Читать книгу Lemonade Sky - Jean Ure, Stephen Lee, Jean Ure - Страница 5

“What’s important,” I said, “is keeping things normal.”

“Normal?” Tizz gave me this look, like, are you out of your mind? “How can things be normal, without Mum?”

“Normal as possible,” I said. “For Sammy.”

I’d sent her off to watch telly while I rooted about in the kitchen to see what I could find for breakfast. There had to be something! But there wasn’t.

“I don’t believe this,” I said.

Tizz said, “What?” in this rather grumpy tone.

“There’s nothing in the fridge!”

Grudgingly, she came over to look.

“What’s that?” She pointed to a carton of milk. I picked it up and shook it.

“It’s empty, practically. And there’s only a tiny bit of butter, and the bread’s almost gone.”

Tizz marched across to a cupboard and yanked it open.

“Cereal.” She banged the packet down on the table. “Marmalade.”

But the cereal packet was only a quarter full, and the marmalade jar, like the fridge, was almost empty. When Mum stopped taking her meds, she didn’t always notice that the cupboards were getting bare. Just like she didn’t sleep much, she didn’t eat much, either. If she’d been at home she’d have sent us up the road to the corner shop.

Me and Tizz stood, looking at each other. I knew that we were both thinking the same thing: how were we going to feed ourselves?

Tizz ran her fingers through her hair, sticking it up on end.

“D’you think she’s left any money?”

“Dunno.” I picked up the cereal packet and shook it, helplessly. “Let’s at least give Sammy something to eat.”

Well! We ran into trouble straight away. Sammy didn’t want cereal, she wanted a boiled egg.

“Bald egg and fingers!”

When I said we didn’t have any eggs and she should just eat what she was given, she complained because there wasn’t any juice.

“Mum gives me juice!”

We didn’t have any juice. I found a tiny dribble of squash, which I made up for her, but she spat it out, saying it was watery.

“Just think yourself lucky you’ve got anything at all,” scolded Tizz. “We haven’t got anything.”

Only tea bags, and we both hate tea. ’Specially without milk. We had to keep the milk to go with the cereal. There was just enough for Tizz and Sammy, but then we couldn’t find any sugar, so that got Sammy going again.

“I can’t eat Krispies without sugar!”

Tizz said, “Oh, for goodness’ sake!” She picked up the marmalade jar, spooned out a dollop and dumped it on top of Sammy’s bowl.

“There! Stir that in.”

“It’s marm’lade,” whined Sammy. “I don’t like marm’lade!”

“Just get on with it,” snarled Tizz.

Sniffling, Sammy did so.

There were five slices of bread in the bin, but they were all hard, so I had to toast them.

“You have two,” said Tizz, “cos you didn’t have any cereal.”

And now there wasn’t any marmalade left, which meant I had to eat toast and marge, which is horrible, but there was only a scraping of butter and I let Sammy have that cos she won’t eat marge at any price.

“Call this normal?” said Tizz, pulling a face.

“We’ll go up the road,” I said. “After breakfast. We’ll buy stuff.”

“What with?”

“Money!” chortled Sammy. I guess she thought it was a joke.

“Yeah, right,” said Tizz. “Money.”

I jumped up. “Let’s look first and check what’s in the cupboard.” There might just be enough to keep us going.

I pulled out everything I could find and stacked it up on the table. There wasn’t very much. A tin of baked beans, a tin of spaghetti, two tins of tomato soup, a tin of sausages and a tin of pilchards.

We sat there, staring at them.

“That’s not going to last ten days,” said Tizz. “Not even if we just have one tin a day. Between us.”

Sammy was looking worried. “Why’s it got to last ten days?” Her lip wobbled. “When’s Mum coming back?”

“Soon,” I said, “soon! But just in case – I mean, just in case she’s away for ten days–”

Ten days, like last time. Sammy’s face crumpled.

“Where is she? Where’s she gone?”

“See, we’re not actually sure,” I said. I said it as gently as I could, but there wasn’t any point in lying to her. “You know how sometimes Mum gets a bit, like… excitable? Like when she’s having one of her big happies?”

Sammy nodded, doubtfully, and stuck her thumb in her mouth.

“It can make her do things she wouldn’t normally do. Like—”

“Disappearing,” said Tizz.

“But it’s all right,” I said, quickly. “She’ll come back! It’s just that we have to take care of ourselves while she’s not here.

“And not tell anyone that she’s gone!”

I said, “Yes, we’ve not got to tell anybody. Not anybody.”

That was the mistake we’d made last time. We’d been living over the other side of town, then, in an upstairs flat, and we’d been so scared when Mum went off that we’d told the lady in the flat next to ours, and she’d rung the Social Services people, and they’d come and taken us away. Even when Mum had turned up again they wouldn’t let us go back to her. It had been months before they said she was well enough to take responsibility for us. And all that time me and Tizz had been in a children’s home and Sammy had been with foster parents. That had been the worst part, being split up. We weren’t going to let that happen again.

