Cherry Blossom Dreams (19 page)

‘Neither did I.’ I lowered my voice. ‘Sean, what were you doing in the pet shop just now?’

‘Tell you later. Right now I have to get upstairs and start being a good little sick boy again before Leo gets on my case.’

‘Too late for that, Sean,’ Leo said as he entered the kitchen behind us. ‘But you can certainly go up to your room and make a start on all the homework I managed to procure for you.’

‘
Homework?
Come on, Leo, give it a break, can’t you? I mean, don’t tell me
you
never pulled a sickie when you were a kid!’

Leo looked surprised. ‘Actually, Sean, I never did. Both my parents were teachers, remember. My life wouldn’t have been worth living if I had, especially as my dad was best mates with my headmaster.’

‘Oh yeah … I forgot … sorry.’ Sean actually smiled. ‘You know, that really explains a lot. Keep reminding me so I can make more allowances for you!’

And he disappeared upstairs with a cheeky grin on his face before Leo could respond.

Later that evening I walked in on Mum and Leo while they were discussing my brother in the kitchen. It wasn’t a private discussion. Sean was right there, leaning against the kitchen counter looking sulky.

‘You can’t be serious about just letting this go, Annabel!’ Leo was saying. ‘You just heard him admit that he lied to you about being sick this morning, which is bad enough … but then to have the brass neck to go out and meet up with Zack the second school’s out … He’s lucky it was me who spotted him and not Mr Jamieson.’

‘I get what you’re saying,’ Mum replied. ‘But it’s done now. I just don’t see what else you want me to do!’

‘For God’s sake, Annabel! It’s surely not that hard to come up with
some
kind of consequence! You can’t just let him bunk off school!’

Mum looked very angry suddenly, as if Leo had hit on a raw nerve. ‘Hey, don’t
you
start with the criticism,’ she snarled. ‘I’ve had a bellyful of that already today!’

‘What do you mean, Mum?’ I asked – then quickly wished I hadn’t as she turned to glare at me.

‘What do you think I mean?’ she snapped. ‘Miranda is still furious with me about your party. She says I’m obviously failing to supervise the two of you adequately and that I need to address it pronto.’

‘But that’s not fair, Mum,’ I protested. ‘The party wasn’t
your
fault.’

‘Yeah,’ Sean agreed. ‘Don’t listen to Miranda, Mum. It’s none of her business anyway.’

‘Oh, I don’t know about that, Sean,’ Leo put in brusquely. ‘If news of your party gets out it will be very much her business that will suffer, I should think.’

‘I’m dealing with this, thank you, Leo!’ Mum jumped in sharply. ‘There’s no need for you to interfere.’

‘Oh yeah?’ Leo sounded annoyed. ‘Well, maybe you should make up your mind, Annabel! Because one minute you’re encouraging me to be a father figure to the kids and the next you want me to butt out completely. You can’t have it both ways. It’s confusing for me and it’s confusing for them!’

There was a bit of an awkward silence while they glared at each other. Then Mum swore under her breath and stormed out of the kitchen.

It was what happened next that really scared us.

Leo stormed out of the kitchen after her, but instead of following her upstairs, he slammed out through the front door without even saying goodbye.

That night I found it hard to get to sleep, and even when I did, I ended up waking up in the middle of the night in a panic. I lay awake again after that, trying not to think about Leo and Mum. I was really worried. It’s like Granny says – Mum’s pretty rubbish when it comes to lasting relationships. And if she didn’t do something to fix this, I was terrified that Leo would leave us for good.

Leo wasn’t there when we got up the next morning, which I guess shouldn’t have been surprising, though I have to admit I’d been really hoping he’d come back at some point during the night. Mum hardly even looked at us while we ate breakfast, and for the most part she seemed lost in a world of her own. I knew she was feeling down, and probably upset about Leo, and usually if she feels that way she’ll talk to Miranda about it when she gets to work. But thanks to us, she couldn’t even do that at the moment.

‘You know, I’m really sorry about the party, Mum,’ I said earnestly, feeling guilty for letting my desire to impress Rafferty override everything and everyone else.

But Mum still didn’t speak and I had a horrible feeling that she wasn’t even listening as she carried on sipping her coffee in silence.

It turned out to be another miserable day at school.

First I had to lie to Leo in front of our whole registration class, when he asked me why my brother was absent yet again. (Sean was taking another sick day without even telling Mum and he was planning to spend it at Blossom House.)

Priti was still ignoring me, and Lily was wandering around flanked by Clara and Hanna like they were her bodyguards. My first lesson of the day was maths (my least favourite subject) and straight away the taunts started:

‘Hey, Sasha! Your mum must be pretty hot if she’s going out with Mr Anderson!’

‘Her mum
is
pretty hot! I’ve seen her!’

‘So how did they meet, Sasha? Did they see each other across the room at parents’ night and have that whole
lurve
at first sight thing?’

As most of the class started laughing I stood up to escape the room – just as Miss Benkowski walked in. My legs felt wobbly and my head was spinning and it wasn’t a lie when I told our teacher I felt sick.

As I took some deep breaths and tried to calm myself in the girls’ toilets, I vaguely wondered if this was how it felt to be bullied. Right from when I was little I’d been told I should always report bullying, but I wasn’t sure if this counted as that. And even if it did, there was no way I was putting myself through the humiliation of reporting it to Miss Benkowski, who would almost certainly rush off and tell Leo.

‘Of course it’s bullying,’ Zack said when I told him about it at break time. ‘If people made fun of you for having a disability, you’d say it was bullying, wouldn’t you?’

