by Hilary McKay
Ruth started to think quickly. Five thousand pounds between six. That was, six eights are forty eight, so six eight hundreds are forty eight hundred, and that was still less than five thousand pounds. More than eight hundred pounds each! She would buy a horse and still have plenty left to get it food and a stable. Where did one buy a horse from? She would have to get someone to help. Lots of people would probably be glad to.
‘Eight hundred and thirty pounds each!’ said Naomi who had also been calculating. ‘When do we get it?’
Rachel was thinking, I needed some money. She wasn’t sure exactly what for, but she knew she never had anything like enough. She started trying to remember all the things she had always wanted.
Phoebe had mentally gone through her Christmas Present List and decided she could buy everything on it. She could hardly wait to tick them off.
Mrs Conroy said, ‘We’ve decided to have the kitchen enlarged this summer. It will mean knocking down the larder wall, of course, and we’re having the outside of the house painted, and a new bathroom suite put in. It’s going to mean having workmen in the house for a few weeks, but still, summer is the best time for getting things like that done.’
‘That’ll be nice,’ said Ruth politely, but not really listening, ‘I’m buying a horse with mine.’
‘You’re not going to have much left,’ remarked Naomi to her mother, ‘or are you and Dad clubbing together for all that?’
‘Can I have mine now?’ asked Rachel.
‘Your what?’
‘My eight hundred and thirty pounds,’ said Rachel patiently. ‘I need it now.’
Mr Conroy laughed and pulled her plait. ‘Poor old Rachel,’ he said, ‘did you think you were suddenly rich?’
Ruth and Naomi immediately stopped their joyful gloating and looked at their parents. Ruth remembered that she had felt like this once before, the time she had fallen straight over her bike’s handlebars. The moment before she hit the ground.
Naomi stared across at her smiling father and suspicion hardened into certainty. She tried to speak, but found she couldn’t because her mouth was already hanging open.
‘What’s up, Naomi?’ asked her father, still cheerful.
‘D’you mean you’re not sharing it?’ demanded Naomi. ‘D’you mean you’re keeping it all for yourselves?’
Tears filled Ruth’s eyes as she watched the chestnut pony with a black mane and tail gallop away to nowhere.
‘I bet they’re wasting it all on the blasted house!’ she said, guessing nothing but the miserable truth.
‘Whatever are you thinking of?’ asked Mrs Conroy crossly. ‘Speaking like that! We thought you’d be pleased. Of course we’re sharing it – you all live here, don’t you? You’ll enjoy it as much as we will!’
‘Oh, my money,’ whispered Rachel as tears began to pour down her cheeks.
‘It’s ours as much as yours,’ stormed Naomi, ‘you said he left it to the family. It’s a beastly, mean, rotten, thieving, horrible thing to do, and I hope he comes back and haunts you!’
‘NAOMI!’
‘Stolen already!’ sobbed Rachel.
‘Typical, typical, typical,’ lamented Ruth.
Phoebe, who still didn’t understand, asked, ‘Why can’t Rachel have her money? Because she got all covered in paint?’ She looked at Rachel’s betrayed face and didn’t think it was fair.
‘You can have some of mine,’ she offered. How much her Christmas List was going to come to she had no idea, but if there wasn’t enough she could always miss something out. ‘Tell me what you want and I’ll buy it, Rachel,’ she said magnanimously.
‘I think you ought to explain to Phoebe,’ said Naomi coldly. ‘She still thinks you’re going to be honest!’
‘Stop being so ridiculous all of you!’ exclaimed Mrs Conroy, suddenly losing her temper. ‘This house is going to be redecorated this summer, and while it’s being done, you four will be going to stay with your Grandma …’ (Mr Conroy looked very pleased) ‘and …’
‘What Grandma? Big Grandma, d’you mean?’ asked Ruth, horrified.
‘Is it a joke?’ asked Naomi, ‘because it’s not very funny if it is.’
‘Big Grandma doesn’t like us,’ remarked Rachel dismally.
‘Of course she does, when you behave yourselves, anyway,’ Mr Conroy replied, speaking horribly cheerfully to cover up how guilty he was feeling.
‘Is it true?’ asked Naomi. ‘Just tell me whether it’s true or not.’
