An Island of Our Own

by Sally Nicholls

  Except for this one werewolf. He was at the front of the pack, and his claws scrabbled on the edge of the precipice and he leapt up and onto Katniss. He and Katniss were fighting to the death, teeth and claws, knives and arrows, blood and bones. Princess Leia and Han Solo were watching from the other side of the chasm, but it was too wide for them to jump, and surely, surely, now all hope was lost.

  “Use the Force!” Davy yelled.

  “Oh yeah,” said Jonathan. “If only one of them thought of that.”

  And the great wolf pinned Katniss to the ground, and she was struggling, but he was stronger, and he slashed in, all teeth and saliva and mad red eyes. And Leia went, “Oh yeah, the Force!” and she shut her eyes, and the head werewolf dropped dead – hurrah! – and Katniss pulled the lever that shrinks the chasm and leapt back over to say hello to Han and Leia, and they all went back to the underground lair and ate the lasagne that the werewolves were saving for tea. And the next day…

  “What?” said Davy. “What happened the next day?”

  “That,” said Jonathan, “is a story for tomorrow.”

  A WASH-OUT

  Several weeks passed and nothing happened. Nobody else commented on our website. I asked Jo to send a link to the page to all her mum’s friends, but I don’t know if she did. Nobody came forward, anyway.

  Social services came up with some money for new school shoes for me and Davy, and a new school bag. Jonathan’s social worker said they were still trying to get Jonathan onto the higher level of funding, but the person who needed to approve it had gone off sick, “with stress”. People were always going off with stress in social services.

  One day, about three weeks after the railway siding, we came into the Maker Space and found Alex in the kitchen, plumbing a new dishwasher into the space where the old one used to sit. The old one was sitting in the doorway, blocking the way in.

  “Look what I found!” he said, looking pleased.

  “It’s a dishwasher,” I said. I wasn’t that impressed. “So what?”

  “So, I found it on Freecycle – it doesn’t drain, apparently – the family who owned it just bought a new one. I thought we might see if we can figure out what’s wrong with it, and then you guys could take it home with you.”

  “Seriously?” This was the best news ever. Our own dishwasher. Clean bowls! Never having to scrub mouldy food out of the bottom of a saucepan ever again! “How are you going to fix it?”

  Alex shrugged and grinned. “Oh,” he said. “Just poke things and see what happens. We can’t go too far wrong, right?”

  Hmm. Last time Alex said that was when he and Jonathan were trying to fix a telly they found in the street. The telly exploded, set fire to Alex’s jacket, and made a perfect smoky black circle on the roof tiles.

  Still. A dishwasher! Davy and I kept everything crossed.

  SEBASTIAN

  Alex and Jonathan brought the dishwasher round on Wednesday evening, in Alex’s brother’s electrician’s van. Then Alex and Jonathan plumbed it in. Then we loaded it with all the bowls and plates with stuck-on baked-bean juice, and knifes and forks with mashed-potato crud still clinging to the edges, and all the glasses with mouldy orange juice on the bottom, and the porridgey bowls that never got cleaned. Then we did a happy soon-to-be-clean-forks dance around the kitchen.

  Then Davy and I went to Gran and Grandad’s, and Jonathan went to the pub with some school friends who were home from university for the summer.

  It was late when we got back. The sun was beginning to set over London, turning the horizon a pale pinky-yellow. It was beginning to drizzle. The street lights glowed yellow in the dark puddles. Davy held my hand and Jonathan’s and walked between us, splashing in all the puddles to make the biggest splash he could manage.

  “Can we have fish and chips?” he said.

  Splash.

  “Yeah!” I said. “Chips and lots of vinegar. Davy, stop that, I’m soaking.”

  “No,” said Jonathan. “It’s Wednesday – Ranjit shuts early on Wednesdays. And didn’t you guys eat already at Gran’s house?”

  Splash.

  “Davy!”

  Davy laughed.

  “We did,” I said. “But we’re still hungry. I’m always hungry. Can we have cornflakes?”

  “Hey,” said Jonathan. “Clean bowls!”

  We clomped up the stairs.

  “Squelch, squelch, squelch,” said Davy.

