Max Kowalski Didn't Mean It
Page 16
‘What have you done to our front door?’ she said, folding her arms severely across her chest.
And then she was Mum again, and everything was all right.
Pea showed her the bits of blue plate, and felt herself wrapped up in a hug that seemed to put it back together again – all wool and hair, and the perfume-smell of jasmine flowers.
Clover limped over – the one shoe that had been left behind was a clog – and joined in, while Clem explained about the fire, and the chairs, and why no one had brushed their hair. (Not that anyone would’ve noticed. Clover resembled her mother exactly, including the ability to roll out of bed with hair all twirled and tousled as if it had been arranged that way on purpose. Tinkerbell took after her father, Clem, who was Jamaican by way of Birmingham, so her curls needed rebraiding tightly to her head once a week with a blob of CurlyGurl coconut goop to stop her from going fluffy. Only Pea required a regular morning taming, but on Clover’s advice she was learning to describe her bright orange mane as ‘Pre-Raphaelite’ as opposed to ‘ginger frizz’. In any case, it did the job of distracting from her chin, which was of a size people mention.)
‘I did try,’ said Clem, who was looking quite tired by now, and kept glancing hopefully at his watch.
‘Oh, who cares about a few tangles,’ said Mum. ‘I’ve been looking forward to today for so long, my darlings, and I’m not going to let a single thing ruin it.’
Pea winced, and reluctantly stepped back so Mum could see Tinkerbell.
But Tinkerbell was sitting on the sofa, quite unhandcuffed, throwing a scrumpled ball of drawing paper for Wuffly to chase.
‘There you are, pickle!’ said Mum, sweeping her up into a great whirling hug of her own. ‘Have you been awful for Daddy? I hope so.’
‘Of course I had a spare key,’ Tinkerbell hissed, once Mum had let her go and gone off to inspect the oddly naked kitchen. She dropped the key into Clem’s hands, reluctantly followed by the cuffs. ‘You won’t tell, will you?’
Clem shook his head wearily.
It was time to go. Especially for Clem, whose job was showing empty houses to people like Mum who needed new ones, and who was supposed to have been unlocking 8 Harbour Court for a nice young couple from Saundersfoot an hour ago.
‘See you soon then, girls,’ he said, kissing Mum’s cheek. ‘I’ll come up to visit, check out your new digs once you’re all settled, right?’
Marina lives with her three girls and a dog by the sea – that’s what it said on the back page of the Mermaid Girls books. Clem hadn’t lived with them for three years, and he was technically only Tinkerbell’s dad. But he was still Pea’s Clem – and Clover’s, and always a little bit Mum’s. Suddenly it felt quite wrong to be going off to all the exciting tax and jail and pickpockets without him.
‘Weekly email with all your news, remember?’ he whispered in Pea’s ear when it was her turn for a goodbye hug.
‘With bullet points,’ she whispered back, holding on extra tight.
He thudded down the stairs at speed.
‘Will he really come to visit?’ asked Tinkerbell.
‘Of course! We’re moving to London, not Mars,’ said Mum, tucking Tinkerbell’s chin into the crook of her arm. ‘Now come on, before that taxi driver thinks we’ve changed our minds.’
She hurried them out with their one remaining suitcase before anyone could stop for a last look and feel the tiniest bit sad.
‘Goodbye, little flat!’ she shouted as she tapped down the stairs.
‘Goodbye, shower that never stays hot!’ sang Clover.
‘Goodbye, mouldy ceiling!’ said Pea.
‘Goodbye, home,’ said Tinkerbell.
And they all piled into the black cab. There was a NO DOGS sign, but the driver (whose name was Alexei, and who greeted them all by name like beloveds) said, ‘Don’t you worry about that, kitten,’ to Mum with a wink, and waited for Wuffly to pile in too.
It had nothing to do with fame, Pea knew; people had always liked doing things for their mum. They got a glazed look in their eyes, and suddenly volunteered to carry her luggage, or let her live on their houseboat in Norway for four months. Clover called it being Mummified, and was showing every sign of having inherited the talent. Pea was still waiting for hers to develop.
