The Honeymoon Sisters (10 page)

‘That sounds great, Dad.’ To actually see Dad on his birthday and get to celebrate it with him would be fantastic! ‘I just need to check with Mum.’

‘If there’s a problem, get her to ring me,’ he said (which I knew meant he was prepared to argue with her about it if necessary). ‘Otherwise I’ll see you on Friday.’

‘
OK
. See you on Friday.’

As I came off the phone I couldn’t help wishing we were more like Anne-Marie’s family, who always say ‘Love you’ to each other at the end of every phone call. I think that’s really nice, and sometimes I imagine myself saying that to Dad and him saying it back to me. Somehow I can’t see that ever happening for real though. Even Mum doesn’t do it that often.

‘Is everything all right, girls?’ Mum asked as she came into the kitchen.

‘Yes,’ I said quickly. ‘Dad just phoned.’ I told her what he’d suggested and she said that was fine. ‘Mum, when is Lenny coming next?’ I asked.

‘I’m not sure. She’s getting back to me about it. Why?’

‘I want to speak to her.’

I saw the wary look Sadie gave me but I didn’t care. I went to get changed out of my school uniform.

‘So what are you going to tell Lenny?’ Sadie demanded, coming into my room without even knocking.

I shrugged. ‘Haven’t decided yet.’

‘You know what, Poppy? I like it here – and I really want to stay. So if you insist on trying to spoil things for me, like telling the social workers about me going to see Alison, then I might just have to speak to them too. Because there’s something I know about your mum that I bet they
don’t
.’

‘What do you mean?’

She came and sat down on my bed uninvited, looking like she was about to confide some big secret. ‘I know the
real
reason your mum and my dad fell out.’

‘What are you talking about?’ I asked impatiently. I wanted to get changed, but I wasn’t about to do it in front of her.

‘Your mum tried to steal me away from Dad when I
was little. That’s why he wouldn’t let her see me again. She actually tried to kidnap me!’

‘Oh come off it!’ I scoffed. ‘Mum
loves
children … there’s no way she’d ever do anything like that to you or any other child …’

‘Dad says she probably thought she was rescuing me, but that she still had no right.’ She lowered her voice. ‘You see, she wanted to adopt me, and when Dad said no she freaked out, and that’s when she tried to kidnap me.’ She paused. ‘Somehow I don’t think she’d be allowed to be a foster carer any longer if social services knew about that, do you?’

I just stared at her in disbelief. I was pretty sure she was making this up, but still …

‘You do realise I can easily check this out with Mum?’ I said crossly. In fact, this was probably just what I needed to get Mum to see past Sadie’s perfect-little-foster-girl act. How would she feel when she heard what Sadie had just said about her, I wondered.

But Sadie was one step ahead of me. ‘She won’t like me any more if you tell her, which is why you can’t tell her. I mean it, Poppy – if you say anything to your mum about this, then the whole deal’s off.’

‘
What
deal?’

‘The deal that
I
won’t tell my social worker what your mum did, so long as
you
tell yours that you like me staying here. And you also have to keep quiet about me sneaking off to see Alison.’

I gaped at her. ‘Sadie, why are you doing this?’

‘I told you. I want to stay here. At least until a better option comes up.’

I stared at her in dismay. Not that I believed any of what she was saying about Mum, but even so …

I couldn’t help remembering what Mum had said about falling out with Sadie’s dad and wishing she’d handled things differently.

I badly wanted to go and talk to Mum about it but I decided I’d better play it safe and keep quiet for now. Dad was bound to know what had really happened and I was seeing him on Friday. After I’d spoken to him, I could talk to Mum, and she would be forced to see what Sadie was really like.

As for the very minute possibility that Sadie was telling the truth … well, that was so unlikely it wasn’t worth thinking about.

And that’s when the pain in my tummy started.

I had a sudden flashback to the time just before Mum and Dad split up, when I’d had lots of tummy pains.
Our doctor hadn’t found anything physically wrong with me, but had told Mum that tummy aches in children can be a sign of some kind of emotional problem or underlying stress. I curled up on my side on my bed, trying to relax, waiting for the pain to stop. Only it didn’t. In fact it started to get worse …

Chapter Fourteen

At school the next day my first lesson passed slowly. I started getting tummy cramps again soon after I walked into the classroom. I’d taken some painkillers when it had happened the night before and by the time I’d gone to bed I’d felt a lot better.

