Libby in the Middle

by Gwyneth Rees

  But she didn’t have time to finish because from downstairs her dad suddenly yelled, ‘TANSY!’ at the top of his voice. When we came out on to the landing he was looking up at us from the hall. ‘Oh, I didn’t realise you were here, Libby. I need to talk to Tansy about something. It might take a while …’

  ‘Oh, sure.’ I know when to take a hint and I instantly headed for the front door.

  ‘I’ll text you later!’ she called out after me.

  As I walked home I tried to imagine myself in Tansy’s situation. How would I feel if Mum left me for several months to go and set up a clinic in Africa? I would miss her so badly, though I’m sure I’d also be really proud of her and boast to everyone I met about what she was doing. Tansy sounded more outraged than anything else – outraged that her mum hadn’t put her first. I suppose it could be because she’s an only child and accustomed to being the centre of her mum’s world all the time. But then again … Mum says you have to be careful not to judge other people, or jump to conclusions about them, before you’ve actually walked in their shoes for a while. And since I’d never been in the situation Tansy was in right now, I guess I didn’t really know how I’d react if I ever was.

  I was surprised when my phone pinged before I’d even got home. The message from Tansy said: OMG! Mum visiting tomorrow!

  I wasn’t sure how to respond since I didn’t know whether the OMG was an excited OMG or a horrified one. That’s the trouble with texting. Sometimes you need to see the other person’s facial expression and hear their tone of voice as well.

  I texted back: Good luck! which I hoped sounded both neutral and interested.

  The trouble was I was starting to feel a bit worried on my own behalf now I knew Tansy’s mum wanted her to go back to Southampton with her. Because I really didn’t want to have to start at my new school on my own.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  That afternoon I decided to go and meet Mum from work.

  I had to wait for her to finish her clinic, and as soon as she saw me standing at reception she asked, ‘Libby, darling, is anything wrong?’ It made me realise that I’d never surprised her by meeting her from work before. Maybe I should do it more often now that it was within walking distance.

  ‘I just wanted to walk you home,’ I said. ‘And talk to you on your own.’

  ‘Really? Well, let’s go.’

  As we set off along the street together she asked, ‘So what have you been up to today?’

  ‘I went round to Tansy’s. Her mum’s just got home – she’s a doctor who’s been working for a charity in Africa. She went to set up a health clinic and train local nurses in a very poor village.’

  ‘That sounds amazing,’ Mum said.

  ‘Yes, but it must be awful not to see your mum for four months. I guess you can understand why Tansy’s so angry with her, can’t you?’ When she didn’t answer immediately, I said, ‘I mean, you’d never go away and leave us for that long, would you?’

  I was surprised when she said, ‘To be honest, I don’t know. If Grace was older … well … the chance to make that sort of difference doesn’t come around very often.’

  ‘So you think it’s OK for Tansy’s mum to just go off and leave her?’

  ‘I’m just saying that these decisions aren’t always as black and white as they appear. After all, she’s being a wonderful role model for Tansy.’

  We walked along in silence for a bit as I thought about it. Maybe she had a point. Though I doubted Tansy would ever see it that way.

  ‘So did you want to talk to me about something in particular?’ Mum asked.

  ‘Um …’ Now that the time had come I wasn’t sure I could actually do it.

  ‘Does this have anything to do with the call I had from Aunt Thecla this morning?’ she prompted me. ‘She’s coming round after dinner tonight to talk to us. She wouldn’t tell me much but she says it’s about her missing money. I haven’t told your dad yet.’

  I swallowed, knowing I couldn’t put it off any longer. So I took a deep breath and told her the truth. ‘I put back Aunt Thecla’s fifty pounds and she’s just found it.’

  Mum stopped walking and stared at me. ‘Are you telling me it was you who took it?’

  ‘No,’ I said quickly.

  She gave me a narrow-eyed look. ‘Then who did?’

  I shook my head. ‘I can’t tell you …’

  Mum sounded annoyed as she said, ‘That’s not how it works, Libby. If you don’t want to be held accountable then you have to tell me what you know. Was it Grace? Because if you think you’re doing her a favour by covering up for her –’

  ‘It wasn’t Grace!’ I protested, and instantly I could see that she’d never really thought it was.

