by Jean Ure
“Listen,” I said. I squatted down beside her. Even a five-year-old can be made to see reason. “We’ll try to buy some nice things, I promise you! But nice things are expensive and we can’t afford too many of them, so—”
That was as far as I got because at that point someone hammered on the front door and we all froze. Well, me and Tizz froze. Sammy hesitated for just a second, then with a joyous cry of, “Mum!” went galloping off.
It wasn’t Mum. It was Her Upstairs. Mrs Bagley. Mum calls her ‘that woman’. We call her Her Upstairs. We don’t like her.
She came pounding into the room with a scared-looking Sammy trailing behind her. She is such a huge great woman that the floor trembles as she walks.
“Where is your mother?” she said, in this big booming voice that practically made the walls shake.
I was about to say in quavering tones that Mum wasn’t here when Tizz jumped in ahead of me.
“She’s out,” she said.
It is just as well that Tizz is so quick. The way she said it – “She’s OUT” – was like, what’s it to do with you? If I’d told her that Mum wasn’t home, you can just bet she’d have demanded to know where she was, and then I wouldn’t have known what to say. I don’t think as fast as Tizz. She can always be relied on to come up with a smart answer.
Her Upstairs did this huffing thing. Sort of ‘Pouf!’ With her lips billowing out and her nostrils flaring, like she suspected Tizz of being impertinent. Tizz faced up to her, boldly.
“Can we give her a message?”
“You can indeed.” Her Upstairs has these big bosoms. I mean, like, really really big. Like massive. Mum says you could lay a dinner table on them. When she gets indignant, which is what she was now, she kind of inflates them. I watched them heave and wondered what we’d done to upset her this time.
“You can tell your mother,” she said, “that I have called for my flour.”
I said, “F-flour?”
Even Tizz looked a bit taken aback. At any rate, she didn’t say anything.
“My flour. My self-raising! I should like to have it back. If, of course –” her lip curled – “there is anything left to have back. Shall we go into the kitchen and see?”
She set off across the room. Thud, bang, stamp, across the floor. Tizz sprang into action.
“It’s all right! Ruby’ll get it for you.”
“I will,” I said. “I’ll get it for you!”
I rushed into the kitchen, grabbed the bag of flour and scrabbled frantically in search of our pound coins. I had to plunge my hand in so deep that great white clouds came puffing out all over me. And then, in my panic, I went and dropped the bag and loads of flour went and spilt over the floor.
But at least I had the coins! All five of them. I stuffed them into the back pocket of my jeans and wiped my top with the dish rag. Unfortunately, by now, there didn’t seem to be very much flour left in the bag. Hardly any, in fact. Most of it was on the kitchen floor.
Hastily, I seized a tablespoon out of the drawer, scooped up as much as I could and poured it back into the bag. It probably wasn’t very hygienic cos I didn’t know when Mum had last had a cleaning session, but the way I saw it, flour was used for cooking and cooking killed germs. Anyhow, it was only Her Upstairs.
I went back into the sitting room. Her Upstairs was standing there, with her arms folded. Tizz was looking defiant. Sammy had rushed off to hide behind the sofa.
“I found it,” I said. “There’s still some left.”
I held out the bag. Her Upstairs took it, rather grimly. She removed the elastic band, looked in the bag and went, “Huh!” Then she looked at my top and went, “Hmph!”
“Mum was going to give it back,” I said.
“Not before she managed to get through three quarters of it, I see. What on earth was she making?”
I looked helplessly at Tizz.
“Can’t remember,” said Tizz.
“I was under the impression she merely wanted a sprinkle. Perhaps you would be kind enough to inform her, when she gets back, that I should appreciate it, in future, if she would not come to me when she runs out of something.”
“I will,” I said. “I’ll tell her.”
“Thank you. I should be grateful.”
Her Upstairs moved off, towards the door. I followed her, anxiously. Please, just let her go.
As she passed the table, where we’d laid out the stuff we’d found in the cupboard, she paused for a moment. I could almost hear her nosy parker brain ticking over.
