you. Even Sparkler.”
“Sparkler?” Sally had finished the chicken leg and was rooting in the fridge for something else.
“Well, sort of. She found a cat.” I decided not to mention her black top. I didn’t want her to get mad. “Anyway, where were you hiding?”
“In Grandad’s shed!” said Sally, as if it was obvious. She had taken milk out of the fridge and was drinking it straight from the carton.
“Is that so, young lady?” said Grandad’s voice — and the kitchen light flicked on.
I jumped and Sally dropped the carton. Milk ran all over the kitchen floor. Maybe my grandparents wouldn’t sleep through an earthquake after all. At least not Grandad. He was standing in the doorway in his dressing gown, and his white hair was all standing up. He looked very old. Sally had grabbed a dishcloth and was trying to wipe up the spilled milk. She wouldn’t look at him.
“Leave it, Sally,” he said kindly, “and come over here and give your old Grandad a hug. Have you any idea how worried we’ve been about you?”
Sally stood up and handed me the dripping dishcloth. Grandad wrapped her up in his arms like a doll, and Sally just blubbed away on his shoulder as though her heart was broken.
He stroked her hair and said, “Now, now, everything is going to be all right now,” over and over, and then he looked up and smiled at me — and, of course, I started crying too. “Come on, you,” said Grandad, opening one arm for me, “there’s room in these arms for two.”
“Group hug,” sniffled Sally as the three of us stood hugging and rocking in the kitchen.
I didn’t even notice Granny coming in, until she said, “Can I join in?” which made us all laugh.
Sally got a fright when Granny said that even the police were looking for her.
“Are they going to arrest me?” she asked.
“Don’t be a nincompoop,” said Grandad. “They were just out looking for you like everyone else. Nobody is going to be arrested!”
Sally looked at me then with a question in her eyes.
“I told them what you wrote in your diary about the police,” I blurted out in a rush, “but Uncle Horace had already called them. It wasn’t my fault!”
“I knew it was you — spy,” said Sally, but she was smiling when she said it.
All the same, I could feel myself going red under my skin.
“Now we’d better call your dad,” said Grandad. “The poor man is sick with worry.”
“It’s four in the morning,” said Sally. “Let him sleep. We’ll call him when he wakes up.”
“I very much doubt if he’s asleep,” replied Grandad. “I’m calling him now.”
Grandad was right. He had to call Dad on his mobile because he was out driving around the streets with Conor, looking for Sally. I think Sally was shocked when she heard that. Dad was at the house in less than ten minutes, and when Granny opened the door he just rushed past her and grabbed Sally into his arms and squeezed her tight. He looked like a wild man; his eyes were all black and his hair was a mess and Sally was blubbing again.
Conor just stood there looking at his feet. He doesn’t like hugs and that kind of thing. I don’t think he knew where to look. “Hi,” he said to Sally when Dad let her go, but he looked cross.
“Hi, brother,” said Sally, and gave him a quick hug too. It looked funny with Conor’s arms straight by his sides and his face red.
Granny made a big pot of tea, and everyone sat around the kitchen table. “I don’t think there’s going to be a lot more sleep done around here tonight.” She smiled as she poured the tea.
Then Conor just blurted out in a really angry voice, “How could you steal from Mrs. Lemon?”
Sally looked up and her face kind of crumpled and tears started running down her cheeks. Granny stopped pouring tea in midair, and Dad put his arm around Sally and gave Conor a look. “Now’s not the time, Conor,” he said.
But Sally just looked straight at him and said so quietly that it was hard to hear her, “Because I’m a bad person, Conor.”
Conor didn’t say anything then. Nobody did for a few seconds. Then Granny said, “That’s nonsense.”
And Daddy said, “Don’t be silly.”
And Grandad said, “Why do you think that, Sally?”
Granny wasn’t happy about that. She put down the teapot with a bang and frowned at Grandad.
But Sally was looking straight at Grandad and everyone was just waiting, frozen like in a photo, and the room was so quiet that the hum of the fridge seemed loud. Then Sally did a big sniff and whispered in a hoarse kind of voice, “I was the last person to see Mammy before she died.”
“We know that, love,” said Dad in a gentle voice.
On that Saturday I was playing in the tree house, and I don’t know where everyone else was when Mammy left on the bike.
“We were having a fight,” continued Sally. Tears were spilling silently down her face. “Well, I was fighting with Mammy. She wasn’t taking it very seriously.”
“What about?” asked Grandad, and put his hand on top of Sally’s hand.