  ‘So it was Bella!’ she stated firmly. (After all, it’s not rocket science. Not when there are only three of us.)

  ‘Yes,’ I said shakily. ‘But, Mum, she needed the money really badly.’

  ‘What for?’

  I knew that if I told the truth then everything would come crashing down. Sam would be in trouble as well as Bella, and the two of them might be separated forever and never get a chance to make up. Plus Bella would hate me – and I mean really hate me.

  ‘I can’t tell you,’ I said.

  Mum’s eyes went cool. ‘Then I shall have to ask Bella.’

  We walked the rest of the way home in complete silence.

  If Mum had been a better investigator (I mean of something other than people’s flossing habits) she’d have stopped me from rushing upstairs to talk to Bella the second we got in. After all, you only have to watch any detective show on TV to know that you never let suspects talk to each other before you interrogate them.

  So while Mum was in the kitchen recounting everything in a stressed-out voice to Dad, I was in our bedroom warning Bella that Mum knew she’d taken the money. And that she needed to come up with a really good reason for needing fifty pounds. And that she needed to come up with it fast.

  A few minutes later Dad’s voice was yelling up the stairs, ‘BELLA! GET DOWN HERE! NOW!’

  Mum and Dad shut themselves in the living room with Bella while I went into the kitchen to join Grace, who was sitting drawing at the table.

  ‘Mummy says Aunt Thecla is on her way round,’ she informed me without looking up.

  ‘Oh great,’ I said.

  At least Dad and our aunt were speaking to each other again, even if it wasn’t under the best of circumstances. Prompted by Mum, I’d apologised to Aunt Thecla for not telling her the truth about the money and then been dispatched to help Grace get ready for bed. Bella was interrogated for ages, and by the time they finally released her I was already in bed. She came into our room looking exhausted.

  ‘So …’ I murmured nervously. ‘Do they know about Sam?’

  ‘Of course not!’ She sniffed. ‘I told them I wanted the money to get my hair dyed pink before we started school.’

  ‘What?’ I started to laugh.

  She grinned too. ‘I said I wanted to stand out from the other girls.’

  ‘Oh, Bella, that’s brilliant!’ Not only was it totally believable that my sister would do something like that, but it also made sense that she couldn’t have gone to Mum and Dad to borrow the money. ‘But wait … didn’t they ask why you hadn’t used your own money?’ I was thinking about her savings, which I knew she’d given to Sam.

  She nodded. ‘I told them I spent everything on a really expensive goodbye gift for Sam.’ Bella has always been able to think on her feet – and lie convincingly if she has to.

  ‘So are they really mad at you?’ I asked.

  ‘Aunt Thecla definitely is. Mum and Dad were so relieved I hadn’t gone through with the hair-dyeing thing that it sort of took the edge off it! Though they’ve taken away my phone again and I’m grounded for the rest of the holidays.’

  ‘What about me?’ I asked nervously.

  ‘Oh, I told them you didn’t know I’d taken the money until afterwards, and that as
soon as you found out you insisted we had to put it back.’

  ‘Thanks, Bella.’

  She shrugged. ‘Well, thanks for not telling them about Sam.’

  I paused. ‘Have you heard from him yet?’

  ‘No. I was going to go and find him at the garage tomorrow but I can’t do that now …’

  ‘I’ll go to the garage for you,’ I said quickly. ‘I can give him a message.’

  ‘Would you?’

  ‘Of course! I’ll go first thing tomorrow morning. You could write him a note.’

  ‘Thanks, Libby. Listen … about all that stuff I said to you when we argued … you know I didn’t mean any of it, right?’

  I sighed. ‘I hoped you didn’t.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I just get so angry sometimes that it all spills out.’

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The following morning the atmosphere felt very tense. I had to be careful not to make Dad suspicious by seeming too desperate to leave the house, but finally I was on my way to the village garage, planning what I was going to say to Sam. I had the letter from Bella in my pocket but I wanted to add my own plea for him to get in touch with her soon.