I hadn’t brought any pills with me to school this morning but luckily the pain was easing off by itself by morning break. I had decided to avoid Sadie as much as I could that day, but as I walked into the playground I spotted her chatting to a group of Year Sevens. They were all looking towards the main door, where our headmaster, Mr Jamieson, was standing.

What was Sadie up to now? It was bugging me so much not knowing that in the end I decided to go over and see.

‘You’re just winding us up,’ I heard one of the Year
Seven girls say as I approached them.

As soon as Sadie spotted me she called out, ‘Hey, Poppy, I was just pointing out that Mr Jamieson would make a perfect target, the way he stands in one spot like that, at the same place at the same time every morning. He’d be a hitman’s dream, don’t you think? Even your mum couldn’t miss and she’s the worst shot in the family!’

‘Don’t be daft!’ I snapped.

‘I don’t see why he’d be a target for a hitman,’ somebody said.

‘Ah,’ Sadie said, making her voice all mysterious. ‘Just because he’s our headmaster
now
doesn’t mean that’s all he
ever
was! We don’t know
what
he was doing before he came here, do we?’

‘Yeah, cos a lot of gangsters are getting new identities as head teachers these days,’ I said.

Sadie hid a grin as Mr Jamieson walked right out into the middle of the playground to tell somebody off. ‘Is that a clean shot or what?’

Suddenly there was a loud crack that sounded exactly like a gunshot and I nearly jumped out of my skin. A couple of girls actually screamed. It took a few moments to realise it was only a car backfiring in the teacher’s car park, then we all burst out laughing.

‘Phew!’ Sadie said with a grin when we’d recovered. ‘You know, Poppy’s mum is always saying that if you can time it right a gunshot can be totally camouflaged by a car backfiring. But my dad says it’s always better to use a silencer. Those two are always disagreeing about the best way to do the job, but I guess that’s families for you, eh, Poppy?’

‘Sadie, stop talking rubbish!’ I said. But as I watched the Year Sevens grinning their heads off, clearly hugely entertained if not convinced at all by her story, I could see how much she was enjoying being the centre of attention.

It was only as I walked away from them that I registered something. If she was talking about our ‘family business’ so openly, that meant she must no longer be trying to hide the fact that I was her cousin.

At lunchtime I headed reluctantly to Mrs Smee’s classroom, where she was holding a meeting about the school open afternoon. Apparently Mr Jamieson had decided this week that there wasn’t enough already planned, and so he had delegated several more projects to be prepared by certain staff and pupils. Our year, together with Year Nine, had been told to organise a short debate,
and Mrs Smee had been put in charge of it. She had told both me and the Year Nine school council rep to round up a few pupils who weren’t already contributing to the open day and bring them to a meeting about it at lunchtime today. Mrs Smee had made it very clear that she expected me to be her chief helper on the day since the Year Nine rep had a prior commitment.

The first question Mrs Smee asked when I walked in was whether I was going to take part in the debate myself.

‘No way!’ I responded, horrified at the thought.

‘Well, you may have to if we don’t get enough volunteers,’ she said tersely. ‘And as a member of the school council I shall expect you to pull your weight. I must say that compared with some of the other year reps, you haven’t been as visible as you could be, Poppy.’ She reached down to scratch her knee under her skirt and I caught a glimpse of the tops of her popsocks.

The first person to arrive at the meeting was Anne-Marie. For as long as I’ve known her, Anne-Marie’s never had a problem speaking out in public, which is why I’d begged her to come today. I’d also begged Josh and Sean, though I wasn’t sure they’d turn up.

While we were waiting for more people to arrive I went over to talk to Anne-Marie. ‘Sadie found your
rhyme,’ I warned her. ‘Has she said anything to you?’

‘Oh, she messaged me this morning,’ Anne-Marie said. ‘We had quite a long chat. I told her I think it’s cool that she’s your cousin. She said my poem was pretty funny and that we should totally hang out together since we both love animals. She even says she really wants to come and see my pets. In fact, I might see if she wants to come round after school today. You can come too if you like. You haven’t seen our new baby rabbits yet, have you?’

I frowned. Considering Sadie’s outburst last night, this just felt all wrong to me. ‘Anne-Marie … you’re sure Sadie wasn’t being sarcastic or pulling your leg or something?’