  “It’s your own fault,” I said.

  “No,” said Davy. “The carpet’s all wet.”

  I pressed my foot down experimentally. Davy was right.

  “Oh no,” said Jonathan. “Oh no, no, no, no, no.”

  We opened the door to the flat.

  The floor was soaking wet. So was the carpet on the landing. The water wasn’t very deep, but there were pizza flyers, and chip packets, and Davy’s maths homework flopping wetly in it.

  Davy shrieked. “Ew!”

  “No,” said Jonathan. “No, no, no.”

  The water ran out over the doorway and began to soak into the stairs. I splashed in on tiptoe, trying to get as little of me wet as possible, and went into the kitchen. That was even wetter.

  “The dishwasher’s flooded the kitchen!”

  I was so disappointed. Our lovely dishwasher! Would the bowls still be clean?

  But Jonathan wasn’t interested in the bowls. He was more interested in the water. “Get the mop! And the bucket! And – I dunno! Some towels! Quick!”

  It took ages to mop up the water and pick out all the bits of wet paper and other stuff that had been lying on the floor. Then Jonathan had to phone Ranjit, and Ranjit said he was coming round to look.

  “What’s going to happen?” I said. “Have we ruined Ranjit’s chip shop? Are we going to have to pay for it to get fixed? We aren’t, are we? What if he has to close the shop? Will we have to pay him all the money he would have earned?”

  “I don’t know,” said Jonathan. I must have been making a horribly worried face, because he changed his mind and said, “But he’ll have insurance, Holly. He’s a sensible grown-up. All sensible grown-ups have insurance.”

  “But is he insured against us being idiots?” I said, nervously. “What if we do have to pay? We can’t afford it, can we?”

  Jonathan sighed. “Put Davy to bed, will you?” he said. “I’m going to see if I can soak up the water on the stairs. And don’t worry. That’s my job.”

  But I did worry.

  Davy went to bed obediently enough, and sat quietly through a chapter of Beezus and Ramona, but we were both restless. I tried to read another chapter, but he said, “Shhh.”

  We could hear Ranjit and Jonathan talking downstairs. Ranjit seemed to be saying a lot. Jonathan didn’t seem to be saying much.

  After what felt like for ever, I heard the door shut, and Ranjit’s feet going downstairs.

  I went down. “What did he say?”

  Jonathan looked tired, and a little dazed. “He said he’s not sure. There’s water staining all down the walls, and it’s gotten into the electrics, so he’s going to have to get someone in to look at it.”

  “But…” I said. “It’s insured, isn’t it? I mean, we won’t have to pay for it?”

  Jonathan rubbed his face. “It’s not insured against us trying to fix our own dishwasher and then installing it in our kitchen,” he said. “And anyway, there’s an excess of five hundred pounds on the insurance, Ranjit said.”

  Five hundred pounds.

  “Does that mean we have to pay five hundred pounds?” I said. “It does, doesn’t it?”

  “I don’t know,” said Jonathan. “Maybe. It might be more. It might just be some paint. I don’t know.”

  “Social services will give us some money, though, won’t they?” I said. “If it’s an emergency. They will, won’t they?”


  “Let’s hope so,” said Jonathan. He looked shattered. “Please, Holly, just go to bed. I can’t think about this right now.”

  I went to bed, but I couldn’t sleep. I tried reading my book. I was reading The Day of the Triffids, which is all about how you should never trust plants, because they might turn evil and eat you. But I couldn’t concentrate.

  We didn’t have five hundred pounds. We didn’t even have fifty.

  It was really early when I woke up. Someone was shaking my arm.

  “Holly. Holly.”

  “Davy?”

  I opened my eyes.

  Davy was standing by the bed in too-small Doctor Who pyjamas, holding Sebastian.

  “Davy, it’s a school day. Can’t you go play with your Lego or something?”

  “Sebastian’s sick.”

  I sat up, pushing my hair out of my face. I turned my lamp on.

  Davy’s narrow face appeared, small and worried-looking.

  “He’s probably just tired, Davy. It’s…” I looked for my phone, but it was somewhere in the bottom of my school bag. “It’s really early. He’s probably asleep.”