What are they doing with all those tins? Where is their mother? What is going on?
It was Tizz, again, who came to the rescue.
“We’re tidying up the cupboard,” she said.
“Hm!” Her Upstairs gave a sniff. “Not before time, I dare say.”
I resented that! It was criticism of Mum. Like saying she wasn’t good at keeping things in order. Maybe she wasn’t, but so what? She was our mum and we loved her! We didn’t mind if the cupboards were in a mess. And what was it to do with Her Upstairs anyway?
“I hate that woman,” said Tizz, when the door was safely closed.
I didn’t like her very much either, especially when she was so mean about Mum, though I could sort of understand why she didn’t want Mum asking for stuff any more. Cos I didn’t think, really, that Mum had been going to give the flour back. Not that she would have kept it on purpose; just that it would have slipped her mind.
I said this to Tizz, but she got all angry and snapped, “Don’t defend her, she’s horrible! And you—” she whizzed round on Sammy, crawling out from behind the sofa. “Don’t go running off to answer the door when you don’t know who it is! You don’t want us all to be split up, do you? Cos that’s what’ll happen if Her Upstairs finds out!”
Sammy’s lower lip started to wobble. Tears came into her eyes. “I thought it was Mum!”
“If it had been Mum, she’d have used her key.”
I thought, yes, if she hadn’t lost it or had her bag stolen. I told Sammy to cheer up.
“We’ll go shopping in a minute. That’ll be fun!”
“Buy nice things?” said Sammy.
“We’ll see.”
“Fishy fingers!”
“Maybe.”
Sammy glanced slyly at Tizz. “– Fishy fingers! We want fishy fingers!”
But Tizz wasn’t playing any more. “Don’t keep on,” she said. “It’s a question of what we can afford.”
At last! She was beginning to give me some support. She didn’t even grumble when I insisted on finding a new hiding place for our emergency fund.
“I’m just scared,” I said, “that if we take it with us we might be tempted to spend it, and then we’ll be left with nothing.”
Tizz said, “Right.”
“I mean, I know Mum could be back at any moment—”
She could! She really could! She could be there waiting for us when we got back from Tesco.
“It’s just… you know! In case she isn’t.”
“This is it,” said Tizz. “Got to be prepared.”
Life was so much easier when Tizz decided to cooperate.
“We’ve absolutely got to watch what we’re spending,” I said, as we wheeled our trolley into Tesco. It did make me feel a bit important, being in charge of the shopping. I told Tizz that she was to add things up as we went round.
“Make sure we don’t overspend.”
Tizz said, “OK.”
“We’ve got £9.75. So when we get up to £9 you’ve got to let me know.”
“OK,” said Tizz.
We set off down the first aisle, heading for the bread counter. We’d been to Tesco loads of times with Mum, which was just as well cos otherwise it would have been really confusing. I picked up two large loaves and put them in the trolley.
“That’s two at 55p,” I said.
“Got it,” said Tizz.
Sammy’s hand was already reaching out towards the cakes. She lik
es the little squishy ones covered in green and pink goo. Mum sometimes lets her have one as a treat.
“Rubeee!” She tugged at my arm. “Cakies!”
“Not now,” I said.
“Mum would let me!”
“Mum’s not here,” said Tizz.
“And anyway,” I said, “they’re not good for you.”
Sammy’s face crumpled. A woman walking past smiled, sympathetically.
“They are nice, though,” she said, “aren’t they?”
Well! That wasn’t a very helpful remark. I hastily hauled Sammy off towards the milk and eggs. I reached out for two cartons of milk and stared in outrage.
“£1.18?” Just for a carton of milk?
“That’s £3.36,” said Tizz.
“Just for milk?”
Tizz shrugged.
“That’ll only leave us…” I did some frantic finger work.
“£6.39,” said Tizz.
I was beginning to understand how it was that Mum kept running out of money and having to buy things on tick and borrow stuff from Her Upstairs. Rather grimly, I marched on down the aisle.
“Marge.”
