Bindi Babes (18 page)

“Christians!” whispered Ms. Woods, sounding about as friendly as a Roman gladiator in the Colosseum. “Onstage now!”

Paul Bruford, Katie Heaps and Jackson Jones shuffled out onto the stage, looking terrified. Quickly I began to haul at the ropes to change the backdrop to one of St. Paul's Cathedral. Unfortunately, nothing happened. I pulled again, frantically this time. Still no change.

“Amber!” Ms. Woods called urgently from the other side of the stage. I'm sure everyone in the hall heard her. I wouldn't have been surprised if they'd heard her at the end of the street. There was a loud gasp from the audience, which chilled me. After our recent display of behaving badly, they thought I was doing this
on purpose
.

I began to sweat as I realized that somehow I'd messed up, while rushing to change the backdrops earlier that morning. All I could do, as I worked to untangle the ropes, was close my eyes and pray that Widow Twankey's kitchen didn't appear when I pulled.

I pulled. St Paul's Cathedral unfurled before my eyes, and my knees wobbled with relief. The teachers looked relieved too, although some of the pupils seemed quite disappointed.

“You do enjoy living on the edge, don't you, Amber?” Geena remarked, as we lined up to replace
the Christians, who were trooping offstage looking relieved.

“Danger's my middle name,” I said airily, trying to still my madly beating heart.

“We're on,” Jazz whispered.

After that tiny hiccup, everything went smoothly. The inspectors remained poker-faced throughout the whole assembly, but they must have been quite impressed. Even Daniel Cohen remembered his words.

As we all filed out of the hall afterward, there was a definite atmosphere of cautious confidence throughout the school. Even Mr. Grimwade was looking pleased and baring his teeth at everyone. It felt like we'd met the challenge head-on and we were going to survive it. And as we went back to class, Kim smiled at me for the first time in ages. That made me feel better too.

However, there was something unpleasant but necessary that had to be done. At break time, when everyone had gone outside, I went to speak to Mr. Arora. He was sitting in his classroom marking books, and he looked up at me wearily as I approached. There were black circles under his eyes, and I wondered if he'd got any sleep last night at all.

“Sir,” I said hesitantly, “I just wanted to say—I'm sorry for everything that happened last week. It won't happen again.”

Mr. Arora looked at me quizzically for a while. “I'm very glad to hear it,” he said at last. “And, Amber, it's
not surprising. You've had a very tough time over the last year.”

“Yes.” I couldn't even get the “sir” out because my throat was tight.

“And you must know that if you ever want to talk, I'm always available,” he added gently.

What I really wanted to know was why he'd had a row with Auntie at Inderjit's wedding. But I couldn't ask that.

“So …” Mr. Arora began fiddling with a paper clip. “Your auntie lives with you now?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I see.” I didn't know what he saw, and he wasn't going to tell me, either. He pushed back his chair and stood up. “We'll discuss this again when we've got a bit more time. Off you go now.”

I went out into the corridor. Why Auntie had rowed with Mr. Arora didn't matter now anyway. We'd decided not to try and get her married off. That left us with a bit of a situation, though. Was Auntie now here to stay? It was something I would have to discuss with the others.

As I turned the corner, I bumped into Geena, who was coming out of her form room.

“What are you doing here?” she asked. “The bell went ages ago.”

“I could ask you the same question,” I said.

Geena looked a tiny bit embarrassed. “I've just been apologizing to Mrs. Kirke,” she said. “I thought it was the right thing to do.”

“So did I,” I assured her. “I've just come from Mr. Arora.”

“Oh, good,” Geena said, relieved. “Do you think if we twist Jazz's arm enough, she'll say sorry to Mr. Lucas?”

“Let's ask her.”

Jazz was standing in a corner of the playground on her own. Her eyes were suspiciously pink and she was sniffing.

“What's up?” Geena asked, handing her a tissue. “You don't have to examine it. It
is
clean.”

“I've just been talking to Mr. Lucas,” Jazz sniffled. “He was really
nice
to me. We talked about Mum and everything.”

Geena and I put our arms round her. My lip was wobbling and Geena looked bright and teary round the eyes. In a moment we'd all be bawling, and this wasn't the time or the place.

We were saved by Kim, who was coming slowly toward us, her face pink, as if she wasn't sure of her welcome. Geena nodded at me, whispered, “Make it up,” and led a gulping Jazz away.

“Are you all right?” Kim asked shyly.

I nodded. “Don't worry. We've given up behaving badly. You were right. It was a stupid idea.”

“Oh.” Kim looked relieved.

“What about Gary?” I asked. “Did you talk to your mum?”

Kim beamed as if a light had been switched on inside her. “Yeah, I did. You'll never guess what,
she'd decided to chuck him anyway. He's gone. For good.”

“That's great.” I gave her a big hug. I'd never done that before, but she looked pleased.

A snigger from behind interrupted us. George Botley stood there, his eyes popping out. “What are you two up to?” he said, grinning.

I walked up to him and stood nose to nose. “George,” I said, “you're not going to get anywhere while you're the class joke. And no girl's going to look at you twice. So you'd better take a long, hard look at yourself, and start shaping up.”

I led Kim away across the playground. We left George openmouthed and red-faced, gawping after us.

“You're
not going to go out with him, are you?” Kim asked in awe.

“No way,” I said. “But it's given him something to think about.”

By the time I met up with Geena and Jazz at the end of the day, we all looked and felt happier. But we didn't say anything about what had happened until we'd left Kim at the flats and walked on. Then there was something else to sort out.

“What are we going to do about Auntie?” I asked.

