Marion really cares about me even though we’re not related. I was kidding myself before. I don’t always want her to care but she does. The slightest little thing can send her into a state. She got terribly fussed when I had my ears pierced in case the equipment hadn’t been sterilized properly. She drove me to the hospital one time when I had a bad migraine just to check it wasn’t meningitis. She was worried that time the school coach broke down. She pretended she was fine and acted all organized and efficient, but she’d picked at the ribbing on her pale pink jumper so violently that it started to unravel and she never wore it again.
She would hug me if I let her. She’s tried several times. I’m the one who always backs away. It’s because I don’t want her to get too close. I don’t want her to be a real mum. Because she’s not my mum.
I’ve hung on so long hoping to find my real mum. I don’t think I’m ever going to find her now. She’s the one who hasn’t been the real mum.
I dial the operator. I tell her Marion’s number. She asks Marion if she’ll accept the call. And then we’re talking. Well, I can’t talk properly. I’m crying too much.
‘Oh Marion, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry . . .’
‘Are you all right, April?’ Marion sounds desperate.
‘Yes, I’m OK. In fact the most amazing things have happened. But I should have phoned you, I know. Have you been really really worried?’
‘Of course I have! I’ve even been in touch with the police.’
‘Oh no! Are they after me?’
‘Looking out for you, you silly girl. To bring you home safe and sound. Where have you been? I’ve rung Cathy and Hannah, and everyone I could think of . . . I’ve spoken to Elaine . . . I told her all about the argument this morning.’
‘I’m sorry, Marion. I was so mean and ungrateful. They’re lovely earrings.’
‘Do you know something ridiculous? I weakened this morning and bought you a mobile phone after all.’
‘Oh Marion!’
‘But I’m not sure I’ll give it to you now – though at least it would mean I could phone you to check where you are. You’ve driven me demented today, April.’
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t plan it to be this way. I just kept thinking about the past, and my mother putting me in the dustbin and – oh Marion, you’ll never guess!’
She draws in her breath sharply. ‘Your mother? You haven’t found her?’
‘No. No, I’ve found Frankie, you know, the one who found me in the dustbin.’
I explain that he’s coming to meet me at The Pizza Place. Marion fusses and takes down his phone number and insists that she’s going to come too.
‘But it will take you ages, and you sound ever so tired.’
‘I am!’
‘I’m sorry, Marion.’
‘And I shall probably make you even sorrier by the time I’m through with you!’
‘I bet you wish you’d never taken me on.’ I stop suddenly. ‘Is that why you talked to Elaine? Do you want to get rid of me?’
‘Oh April! Of course I don’t! You’re mine.’
‘You’re mine too,’ I say.
Marion is crying too when we say goodbye.
I mop my eyes, wipe my nose, and walk out towards The Pizza Place. I think about my mother stumbling along fourteen years ago, about to give birth to me. It’s starting to seem so shadowy and unreal.
I don’t know if she really is the way I imagine. She could be any woman anywhere. I could sit next to her on a bus or brush past her in a shop and neither of us would know. Maybe it’s silly to think a birth mother so important when the birth is the only thing that connects you.
It’s weird the way I’ve loved her all these years. Maybe I should have hated her for dumping me in that dustbin. I know I’d never do that to any baby of mine, no matter what. I’ll keep her and love her and hold her tight. I’ll be a proper mum to my baby.
I haven’t got a mum. But one day I can be my child’s mum.
A real mum.
I go into The Pizza Place. The waiter smiles at me, shows me to a table, and asks me if I’m on my own.
I hesitate.
‘I’ve got . . . family coming later,’ I say.
Let’s end with a new beginning.
‘It’s so strange, April! I feel as if we really know each other,’ Frankie says.
‘I know. It feels exactly that way for me too. I can’t believe this is real. I make things up a lot. Especially about my birthday.’