The taxi was much bigger than an ordinary car, and there were flip-down seats opposite the usual kind, which meant you went backwards. Pea and Tinkerbell bagsied them at once, though they promised to swap on the English side of the Severn Bridge if the others wanted a turn. There was also an enormous wicker hamper taking up most of the space in between.
‘Who’s hungry?’ said Mum, flipping open the lid. There were little cakes, miniature bagels stuffed with smoked salmon and cream cheese and small sprigs of something green and grasslike, and real china plates, buckled neatly into place.
Clover and Tinkerbell sat on their hands. Pea was re-reading A Little Princess, and they knew perfectly well that she’d spent half the morning making cheese and onion sandwiches to finish up the leftover bread, just in case they suddenly became poor again on the way to London.
But Pea tucked the clingfilmed parcels out of sight, and helped herself without a word.
The others followed suit.
Alexei had two chocolate éclairs, posted through the money-slot of his hatch.
The journey was long. They made a list of all the London places they would visit: the Tower, the Eye, the tea rooms at the V&A (which, Mum promised, had a mad ceiling and very large cakes). Pea read more of her book. Mum gave Clover a pattern book, with real swatches of fabric and rectangles of wallpaper, for her to pick out what she’d like in her new bedroom. Mum discovered the cheese and onion sandwiches, which she said had been a very sensible idea of Pea’s, and ate one to prove it. Tinkerbell fed the rest to Wuffly, until she started making peculiar doggy coughs, and had to have a lie down and a belly-rub.
The motorway turned into a busy ring road, then crowded streets lined with unfamiliar shops: Food & Wine and Chicken Cottage. It didn’t look anything like the Monopoly board.
The taxi swung into a quieter road, past a big green park, and puttered to a halt.
Mum said this was north-west London – Kensal Rise (though Alexei had said they should tell everyone it was Queen’s Park, as it sounded ‘more nobby’).
‘So, darlings, do you think I picked us a nice one?’ She pointed at the house before them, half hidden by a tree: pebbly walls, a crazy-paving path and a red-brick gatepost.
‘It’s … It’s … Is it really all ours?’ said Clover breathlessly.
‘Well, only this side,’ said Mum quickly, before Clover could mentally annex next door for her own personal music room. ‘It’s semi-detached. But yes, this whole half is all ours.’
Pea watched Clover anxiously, for she’d been the most excited of them all, and a whole half was still a half, when it came down to it. But Clover began counting off windows – two on the ground floor, two more on the next, and that was just at the front – and she almost skipped up to the front door, leaving her one clog abandoned on the crazy paving behind her.
Tinkerbell regarded the house with suspicion. Wuffly gave another strange cough, then deposited a small puddle of sick on the pavement.
‘Good dog,’ said Tinkerbell by way of agreement, then shooed her up the path after Clover.
There weren’t any turrets, or a drawbridge, Pea noted. Not much chance of a dungeon. But there was a tiny slanted window set into the roof.
‘That’s an attic, up there,’ said Mum, as if she were looking at the house from inside Pea’s head. ‘It’s a bit poky, but I thought you might like it for your bedroom. If you wanted.’
A bedroom, all to herself. In an attic, where she could pretend to be impoverished if being famous and wealthy got a bit dull. She could write her own books up there. One day, perhaps, there would be a blue plaque on the wall outside for Pea Llewellyn, famous writer.
Pea stepped over the sick, and the clog, a
nd ran up the path.
THE BEGINNING
Wait – you didn’t think that was it, did you?
Puffin has LOADS more stories for you to discover.
Find your next adventure at puffin.co.uk, along with:
• Quizzes, games and apps starring your favourite characters
• Videos, podcasts and audiobook extracts
• The chance to check out brand-new books before anybody else!
puffin.co.uk
Psst! You can also find Puffin on PopJam
PUFFIN BOOKS
UK | USA | Canada | Ireland | Australia
India | New Zealand | South Africa
Puffin Books is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.
www.penguin.co.uk
www.puffin.co.uk
www.ladybird.co.uk
First published 2019
Text copyright © Susie Day, 2019
Cover artwork © Andrew Bannecker, 2019
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
ISBN: 978-0-241-35140-6
All correspondence to:
Puffin Books
Penguin Random House Children’s
80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.