Читать книгу Coming Home - Annabel Kantaria - Страница 26

‘Evie, what happened?’ Miss Dawson asked. ‘The school called. I came as quickly as I could. What happened?’

I liked that Miss Dawson didn’t ask if I was all right. Even my teacher had spotted that I wasn’t all right. When I hadn’t been able to stop crying in class, she’d led me to the nurse’s room and asked her to phone my mum.

‘No! Not Mum!’ I’d curled in a ball on the narrow bed and wished I could stay there forever.

‘Who then?’ Nurse had asked. ‘Is your dad around?’

I’d shaken my head.

Nurse had tut-tutted. ‘Who then? Miss Dawson?’ and I’d agreed with a nod.

Now Miss Dawson was here, I knew I had to talk to her. I pulled myself up so I was sitting on the bed.

‘It’s Dingbat,’ I said.

Miss Dawson waited.

‘Hamster,’ I hiccupped. ‘He’s dead.’ I scrubbed at my eyes with the balled-up tissue I’d been holding all morning, my breath still jagged.

‘Oh, Evie. I’m sorry to hear that.’ Miss Dawson rubbed a hand over her face.

But it wasn’t that Dingbat was dead. Well, it was, but it wasn’t like Miss Dawson thought. Dingbat had been Graham’s hamster. He’d got him when he’d turned ten—for his last birthday. He’d begged and pleaded, claiming he’d look after the hamster one hundred per cent himself. Mum hadn’t thought Graham would manage, but Dad had persuaded her to give him the benefit of the doubt and Graham had hand-picked Dingbat from a heap of ginger-and-white fluff at the pet shop. And, to Mum’s surprise, he’d looked after Dingbat really well, feeding him, changing his water, peeling grapes for him and even cleaning out his cage. He’d really loved him. After the accident, I’d taken over caring for Dingbat. It made me feel like I was with Graham.

‘He was Graham’s,’ I said.

‘It’s very sad when pets die,’ Miss Dawson said carefully. ‘And it must be very hard for you with … Dingbat? … because he was a link to Graham?’

‘Mmm.’ I didn’t know what to say. I was supposed to be able to tell Miss Dawson anything, but I didn’t know if I could tell her what had happened yesterday after school. Whenever I thought about it, I started to shake.

I’d gone into the kitchen to ask for a biscuit. Mum had been standing at Dingbat’s cage. The cage door was open and Mum had been holding Dingbat, letting him run from one hand to the other as she stared out of the window at the garden. At the exact moment that I opened my mouth to ask for the biscuit, Mum had spun around with a scream and hurled Dingbat at the kitchen wall. I could still hear the crunch of his little body slamming into the wall, the thud of him landing on the tiled floor.

‘Mummy!’ I’d screamed and she’d noticed me for the first time. She’d stared at me, then she’d pushed a strand of hair out of her eyes and come towards me with her arms held out and a smile splitting her face in two. On the floor behind her, Dingbat twitched and then was still, blood oozing from his mouth and ears.

‘Evie, darling. What’s wrong? Come here. Let me give you a cuddle.’ She’d wound her arms around me, stroking my hair, and I’d sagged against my mother, clinging to her, breathing in the scent of her clothes, her perfume. It was the first time she’d hugged me since Graham had died.

‘I love you, Evie,’ she’d said, kissing my hair and running her hands through it. ‘Don’t ever leave me. Promise you won’t leave me.’

It was awful, but the attention was nice and I hated myself for liking it; hated myself for choosing Mum’s hugs instead of running to Dingbat.

‘It’s Mum,’ I told Miss Dawson.

‘OK,’ she said. ‘She probably misses Dingbat as much as you do. I expect he reminded her of Graham, too.’

I twisted the tissue in my hand, my eyes raw. Mum had killed a living creature. Would Miss Dawson have to tell the police? Would Mum have to go to jail? What was worse: Mum like this, or Mum in jail? I took a deep breath and made my decision: ‘It’s just that … I don’t think she’ll let me get a new hamster,’ I said. Well … at least that bit was true.