‘I shall take you up there by train on Saturday,’ said Mrs Conroy, throwing all her former caution to the wind. ‘You’ve been wanting to go away this summer, and now you are going. And it’s no use you arguing,’ she added, ‘because it’s all arranged. So you might as well make the best of it.’
‘You’ll have a wonderful time; summer by the sea in Cumbria,’ Mr Conroy said encouragingly.
‘Big Grandma,’ said Ruth, ‘thinks we’re awful. You should have heard what she said to me last time she was here.’
‘Are we going to stay with Big Grandma?’ asked Phoebe. ‘Why? She says I’m spoilt! I’m not going!’
‘You all are,’ Mr Conroy said, ‘and we expect you Big Ones to help take care of the Little Ones.’
‘Can I take my money?’ Phoebe asked.
Rachel was crying again.
Ruth and Naomi escaped from the table and went up to their bedroom and shut the door. As soon as they were able, Rachel and Phoebe followed after them. They had great faith in their big sisters, who so far had never let them down. Very unhappy, but not quite despairing, they climbed the stairs.
Mr Conroy said to Mrs Conroy, ‘I never thought they’d expect a share, did you?’
‘They’ll soon forget it,’ Mrs Conroy comforted him. ‘They’ve plenty to take their minds off it. Don’t you worry.’
Upstairs, nobody said anything.
Over the next few days, Rachel and Phoebe consoled themselves constantly with the thought that Ruth and Naomi would think of something. Their sisters had rescued them from so many impossible situations in the past. Not that the solutions provided by Ruth and Naomi necessarily improved matters, far from it in most cases, but they generally managed to enliven the course of events. Had they not, for example, provided pets for a pet show from a petless household?
(‘Nobody told me it was only live animals. It’s a very healthy dead mouse. My sister found him in the shed. I’ve brushed him and brushed him. I’ve called him Ben …’)
And Phoebe had won a consolation prize.
They had even resurrected Father Christmas, when Rachel and Phoebe, tearful and disillusioned, had thought he was dead for ever. No words of reassurance could have been more comforting than the great heap of soot over-flowing the fireplace onto the hearth rug, and the black footprints all the way up the stairs. The facts were undeniable. A few sooty smudges on a Christmas stocking might be the work of their parents, but this enormous, reckless distribution of evidence could only have had one source.
‘He’s been!’ Rachel had gloated in ecstasy, dancing with black feet on the hearthrug.
So Rachel and Phoebe still had hope, and the following day at school, a little comfort was given to Ruth and Naomi too; one small sign that their luck had not abandoned them entirely.
‘Come and see Egg Yolk,’ said Naomi, meeting Ruth in a corridor.
Wendy, who could never leave well alone, had picked up a bee to prove it was possible and had been rather badly stung.
‘You are a pig,’ said Ruth to the afflicted one. ‘That poor bee will die now.’
‘It stung me,’ howled Wendy. Her arm swelled up from her hand to her elbow.
‘Well, that’s something,’ Naomi said.
It proved impossible for the girls to obtain the cash they felt owing to them. On Friday afternoon Naomi (who had had the idea) marched into their local building society followed by a polite queue of sisters and demanded to see the manager.
‘My family’s just been left a lot of m
oney,’ she said. ‘It got paid into our account here. ‘Our,’ she repeated, laying great stress on the word.
‘And how can I help you?’ he asked.
‘I have come for my eight hundred and thirty pounds,’ said Naomi, smiling ingratiatingly at him.
It didn’t work. He actually laughed. ‘Nice try!’ he told them heartlessly, and watched them out of the door. Their money was gone and the next day they would be sent into exile, and there was nothing they could do about it.
‘Haven’t you thought of anything yet?’ demanded Rachel in a hoarse whisper on Saturday morning as the taxi carried them to the station.
‘NO,’ replied Ruth crossly. ‘All we can do is pretend we don’t care.’
‘We’ve got to pretend we don’t care,’ Rachel told Phoebe on the train. ‘They’re sending us away to Big Grandma, who hates us, for six whole weeks so that they can spend our money in peace, and we’ve got to pretend we don’t care. How?’
Phoebe, who had never been on a train before, scarcely listened. Six weeks must be a long time, she supposed, since school had closed down as if forever. Going to Big Grandma’s was very bad news, but it hadn’t quite happened yet, and she still had hopes that it never would. What else was Rachel grumbling about? Money. Her Christmas Present List money that they still hadn’t given her.