‘Well, I was there. I’ll tell you all about it, every little detail. I can remember everything so vividly because it was the strangest day of my life – and the most special. My little boys mean all the world to me, but somehow I didn’t feel quite the same way when I first held them. You must meet them, and my wife.’
‘And you must meet Marion, my foster mum.’
‘She won’t mind if we keep in touch now?’
‘Of course she won’t.’
‘And we’ll always meet to celebrate your birthday?’
I nod eagerly. I’m so happy – but I’m crying again. ‘I’m sorry. I’m hopeless. I always cry.’
‘If you hadn’t cried when you were stuck in that dustbin I’d never have found you. You saved your own life, April.’
Then he takes hold of my hand and starts telling me exactly what happened that first day of my life. He tells me what I looked like, how I cried, how my tiny fists closed over his finger. He gives me a real sense of my baby self. A tiny history. My beginning.
You’ve finished reading Dustbin Baby, but how much of the story do you remember?
1. Which friend’s hairstyle does April copy?
2. What sort of flowers does Marion give April as part of her birthday breakfast?
3. April hopes she’ll get a mobile phone for her birthday, but Marion gives her a pair of earrings instead. What special stone are they?
4. April was born in the alleyway behind a restaurant – what is it called?
5. Which hospital does Frankie take baby April to?
6. April’s pretty friend Hannah goes on a date with a really popular boy – what’s his name?
7. April meets a character from another of Jacqueline Wilson’s books in Dustbin Baby! Who is it and which book is she from?
8. When April was adopted by Janet and Daniel, what new first name did they choose for her?
9. When April first meets Marion – or Miss Bean, as she knows her back then – they argue over a piece of work Miss Bean sets the class. What is it?
10. Frankie leaves a special message for April in the alleyway, in the hope that she’ll get in touch with him. What is it?
1. Dustbin Baby begins and ends in the same way – with April in the restaurant, waiting for Frankie to arrive. To start with, of course, we don’t know who she is waiting for – who did you imagine this might be? Did you think this might have been April’s real mother? Were you surprised, pleased, or even disappointed when you realized it wasn’t?
2. April often has very mixed feelings towards Marion, the teacher who became her foster mother. What do you think of Marion as a character, and as a parent? Is April lucky to have found Marion, or do you think she’s too old-fashioned and out of touch to bring up a fourteen-year-old girl?
3. April’s life began with a very unusual and extreme decision by her birth mother – the decision to abandon her baby. What do you think of this action? Are there any circumstances under which you think this could have been the right thing to do?
4. April has imagined, in detail, the scenario that might have happened when her mother gave birth to her. Discuss the other options, and create your own version of what might have happened. Was April’s mother very young? Did she have a boyfriend or a husband, or was she alone? Do you think her own parents knew she was about to be a mother – or perhaps she had no parents?
5. Imagine that April’s birth mother chose to keep her baby, rather than abandoning her. How would April’s life and character have been affected by th
is?
6. Many people who are adopted decide to search for their biological parents later in life, even if they have grown up with kind and loving adoptive families. Why do you think they feel so compelled to find the people they are related to by blood?
7. April comments that Frankie isn’t allowed to keep her, even though her own mother would have been allowed to have her back, because ‘blood is thicker than water’. What do you think of this statement? Do you think April believes this herself?
8. Hannah and Cathy, April’s friends at school, often comment on the fact that April copies them in a lot of ways. Why do you think April might struggle to see herself as an individual?
9. Marion wants April to go to university and study History. What it is about this particular subject that you think Marion sees as being right for April? What do you think the future holds in store for her?
10. When April arranges to meet Frankie and Marion at The Pizza Place, she tells the waiter she’s ‘got family coming later’. What do you think of her notion of ‘family’ here?
Jodie. It was the first word I ever said. Most babies lisp Mumma or Dadda or Drinkie or Teddy. Maybe everyone names the thing they love best. I said Jodie, my sister. OK, I said Dodie because I couldn’t say my Js properly, but I knew what I meant.
I said her name first every morning.