  “He’s not,” said Davy. “He won’t move – look.” He showed me. Sebastian was lying with his eyes closed. I took him from Davy. He felt warm and heavy, the way he always does, but his heart was beating rapidly beneath my fingers. I bent down and said, “Se-bas-tian. Se-bas-tian,” into his ear. I gave him a little gentle shake. Nothing.

  “Oh, Davy,” I said. Vets are expensive, was what I was thinking. We can’t afford this. But I didn’t say it out loud. How could I?

  Jonathan took Sebastian to the vet that morning. I thought he wouldn’t be able to, because of work, but Davy wouldn’t let us leave Sebastian at home, and when we all turned up at the café with a half-dead rabbit, Cath took one look at Sebastian, and at Davy’s small mutinous face, and gave Jonathan the morning off. Davy wanted to go too, but Jonathan said he had to go to school.

  “Don’t let them kill him without me!” said Davy fiercely. “I’ll never forgive you if you do! Never!” I don’t think I’d ever seen him this fierce about anything before.

  Jonathan got an early emergency appointment, as soon as the surgery opened. I rang him up at break time to find out what had happened.

  “He’s got…” he said. He hesitated. “Well, I’m not sure exactly what it is. Something complicated. They did explain. Some sort of tumour, but one they can deal with. They can cut it out, they said, but then there are injections and things as well.” He sounded worried.

  “Oh,” I said. I was in our house block, and it was pretty noisy. Behind me three kids were having a yoghurt fight, and the teacher was yelling at them to stop. “But they can fix it?”

  “Yes,” said Jonathan. “I think so. It sounded like they could. But, Holly, it’s expensive. Like, hundreds of pounds’ worth of expensive. Probably more. I’m not entirely sure how much more. I got depressed and stopped listening once it got into the hundreds. The operation’s one thing, but you have to keep buying the drugs for ages afterwards. Even if we could afford the operation, to start with. Which we can’t.”

  “We could ask social services?” I said hopefully.

  “Yeah,” said Jonathan. “And I will. Of course I will. But I’m already asking them about the dishwasher. And school shoes are one thing, but when you’re asking for money for something that’s your fault – which the dishwasher is, really – they – well, they get sniffy. And pets aren’t exactly an emergency, are they?”

  “Yes, they are!” I said. “They’re an emergency for Davy! You have to tell them! You have to make them see!”

  “I know,” said Jonathan. “I’ll try. Just. . .”

  “Just what?” I said, but he didn’t reply.

  “WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO?”

  I didn’t tell Davy what was wrong with Sebastian when I picked him up from school. I didn’t know how. I also didn’t really know what was going to happen next. I mean, maybe we could get the money from somewhere. Right? We could sell Jonathan’s computer. Or all Davy’s Lego. Or… there must be lots of ways to earn money. We could go bag-packing in Tesco, like the Scouts do. Or carol-singing. I mean, it was July, so obviously not carols, but busking. Or we could ask everyone who commented on my blog to give us money or…

  “No,” said Jonathan.

  “We can’t put Sebastian down,” I said.

  “What do you want me to do?” said Jonathan. “Honestly, Holly, tell me. What? Have you got a thousand pounds hidden in your knicker drawer? Because I haven’t.”

  “Maybe social services’ll give us extra money,” I said. “Or maybe they’ll hurry up and give you the higher-level foster-care allowance if they know how urgent it is.”

  “Maybe,” said Jonathan. He didn’t sound convinced.

  “Or,” I said, “we could go and find the rest of Auntie Irene’s treasure.”

  Jonathan sighed. “Holly…”

  “We should! There’s lots of things we could do! We could ring up everyone in her address book and see if they know where those places are! We could bribe her secretary! We could!”

  “She didn’t have a secretary! She was retired! We don’t even know for sure that she did hide anything in any of those places—”

  “Auntie Irene wouldn’t have given those photographs to me if she didn’t think they’d be useful,” I said, stubbornly. Jonathan gave me a frustrated look.

  “She’d had a stroke,” he said. “Who knows what she thought she was doing. Maybe she thought she was giving you the GPS coordinates at the same time. Who knows?”

