Fruit and Nutcase (14 page)

But Jade is special, and everyone adores her.

I wish I hadn’t upset Auntie Liz by using bad language! I mean, it was just, like, stuff we say all the time in the playground. The sort of stuff you don’t even think about. But Auntie Liz moved to Croydon to get away from all that.

I wish she’d give me a second chance! But I don’t think she will. Whenever she takes Jade to visit Nan and Grandy she always checks first that I’m not going to be there. She calls me “that child”. I’ve heard her. I was at Nan’s once and she rang up and I could hear her voice on the telephone. She said, “We’d like to come and see you next Sunday, Mum, but I wouldn’t want to bring Jade if that child was going to be there.”

Nan says she’s quite right. She thinks I’m a real bad influence. Maybe when my book is published
and I’ve made a lot of money and we can live in a nice house they will change their minds. I do hope so because I really love Jade! She is so funny and clever and sweet, and she’s my only cousin in the whole wide world. I would be miserable if they never let me see her again.

But at the moment they don’t want me anywhere near her in case I suddenly without thinking say something crude and vulgar, so Mum knew it wouldn’t be any use asking if I could go to Croydon to stay. (Dad said he wouldn’t let me in any case. “After they insulted us? No way! My Mand’s worth a dozen of that little ponced-up miss.” My dad always sticks up for me.)

I told Mum that I would be just fine on my own. I said, “I’ve been on my own before and I didn’t burn the house down.” Mum is more likely to burn the house down than I am!

Mum said, “Yes, but that was only for a few days.”

See, it wasn’t as if she just didn’t bother. It wasn’t like she just walked out and left me. She was really worried. She said, “You’ll be here every day, all by yourself. What will you find to do all the time?”

I said that I would get on with my recording
for Cat, and do some wall painting, and clean the flat and do the shopping and the ironing and lay the table ready for Dad’s tea.

“And on Saturdays we can have fun ‘cos there won’t be any work for you to do … I’ll have done it all!”

Mum liked that idea. She got quite excited and started planning all the things we could do on Saturday afternoons as a family. She said, “We’ll all go to places together. Think of some places where you’d like to go!”

So I made a list, which I have lost now, but these are some of the things that were on it:

• London Dungeon
  

• The Waxworks
  

• The Zoo
  

• Chessington World of Adventure
  

• Burger King
  

• Covent Garden
  

I put Covent Garden because I once heard Tracey Bigg telling Aimee and Leanne that there was some street theatre there and it was fun. She’d seen people walking on stilts! I’d love to walk on stilts. I bet I could, too! I bet I’d be really good at it. I can already walk on my hands and do cartwheels.

Tracey Bigg can’t. She tried in the playground and just went flump.

I was really looking forward to doing things as a family, and so was Mum. I don’t expect, really, that we’d have been able to afford to do everything that was on my list, but we could have done
some
of them. We could have gone to Covent Garden to see the people on stilts, and we could have had a burger. And then maybe we’d have made a picnic and gone on the tube somewhere to eat it. Somewhere nice and green, like … like the park, or somewhere. We might even have looked at houses all day and chosen which one we’d like to buy when my book is published.

Whatever we would have done, it would have been fun. But the very first day of the holiday, it all went and got ruined.

I was really happy that day! I spent all morning doing wall painting, and then I opened a tin of tomato soup and put a packet of crisps in it (yum yum! Two of my favourites), and then I did a bit of recording, and then I thought perhaps I ought to do some housework, as I’d promised Mum, so I went and got the plastic sacks where she keeps the ironing and I was just setting up the ironing board when there’s this ring at the door bell, which makes me jump, ‘cos nobody ever rings at our door bell, hardly. And the ironing board goes and folds itself up on one of my fingers and makes me yell.

There’s something wrong with the ironing board. Mum bought it second-hand at a boot sale and it’s always collapsing. Dad’s supposed to have looked at it, but he never has. Anyway, I don’t expect he could do anything.

I went kind of slowly down the stairs, sucking at my finger ‘cos it really hurt, and old Misery’s peering out, all nosey parkering same as usual. She goes, “Who is it? Who are you expecting?” And then she tells me not to take the chain off ‘cos it
could be a mugger. She’s always going on about muggers. She thinks there’s a mugger hiding behind every dustbin.

