by Jean Ure
I took the 50p out of the yoghurt pot and threw it across the table.
“Here,” I said. “Take it! You might just as well, you took all the rest.”
“I really don’t see,” said Tizz, “why you’re making such a fuss.”
Fuss? What fuss? I wasn’t making any fuss!
“We can live without milk for just a few days. Can’t we?”
I didn’t say anything to this.
“Rube?” Tizz looked at me, suspiciously. “Rubee?”
I said, “Shut up! Just SHUT UP!”
“Ruby, don’t cry,” said Tizz. “Please don’t! I’m sorry if I upset you. Please don’t cry, Ruby!”
But now that I’d started, I couldn’t stop. I’m not like Tizz, who never cries. I just don’t cry very often. But when I do, I do it BIG TIME.
I stood by the cupboard, weeping. Tizz hovered, dabbing at me with a tissue and patting me on the shoulder. Sammy, fortunately, was in the other room.
“Mum will be back,” said Tizz. “She will be, she will be! Please, Ruby—”
The sound of someone knocking at the front door made her break off. We looked at each other in alarm. Who could it be? Not Her Upstairs again!
“Mu-u-u-m!”
We heard Sammy give a howl and go scampering into the hall.
“Don’t answer it!” shrieked Tizz. “Look and see who it is!”
It couldn’t be Mum; Mum would use her key. Unless, of course…
Me and Tizz exchanged glances.
“It could be,” whispered Tizz.
My tears had dried up as if by magic. We stood, straining our ears, waiting for Sammy’s joyous cry.
But the cry never came. Instead, Sammy trailed slowly back, sucking on her thumb. We waited for her to say something. I could feel my heart thudding and banging. In the end, Tizz could bear it no longer. She said, “Well?”
Sammy spoke without taking her thumb out of her mouth. Her eyes were large and apprehensive.
“It’th a man,” she said.
“What sort of man?!” I pulled her thumb out of her mouth. “Not a policeman?”
“A black man,” said Sammy.
“Is he wearing a uniform?”
Slowly, Sammy shook her head.
“Could be plain clothes,” said Tizz.
But how would we know?
The knocking came again. Louder, this time. Sammy’s eyes grew big and frightened. I looked at Tizz. Suppose it really was the police? What should we do?
The knocker thundered and crashed. If it was the police and we didn’t answer, they might break the door down. I swallowed.
“I s’ppose we’d better go and see.”
“Just look,” said Tizz.
Together, we crept into the hall.
“You stay there,” I told Sammy; but she had to come creeping after us.
I was about to peer through the narrow window at the side of the door when the letter box flap was pushed up and a familiar voice echoed down the hallway: “Anyone there? Debs? You there?”
“Oh!” Relief flooded over me. “It’s Cal!”
Tizz flung open the door. Cal stood there, grinning. Long and lanky, his hair in dreadlocks. Tizz hurled herself at him.
“Hallo, hallo!” He swept her up and swung her round, then did the same to me. “Oh, my, aren’t we grown? Last time I saw you, you was all little an’ tiny!”
I said, “That was ages ago. I’m in Year eight, now.”
“I believe you,” said Cal. “Who’s this hiding away, sucking her thumb?”
Sammy immediately tucked herself behind me, peering out from behind my legs.
“She probably doesn’t remember you,” I said. “She was too young.”
“And now she’s a huge great girl of… what? Five?”
Sammy took her thumb out of her mouth. She said, “I’m Sammy and I’m six.”
“You never are!” said Cal.
“I am so,” said Sammy.
Tizz said, “It was her birthday just yesterday.”
“Is that a fact? We’ll have to see if we can’t do something about that! Meanwhile—” Cal glanced round the hall. “Where’s your mum? Is she here?”
Sammy put her thumb back in her mouth. Me and Tizz each waited for the other to say something. Neither of us did.
“She all right?” said Cal.
“She…” I swallowed.
“She what?”
