Desperate Measures (4 page)

Paul didn’t answer.

Vicky looked at him. ‘Promise me we will.’

‘I’m sorry Vicky . . . things change – I can’t say because I just don’t know.’

Vicky made a funny snorty noise then rushed upstairs saying she was going to pack her stuff.

I love Christmas. Vicky and Jamie don’t believe in Father Christmas but I do. And I know how he gets down chimneys too. You know he’s really fat? Ha! Well, he isn’t actually. All that fatness is just air. When he wants to
come down a chimney he just pulls at a string on his belly button and all the air whooshes out from his tummy and he goes really skinny. That’s how he can slip down the chimney. Then, when he gets to the bottom and he’s left all the presents, he pulls another string and blows himself up again like a balloon.

When we were little, Dad used to bring us presents when he came back from driving. Mum would get cross sometimes and tell him she needed the money to pay the bills but he would just laugh and say they could whistle for it. After Mum was gone, two men came round to take our beds and the sofa and armchairs back to the shop but they didn’t whistle. One was really grumpy and the other just kept saying he didn’t want any trouble. When they’d gone Dad said not to worry because every cloud had a silver lining. I looked outside to see but they were all grey. Anyway he’d found some money under the sofa so he took us out to get chips for tea. We had cola and he had some beer. We came back and sat on the carpet with the chips on the paper in the middle like a big picnic. It was fun. Mum never let us do stuff like that. And he never got cross when I spilt my cola. He just said it didn’t matter any more because they’d be back for the carpet next week.

I heard Jamie in the kitchen banging about. Paul heard him too.

‘Paul,’ I said quickly, ‘do you want to hear a joke?’

He looked round me at the kitchen door.

‘It’s the funniest joke ever, in the whole wide world,’ I said.

‘Go on then,’ he said. I looked at him. His eyes were really red and tired. Suddenly I wanted to cheer him up. I really really did want to tell him the funniest joke ever in the whole wide world but I didn’t know how. You see I don’t actually know any jokes at all. Jamie tells me them all the time but I get all mixed up and can never remember them.

It was a good job that the next second Jamie came out of the kitchen. He gave me a thumbs-up sign and ran upstairs with a bag.

‘Gotta go,’ I said running out and following Jamie upstairs.

‘Thought you were going to tell me the funniest joke in the whole wide world?’ said Paul, calling after me.

‘Nah,’ I said. ‘It’s really boring.’

I went to bed early that night. I’d packed my stuff and didn’t feel like going back downstairs. Mainly I was kind of embarrassed about my whopping great tantrum earlier. I couldn’t believe how I just lost the plot so completely. In front of Matt too. Errrch! I couldn’t bear to think of it, but Matt’s bewildered and wary expression kept flashing up in my mind’s eye. He probably thought I was a right head-case. A complete nutter. Maybe it’s a good thing we’re leaving tomorrow, I thought. At least I wouldn’t have to face him at school for a while.

Paul had been on tenterhooks all evening in case the hospital rang but no one did, thank goodness. He phoned at nine and the ward sister said Sarah was comfortable, whatever that meant. Poor Sarah. She and Paul so wanted this baby. We all did. Rhianna and Jamie had already gone
to bed. I guess they were as fed up as me. At least Re got her Furby and her cake. I looked over at her, snuggled up under the covers and fast asleep, an old teddy bear tucked in next to her. There was the faintest trace of a smile on her large moon face; she looked like she hadn’t a care in the world. The great thing about Re was she never stayed miserable for long. She lived in the present and never beat herself up over things she should have done or didn’t do – they were in the past and they just didn’t matter any more. And she never really worried about what was going to happen. She lived for the moment. That was all. Boy was she lucky. When Mum died, I tried to soften it all for her. There I was launching into this big ‘Mum’s gone but everything’s going to be all right’ routine and when I finished she just looked at me with those big grey eyes and asked if we could have pot noodle for tea.

I’d been furious with her earlier but being angry with Re is like being angry with a puppy that’s chewed one of your best trainers. Just one look at its trusting, dopey expression and you can’t help but forgive it. Maybe this residential school wouldn’t be so bad. And maybe, if I was with a decent family, they’d take me to visit or even let Re stay at the weekend. Maybe Sarah would get better really quickly and we’d all be back together for when the baby arrived . . . maybe everything would work out perfectly . . . maybe little pink pigs would learn to fly and take over the world . . . Maybe. I was sick of maybes. Paul had said he didn’t know when we would be coming back. ‘Things change.’ What exactly did he mean?