“I wanted a stud in my nose and Mammy wouldn’t let me,” Sally said in a half laug
h, and wiped the back of her other hand across her snotty nose.
“And rightly so!” said Granny. “Disgusting things, those nose studs.”
“Anyway, I got mad and — and —” And now Sally got really upset and she pulled her hand back from Grandad’s and covered her face, and her voice got loud and all cracked, and I started crying a bit too, and then she said that she had shouted at Mammy that she hated her, and that was the last thing she said to Mammy before she left the house and got run over. And now did Conor see what a bad person she was? Then Sally threw her head down on her arms and cried and cried.
For a long time there was silence around the table, just Sally weeping and Daddy rubbing her back in circles, and then after a long time Grandad said, “And what was the last thing your mammy said to you?”
I wished he’d just be quiet and stop asking these terrible questions, and I think I wasn’t the only one because even Daddy looked funnily at him — but Sally lifted her head and, in the saddest voice, said, “Well, you know Mum.” She sniffled in a bit of a funny way and she wasn’t crying so hard now. “Mammy just laughed and shouted back at me, ‘And I love you too, daughter!’ and then she blew me a kiss and went. That made me even madder,” said Sally with a sort of half laugh and half cry.
“She had already forgiven you,” said Grandad in a soft voice, and smiled. “Now blow your nose, child.”
Granny pulled a tissue out of her sleeve and handed it to Sally, and she blew her nose like a trumpet.
“So, spy,” Sally turned to me, “now you know all my ‘dark secrets.’”
Everyone looked at me then, as if it was my turn to say something.
“Nose studs get all snotty,” I said. “I’m glad you didn’t get one.”
And then everyone laughed, even Sally. . . . Even Conor.
“You said what you said with your head, love, not with your heart — so it doesn’t count,” said Dad. And Conor told Sally that she wasn’t bad, just bad-tempered, and Granny made a fresh pot of tea because nobody had drunk theirs, and she managed to find some éclairs from somewhere that Sally hadn’t eaten, and Grandad joked that the woman was impossible and she was obviously stashing away cakes now and no wonder she was so fat! And even Granny laughed.
The next day in school I was very tired. Dad had said that I could stay in bed because of the long night, but I went to school anyway. By recess I felt so sleepy that I just wanted to fall into a bed.
I get cranky when I’m tired. Maybe if Sarah had known that she would have left me alone, but she just could not keep away.
“Here they come,” sighed Orla as the big bully and her lapdogs walked across the yard toward us.
“Hi, Specs. Hi, Crybaby,” she called before she even reached us.
I looked at the ground. Orla, of course, looked Sarah straight in the eye. I wished I was as brave as her.
“So, Crybaby, smile!” she jeered. “Your sister is back home again!”
“Go away,” Orla growled.
“Ah, don’t be like that, Specs,” Sarah said in a hurt tone. “We’re only here to cheer up poor sad little Crybaby. Isn’t that right, girls? So sad since her mammy died.”
When Sarah mentioned my mammy and the girls around her laughed uncomfortably, I felt my jaw tighten and a feeling of hate filled me inside.
“I don’t know why you are so sad, Crybaby. It wasn’t as if she was your real mother, was it?” continued Sarah.
Suddenly there was silence. A really deep silence in the school yard. The other girls didn’t laugh. Even Sarah fell silent. Maybe even she knew that she had gone one step too far this time. There was a buzzing in my ears, and for a moment I seemed to be up in the sky, outside my body, looking down on the group of girls in the school yard. Orla and me standing surrounded by the other girls. Sarah standing over me. Ms. Hardy at the top of the steps, stopping and looking across at us, sensing that something had happened . . . or was about to happen.
Then I exploded. “WHAT? WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY?” I roared, louder than I have ever roared before. I stepped right up to Sarah so my face was an inch from hers, and she stepped back — but I stepped forward again. There was a monster inside me, and it was not going to stay inside! My eyes were burning into Sarah’s and she didn’t know where to look — she just kept stepping backward, but she could not get away.
All the children in the school yard were paying attention now. All the games stopped. Ms. Hardy was coming down the steps.
“YOU ARE A BULLY, SARAH SINCLAIR, AND YOU ARE ONLY HAPPY WHEN YOU CAN MAKE OTHER PEOPLE MISERABLE! YOU ARE A WORM AND YOU’D JUST BETTER CRAWL BACK INTO THE GROUND BECAUSE IF YOU EVER EVER SAY ANOTHER NASTY EVIL WORD ABOUT ME OR ABOUT MY MOTHER OR ABOUT MY FRIEND I WILL KILL YOU!”