“She’s disappeared!” Tizz spat the words out, looking at me defiantly. “She’s gone off and we don’t know where she is, and –” she hiccupped – “we haven’t got any money and the food’s all running out and—”
“Hey, hey!” Cal put an arm round Tizz’s shoulders. “I’m here now, you’ll be OK. You’re safe! Let’s all go and sit ourselves down and you can tell me what happened. Don’t worry, don’t worry! We’ll get things sorted! Cal sank on to the sofa with Sammy on his lap, me and Tizz on either side. “So… when did your mum actually take off?”
“Ages ago! Saturday.”
“You’ve been on your own since Saturday? What have you been eating?”
Proudly I told him that we had gone to Tesco and bought as much as we could with what little money we had been able to find.
“But it’s nearly all gone,” said Tizz. “Even the emergency fund!”
“That’s cos of you going and spending it,” I said.
“Pardon me,” said Tizz, “you were the one that bought all those rotten vegetables. I j—”
“Ssh!” Cal put a finger to his lips. “Don’t let’s fall out. Do I take it you haven’t told anyone?”
I said, “No, cos you know what’d happen? Same as last time. They’d put us in a home!”
“Yeah.” Cal nodded. “I remember.”
He hadn’t been there that first time, but he’d heard all about it. Mum had never kept any secrets from Cal.
“Thing is—” He looked at us, gravely. “We can’t let it go on too long. If she’s been missing since Saturday… that’s nearly a week.”
Quick as a flash, Tizz said, “It was ten days last time! But then she came back. Like she will again! I’ve marked it on the calendar… Tuesday. That’s when she’ll come back!”
Cal said, “Sure, baby! Sure!”
It worried me that he didn’t sound totally convinced. More like he was simply saying it to keep us happy.
“She wouldn’t just forget us,” I said.
“Of course she wouldn’t! She loves you. It’s just…” Cal’s voice trailed off. “Tell me exactly what happened,” he said. “You got home and she wasn’t here?”
I said, “It was when we woke up.”
“Sunday morning,” said Tizz.
“So she actually went off… when? Saturday evening?”
“With Nikki,” I said.
“Oh.” Cal pulled a face. He obviously remembered Nikki.
“Nikki and her boyfriend.”
“Who’s total rubbish,” said Tizz.
Cal said yes, he could imagine.
“We went to the Carnival,” I said, “and Mum spent all her money and Nikki just kept, like, egging her on. Then in the evening they all went off clubbing. But Mum didn’t have hardly any money left!”
“She did leave a message,” said Tizz. “She didn’t do that last time.”
“It’s still on the answerphone,” I said. “D’you want to hear it?”
We all sat in silence, listening to Mum’s voice.
Darlings, darlings! Love you, darlings! Thinking of you! Always thinking of you! Don’t worry, my darlings! We’ll have lemonade sky! Lemonade sky! I promise you, poppets! That’s what we’ll have! Lemonade sky!…
For a long time, at the end, nobody said anything. Cal was looking troubled.
“She sounds a bit hyper,” he said. “She not been taking her meds?”
“I try to watch her,” I said. “I do, honestly! But sometimes she says she’s taken them and then it turns out she hasn’t, and—”
“I k
now, baby, I know!” Cal hugged me to him. “You can’t be expected to shoulder all the responsibility. Believe me, I used to have the exact same problem. The exact same! She’d swear blind she’d taken them.”
“It’s not her fault,” I said. “She hates them!”
“What we can’t understand,” said Tizz, “is what’s with this lemonade sky?”
Cal said, “Yeah, that’s something that’s always puzzled me. She’s mentioned it before. Whenever I tried asking her about it, she said she couldn’t remember. It obviously meant something to her at some time, but I never discovered what.”
“Lemonade pie,” chirped Sammy, suddenly brightening.
“Sounds good,” said Cal. “Listen, before we decide what to do… you kids must be starving. How about we all go up the road and have a pizza?”
“When you first knocked on the door,” said Tizz, as we left the flat, “we thought you might be a policeman.”
“Or Her Upstairs,” I said.
“We didn’t think he could be Her Upstairs! How could he be her?” Tizz’s voice was full of scorn. She was just trying to impress Cal. She always thinks of herself as being superior, just cos in some ways she is cleverer than I am.