‘Jodie? Jodie! Wake up. Please wake up!’ She was hopeless in the mornings. I always woke up early – six o’clock, sometimes even earlier. When I was little, I’d delve around my bed to find my three night-time teddies, and then take them for a dawn trek up and down my duvet. I put my knees up and they’d clamber up the mountain and then slide down. Then they’d burrow back to base camp and tuck into their pretend porridge for breakfast.
I wasn’t allowed to eat anything so early. I wasn’t even allowed to get up. I was fine once I could read. Sometimes I got through a whole book before the alarm went off. Then I’d lie staring at the ceiling, making up my own stories. I’d wait as long as I could, and then I’d climb into Jodie’s bed and whisper her name, give her a little shake and start telling her the new story. They were always about two sisters. They went through an old wardrobe into a magic land, or they went to stage school and became famous actresses, or they went to a ball in beautiful long dresses and danced in glass slippers.
It was always hard to get Jodie to wake up prop- erly. It was as if she’d fallen down a long dark tunnel in the night. It took her ages to crawl back to the surface. But eventually she’d open one eye and her arm went round me automatically. I’d cuddle up and carry on telling her the story. I had to keep nudging her and saying, ‘You are still awake, aren’t you, Jodie?’
‘I’m wide awake,’ she mumbled, but I had to give her little prods to make sure.
When she was awake, she’d sometimes take over the story. She’d tell me how the two sisters ruled over the magic land as twin queens, and they acted in their own daily television soap, and they danced with each other all evening at the ball until way past midnight.
Jodie’s stories were always much better than mine. I begged her to write them down but she couldn’t be bothered.
‘You write them down for me,’ she said. ‘You’re the one that wants to be the writer.’
I wanted to write my own stories and illustrate them too.
‘I can help you with the ideas,’ said Jodie. ‘You can do all the drawings and I’ll do the colouring in.’
‘So long as you do it carefully in the right colours,’ I said, because Jodie nearly always went over the lines, and sometimes she coloured faces green and hair blue just for the fun of it.
‘OK, Miss Picky,’ said Jodie. ‘I’ll help you out but that won’t be my real job. I’m going to be an actress. That’s what I really want to do. Imagine, standing there, all lit up, with everyone listening, hanging on your every word!’
‘Maybe one of my stories could be turned into a play and then you could have the star part.’
‘Yeah, I’ll be an overnight success and be offered mega millions to make movies and we’ll live together in a huge great mansion,’ said Jodie.
‘What does a mansion look like?’ I said. ‘Can it have towers? Can our room be right at the top of a tower?’
‘All the rooms are our rooms, but we’ll share a very special room right at the top of a tower, only I’m not going to let you grow your hair any longer.’ She pulled one of my plaits. ‘I don’t want you tossing it out of the window and letting any wicked old witches climb up it.’ Jodie nudged me. She had started to have a lot of arguments with our mother. She often called her a witch – or worse – but only under her breath.
‘Don’t worry, I’ll keep my plaits safely tied up. No access for wicked witches,’ I said, giggling, though I felt a bit mean to Mum.
‘What about handsome princes?’
‘Definitely not,’ I said. ‘It’ll be just you and me in Mansion Towers, living happily ever after.’
It was just our silly early-morning game, though I took it more seriously than Jodie. I drew our imaginary mansion, often slicing it open like a doll’s house so I could illustrate every room. I gave us a huge black velvet sofa with two big black toy pumas lolling at either end. We had two real black cats for luck lapping from little bowls in the kitchen, two poodles curled up together in their dog basket, while twin black ponies grazed in a paddock beside our rose garden. I coloured each rose carefully and separately, deep red, salmon, peach, very pale pink, apricot and yellow. I even tried to do every blade of grass individually but had to see sense after dabbing delicately for half an hour, my hand aching.