Anne-Marie scowled at me. ‘Why are you asking that? Are you jealous or something?’

‘No! It’s just …’ But I couldn’t think how to say what I wanted to say. I wasn’t sure what Sadie was up to exactly, but I was certain it wasn’t anything good.

‘Look … there she is with Josh,’ Anne-Marie said, giving me a nudge as the two of them walked in together laughing.

What was Sadie doing here when I hadn’t even told her about the meeting? And why was she being so pally with Josh all of a sudden?

‘Guess what, Poppy?’ Sadie greeted me as if we were the best of friends. ‘Me and you are going on a double date this Saturday with Josh and Sean!’

I pulled a face. ‘Quit winding me up.’

‘She’s not. It’s not a double date exactly, but we thought we’d all go bowling,’ Josh told me with a grin. ‘If you and Sean are up for it, that is.’

‘Sean should be here any minute,’ Sadie said. ‘He wasn’t planning to come to this but he changed his mind when I told him
you
wanted him to, Poppy.’ She gave a knowing little giggle and Josh was smirking too.

I glared at both of them. What was happening here? I felt totally wrong-footed, as if I’d just missed something significant.

Before I could think too much about it Mrs Smee clapped her hands together for silence.

‘As you all know,’ she began loudly, ‘Poppy is this year’s Year Eight representative on the school council.’

There was a snigger from the doorway and I saw that Katy and Julia were standing there. I certainly hadn’t invited
them
.

‘As such,’ Mrs Smee continued, ‘I have asked her to help me organise a short debate to include as Year Eight and Year Nine’s contribution to the open day. So first
of all we need a suitable debate topic.’

‘How about:
Zoos should be abolished
?’ Sadie suggested at once.

Mrs Smee held up her finger for silence. ‘If you would please let me finish, Sadie … I have to say that one topic that always works well is the school uniform argument. Now I wouldn’t normally say this, but on this occasion I think we need to choose something tried and tested. Mr Jamieson’s rather sudden idea to have this debate has left us with very little time to prepare.’

I wanted to smile as I imagined how Dad would scoff if he could hear her championing a ‘tried and tested’ debate: ‘You should be choosing a current and highly contentious issue, not some nice safe topic that’s been discussed to death already!’

‘But the
ZOOS
one will be much better!’ Sadie spoke up. ‘It won’t be too difficult and it’s a more important topic. I already know loads of arguments and –’

‘Sadie, I want this to be a well researched debate with equal representation for both sides,’ Mrs Smee interrupted impatiently. ‘I do
not
want it turning into some kind of animal rights presentation!’

Meanwhile, Sean was whispering something to Josh, who seemed to be struggling not to laugh.

Mrs Smee glared at them. ‘Perhaps you’d like to share the joke, boys?’

Sean grinned as he readily complied. ‘I was just telling Josh something I … um … heard about Mr Jamieson. Apparently he’s always going on about how Edinburgh Zoo is the best zoo in the
UK
, because some ancient relative of his actually
founded
it.’

Everyone started talking at once then. Most people thought that would make the zoo debate even more entertaining and that we should definitely do it.

‘Though I think Sadie should argue
FOR
zoos!’ Sean said mischievously. ‘Just to give herself more of a challenge!’

‘I’m
NOT
arguing for something I don’t believe in!’ Sadie declared hotly. ‘And no way am I going to try and convince people that locking up animals and taking away their freedom is a
good
thing!’

‘Yes, yes, calm down …’ Mrs Smee was looking at her watch impatiently. ‘I would like six volunteers to make up the two debating teams, please.’ She looked at me expectantly and I swiftly ducked my head.

‘So are we doing the one about zoos or the one about uniforms?’ Anne-Marie asked.

‘I’d like volunteers who are prepared to debate
either
topic,’ Mrs Smee stated firmly.

Out of the corner of my eye I could see Josh and Sean grinning at each other before raising their hands to volunteer. Anne-Marie volunteered too and so did Sadie. Julia also put her hand up and persuaded Katy to join her. I let out a sigh of relief as Mrs Smee said, ‘That’s six, then. Good. Now I’m going to quickly hand round these worksheets which have some examples of sensible “for” and “against” arguments. Of course, you can also prepare your own.’