‘But I don’t
have
a disability!’

‘Well, I’d say you’ve got a pretty major
social
disability,’ Zack replied matter-of-factly. ‘Until all the fuss dies down at any rate.’

I guessed he had a point. In any case, I was so grateful to him for looking out for me that I didn’t even mind when he started up a conversation about stick insects.

‘So where’s Sean today?’ Zack eventually asked me. ‘Did Leo murder him yesterday or what?’

‘Not exactly. What were you two doing in the pet shop anyway?’

‘Buying some frozen mice. I gave one to Sean to use as bait. Didn’t he tell you?’

I shook my head.

‘We’d been talking about how to catch Monty and he mentioned that birdcage you found. Sounds just the thing, so I told him how he could use it as a snake trap.’

‘I don’t know why he didn’t tell me,’ I said crossly. ‘I’m going to text him right now and see what he’s doing …’

It turned out that Sean hadn’t managed to get inside Blossom House today after all, because the gardener was there. Now he was back at home feeling worried because apparently Leo had already sent him two extremely stern texts as well as leaving an irate message on his voicemail.

I immediately sent Sean a jubilant text back:
Bet he comes round 2 check up on u after school
!!!

And OK, so maybe the smiley face was a bit tactless, but I was just so relieved that Leo still cared enough to keep hassling him.

But Leo didn’t actually come round after school that day, or send my brother any further messages.

By the time Mum got home from work Sean was worried enough to confess straight away that he had played truant, saying he just couldn’t face all the fuss about her and Leo. Luckily, instead of being angry, Mum just nodded and said that she wasn’t feeling much like facing the world right now either. Then she said she was going upstairs to have a rest and to do some yoga before Leo got here later on tonight.

‘Leo’s coming here later?’ Sean and I both said at once.

‘Yes. He phoned me earlier. He wanted to pop in after school but I told him to come later once the two of you are in bed. This way he and I can have a proper talk without you two listening in.’

Sean and I looked at each other anxiously. We’d both known Mum long enough to realise what was likely to happen. Mum wasn’t capable of just ‘talking’. Not about this sort of thing. There would be a massive row, and tears. Mum would tell Leo to get lost. Leo would slam the door and go back to being just our teacher. Mum would be miserable again, Sean would miss Leo even more than Married Michael, and as for me …

‘Sean, we have to do something,’ I blurted desperately when Mum had gone upstairs. But even as I said it I knew there was nothing we could do but let the whole thing play out.

‘It’s up to them, not us,’ Sean murmured, sounding just as upset as I was. ‘But she’s daft if she thinks we’re not going to stay awake until he gets here, so we can listen.’

I was coming out of the bathroom after my much-later-than-usual shower, when I heard Leo’s voice downstairs. Sean was already in position, seated on the top stair in his T-shirt and pyjama bottoms, listening intently.

‘What’s going on?’ I whispered.

‘Leo got here ten minutes ago and they’re already having another row – a bad one.’

I sat down next to him and asked nervously, ‘What about?’

‘Us.’

Sure enough I could hear Mum’s voice from the living room sounding angry. ‘Leo, there’s no way
you’re
going to be making any decisions about
my
children! And if you think that us getting married automatically makes
you
head of this family, then think again!’

‘Come off it, Annabel! That’s not what I think and you know it!’

‘Good, because frankly I think you’re a bit too
young
to play the role of patriarch, don’t you?’

I gasped and Sean let out a whispered, ‘Ouch!’

Leo’s voice sounded stony. ‘You really don’t get it, do you? I
know
I’m too young to be their biological father … well, not unless I’d had them when I was seventeen, God forbid.’ He paused and his voice sounded shakier as he continued, ‘But when … if … we get married I’ll still be the closest thing to a dad that those two have got! So if you’re saying you don’t think I can make the grade as a half-decent step-dad because I’m too young, then maybe we
should
think again. Because there’s
no
way I won’t be wanting to take a role in their upbringing over the next few years!’

‘Oh, really?’ Mum sounded sarcastic.

‘Yes –
really
. And don’t look at me like that, Annabel, because from what I’ve seen, you could use the help!’

‘Oh!’ Mum sounded like she’d been slapped.

‘Uh-oh,’ Sean whispered.

Downstairs we heard a clatter and saw something small and shiny bounce out on to the wooden floor of the hall.

‘There goes the engagement ring,’ Sean muttered.

Two seconds later Mum came storming through the hall like a whirling dervish, heading for the stairs. And us.

Sean and I quickly scrambled to our feet, but we weren’t quick enough. We just had time to flatten ourselves against the wall to let her pass.

‘You two should be in bed!’ Mum snapped as she rushed past us into her bedroom and slammed the door shut behind her.

Down in the hall, Leo was picking up Mum’s engagement ring and placing it on the hall table. He looked dazed.

‘Leo!’ I called out hoarsely.

He looked up at us then, clearly trying to pull himself together enough to say something normal. ‘You heard your mum. Go to bed.’

But we didn’t move.

‘Hey!’ His voice was instantly softer as he said, ‘I’ll see you both at school tomorrow.’ He gave my brother an extra long look as he added, ‘Right, Sean?’

And I didn’t miss the way Sean swallowed really hard before croaking, ‘Yes, Leo.’

The teasing about Leo and Mum continued at school the next day, although in the light of what had happened the night before I felt a bit removed from it. As usual, neither Lily nor Priti joined in, but they both kept out of my way.