‘I want a serious word with you girls,’ announced Mrs Conroy.
Perhaps she’s going to give it to me now, thought Phoebe.
‘I do not want to hear,’ said Mrs Conroy ominously, ‘of any sort of trouble from you four. The fuss you’ve all been making about this holiday is nothing short of ridiculous. You’ll find you will have a wonderful time …’
‘I’ve brought this to put it in,’ interrupted Phoebe, producing a carrier bag. ‘Will it fit?’
‘Will what fit?’
‘My money.’
‘Oh, don’t be silly, Phoebe!’ exclaimed her exasperated mother. ‘I hope to goodness you all come back with a bit more sense. I’m sure your grandma won’t put up with half the nonsense your father and I let you get away with.’
‘I expect that’s why Uncle Robert ran away,’ said Ruth.
‘And you are NOT,’ continued Mrs Conroy, ‘to mention Robert at all! Do you understand? I won’t have your grandma upset by you.’
‘What about Big Grandma upsetting us?’ asked Naomi.
‘And another thing,’ said Mrs Conroy. ‘You can make up your minds to stop calling her that silly name.’
‘We’ve all got silly names,’ Ruth pointed out.
‘You were never such worries when you were babies,’ sighed Mrs Conroy regretfully.
‘We never had so many things to worry us then,’ replied Naomi.
CHAPTER FOUR
It was difficult to remember who had first christened Big Grandma. None of the children had ever thought of her as anything else; yet it could not have been their parents because they didn’t like the name. Anyway, Ruth, Naomi, Rachel and Phoebe all called her that now, without thinking what it meant, or even meaning to be rude.
There were plenty of reasons why she should be called Big Grandma. For a start she was very tall and muscly, and she ate a lot. Also, she wore men’s pyjamas and drank whisky at bedtime. In a lot of ways she was huge. Her house was very big too; even the toilet was higher than ordinary people’s toilets. It had a wooden seat which always felt warm, and by Monday morning Naomi had decided that the only thing she really liked about Big Grandma’s house was the wooden toilet seat.
On Monday morning, Mrs Conroy, who had travelled up with the children primarily to make sure they got there, and didn’t escape on the way (as she had heard them planning to do), caught an early train back home to Lincolnshire. Big Grandma drove her to the station in her awful car and refused to let the girls come too. Mrs Conroy said she didn’t want any scenes on the platform, and Big Grandma said they would be more trouble than they were worth. Just before she drove away she shouted:
‘Hurry up and have breakfast ready for when I come back! You’ll find everything you need! Two eggs for me!’
Then she tooted her horn and drove off with their mother. They didn’t even have time to wave goodbye.
They were left alone.
‘She’s gone!’ Phoebe said. Until that moment she had never really believed her mother would leave them there. Suddenly she started running after the car. She ran and ran, but already it was out of sight. Giving up, she stood deserted in the middle of the empty road. Ruth and Naomi came puffing to meet her.
‘Don’t start crying for goodness sake!’ implored Ruth. ‘You’ll only set Rachel off!’
‘I’m not,’ said Phoebe indignantly. ‘I wanted to catch Mum. She forgot to give me my Christmas List Money.’
Naomi abandoned self-control and grabbed her deluded little sister by the shoulders.
‘Look at me!’
Phoebe stared disinterestedly at Naomi’s flat chest.
‘At my face!’
Phoebe gazed upwards.
‘Now listen. You are not getting ANY money! Do you understand?’
Phoebe privately decided that Naomi was mad, but nevertheless nodded appeasingly.
‘Say “Yes”,’ commanded Naomi.
‘Yes,’ agreed Phoebe casually, and then as Naomi released her grip she added cheerfully, ‘I’ll get it when we go home then.’
Rachel was standing on the front steps looking very miserable. ‘What about breakfast?’ she called as they marched Phoebe up to her. ‘She said she wanted two eggs.’
‘I don’t know. We didn’t have anything yesterday, getting up so late. How are we to know where she keeps everything?’
‘Big Grandma had breakfast yesterday,’ Phoebe remarked. ‘She had bacon. I smelt it cooking.’
‘Well, we’d better do something,’ Ruth said, heading back through the house to the kitchen. ‘She’ll be here soon, and she’ll only start gloating and swaggering if we don’t.’
