by Aoife Walsh
‘Make some tea,’ Babi ordered Minny. ‘Where are you going, Nita?’
‘Just – to see Raymond a second,’ their mother said. She leaned over the banister for a moment and put her hand on Minny’s head. ‘Well done, sweetie,’ she said.
Minny stood with Babi at the bottom of the stairs, watching her trudge upwards with her head down. Then they looked at each other.
‘I’ll go,’ Babi said.
‘I’ll come too.’
‘No. Stay down here.’
Minny looked doubtfully towards the door of the front room. Ash was standing there, Sel peering round it. ‘To look after the others?’
‘No, to rest. It does seem that you have done very well today.’
Minny felt like protesting; it had been a day of complete disaster. There was also something else she wanted to say, but she was too tired to think of what it was, let alone what words to use.
‘Don’t argue with me, Minny. For a change, hey? I will look after your mother. You have done well today. And I would rather not talk about yesterday at all.’
Minny was happy to go along with the last part. The rest – ‘Anything good about today was Aisling as much as me. I would have been stuffed on my own.’
‘Have you told her that?’
‘No.’
‘It’s all she would want, your approval. Selena too. Leave your mother to me.’
Minny went towards the front room, to stand between Selena and Ash just inside the doorway. Her mother was hurt right now. She was bound to be; she could say till she was blue in the face that she didn’t love their father any more; it might even be true. But he was the father of her son. He’d just found that out and they’d probably been having a huge row, then before he had the chance to feel pleased at all about Raymond, here he was having a new baby, with his soon-to-be new wife. It wasn’t a nice evening for Nita.
Minny knew all that, in her tired brain, and also knew she couldn’t do anything to help her tonight. And that here was her new sister to go and greet. None of it was Nita’s fault at all, really, and yet here she had to be hurt. But Minny came to the conclusion that there wasn’t any point in punishing anyone for it, not this new baby or Harriet, or even her father any more. Or herself. If you loved people you just were going to get hurt by them, sometimes.
Meanwhile, here was a new person in the family that she might have to look after one day. A person they would all have to relate to, if only because they were related to her. How messy things were, honestly. ‘Granny won’t like it that you delivered her granddaughter,’ she murmured to Gil, who happened to be standing on the other side of Selena.
He raised his eyebrows. ‘Why not?’
‘Well. You being Babi’s boyfriend – being the hero …’
‘I daresay she’d rather I’d done it than that you had to,’ he suggested. ‘And all I did was what I’ve been trained to do.’
‘I never knew you were a nurse.’
He nodded. ‘In the army.’
‘And they trained you to deliver babies?’
‘It’s proper training, young lady; you’re supposed to be prepared for every situation. I stopped when I left the army, but you don’t forget. Anyway, if anyone round here was a hero it was you lot, coping with the situation like you did, and staying with her.’ He shook her hand, then Ash’s, and then Selena’s. Then he clapped Franklin on the back, nearly making him drop the tea tray he was bringing in. He was so cheesy. But Franklin had turned pink.
She stood between her sisters. Selena, who was holding Minny’s non-sore hand tightly, had tears streaming down her face. They were all three still wearing their pyjamas.
‘We did do well,’ Minny muttered to Ash. ‘You did. Did you know Gil was a nurse?’
‘No.’
‘Then why did you go and get him?’
‘I went to get Babi. You said you didn’t want to do it on your own.’
‘I wasn’t on my own, you were there. You called all the right shots, all day.’ She squeezed Aisling’s hand. ‘You’re going to be fine, you know.’
Aisling nodded.
‘Come in,’ Des called them, ‘come in and meet the newest Miss Molloy.’
He was sitting on the floor holding the blue-wrapped baby; the sheets had all been rolled away so it didn’t look so much like a battlefield. The paramedics didn’t seem to be in a massive hurry to take Harriet to hospital, they were getting tea from Franklin at the table. Minny picked up a cup for Harriet, who had after all been doing the hard work. ‘Thank you, as well,’ she said to Franklin. ‘This is what you get when you hang around us.’
‘So I bloody see.’
‘You’re part of the family now.’
‘No chance. Find another sucker.’ He passed her the milk. She poured a cup out for her father too.
‘A new life,’ Selena said, with awe, kneeling on the floor. ‘Right at the beginning.’
‘Life is like a train,’ Aisling remarked. Their father, his face gleaming with sweat and tears, grinned.
‘How is it like a train this time, Ash?’
‘Life is like a train,’ she said, passing him the sugar. ‘You just have to make sure you get everyone on board.’
Look after me
Aolfe Walsh
‘But we don’t know the first thing about looking after babies.’
Phoebe’s mum and dad are foster parents, and they’re having a tough time. Her dad’s moved out for bit, and her little foster brothers are playing up. So when Phoebe and her brother Adam find a baby abandoned in their den, they decide to try and look after her themselves …
‘A delightful and moving story’
‘Booksellers’ Choice’,
The Bookseller
‘Enormously engaging, funny,
and thought-provoking’
Booktrust
9781849397131 £6.99
When You Reach Me
REBECCA STEAD
Miranda’s life is starting to unravel. Her best friend, Sal, gets punched by a kid on the street for what seems like no reason, and he shuts Miranda out of his life. Then the key Miranda’s mum keeps hidden for emergencies is stolen, and a mysterious note arrives:
‘I am coming to save your friend’s life, and my own. I ask two favours. First, you must write me a letter.’
The notes keep coming, and whoever is leaving them knows things no one should know. Each message brings her closer to believing that only she can prevent a tragic death. Until the final note makes her think she’s too late.
Winner of the John Newbery Medal 2010
Shortlisted for the Waterstone’s Children’s Book Prize
‘Smart and mesmerising’ New York Times
9781849392129 £6.99