Sammy opened her mouth and let out a wail. “Don’t like marge!”
“Nobody does,” said Tizz. “We’ve all just got to put up with it.”
I was so thankful that Tizz was being supportive at last. It was like the reality of the situation had suddenly hit her. Mum had disappeared and we were on our own. And if we didn’t want to be split up, we had to learn how to take care of ourselves. It wasn’t any use splurging on pink cakes and chocolate biscuits, then being forced to throw ourselves on the mercy of Her Upstairs cos we’d run out of money and there wasn’t any food left.
“Let’s get some eggs,” I said.
I hadn’t the least idea how much eggs cost. I thought maybe you might be able to get six for about 60p. I mean, 10p an egg seemed reasonable. They are only tiny. My mouth fell open when I saw that even the tiniest ones were £1.38 a carton.
“What’ll we do?” I whispered. “We’ve got to have eggs!”
“We’ll just get six,” said Tizz. “If we have any money left we can always come back and get more.”
I nodded, gratefully. It was such a relief to have someone else share the burden. “How much have we spent now?”
Tizz cast her eye over the contents of the trolley. I could almost see her brain whirring into action. “£5.53.”
I do honestly think she is some kind of mathematical genius. She can do all these things in her head! “How much does that leave us?”
“£4.22.”
I gulped. We hadn’t even finished buying everything on list number one! We still had cheese and cereal to get.
We found some cheese triangles, which met with Sammy’s approval, and a cheap bumper packet of Cornflakes, which didn’t. She wanted Coco Pops or Sugar Puffs and couldn’t understand why she couldn’t have them.
“Thing is,” said Tizz, “she’s never going to eat Cornflakes without sugar.”
I was tempted to say, “You mean, you’re not,” but that would have been unfair when Tizz was behaving so nicely.
I said, “I know what we’ll do! We’ll get some jam. That’ll do instead of sugar, and then we can use it on bread as well.”
Tizz looked doubtful, but she didn’t argue. I had never known her so meek. It was actually a bit unsettling cos I knew it meant that she was worried.
We found some strawberry jam, and put it in the trolley. I was starting to feel important again. We were doing well!
“What’s that leave us?”
“£2.44,” said Tizz.
“Hm!” Perhaps, I thought, we should look at the second list and decide what was priority and what wasn’t. We stood in a huddle by a freezer cabinet. “So what do you reckon?” I said.
We all had different ideas. I guess it was inevitable. Tizz wanted pizza, I said meatballs, Sammy shouted out “Fishy Fingers!” at the top of her voice. “Fishy Fingers and choc’lit bikkies!”
“That’s two things,” said Tizz. “Just choose one.”
But Sammy couldn’t cope with that. She put a finger in her mouth and scowled.
“Let’s go and check prices,” I said.
Pizza was ruled out straightaway. We simply didn’t have enough money left. We went for two tins of meatballs in the end, cos they were cheap. Like really cheap. I was impressed by how cheap! You could practically live on meatballs. We got a packet of fish fingers, cos it seemed only fair Sammy should have something she wanted, and that left us with exactly £1.
“What about orange squash?” said Tizz. “We ought to have something to drink.”
I mumbled, “Water,” but Tizz had found a whole big bottle of squash for only 99p so it was really hard to say no, especially as I’d got my meatballs and Sammy had her fish fingers and Tizz, so far, didn’t have anything. She was behaving so well!
“Can we?” she said, waving the bottle at me.
I said, “Yes, all right. Let’s go and pay.”
Standing in front of us at the checkout was a family. A mum and a dad and two children. One of the children was perched in the seat at the back of the trolley. The other, a little boy about Sammy’s age, was clutching a packet of sweets he’d grabbed from a display stand. His mum said, “What are you doing with that? Put it back!” She tried to take it off him, but he gave this naughty grin and clutched it even tighter. He obviously knew his mum was a soft touch. She not only let him have the sweets but even told him to pick something up for his sister. His dad said, “That boy twists you right round his little finger,” but you could tell he wasn’t really bothered. I thought that those two children were well spoilt. I couldn’t help wishing we had a dad that came shopping with us and let us pick up bags of sweets.