‘And calling us incapable,’ agreed Naomi. ‘Come on then.’
Tentatively they started opening cupboard doors and exploring the contents. They found a lot of home-made jam in one, and another full of herbs and spices.
‘Look at all this curry powder,’ said Ruth. ‘Whatever does she want that amount for?’
‘She probably cleans her teeth with it,’ Naomi replied. ‘Here’s eggs, ordinary ones, and horrible-looking ones. I suppose we ought to give her the ordinaries.’
‘I want Frosties,’ Phoebe announced.
‘Look what I’ve found,’ called Rachel. ‘Dog food! I didn’t know Big Grandma had a dog!’
‘There aren’t any Frosties,’ said Ruth. ‘I can’t even find cornflakes. What’s that you’ve got, Rachel?’
‘Tins of dog food. D’you think she’s got a dog?’
‘We’d have seen it yesterday.’ A nasty thought struck Ruth and she hastened to share it. ‘Perhaps she eats it herself.’
‘Probably it’s for when she turns into a werewolf,’ Naomi suggested, ‘and hasn’t any grandchildren to chew on.’
‘Shut up,’ said Ruth. ‘Help me set the table so it looks like we’ve done something.’
She fetched five plates and laid them out. Rachel found bread in a bin marked ‘Rubbish’. Naomi put five knives beside the plates and the loaf of bread in the middle of the table with the breadknife beside it.
‘She’ll have to have boiled eggs,’ said Ruth, ‘I don’t think I can do any other sort.’
‘Okay,’ agreed Naomi, as she discovered an egg cup and put an egg in it. She put another in a saucepan of cold water and stood it on the stove.
‘It’s no good cooking it until she comes in,’ she explained.
Then they all stood back to have a look at the table. It seemed a bit bare. Ruth noticed the butter on the sideboard and plonked it hurriedly beside the bread. Phoebe fetched salt and pepper and vinegar all together in a silver stand and placed it carefully in the middle, just as they heard the front door
open.
That was all they could do.
‘Rachel!’ bellowed Big Grandma, suddenly standing by the doorway. ‘What do you think you’re doing in there?’
Rachel emerged from the real rubbish bin which she had just discovered and was searching with care.
‘Looking for empty tins,’ she answered, startled into telling the truth. ‘Empty dog food tins.’
‘Ridiculous, ridiculous!’ exclaimed Big Grandma. ‘You must surely have observed that I own no empty dog!’ Her eyes, one brown and one green, gleamed with amusement as she surveyed the breakfast table, and she chuckled and rubbed her hands together.
‘Isn’t it lovely?’ asked Phoebe, delighted with the laughter. ‘I did most of it.’
‘Then you did very well,’ Big Grandma replied. ‘Right then, put the grill on, Ruth, and make some toast. Can you make toast? Good. Rachel, wash your hands and then come and finish laying the table. Egg cups. Tea cups. Milk. Sugar. Milk’s in the fridge beside you. Naomi, put the kettle on. Get me a saucepan, Phoebe, from that cupboard behind you. A big one. Eggs, Naomi; don’t just stand there!’
‘Ordinary or horrible?’ asked Naomi without thinking.
Big Grandma glanced at her. ‘Horrible,’ she replied. ‘Duck eggs for me, that’s what I say. As many as you like. Bring them over here and pass me that box of porridge. Butter the toast, Ruth, don’t let it go cold! Five dishes out of that cupboard, Phoebe. Egg spoons and porridge spoons, Rachel! Fill the milk jug, someone! Heaven grant me patience, with milk of course! How you have survived so long in this hard cold world is beyond me! Tea, Naomi, four big spoonfuls and warm the pot first. In the tin marked “Tea”! Where else would I keep it?’
In a few whirling minutes the table looked very different. Hot and bothered the girls sat down to eat. Everyone had large dishes of porridge in front of them, and Big Grandma seemed to swallow hers down before the others were even properly started.
‘Hurry up!’ she encouraged them. ‘Shove it in, you don’t need to chew porridge! Never mind if you splash it on the table; we haven’t laid a cloth, I see!’
Ruth and Naomi looked at each other but didn’t speak. Naomi was thinking that nothing would induce her to eat one of those eggs. Ruth was wondering if Rachel would choke. She could see that her sister was so flustered that she kept forgetting to take her spoon out of her mouth before she swallowed.