“What I meant,” I said, “I meant before we sent Sammy to have a look.”
“So if that’s what you meant,” said Tizz, “that’s what you should have said. I was talking about after Sammy had had a look.”
“You said when he first knocked at the door!”
“I s—”
“Now, now, you two!” Cal wagged a finger. “That’s enough of that. Behave yourselves or I’ll send you both back and just me and Sammy will have a pizza.”
We subsided, with mutterings from Tizz.
“As a matter of interest,” said Cal, “what would you have done if I had been a policeman? Ruby? You’re the one in charge. What would you have done?”
Tizz made a scoffing sound. “She’d have gone and opened the door!”
“And you reckon that would have been wrong?”
“Yes, cos how would you know if someone really was a policeman? Only if you saw their card, and how could you see their card unless you’d opened the door? By which time,” said Tizz, with an air of horrible smugness, “it’d be too late!”
“Unless they were police in uniform,” I said.
“Still got to see their card,” said Tizz.
I said, “You think people are going to dress up and pretend?”
“They do,” said Tizz. “They do it all the time! Pretend to be police just so’s you’ll let them in and th—”
“Enough!” Cal clapped both hands to his ears. He looked down at Sammy. “Are they always like this?”
Sammy gazed doubtfully from me to Tizz.
“We’re not always,” I said. “It’s just—” I broke off, suddenly feeling that I might burst into tears.
“It’s cos of Mum not being here,” said Tizz. “Ruby’s got all bossy. She thinks she can tell us what to do!”
“She is the oldest,” said Cal. He put his arm round me and I felt the tears well up in my eyes. “I’m sure she’s done her best.”
“Yeah.” Tizz aimed a kick at a stray lager can rolling about on the pavement. “I guess.”
“Well, I have!” I said.
Tizz scowled. “I know you have. Don’t keep on!”
Slowly, as we ate our pizzas, I began to cheer up. It is very difficult to be cheerful when your stomach is flapping. But now that Cal was here, and now that I was getting all nicely filled up with pizza (followed by ice cream, followed by milkshake) I was starting to feel a bit braver. Mum would come back. Of course she would! And in future I would take better care of her. I would be the keeper of the medicine cabinet! I would make sure that she really did take her medicine every day. I wouldn’t let her wriggle out of it! When she tried saying, “Oh, Ruby, later,” or, “Yes, yes, darling, just leave it there,” I would stand firm. I wouldn’t move till she’d swallowed it.
I announced this as Cal was drinking his coffee and we were slurping our milk shakes. Cal said, “Way to go! You gotta be firm.”
“This is it,” said Tizz. “You’ve let her get away with things.” And then, maybe sensing that I was about to clonk her on the head with the tomato sauce bottle, she quickly added, “When Mum gets back we’ll both look after her.”
“Right. Shared responsibility,” said Cal. “Who, by the way, is this Upstairs person you were talking about?”
“Her Upstairs,” said Tizz. “She’s a mean, spiteful, nosy old woman that’s always poking and prying and complaining about Mum borrowing stuff and not giving it back and not putting the rubbish out properly. Like it matters!”
“Ruby?” Cal turned to me. “Is she really that bad?”
“She’s a bit interfering,” I said. “She keeps wanting to know where Mum is.”
“What have you told her?”
“Just that she’s out. But I don’t think she believes it. She wants to come and complain about something and she’s getting, like, really suspicious? Like she thinks Mum is hiding from her.”
Cal nodded. “I get the picture. I guess your mum does have a bit of a knack for upsetting people.”
“She does not!” roared Tizz; but I knew that Cal was right. Not that Mum wants to upset anyone. When she’s on what she calls an even keel, like when she takes her meds and doesn’t get hyper or sink into depression, she’s really very considerate.
“I guess tomorrow,” said Cal, as we left the restaurant, “we’re going to have to work out what to do.”
“’Bout what?” said Tizz.
“About you. About your mum. You can’t go on living here on your own.”