A really horrible thought rushed into my head and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t push it out. What if ‘I don’t know’ became ‘Never’? Jamie was right. We’d be split up for good and powerless to do anything about it. I told myself to shut up. Sarah and Paul wouldn’t let us down. They wouldn’t. They cared about us. Wanted the best for us. But then, we had been let down so many times over the last two years. Promises, like balloons, had popped in front of our eyes. Mrs Frankish was always saying that things are never as bad as you imagine. But it’s all right for her, she has the imagination of a fruit fly.

When I woke up, Jamie was standing over me with his finger on his lips.

‘It’s time to go Re,’ he whispered.

I looked over at Vicky. She was curled up asleep in her bed. I didn’t feel like going anywhere but Jamie picked up my school rucksack and we tiptoed out so she wouldn’t wake up. We crept down the stairs in the dark. The house was fast asleep. I couldn’t see where I was going so I grabbed Jamie’s arm. I tripped over Vicky’s shoes in the hall and banged my knee on the little telephone table. It hurt so bad I wanted to cry but Jamie put his hand over my mouth to stop me. We put on our trainers and coats. Then really quietly he undid the front door.

Out in the street it was quiet and still. The black cat from next door came up to us and rubbed his back round
my legs. I gave him a quick stroke and he stared at us as we disappeared off down the street. I bet he wondered where we were going. A car came up the road so we hid behind the letterbox but the man driving never saw us. Nobody did.

When we got near the woods everything was even darker so Jamie said he would switch on his torch to light the way. I don’t think it was working properly because it only made a little tiny circle of yellow on the pavement.

‘It’ll warm up,’ Jamie said, but it didn’t.

I don’t like the dark. When we first went to Paul and Sarah’s they said we could each have our own room but I didn’t like the shadows that came at night-time so I used to creep into Vicky’s bed and snuggle up next to her. She’d give me a hug and stroke my hair. If I shut my eyes tight sometimes I could pretend it was Mum back home. In the end Sarah said that we’d better move my bed in and share the room so Vicky could get some sleep. Now my old room is painted ready for the baby and there are lovely new curtains with rabbits and ducks on them but I don’t care, I’d rather be with Vicky.

The path down into the woods looked like a big black mouth.

‘I don’t like it,’ I told Jamie, ‘I’m not going down there.’

‘It’ll be OK. Anyway we’ll be at the camp soon.’

I wouldn’t budge so he got cross.

‘We can’t go back now Re!’ he said, taking my arm and trying to pull me in.

I was stronger than him. He couldn’t make me so in the
end he started walking down the path into the woods on his own. I watched him go and then looked around. I didn’t know which way to go. I wanted Vicky. She always knew what to do. Suddenly I heard a really scary noise. The shadow things were coming to get me now I was on my own. They’d waited for Jamie to go off and now they saw their chance. I screamed then ran after Jamie as fast as I could.

When I caught up with him, he told me to stop bawling my head off or he’d whack me and then I would have something to cry about.

‘But I’m scared of the monsters!’

He laughed. ‘I’m not! If any monsters try anything I’ll just give them a karate kick in their rudey bits then finish them off by thumping them one.’

Jamie’s really brave. I’d just run away if there was a monster standing in front of me ready to pull my arms and legs off or suck out my blood.

It started to spit with rain but Jamie said it didn’t matter because when we got to his camp we’d crawl inside his den and be warm and dry like two snug bugs in a rug. He got out two penguin bars that he’d pinched from the biscuit tin. He let me have the one with the red wrapper. The red ones taste the best. He said we’d have a competition to see who could make theirs last the longest. I won by loads.

I’d just finished the last little crumb when we got to the camp. It looked different in the dark. Some of the branches of the den had caved in and some had blown away. He said he’d mend it and he started pulling them all off and
piling them up on the roof again. It took him ages and he kept swearing when they fell off. When he’d done it we got out our sleeping bags, unrolled them on the floor of the den and crawled inside.

‘I can smell dog wee,’ I said.

‘Shut up Re.’

