Violet Ink (15 page)

‘She doesn't say a time!' she says and I realize that the other sound in her voice is hope. ‘Quick, there's a chance we can get to her before she leaves the country.'

Mum races out of the room and for the second time today I sprint after her. She rushes into the study and turns on the computer, bouncing from foot to foot and frowning as it takes ages to load.

‘Come on, come on,' she mutters and then launches forward the second the screen is on. ‘Izzy, run and pack a bag and get ready to leave.'

‘Why?' I ask her, a bit stupidly. I'm finding it hard to keep up with her and I'm tired. Today has been too much.

‘We're going after Alex!' Mum says, wriggling the computer mouse and clicking furiously.

‘What should I pack?' I say.

‘Oh, I don't know! Anything! We'll need something to eat too. Grab some fruit and cereal bars.'

I walk into the kitchen slowly. I know I should be rushing, that every minute we delay is another
minute where Alex has got further away from us, but I can't help thinking that this isn't what she wanted. She didn't want to say goodbye to Mum because she didn't want to give Mum the chance of doing this. Making a fuss and a drama. Alex only likes drama if she's the one creating it.

Just as I've emptied out my school bag on to the table and repacked it with a couple of apples and some crisps, there's a thud from the study and a few seconds later Mum comes hurtling through the door.

‘Right, I've looked at the route to Dover and I think we've got a chance of making it on time. You'll have to read the map – can you do that, Izzy?'

She looks at me doubtfully and I nod my head, even though I'm terrible with directions. Last year I even got lost on our school orienteering course and they had to send a search party out to find me. It's not just basketball I'm rubbish at.

‘I KNEW I should have bought that satnav when it was on offer,' moans Mum. ‘Well, never mind – we'll just have to do the best we can. OK, are you ready? Do you need to use the bathroom because I don't want us to have to stop?'

I shake my head. I don't know what to make of this new Manic Mum. She's freaking me out a tiny
bit. She picks my bag up off the table and starts walking towards the door. I go after her, starting to feel a tiny prickle of excitement in my stomach. Maybe we can still make this better. If we can just get to Alex before she boards the ferry, it'll all be OK.

Mum opens the front door and I step outside. She's just pulling it closed when the phone in the hall starts ringing. Mum stops, hesitating.

‘Leave it, Mum!' I cry. ‘We've got to go!'

‘I can't,' Mum tells me, pushing the door open again and stepping back into the hall. ‘It might be Alex!'

She rushes over to the phone and picks it up.

‘Hello?' she says. ‘Oh, Mum – I thought you were Alex.'

It's not Alex at all, only Granny. I pick up the bag that Mum has dropped and walk over to the car. Mum will tell Granny that she can't chat now and it'll be best if I'm waiting in the car, all ready to leave the instant she comes outside. The car is unlocked so I stash my bag on the back seat and sit down in the front.

Mum takes ages. I've had a chance to look at our road atlas and work out which direction we need to go in to get to Dover. I've opened the glove compartment to check if there are any
sweets hidden in there, but I think we must have eaten them all up because the only thing I can find is a disgusting Fisherman's Friend. Those sweets are nasty. The first (and last) time I had one I thought it must be some kind of trick sweet: they taste disgusting and totally burn your mouth. Grandpa loves them though; this one must have been left over from the last time Mum took him out in our car.

Finally Mum comes outside. She closes the front door after her and gets into the driver's seat. Then she rests her head on the steering wheel and makes strange shuddering sounds.

‘Mum!' I cry, reaching across and patting her on the shoulder. ‘What's wrong?' Manic Mum was weird, but Sad Mum is truly awful.

She cries for a bit and I try to hold on to her, feeling awkward. I love my Mum, but I'm not used to being the person who tries to make her feel better; she usually does that for me. After a little while, she lifts her head and wipes her eyes.

‘I'm sorry, Izzy. This is so difficult for you.'

‘No!' I tell her, desperate to make her happy. ‘It's not difficult. It's fine!'