  I reached the garage and saw Bill working on a car out front. As I walked towards him I looked around for Sam but couldn’t spot him. ‘Hello,’ I said shyly. ‘Where’s Sam?’

  Bill looked up, wiping his hands on a rag. ‘His last day was yesterday.’

  ‘Oh.’ I hadn’t expected that.

  ‘Have you tried his phone?’

  ‘My sister has but it’s going to voicemail.’

  ‘Ah …’ Bill nodded. ‘Can’t help you then. Sorry.’

  As I walked along the road I tried Sam’s phone again and left a message asking him to call me back. Either he’d gone home – which I guess he might have done if he thought he and Bella were finished – or he was still staying at Rat Cottage.

  I went back to our house to collect my bicycle and helmet from the shed, and managed to do it without alerting Dad.

  Soon I was cycling along the country road that led to the cottage. Thankfully it wasn’t busy, except for a motorbike whizzing past me. I thought about how Dad always grunts his disapproval whenever a motorbike passes him at high speed. ‘He’s going to get himself killed,’ he always says angrily. One time he really embarrassed Bella and me by winding down his window at the traffic lights to speak to a handsome young biker who’d just overtaken us. ‘Hey, you! Watch your speed! You’re not invincible, you know!’

  Dad’s dislike of motorbikes made total sense now that I knew about Murray. I wanted to ask him more about it but I knew I’d have to wait for the right time. I could still hardly imagine him, even as a teenager, riding on the back of Murray’s bike, urging him to go faster.

  I eventually came to the road the cottage was on. Halfway along it was the track we’d followed before – the one that led to the abandoned den. I decided to go and see if Sam’s bike was there. If it wasn’t, it meant that he was out for the day or gone for good, and either way there was no point in me going to look for him at the cottage.

  It felt a bit spooky walking into the woods on my own. I left my bike leaning against a tree and soon found the den, feeling relieved when I saw Sam’s motorbike there.

  Five minutes later I arrived at Rat Cottage, glad to see no cars parked there, no dogs and no sign of anyone about. Since I didn’t want to attract the attention of any passers-by I rested my bike against the wall and hurried round the back.

  The back room had old sash windows that were easily opened from the outside if the frames were jiggled a bit. Mum had demonstrated it to Dad when she’d been fretting about how easily a burglar could get in – if Dad happened to be wrong about the non-existence of crime in the countryside. But today I couldn’t seem to get the frames to budge. Maybe the wood had swollen in the rain, or the frames had been nailed shut after we’d left.

  I rapped on the glass as loudly as I dared, then went to knock on the back door. ‘SAM? ARE YOU IN THERE? IT’S LIBBY!’

  When that didn’t meet with any response I stepped back and looked at the upstairs windows for any sign of him. All the curtains were closed. I took out my phone to call him and saw that, as usual, I had no signal. I hadn’t forgotten how intermittent the phone reception was here, and I knew it might be the reason Sam wasn’t answering Bella’s calls, though it didn’t explain why he wasn’t picking up her messages whenever he left the cottage.

  I decided to try the front of the house instead. I was approaching the front door when I heard a sound I’d become a lot more familiar with since we’d moved to the country. First I heard the clip-clop of hooves on the road, and then I turned to see three horses walking around the bend. And even in their riding hats I recognised Katie and the two girls I’d met at the park.

  I instantly had butterflies in my tummy. What were they doing here?

  ‘Look who’s here!’ the one called Fran exclaimed.

  Katie dismounted, handing the reins to Fran, who thankfully seemed to be staying on her horse. Katie was looking at me curiously. She sounded quite friendly as she asked in a teasing voice, ‘You’re not still looking for your Frisbee, are you?’

  I shrugged. ‘Nothing else to do here.’ Goodness knows why I said that!

  Katie’s horse suddenly did a massive poo on the road. I’m sure I didn’t react with anything except slight surprise but Fran instantly decided that I was disgusted by it.

  ‘There’s no need to turn your nose up,’ she mocked. ‘It’s only digested grass. It’s not nearly as gross as your poo.’