Sammy, of course, had seen it all going on and was reaching out her hand to grab something.
“Sammy, don’t!” I said.
“I want one,” said Sammy. “I want a bag of sweeties!”
“Stop it!” I tapped her on the back of her hand and she immediately let out a howl. Both the mum and the dad turned to look at me. I felt like some kind of criminal.
“I want sweeties!” wailed Sammy.
Urgently, I told Tizz to take her outside. Sammy was dragged off, still wailing. The mum and dad watched her go.
“Doing the shopping all by yourself?” said the mum.
I nodded. I could see her eyes flickering over the contents of our trolley.
“That’s a big responsibility,” she said.
I drew myself up. “I know how to shop.”
“I guess your mum gave you a list?”
I wanted to tell her that I had written my own list, but that might have made her suspicious, so I just said, “Yes,” as brightly as I could. “It’s my little sister,” I added. “She wants things that aren’t on there.”
The mum laughed. “Tell me about it!”
Fortunately at that point she had to concentrate on packing her bags. I started to take the stuff out of our trolley. Two loaves, two cartons of milk, one pot of marge, half a dozen eggs, two tins of meatballs, cheese triangles, strawberry jam, Cornflakes, fish fingers, and a bottle of squash. It seemed like a lot, but how long would it last? I just hoped Tizz had added it all up correctly, cos how embarrassing would it be if I didn’t have enough money? I would die of shame!
But the bill came to exactly what Tizz had said it would. I might have known I could rely on her. I don’t know where she gets her mathematical brain from. Certainly not from Mum! Mum is as useless at doing sums as I am. We both have to rely on fingers.
I think we were all hoping that Mum would be there, waiting for us, when we got back. I’d even imagined how it would be. I’d pictured her running up the basement steps crying, “Darlings, there you are! I’ve been so worried about you! Where have you been?” I even said to Tizz, as we toiled up the road with our heavy bags, that we should have left a note, just in case.
E
agerly, Tizz said, “Why? D’you think she’ll have come back?”
I said, “She might have done.”
Tizz immediately broke into a run. Sammy cried, “Mum!” and tried to follow but went and tripped over and banged her head, so that by the time I’d put down my bags and kissed her better and picked up the bags and carried on, Tizz was out of sight. I knew as soon as we caught up with her that Mum hadn’t come home. Tizz was slumped against the railings at the bottom of the steps.
“Where is she?” said Sammy. “Where’s Mum?”
“She’s not back yet,” I said.
Sammy turned and started pummelling me. “You said she would be! She would be!”
Gently, I corrected her. “I said she might be. Let’s go in and eat something! We’ve got all this lovely stuff. Let’s decide what we’re going to have.”
“Choc’lit biscuits!” shouted Sammy.
I guess you can’t really expect a five-year-old to be logical. I mean, she knew we didn’t have any chocolate biscuits. She was just trying it on. Trying to punish me, like I was the one to blame for Mum not being there.
Tizz had gone racing ahead of us into the flat. I caught the tail end of her whizzing into Mum’s bedroom. I supposed it was just possible Mum had come home and gone straight to bed. Sometimes, when she’s been on a high, she can suddenly fall back into a depression, and when she’s depressed she can sleep through anything. A herd of elephants wouldn’t wake her up.
Tizz came trailing back into the sitting room. “She’s not here.”
“No! Well.” I did my best to make it sound like it was no big deal. “She’s only just gone away. It was ten days last time. Could be ten days this time. That’s why we’ve gone and got all this stuff! Keep us going. So when Mum does get back she won’t feel guilty.”
Last time, she’d felt guilty for months afterwards. We’d gone to visit her in the hospital and she’d rocked to and fro on her chair saying, “How could I leave you? How could I do it to you? I’m a terrible mother! I don’t deserve to have children!”
I’d kept begging her to stop blaming herself. I’d told her, over and over, that it wasn’t her fault. “You can’t help being ill!”