It was like lying on prickly hedgehogs and my hands still felt cold. Jamie said he’d blow on them to warm them up. He made a funny ‘hhrrrrr’ noise like a dragon blowing out smoke. Ollie Stanmore nicks fags from his dad and he can blow smoke rings. He showed Jamie how to do it once but Jamie just took a couple of puffs and started coughing. Smoking is bad for you. Mrs Edwards told us that in our Healthy Bodies lesson. We watched a video of some lungs filling up with black stuff just like Marmite and a voice said ‘smoking kills’ really loudly. I kept telling Dad that after Mum had gone but he said he needed them to go with his beer. I said, don’t have your beer then but he said he needed it to go with his fags. I said his lungs would fill up with Marmite and then he’d get really ill but he told me not to worry.

The good thing was that he did stop soon after that. He went off beer and just had a bottle of whisky every night instead. Sometimes Maxine lets me have some of her break-time drink from her bottle so I let her have some of mine. It’s nice to have a change. Dad drank the whole bottle really quickly and didn’t even bother about having a smoke. So that was OK. Jamie tried some once. Dad had fallen asleep when we were all watching Pet Rescue on the telly and
Jamie tried the last drops at the bottom of the bottle. He said it tasted like cough medicine but worse. I love cough medicine. Especially cherry flavour. Jamie was a right meanie, he didn’t leave any for me to try.

I was just falling asleep when Jamie jabbed me with his elbow. ‘Stop taking up all the room!’ he hissed.

‘I’m not taking up all the room!’

‘You are, you fat lump!’

‘I am not fat! Don’t call me fat because I’m not fat!’

‘Move over!’

He started pushing me. I pushed him back so he gave me a whopping great shove right in my side.

‘Stop it you conkhog!’ I yelled. He shoved me again. Harder. I rolled into the wall. Some of the branches fell down on my head. Jamie started going balloony.

‘You’re trashing my den!’

‘It’s a rubbish den!’ I yelled back at him. ‘You said we’d be as snug as bugs in a rug!’

Then we heard the noise outside.

‘It’s the monsters Jamie!’

‘Shush!’

‘With stabby beaks.’

‘Shut up Re!’

‘They can stab their way through branches.’

‘Rhianna! Put a cork in it!’

‘You’ve got to do something!’

But Jamie didn’t get up. He just wriggled down in his sleeping bag till I could only see the top of his hair. Then he said in a funny wobbly voice that he wasn’t going anywhere.

‘But you said you’d do karate kicks if any monsters came. You promised!’

‘Will you shut up!’ He sounded really cross. I told him it wasn’t my fault the monsters were outside waiting to bite off our heads. Jamie hissed if I didn’t shut up straight away he’d bite off my head himself and save the monster the job of it. I started asking him how because he hasn’t got pointy teeth but then we saw something coming towards us.

Jamie picked up one of the branches. He crawled out and started to wave it around his head. He didn’t look very scary and his arm was shaking.

‘Quick!’ I screamed. ‘Kick it in its rudey bits!’

‘Just you try it, Jamie Davies!’ I shouted, flashing my torch at him. ‘And put that stick down before you hurt yourself!’

‘What are you doing here?’ asked Jamie.

‘I’ve come to take you home.’

‘Oh yeah?’ said Jamie. ‘That’ll be interesting. Seeing as we don’t have a home at the moment.’

‘Jamie and me have run away,’ said Rhianna. ‘And now you can too.’

‘I’m not staying,’ I said, avoiding Jamie’s eye. ‘You’ve both got to come back.’

‘Why? Who’s going to miss us?’ he muttered. ‘No one wants us now. Can’t you see that, Vicky? We’re just in the way, that’s all. More paperwork for Mrs Frankish.’

‘What about Dad?’ I said.

‘What about him?’ asked Jamie, pulling a face.

I looked down at the ground and kicked at some leaves with my trainer.

‘Maybe he wouldn’t want you to run away,’ I said awkwardly.

But Jamie wasn’t listening any more. He’d turned round and walked back to the shelter.

‘I’m not going and you can’t make me,’ he muttered as he crawled back inside.

I looked at Rhianna. ‘Come on, Re. If we go back now we won’t get in trouble. No one’ll even know we’ve been out.’ I took my hand in hers. It was freezing.

‘OK,’ she grinned. ‘If you come to my new school with me.’

‘I can’t, Re. They won’t let me.’

‘I’m not going without you and Jamie.’

‘It might not be that bad, Re. They’ve got a pool. You love swimming. And you’d make lots of new friends and it won’t be for ever . . .’ My voice went all funny. Like I was fighting with the words and they were winning. I stopped and turned away.