  I wanted to punch him. I wanted to scream. “You don’t care about Sebastian!” I yelled. “You don’t care about any of us!”

  “Fine,” said Jonathan. “Right. Yes. I don’t care. Now, can I go upstairs now, please? I’ve got to go and tell Davy we can’t afford to cure his rabbit.”

  And then I felt bad. Because I knew what I’d said wasn’t true. So then I felt even worse than I had before.

  Davy was horribly upset about Sebastian. I knew he would be, but I hadn’t realized quite how much. He didn’t argue, Jonathan said. He just sat there. And then he climbed into bed and pulled the duvet over his head and wouldn’t speak to either of us all evening.

  Jonathan called his social worker, Philip-the-dull. He shut himself in the living room, but I listened at the door.

  “Yes—” Jonathan said. “Yes, I know – yes, but how long? Because this is really urgent… No, not the floor. The rabbit. Yes, I know it’s only a rabbit… Yes. Yes, no, I understand. But this is important. It’s more important than school trips… No, no, I do understand that. Yes, I know education is important. I know. But—Well, I’m sorry, but I don’t care about your funding cuts!… No, you calm down! I don’t think I’ve got anything to be calm about, do you?” And he slammed the phone down, hard.

  I put my head round the door. “Well?” I said.

  “Rabbits are not an emergency,” said Jonathan. He’d flushed up bright red. “Apparently. And Philip doesn’t know when we’ll get our extra money, but not for weeks yet. He thinks he’ll be able to wangle something for the floor, though. Like anyone cares about that!”

  I woke up in the middle of the night, and couldn’t get back to sleep. I was so scared. I was scared of not having money all the time. I was scared of how long we could go on like this, when something tiny going wrong meant we couldn’t pay the rent, and what would happen if we couldn’t pay the rent? Would social services help us out? Or would we have to move house? Leave everything behind? Granny and Grandad. The Maker Space. Sizwe and Neema, and Jen teaching me how to program, and our lovely little flat with the trains rattling past the windows in the night, and my bedroom wallpaper with stars on it that Mum helped me pick out and put up for me, and the door to our flat that she painted fire-engine red and… I wanted
to cry. I hardly ever cry, but I wanted to now. I went downstairs.

  Jonathan was sitting on one of the comfy chairs in the living room, on his computer. The room was dark. The only light was coming from the computer screen.

  “Jonathan?” I said.

  He looked round. “Holly? Are you all right?”

  “We aren’t really going to put Sebastian down, are we?” I said.

  Jonathan sighed. “I don’t know,” he said. “I’m sorry, Holly. I really don’t know what else to do.”

  “We can’t go on like this,” I said. “Can we? Not having enough money all the time. You’re going to have to do something about it, aren’t you? What are you going to do? What if social services never give you the extra money? Are you going to send me and Davy off to New Zealand?”

  “No!” Jonathan looked really shocked. “Holly. No. Of course not. Unless – I mean, unless you’d rather. You’d have proper clothes and food and stuff over there, you know. And there’s mountains and things.”

  I sat on the edge of the sofa and leant against him. “Silly Jonathan,” I said. “You know we wouldn’t rather.”

  Jonathan nodded. “All right,” he said. “Please don’t worry, Holly. I’ll figure something out.”

  But I couldn’t see what.

  SCIENCE SOLVES EVERYTHING

  We were still in an awful mood on Sunday, when we went to the Maker Space.

  Jen waved at us, and wandered over. “Hey, Davy-face,” she said, holding out her hand.

  Davy wouldn’t even look at her. He ran over to one of the chairs and curled into a little ball, with his face pressed up against the wall.

  Jen gave me a questioning look, so I explained about Sebastian. “And if I could just find Auntie Irene’s treasure, everything would be all right. But I don’t know how!” I said. “Nobody knows where any of the photos are! I’ve asked everyone I know. There must be a better way to find where they are. There must. But I just can’t think!” I flopped down on the chair next to Jen, crossed my arms over my stomach, and groaned. Loudly. “Aren’t there techy things you could do? Like, image-recognition software or something?”