Geena gave me a stern look. “I thought we'd decided not to try and find her a husband.”

“Fine,” I agreed. “She might get married anyway, sometime, and move out. But what are we going to do
now
?”

Jazz looked alarmed. “If you've got any more dumb ideas, Amber, just keep them to yourself.”

“As a matter of fact, I haven't,” I admitted. “Not a single, solitary one.”

“So what are you saying?” Geena asked briskly.

I knew what we had to do. I just didn't want to admit it. “I'm saying that I haven't got any more ideas.”

“Which means,” Geena persisted ruthlessly, “that Auntie's here, she's staying and we have to get used to it.”

“Oh, let's not go that far,” I cut in. “We'll give her a
chance
, that's all.”

“And what if she still gets on our nerves after six months?” Jazz asked doubtfully.

“Er—I'm sure I'll have another idea by then,” I mumbled.

Geena shook her head. “Admit it, Amber,” she said. “Auntie isn't going anywhere. There's only one thing for it and, believe me, I don't like it any more than you do.” She took a deep breath. “We'll have to try and get along with her.”

“Are you kidding?” Jazz shrieked.

“Have you got any better ideas?” demanded Geena.

Jazz looked sullen. “No. But I'd rather cut my ears off.”

“Then you won't get your second holes,” I pointed out.

Jazz couldn't help laughing. “But will she try to get along with
us
?” she asked.

“If you mean, will she let us stay up late and live on takeaways and get away with murder, then, no,” Geena replied. “But then, Mum wouldn't have done that either, would she?”

Jazz and I were silent. Almost without knowing it, we'd kind of slipped into a routine over the past three weeks. Thinking back, it reminded me of when Mum was there. If I was perfectly honest, I knew that Geena was right and that Mum would have behaved almost exactly the same as Auntie about bedtimes and boring stuff like that. We'd only got away with so much over the last year because Dad had been so out of it.

“Does that mean we have to be nice to her, though?” I asked, only half joking.

“We're teenagers,” Geena replied. “That means we don't have to be nice to anyone.”

“Amber's not a teenager yet and neither am I,” Jazz remarked.

“You behave like one,” I told her.

“Do I?” Jazz looked pleased, then frowned.

Dad's car was outside the house again when we got home. But we were so used to it by now, nobody commented. He came out of the living room as we let ourselves in, and one look at his face made my stomach lurch sickeningly. He looked as if he'd been crying.

“Dad, what's the matter?” Geena asked.

He stared emptily at us. “I had a row with your auntie,” he said. “She's gone.”

“G
one?” I repeated. “What do you mean?” “She packed up and left in a taxi a few minutes ago,” Dad said. “I don't know where she's gone.”

A great wave of fury rushed over me. She'd
gone
? When the going got rough, she'd just upped and left? I had Auntie down as many things, but not a quitter.

“You mean, she's not coming back?” Jazz asked, arriving into the conversation late as usual.

Dad shook his head helplessly.

“Dad, what did you argue about?” Geena asked.

He shrugged. “You girls. The way she was interfering. I knew you didn't like it. I knew you found it hard.”

None of us could speak.

“I found it hard too,” Dad went on. “I didn't want to be reminded—” He cleared his throat and tried again, took his glasses off and put them back on. “I didn't want to be reminded of what happened to your mum.”

“Maybe Auntie was right, though,” I said, forcing the words out past the lump stuck in my throat. “Perhaps we
should
have talked about it.”

“Maybe we'd feel better if we did,” Geena agreed. Jazz nodded.

We stood there looking helplessly at each other. It was difficult to know where to start.

“Right.” Dad squared his shoulders, looking more together than he'd been for a long time. “The first thing I need to do is try to sort things out with your aunt. I'm going out to look for her.”

“We'll come too,” I began. But Dad shook his head.

“You three wait here,” he told us. “She might phone. We'll talk when I get back.”

And I knew that, at last, he meant
talk
. Then he did something he hadn't done for ages. He hugged each one of us tightly for a long time. It felt as if we were climbing a tall mountain and we were very close to the summit. By leaving, Auntie had finally achieved what she wanted. We were
talking
.

The door shut behind Dad. Without a word to the others, I turned away and slipped upstairs. I didn't know why, but I knew where I was going.

I passed my bedroom and peeked in. The bed had been stripped, and the wardrobe doors stood open. The wardrobe was empty except for coat hangers.

I went into Mum and Dad's bedroom. I kneeled on the floor and pulled a familiar blue suitcase out from under the bed. It was covered in dust, which I smoothed away with my fingers before unlocking it.

The perfume that hit me made the tears start in my eyes before I even saw Mum's clothes. Flowery and familiar, it wafted into the bedroom and lingered around me. I put my head down on the gold sari that lay on top of the case and began to cry.

I cried until my face was raw and aching and my eyes were swollen. It seemed like hours but in reality it was only a few minutes, I think. And when I wiped the tears from my face at last, I felt better. As if I had finally climbed to the top of that mountain.

I plunged my hands into the pool of saris. Scarlet, royal blue, deep purple, pinks, golds, creams, tangerines and citrus, they flowed around me in silks and satins and chiffons, until I was surrounded by color. Underneath were piles of letters and other bits of paper.

I picked one of the letters up and idly glanced at it. Instantly I was transfixed. I read the next one and the next. It was a gorgeous and moving love story, like a Bollywood film but real. Letters from years ago, before we were born. Letters between Mum and Dad, Dad and Auntie, Mum and Auntie, Dad and his parents. And as I read them, I began to understand everything that had happened.