I gave us a four-poster bed with red velvet curtains and a ruby chandelier, and one wall was a vast television screen. We had a turquoise swim- ming pool in the basement (with our twin pet dolphins) and a roof garden between the towers where skylarks and bluebirds skimmed the blossom trees.
I printed the title of each of our books in the library in weeny writing and drew every item of food on our kitchen shelves. I gave us a playroom with a trampoline and a trapeze and a jukebox, and one of those machines you get at the seaside where you have to manoeuvre a crane to pick up little furry teddies. I drew tiny teddies every colour of the rainbow, and I had a shelf of big teddies in our bedroom, and a shelf of old-fashioned dolls with real hair and glass eyes, and a splendid rocking horse big enough for both of us to ride on.
I talked about it to Jodie as if we’d really live there one day. Sometimes I imagined it so vividly it seemed like a real place. I just had to work out which road to take out of town and then I’d round a corner and spot the towers. I’d run fast, through the elaborate wrought-iron gates, up to the front door with the big lion’s-head knocker. I’d know how to press the lion’s snout with my finger and the door would spring open and I’d step inside and Jodie would be there waiting for me.
I wasn’t stupid, I knew it wasn’t really real, but it felt as if it might be all the same.
Then one morning at breakfast everything changed. I was sitting at the kitchen table nibbling at a honey sandwich. I liked opening the sandwich up and licking the honey, letting it ooze over my tongue, but I did it quickly and furtively when Mum wasn’t looking. She was very strict about table manners. She was forever nagging Jodie about sitting up straight and spooning her corn- flakes up quietly without clanking the spoon against the bowl. Jodie slumped further into an S shape and clanked until she nearly cracked the china. Mum took hold of her by the shoulders and gave her a good shaking.
‘Stop winding me up, you contrary little whatsit,’ she said, going shake shake shake.
Jodie’s head rocked backwards and forwards on her stiff shoulders.
‘You’re hurting her!’ said Dad, putting down his Daily Express and looking anxious.
‘She’s not hurting me,’ Jodie gasped, waggling her head herself, and then she started da-da-da-ing part of that weird old ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ song when everyone bangs their heads to the music.
‘Stop that sill
y row! I suppose you think you’re funny,’ said Mum.
But Dad was laughing and shaking his own head. ‘You’re a right head-case, our Jodie,’ he said.
‘Trust you to encourage her, Joe,’ said Mum. ‘Why do you always have to take Jodie’s side?’
‘Because I’m my daddy’s girl,’ said Jodie, batting her eyelashes at Dad.
She was too. She was always in trouble now, bunking off school and staying out late. Mum could shake her head until it snapped right off her shoul- ders but she couldn’t control her. But Dad could still sometimes make her hang her head and cry because she’d worried them so.
He’d never say a bad word against Jodie.
‘It’s not her fault. OK, she’s always been a bit headstrong, but she’s basically been a good little kid. She’s just got in with the wrong crowd now, that’s all. She’s no worse than any of her mates at school,’ he said.
‘Quite!’ said Mum. ‘Moorcroft’s a rubbish school. The kids aren’t taught properly at all. They just run wild. Half of them are in trouble with the police. It was the biggest mistake in the world letting our Jodie go there. She’s heading for trouble in a big way. Just look at her!’
I thought Jodie looked wonderful. She used to have pale mousy hair in meek little plaits but now she’d dyed her hair a dark orangy-red with streaky gold bits. She wore it in a funny spiky ponytail with a fringe she’d cut herself. Dad said she looked like a pot of marmalade – he’d spread her on toast if she didn’t watch out. Mum said Jodie had ruined her hair and now she looked tough and tarty. Jodie was thrilled. She wanted to look tough and tarty.
Then there were her ears. Jodie had been begging Mum to let her have her ears pierced. Mum always said no, so last year Jodie went off and got her ears pierced herself. She kept going back, so there are five extra little rings up one ear.
‘You’ve got more perforations than a blooming colander,’ said Dad.
Mum was outraged at each and every new piercing.
Dustbin Baby Page 11