  The other girl – Lara – giggled. Since I didn’t quite know how to respond I decided to ignore them.

  ‘When are your aunt and uncle back?’ I asked Katie in as casual a voice as I could manage.

  ‘Next week.’ She was unlocking her aunt’s front door by this time. ‘I’ve got to water the plants. I’ll be out in a minute.’

  I was going to leave, but I couldn’t help giving her horse a quick pat. I love horses. I’d asked Mum if I could have riding lessons now that there were stables just along the road, but she’d said we didn’t have the budget for them at the moment. ‘Wait until your birthday,’ she said. ‘Then we’ll see.’

  I forgot about everything for a moment as I reached up and stroked the neck of Katie’s horse, rubbing the rough but glossy coat and breathing in the distinctive horsey smell. ‘She’s really beautiful,’ I said admiringly as I stroked the animal’s long black nose.

  ‘He,’ Fran corrected me with a bit of a sneer. She pointed at the horse’s undercarriage and added, ‘Or don’t they teach you about the difference between girls and boys at those posh schools?’

  The two of them burst out laughing and I blushed bright red, which made me feel even more stupid. Of course my old school (which wasn’t posh in any case) had done the whole sex education syllabus. I just wasn’t in the habit of bothering to correctly identify the gender of horses before I patted them, that’s all.

  ‘They don’t have any boys at St Clara’s, remember,’ Lara pointed out. ‘Maybe she really doesn’t know the difference!’

  As Fran sniggered all I could think about was getting away from them as fast as I could. I rushed to get on my bike, hoping that Sam would keep quiet and stay inside until they left – presuming he actually was inside. If he’d gone out for a walk I just hoped he stayed away until the coast was clear.

  As I cycled back down the lane I knew Bella would be waiting anxiously at home for news, and I wished I had something more to tell her. I suddenly remembered that I still had her letter for Sam. I should have put it through the letterbox at the cottage, but I couldn’t go back and do it while Katie and her pals were there.

  I decided I’d just have to return to the cottage later. Hopefully by then Sam would be back. After all, he couldn’t be far away – not while his bike was still here.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Lunch at home was pretty tense. Mum was at work as usual, so Da
d was in charge. Bella was barely speaking to anyone, and although she didn’t get cross with me when I explained about Katie and her friends, she was upset to hear that I hadn’t managed to see Sam.

  We finished eating the fish-finger sandwiches Dad had made and I was helping clear the table when I got a text from Tansy. ‘She wants to know if I can go round to hers this afternoon,’ I told Dad. ‘That’s OK, isn’t it?’

  ‘I should think so. But if you want to go anywhere else from there you need to let me know.’

  ‘Why?’ Bella protested in a pained sort of voice. ‘I thought you said the country was safer than the town!’

  ‘Don’t you start with that tone of voice, young lady,’ Dad snapped at her, far more forcefully than he usually does.

  ‘OK, Dad,’ I said quickly, realising that with the mood he was in I’d have to be careful how I handled him.

  Tansy must have been waiting for me because the second I set foot on her front porch she flung open the door and pulled me inside. ‘Guess who’s here?’ she said excitedly.

  ‘Your mum?’

  ‘No! Well, yes, she’s here too … but I meant your aunt!’

  ‘OK …’ I wasn’t sure where this was going so I waited to hear more.

  ‘Dad invited her round to look at some stuff he found when he went through the garage – stuff that belonged to Murray.’

  ‘Tansy!’ called out an unfamiliar female voice. An attractive woman of about Mum’s age walked into the hall. She was slim with dark hair and she wore a white blouse tucked into blue trousers.

  ‘Mum, this is Libby,’ Tansy introduced me at once.

  ‘Hello, Libby,’ the woman said with a friendly smile. ‘I’ve heard a lot about you.’ She turned to Tansy. ‘Darling, I must go and check in to my hotel but we can talk more this evening.’ She leaned forward and kissed Tansy on her forehead, then pulled her close and hugged her tightly. ‘I don’t want you to worry. Everything will be fine, whatever you decide. You know Daddy and I both just want you to be happy.’