We’d still been quite little, then. Too young to look after ourselves. But I was twelve now, and Tizz was ten, and nobody, but nobody, was going to come and take us away!

“I don’t suppose you remember last time?” said Tizz.

Slowly, Sammy shook her head.

“She was only a baby,” I said. “But now she’s big – she’s nearly six! She can be trusted to keep a secret. Can’t you?”

Sammy said, “What secret?”

“About Mum not being here. We don’t want people knowing, cos if they know they’ll put us in a home, they’ll say we can’t take care of ourselves. But we can,” I said, “can’t we?”

Sammy sucked on her thumb. She seemed uncertain.

“Of course we can!” I said. “We’re not stupid. Just think how proud Mum will be when she gets back and we tell her all the things we’ve done!”

“Such as what?” said Tizz. “Eating toast and marge and Rice Krispies with marmalade?”

I scowled at her, over Sammy’s head.

“I only asked,” said Tizz.

I said, “Well, don’t! Have a bit of imagination.”

Tizz hunched a shoulder.

“Can we stay up late?” said Sammy. “And watch whatever we like on TV?”

“You’ve got it,” said Tizz.

She really wasn’t helping. I said, “Maybe just now and again. Not all the time, though, cos that wouldn’t be right. Mum wouldn’t like it if we did that.”

“Will she be here for my birthday?”

“She might,” I said. “But if not, we’ll have a big bash when she gets back.”

“Seems to me,” said Tizz, “before we start thinking about birthdays we ought to find out if there’s any money anywhere.”

I knew that she was right. If we didn’t have any money, I couldn’t think what we would do.

First off, we looked in the saucer on the kitchen windowsill where Mum sometimes kept bits and pieces of change. There was a little bit in there. We set Sammy to counting it. Proudly she announced that it came to “£3 and 20p.” Meanwhile, I had £2 in my purse, and Tizz produced a fiver. I said, “Wow!”

“I was saving it,” said Tizz.

“That’s all right,” I said. “Mum’ll give it back.”

Tizz said, “You reckon?”

I think it must be dreadful to be so untrusting. But Tizz is one of those people, she has a very dim view of human nature. Even though she knows Mum can’t help being sick, she gets impatient.

“Let’s go through pockets,” I said.

We went through all of Mum’s pockets, and all of our own, but all we came up with was a 5p piece.

Tizz said, “Try down the side of the sofa. That’s what they do in books. They always manage to find something.”

We didn’t find anything at all. Not unless you count an old button, plus a needle that stuck in my finger and made me yelp.

“Is that blood?” quavered Sammy.

Tizz said, “Yes, but it’s not yours, so you don’t have to start freaking out! Let’s go and see if there’s anything in Mum’s secret stash.”

She meant the old Smarties tube where Mum sometimes hoarded 20p pieces. We raced through to Mum’s bedroom and sure enough, in the top drawer of her dressing table, there was the Smarties tube and oh! Hooray! It had something in it.

We carried it through to the kitchen and upended it. 20p pieces rolled about the table. Greedily, we counted them off into piles.

“That’s £4.60,” said Tizz.

It did seem wrong to be taking Mum’s money, especially when I had this unhappy feeling she’d probably been keeping it to buy something for Sammy’s birthday, but it couldn’t be helped.

“So how much have we got altogether?” I said. I waited for Tizz to add things up, cos she is good at arithmetic. She did some sums on a bit of paper.

“£14.75.”

Sammy’s face lit up. “That’s a lot,” she said.

It sounded like a lot. But was it? I wasn’t sure. I realised that I simply didn’t know. I had no idea what anything cost! When Mum sent us up the road it was usually just for bread, or milk, or maybe a tin of something. She’d give us a couple of pounds, and we’d hand it over and come back with the change, but I’d never properly bothered to count how much change. I’d always just accepted whatever Mrs Petrides gave us. It had never occurred to me to check prices. If Mum said buy a large loaf, I bought a large loaf. I picked it off the shelf and took it to the checkout and that was that.

I wished, now, that I’d paid a bit more attention.

Tizz was busy on another load of sums. She looked up and glared, fiercely, across the table.

“I don’t think,” she said, “that a person can live on 49p a day.”

I said, “What are you talking about?”

“49p,” said Tizz. “That’s how much we’ll each have to live on if Mum is away for ten days.”

I looked at her, doubtfully. I wasn’t sure what you could actually buy for 49p. Just bars of chocolate, maybe, or packets of crisps. But they weren’t healthy! Even I knew that.

“We’ve got all this stuff,” I said, pointing at the tins we’d taken out of the cupboard.

“Yeah.” Tizz barely glanced at them. “That’ll go a long way.”

I did wish she would stop being so negative all the time. It really didn’t help. I pointed out that people had been known to survive on nothing but bread and water for days on end.

“Just so long as you have enough to drink,” I said. “That’s the main thing.”

“We’ll starve,” said Tizz.