Anyway, I kept the chain on, just to make her happy; I wasn’t really expecting it to be a mugger. Afterwards I wished it had been. ‘Cos what it was, it was even worse. It was my nan.

She said, “Oh, so you’re here! I’ve been trying to ring you all week.”

I explained that the telephone wasn’t working, and she said, “You mean it’s been cut off, I suppose,” and made this cross tutting sound with her tongue. I said, “It wasn’t their fault, they forgot to pay the bill. I should have reminded them. They have ever so many things to think about.”

Nan said, “Rubbish! They’re totally useless, the pair of them.” And then she said, “Well! Aren’t you going to let me in?”

So I let her in and we went upstairs and she said how she’d been going to ask old Misery Guts what had happened to us.

“I thought you’d all been murdered in your beds or your mother had finally managed to set fire to the place. Either that, or you’d been thrown out. Where is your mother, anyway?”

I said that Mum was at work and Nan nearly hit the roof.

“You mean she’s left you here on your own?”

I said, “I’m old enough!” I wasn’t going to have Nan slagging my mum off.

Nan said, “Don’t be absurd, you’re nowhere near old enough. A child of your age!”

I really resented that. I told Nan that in some countries there were people far younger than me out on the streets having to look after themselves. Nan said that didn’t make it right and that Mum ought to be ashamed of herself. She said, “It’s an absolute disgrace!”

I said, “Why pick on Mum?” It wasn’t that I wanted to get my dad into trouble, but I didn’t
think it was fair, only having a go at Mum.

Nan said, “They’re both as bad as each other. And where did you get that black eye?”

I didn’t like to tell her I’d gone through the floorboard. She’d only have started on again about Mum and Dad being useless. I said, “I fell over in the playground.” Nan made this snorting noise down her nose and said, “Fighting, I suppose.”

Indignantly I told her that I didn’t fight. “People pick on me.”

“Oh, yes?” said Nan. “And what in heaven’s name has been going on in here?”

She’d barged her way past me, into the kitchen. I have to admit, it did look a bit of a mess.

I started to explain that I hadn’t yet got around to tidying up when there was yet another ring at the front door bell. I couldn’t believe it! Twice in one day!

I said, “I’ll go!” and went galloping back down the stairs.

Old Misery yelped, “You keep that chain on!” but this time I didn’t ‘cos I was just about sick of old Misery Guts and the way she kept poking her nose in where it wasn’t wanted.

I thought that if it was a mugger I would ask him in and first he could mug Misery Guts and then he could go upstairs and mug my nan. I wouldn’t let him mug me, I’d kung fu him!

But I reckoned he’d probably have done enough mugging by then. Anyway, it wasn’t a mugger, it was Mum. She giggled and said, “Good thing you’re here! I forgot my key.” I said, “Mum,” trying to warn her, but she was in one of her bubbly moods and didn’t listen. She set off up the stairs, burbling as she went.

“Eh, Mandy, guess what? Guess what old
Sourpuss gave me? A birthday cake! It was for this woman that never come to collect it, so she reckoned I might as well have it. It’s got ‘Happy Birthday Barny’ on it, so I thought what we could do, we could change Barny into Barry and give it your dad and—”

That was when Mum reached the top of the stairs and bumped into Nan.

She said, “Oh! H–hello, Mum.” Nan said, “Why has this child been left on her own all day? It’s a disgrace!”

And then old Misery Guts’ voice came shrieking up the stairs: “That’s not the only thing that is!”

“What’s she on about?” said Nan. She peered over the banisters and called down. “Who pulled your chain?”

“Ask them, ask them!” yelled Misery Guts. “Rowing and carrying on at all hours! They’re not fit to have a child!”

“You just keep your lid on!” shouted Nan. “We don’t need you shoving your oar in!”

“She’s always having a go at us,” said Mum.

“Yes, and not without cause, I’d say.” Nan turned to go stomping back into the kitchen. “What’s all this?” she said. She’d suddenly
noticed the yellow blodges and the fried egg. I said it was paint, and Nan said she could see that, thank you very much.

“What’s it doing there?”

So then I had to explain about the floorboard, and Mum told her about the water heater and how the landlord wouldn’t do anything, and how the banisters had broken, and the kitchen cabinet wouldn’t stay on the wall, and there were holes in the lino and the roof leaked and the whole place was just a tip; and Nan listened to it all with her face growing grimmer and grimmer.