“But we’re not on our own,” said Tizz. “You’re here!”
“And what do you imagine Her Upstairs would have to say about that?”
“Don’t see why she should say anything! Don’t see it’s any of her business.”
“What, with no sign of your mum and a strange man suddenly appearing?”
“We could say you’re our dad!” said Tizz.
There was a pause.
”You could say it,” agreed Cal.
But who would believe it?
Rather desperately Tizz cried, “Our adopted dad! You could be our adopted dad!”
I slipped my hand into Cal’s. “I wish you were,” I whispered.
I was so relieved when I went to bed that night, knowing that Cal was going to be there, just a short distance away, in Mum’s room. For the first time in ages I fell asleep the minute I closed my eyes. I slept all through the night! I think Sammy must have done, too, cos she actually stayed in her own bed. And she didn’t make any damp patches.
I had a bit of a panic when I woke up next morning, thinking that Cal might not still be there. Suppose his itchy feet had made him suddenly take off?
I went tiptoeing out in my nightie. The door of Mum’s room was ajar. I could tell the bed had been slept in, but there was no sign of Cal. And then I heard the sound of the fridge being opened and went rushing into the kitchen to find Cal peering in dismay at the empty shelves.
“You really are out of everything, aren’t you?” he said.
Anxiously, cos I didn’t want him thinking I’d let Tizz and Sammy starve, I pointed out that we did still have a few tins left.
“Yeah, I saw. Baked beans!” He pulled a face. “Don’t fancy them for breakfast. I’d better go up the road and get something. That little shop still there on the corner?”
I said, “Yes, but shall I go?”
“No, no, you stay here,” said Cal. “I’m already up and dressed.” He started for the door, then stopped and looked at me. “Is there a problem?”
My face must have given me away.
“You will come back?” I quavered.
“Oh, baby, of course I will! Trust me.” He tilted my chin with the tip of a finger. “You do trust me, don’t you?”
I nodded.
“Well, th
en! Go and get the others up and I’ll be back before you know it.”
“Hope he doesn’t bump into Her Upstairs,” said Tizz, when I told her that Cal was out buying stuff for breakfast. “Would have been better,” she said, “if you’d gone.”
“I did offer,” I said.
“Her Upstairs is enough to put anyone off. He might decide not to come back.” Tizz’s lower lip trembled slightly. “You should have gone with him!”
I knew she wasn’t really accusing me. She was just frightened that Cal would disappear, like Mum, and we’d be on our own again.
“Let’s go and lay the table,” I said, “and make it all nice.”
In one of the kitchen drawers we found a tablecloth we’d completely forgotten about, and some old paper napkins that had been there forever. We set them out on the table, with knives and spoons, and plates and bowls and mugs.
“That looks really good,” said Tizz.
“Now we just need to clean the kitchen up,” I said.
I used the dustpan and brush for the floor, while Tizz scrubbed at the sink till it was bright and sparkling. It had never occurred to us to do any housework-type stuff and I’d suddenly become aware that the whole place was a bit disgusting. Plus it stopped us thinking too much about what would happen if Cal didn’t come back. I was sure he would; but suppose he didn’t?
Oh, but he did! Tizz and I went catapulting into the hall to greet him.
“What’s all this?” he said. “I’ve only been gone twenty minutes!”
“Has he bringed food?” Sammy had already taken her seat at the table. She seemed to have accepted that Cal was now in charge and would provide us with all our needs. I told her not to be so rude and greedy, but Cal just laughed.
“She certainly has her priorities right. Here you go! Unpack this lot.”
“Eggs!” Sammy squeaked, excitedly. “We can have bald eggs!”
“Boiled,” I said.
“Bald,” said Sammy. “And fingers!”
It was the first proper breakfast we’d had since I couldn’t hardly remember. Boiled eggs, toast and butter, toast and marmalade, cereal, milk… Tizz said it was like a banquet.
After we’d finished, Cal said we had to talk. He sent Sammy off to watch television, while him and me and Tizz sat round the table to sort out, as Cal said, what we were going to do. I didn’t see why we had to do anything.