“We won’t starve!” Didn’t she listen to a word I said? “Watch my lips: we are not going to starve. I won’t let us!”

“Dunno what you think you’re gonna do about it,” said Tizz. She scrunched up the paper she’d been doing her sums on and hurled it savagely across the room. “Mum might at least have left us some money!”

I said, “She didn’t know.” It wasn’t like Mum planned these things. She just got overwhelmed. “Anyway,” I said, “after yesterday she probably doesn’t have any money.”

Yesterday had been such a good day. Mum’s friend Nikki had come round with her boyfriend and we’d all gone off to the Carnival on the Common. It’s held every year, but this was the first time we’d ever been. There were all kinds of stalls, where you could play Guess the Weight or have a lucky dip or throw hoop-las, and lots of different rides, some of them quite scary. Well, I found them scary! I am a bit of a cowardy custard like that. Tizz was eager to try everything, and Mum let her. Like she let Sammy have three goes at the lucky dip, until she managed to pick something she really wanted.

We were so busy enjoying ourselves we didn’t ever stop to wonder where the money was coming from. Mum just kept laughing, and spending, and Nikki and her boyfriend kept saying, “Go for it!” Like egging her on. Encouraging her. Mum doesn’t need encouragement! Not when she’s all hyper. She needs someone to take charge and be responsible.

I should have taken charge. I should have been responsible. I knew Mum couldn’t afford to pay for all those rides, and all those goes on the lucky dip. Plus we all had vegeburgers, and doughnuts, and fizzy drinks. And Mum paid for Nikki and her boyfriend. And they let her. Just taking advantage of Mum’s good nature. They know when she’s on a high she loses all control.

She’d gone off again, that evening, to meet them. She’d been in a mad whirl, all laughing and flying about from room to room, trying on clothes then tearing them off again.

“Darlings, how do I look? Do I look like a hag?”

Like she ever could! Mum is really pretty. Very slim and delicate, with big blue eyes and a foaming mass of hair, red as the setting sun.

“I feel haglike,” she said. “I can’t go out feeling haglike!”

How I wished, now, that she hadn’t gone out. But we’d assured her she looked beautiful, and we’d even helped her, in the end, choose which clothes to wear. She’d gone waltzing off, as happy as could be. But I couldn’t help wondering how much money she’d had left. It couldn’t have been very much; not after her mad spending spree. Almost nothing, I’d have thought. How was she going to manage, without any money?

Tizz could obviously sense what was going through my mind.

“It’s that Nikki,” she said. “She leads Mum astray.”

“She’s supposed to be Mum’s friend,” I said.

Tizz snorted. “Some friend!”

I wondered if Nikki knew that Mum hadn’t come home. I couldn’t ring her cos I didn’t have her number. I didn’t even know where she lived.

“Her and that stupid Zak.” Tizz said it vengefully. “They’re the ones that made Mum spend all her money!”

They certainly hadn’t done anything to stop her. But then neither had I. On the other hand, even if I’d tried I doubt Mum would have taken any notice. She’d just have laughed and cried, “Oh, darling, don’t be such a bore! You take life far too seriously. Try to have a bit of fun, for once.”

I had had fun! It had been the best day I could remember for a long time. And now I was feeling guilty.

I thrust my hair back, behind my ears.

“We’ll manage,” I said. “Don’t worry!” I leaned over and gave Sammy a hug. She had been listening, solemnly, darting anxious glances from one to the other of us. “What we have to do,” I said, “is decide what’s most important. Stuff we need to keep us going. Like bread, and milk, and stuff.”

Sammy brightened. “Fishy fingers!”

“Chips,” said Tizz.

I said, “Chips aren’t good for you. We’ve got to have stuff that’s healthy. Like pasta,” I said. “That’s supposed to be good for you.”

Tizz pulled a face. “Bo-ring!”

“Doesn’t matter if it’s boring. You don’t think when people go to the North Pole they worry about stuff being boring? They worry about what’s good for them, like – I don’t know! Dried fish, and stuff.”

“You gotta be joking,” said Tizz, “if you think we’re going to eat dried fish!”

I could see that my task was not going to be easy. Tizz is just so difficult at times.

“Wait there,” I said. I went back to the bedroom and dug a notebook out of my school bag. “Right!” I slapped it down on the table. Tizz eyed it suspiciously.

“What’s that for?”

“We need to work things out,” I said.

“You mean, you’re going to get all bossy?”

I said, “Well, someone has to. Would you rather it was you?”

Tizz hunched a shoulder.

“You want to take over?” I pushed the pad towards her, but she shoved it back at me.

“I don’t want it!”

I knew she wouldn’t. The thing about Tizz, she may be sharp as needles and full of mouth, but she is far too impatient to ever sit down and actually plan anything. She also hates being told what to do. It is a constant battle! I know that I am not as bright as she is, but I do usually get things done in the end. Slow but sure, is what Mum says.

“OK!” I reached out for a pen. “We’re going to sit here,” I said, “and make a shopping list.”