‘No, it isn't fine,' she says. ‘That was Granny on the phone. Grandpa has gone missing again. He's
been gone for ages. Granny thought he was pottering about in the garden shed, but when she went to tell him it was teatime he wasn't there. There's no telling how long he's been gone. He could be anywhere. She's already phoned the police.'

I look at her in horror. This can't all be happening at the same time. Surely there's a limit to the amount of bad stuff that can happen to a family in one day?

‘We have to help find Grandpa,' I whisper.

‘But I can't just let Alex run off!' cries Mum. She looks at the clock and makes a weird moaning sound. ‘Look at the time! We've got no idea what ferry she's leaving on. There's no certainty that we're even going to find them and, if we do, I can hardly drag Alex back here like she's three years old, can I?'

I had been wondering about that. Alex is the same size as Mum and if she was determined to go with Charlie there's no way that Mum could persuade her to stay.

‘And I can't abandon Granny and Grandpa,' Mum continues, looking over at me with exhausted eyes. ‘They need me here. There's no knowing where Grandpa might be – he could have gone miles by now. There's just nobody else to help.'

She starts crying properly now and I don't know what to do.

‘There's me!' I tell her. ‘I'll help, Mum.'

That just makes her cry even harder and I sit there, rubbing her shoulders, with tears running silently down my face. When I woke up this morning, I had absolutely no idea that a day could be so terrible.

Eventually Mum stops crying and sits up straighter.

‘I'm sorry, Izzy.' She brushes the hair back off her face and smiles at me, although it isn't a very happy smile. ‘What would I do without you, hey? You're a fantastic, thoughtful, caring daughter.'

Well, you need one of your daughters to be
, I think to myself, and the voice inside my head sounds mean and spiteful and not like me at all.

‘I'm going to send Alex a text,' Mum says, picking up her phone. ‘Perhaps if she knows what's going on she might change her mind and come home.'

I think Mum has completely lost the plot if she thinks Alex is going to just turn round and come back to us. That wouldn't be very dramatic at all and Alex is all about the big entrance and exit; slinking back quietly after a few hours isn't
her style. I sit silently while Mum sends her text, wondering where Alex is now and hoping that Grandpa is somewhere safe. It's starting to get dark and I hate the thought of him out there, all alone. I think about the aggro boys, prowling the streets and looking for trouble, and my skin starts to feel horrible, all itchy and tight. We need to stop worrying about Alex – she chose to leave when she didn't have to – and start focusing on Grandpa who can't help getting confused sometimes. It's not his fault.

I'm just starting to wonder how long we're going to sit here, helping nobody, when Mum's phone rings. Her ringtone is the ‘Crazy Frog' tune – Alex downloaded it for a laugh a few months ago and Mum has never got round to changing it. It sounds really wrong now, totally inappropriate. Mum snatches up the phone.

‘Alex!' she cries. ‘Where are you?'

I can't hear what Alex says in reply, but Mum listens for a second and then starts talking non-stop into the phone.

‘Don't worry about that now, we can sort it all out. Alex? Alex – you need to listen to me, sweetheart. You need to get off the train. Running away is NOT the answer. Uh-huh. Yes. Yes, I
understand you were scared. Right, yes, I realize that.'

Mum's voice sounds worried and I can tell that she's being really careful about what she says. I know she wants to persuade Alex to come home, but I'm not sure she needs to talk to Alex like she's about to jump off a cliff. Alex will do what she wants to do, whatever Mum says to her. She always does.

Mum is still talking. ‘Yes, that's right. Grandpa. I know, I know – it's all happening at once. It's OK, Alex, don't cry. Just tell me the name of the last station you stopped at.'

She's quiet for a moment and I imagine Alex sitting on the train, watching the fields and the houses whizz past as she moves further and further away from us.

‘OK, I understand. No, it's all right – just get off the train at the next station and ring me. I'll come and collect you.'

She's quiet again and I can just make out the tinny sound of Alex's voice coming through the phone, although I can't hear the words.

‘Of course you do,' Mum is telling Alex. ‘OK, OK, we'll head over to Granny now and you ring me when you're off the train. And Alex, I love you. Alex? Alex?'