Sarah was backing away fast now. Children were moving aside to let her through, but I wasn’t letting her get away. Both my hands were tight fists and I was just about to punch her hard on her big pointy nose when Ms. Hardy grabbed me and held me back.
“OK, everybody, the show is over!” she shouted at the other children. “Go back and play!”
Sarah didn’t need to be told twice. She turned and ran! I tried to go after her, but Ms. Hardy is strong and she held me back.
“Cool it, Mimi. Cool it,” she was saying as she held me, and there was a little bit of laughter in her voice. “I think Sarah gets the message!”
But I was still boiling over and I struggled to get free.
“Deep breaths, Mimi, deep breaths.”
This time I did what she said and took some deep breaths, and slowly I felt myself calming down a bit and fitting back into my body again. Orla was standing in front of me, her mouth open.
“Feeling better now?” Ms. Hardy asked. By now she had half-carried, half-walked me up to the top of the steps. Despite what she had said, a lot of curious children had followed us. . . . But there was no sign of Sarah.
“Yes!” I said. “I’m feeling MUCH better now!”
Ms. Hardy laughed out loud when I said that.
“But I’m not saying sorry!” I told her — and I meant it.
“You most certainly are not,” said Ms. Hardy, but quietly this time so that only I and maybe Orla, who was right beside us, could hear. Then she whispered, “I’m proud of you, Mimi. Be proud of yourself.”
And that was the first time that I felt really glad that Ms. Hardy was my teacher and not Ms. Addle.
But I nearly changed my mind again when Ms. Hardy told me before I went home that she would give me detention if I did not do my homework every day from now on.
So I do . . . and it isn’t so bad, except for math. I just hate math.
Homework isn’t the only thing changing in our house.
Dad is going back to work part-time. Just for the mornings for now so that we won’t go bankrupt, he says.
“What does bankrupt mean?” I asked him, but he just tweaked my nose and laughed.
“Ask Uncle Horace; he’ll enjoy explaining it to you.”
And I will have a monthly bus ticket from now on to get me to school on time. So will Sally and Conor. I’m a bit worried that I will oversleep one day and miss the bus, but Sally says that she will drag me out of bed by the hair.
We all sat down and drew up a roster. That’s a timetabley thing with jobs for everyone. It was Dad’s idea, but I think he stole it from Aunt B. The jobs change around every week. I’ve got vacuuming this week and walking the dog. Dad says that our home is going to run like a well-oiled machine, shipshape and everything right on time!
Conor rolled his eyes to heaven when Dad said that, but we all agreed to give it a go. Sally says that she gives it one week max. But Dad thinks that if we all do our bit it will work. I hope that he is right, but I’ve asked Mammy to help out . . . just in case.
“The first time Poppy saw your dad he was going out with her best friend, Caroline, and do you know what she said about him in her diary?” Aunt M. told me as she drove along. We were going to pick up Emma first, then Sally.
“Well! That’s rich, coming from you, of all people!” She pretended to be highly insulted. “I bet you still read Sally’s diary whenever you get the chance!”
“I certainly do not!” I said. It was my turn to be insulted.
“You do so,” she said, and she squeezed my knee. “Tell the truth.”
“I don’t read it anymore.”
“Yes, you do!” she said, and she squeezed my knee tighter.
“OK, OK . . . sometimes maybe. Now let go of my knee, please!”
“I knew it. I just knew it.” She laughed and put her hands back on the wheel. “You can’t fool your Aunty Marigold.”
“So what did my mammy say about my daddy in her private diary, Aunt M.?”
“She said that he was a long streak of misery with crooked teeth, greasy hair, and a spotty face and she couldn’t see what her friend Caroline saw in him at all. It was obvious that she fancied him straightaway!” And the way Aunt M. said that just made me laugh.
Emma was standing on the path and hopped straight in when Aunt M. pulled over. “Hi, M. Hi, Dig,” she said. (She just calls Aunt M. “M.”)
Today we were going to fetch our dresses. Sally is going to be the bridesmaid, and Emma and I are going to be the bridesmaid’s helpers. “More like my slaves,” says Sally.
“What’s our job exactly, Aunt M.?” I asked.
“Well, you look pretty and carry flowers and generally you are the gofers.”
“Gophers?” I wrinkled up my nose and made faces with Emma. “Aren’t they the funny little animals that live in the desert?” There was a photo of a gopher in my nature book.
“Not those gophers,” said Aunt M. “Go for this! Go for that! That sort of gofers.”