Mum turns to me, looking scared. ‘I think she lost signal. Her phone just cut out.'

‘Is she coming home?' I ask.

‘Yes!' Mum breathes out, a great big whoosh that sounds like a steam train. ‘They're getting off at the next station, although she's got no idea where they are. They must be somewhere near London by now though. Thank goodness
something
has gone right today.'

Her phone makes a pinging sound and she looks down.

‘She's sent me a text. Look.' Mum shows me the phone and I read Alex's text.

Next stop is in 30 mins. Charlie's mum will collect us. Don't worry. Find Grandpa. See u soon. LYF, Alex xxx

Mum starts the car.

‘Let's go and find Grandpa. Hopefully Alex will be back by the time we get home.'

The next three hours are horrible. We get to Granny's house and she's really upset. The police have arrived. They tell Granny that they normally wouldn't go looking for someone when they've been gone such a short time, but she tells them
all about Grandpa and the way he gets so confused, and they say that they'll send out a radio message telling other police officers to look out for him. Then they say they'll have a drive around and they ask Granny what he was wearing, and would he have gone down to the river?

That just makes Granny cry even harder. When the police have gone, Mum tells me to stay with Granny and she'll go looking for Grandpa. I sit with Granny for ages and listen to her saying that it's all her fault and that she should never have left him alone for so long, but she thought he was happy in the garden. I try to tell her that she couldn't have known he'd wander off, but it's like she can't hear me, so in the end I give up and make her a cup of tea instead.

By the time Mum walks back in the front door with Grandpa, we're all exhausted. She found him outside the garden centre, waiting for it to open. When she asked him what he was doing, he told her that it was time to sort out his summer bedding and that he needed to buy some plants. Apparently, this couldn't wait until the morning.

Mum phones the police to tell them that Grandpa's home and then leaves him to Granny, with promises to return tomorrow. Then we race
to the car and drive back to our house. Mum hasn't heard anything else from Alex, even though she sent her a text to let her know that Grandpa was safe, and, as we approach our house, I can feel the atmosphere in the car get heavier and heavier.

‘Surely she must be home by now,' mutters Mum as she pulls into our road. As we go round the corner, I lean forward to get a glimpse of our house; I can see straight away that it's in darkness. There's nobody inside.

We pull into the driveway and, right on cue, Mum's phone beeps.

‘Quick, Izzy, get my phone out of my bag!' she tells me, pulling on the handbrake and turning off the engine. I pass it to her and watch. It's easy enough to tell what the text says by the way her face sags when she reads it, but I'm still shocked when Mum silently passes me the phone.

We r not coming. On ferry. Didn't want to make u choose b/tween me & Grandpa. So glad u found him. Sorry. Will call u l8ter. LYF, Alex xxx

‘She lied to me,' whispers Mum. ‘She never had any intention of coming home. She just wanted to stop me coming to get her.'

I don't know what to say so I don't say anything. It feels safer that way. Mum seems to have changed from sad to scared to really, really angry and I think it's probably a good idea if I try to keep a low profile right now.

We get out of the car and Mum lets us into the dark house. She makes us both some hot chocolate and we sit together at the table, although I notice that she doesn't drink any of hers. Our house doesn't feel like home without Alex. I can't help wondering if she has any idea what she's done to us. If she cares about us at all.

When I've finished my drink, Mum sends me off to bed, telling me that she needs to make a few phone calls. I go upstairs and peer through the door at Alex's room. It looks completely different. There are no clothes strewn across the floor and the bed is neatly made. The window is open and a summer breeze is floating through the room on the night air, blowing away any sign that Alex was ever here.

Completely miserable, I clean my teeth and head to my room. I'm too tired to put my clothes away properly so I just throw them in a pile on the floor – I can deal with them tomorrow. I pull
on my pyjamas and get ready to flop into bed, beyond glad that today is finally finished.

But it's not over quite yet. There, sitting on my pillow, is Mr Cuddles. He stares at me mournfully with his one eye, guarding a note that is propped in front of him.