by Hilary McKay
‘Yes.’
‘Well don’t, because it makes it sound like you agree with every single thing Molly says!’
‘I thought she really did agree with everything I said,’ said Molly reproachfully. ‘Don’t you, Rose?’
‘Yes,’ I said (anything for a bit of peace).‘Of course I do!’
The forest I drew in my bedroom was a fir wood. I drew it with chalk and charcoal: ordinary, smudgy, coloured chalks, and silvery charcoal. The trees were Christmas trees, grey-green snow laden branches reaching to the sky. Among the branches I put a crescent moon and dim glowing stars of peach and blue and yellow and purple scattered very rarely, lighting the snow.
The thing about drawing is knowing when to stop. I finished my fir wood all in one evening and then I let everyone come and look.
‘Wonderful, lovely, perfect,’ croaked Mummy.
‘Hurray!’ exclaimed Sarah triumphantly. ‘I know where you got that idea from. At last I found a book you like!’
‘I thought you’d grown out of drawing on walls,’ said Saffron. ‘Bill will go mad!’ (Daddy is Bill.) ‘He’s only just paid up to have the last lot obliterated.’ (She was talking about the kitchen and the stairs, recently repainted Scrubbable Magnolia and now officially declared an Art-Free Zone.)
‘I don’t see why she can’t draw what she likes on her own bedroom walls,’ said Indigo. ‘It looks amazing, doesn’t it, David?’
‘It’s really good,’ said David who was round again. ‘If it’s finished. Or are you going to brighten it up? I expect it will paint over. Me and Grandad emulsioned his upstairs once and covered over worse marks than that.’
Indigo gripped David by the elbow and put him next to the door so he would have somewhere to run if I threw anything and said to distract me, ‘There was a mysterious phone call for you earlier, Rose. Someone called Molly said to tell you she was so glad you agreed and only five nights to wait and then she rang off.’
‘Five nights till what?’ I asked (distracted).
‘She didn’t say. I was going to ask you.’
How strange. Particularly as I don’t remember agreeing to anything. What had she and Kiran been arguing about today? I don’t know. Perhaps I should (as Kiran commanded) start paying attention sometimes.
So I did.
Saffy and Sarah and Mummy had all disappeared. Indigo was saying to David, ‘I’m just going out. Do you want to come too or are you going to stay here and risk Death by Charcoal with Rose?’
‘I’ll stay with Rose,’ I heard David say as they went downstairs. ‘I only came to ask if I could borrow your washing machine…’
What!
David must be mad. Of course he cannot borrow our washing machine. We have only got one and we need it ourselves. We use it nearly every day. Just because he has dumped his drum kit on us doesn’t mean he can go off with our washing machine in exchange.
I fumed for a few minutes and then went downstairs to defend our property. There was David, alone in the kitchen, watching his socks and things go round and round.
Oh.
Well, that is OK. I thought he planned to take it away, on his wheelbarrow, like the drum kit.
But why can’t David wash his clothes in his mother’s washing machine at home?
Because (says David) he is still not living at his mum’s.
Nor at Marcus’s.
Or Patrick’s.
Or Josh’s.
Where then?
David is living in his dead grandad’s attic. Which is a Big Secret that I must never ever let on to anyone (however I have made no promises).
Anyway, David has been Up There since Saturday.
And it is Great.
David’s dead grandad’s house is cleared out and empty, waiting for the next tenants, but David still has the back door key that his grandad gave him years and years ago. And although the electricity is off, the water is still running, and that is the main thing.
Is it?
Yes, said David, slightly embarrassed, because then you can flush the loo.
I suppose.
And wash.
Oh good.
And cook.
Can you?
Soup and stuff. On a camp stove which is also up in the attic (only accessible by the attic trap-door stairs which David pulls up and folds away every night).Also in the attic are David’s backpack, now unpacked, his sleeping bag and school books.
School books?
David is keeping up at school with homework and stuff, so nobody notices anything is wrong. In fact, he is working harder than he has ever done in his life before and the teachers are dead impressed. Besides, it passes the time without a telly. It is dark in the attic although there is a skylight, but David does his homework by candlelight. (The candlelight does not show from outside, he has checked.)
I think candles in attics in empty houses sound dangerous.
No, they are not, says David. Not if you are very careful. It is brilliant up in the attic; it is like a camp.
It sounds awful.
Not at all. You can even, in the attic, practise the drums a bit on empty cardboard boxes.
David would stay there for ever if he could.
This cannot happen. One day someone else will come and live in David’s dead grandad’s house and then what? They are bound to notice a great big teenage boy playing drums and cooking soup in the attic.
‘Well,’ said David, when I pointed this out. ‘You cannot worry about everything.’
I thought myself David was not worrying about anything, but he explained that he was taking one day at a time, hoping his Post Office money would hold out for food and drum kit rent until January when he would be sixteen and could get a Saturday job in the supermarket stacking shelves.
David told me all this quite calmly, while his washing went round and round, first in the washer and then in the dryer, and I did not go away because I had had a thought.
Now that David’s grandad is dead, nobody in the whole world except Indigo cares very much about David.
And if I have worries (like Mr Spencer and what is Molly talking about and where is Caddy and how ill is Mummy and what kind of a Christmas is this going to be if nobody does anything about it, not to mention always wondering what time it is in New York) then David has worse ones.
I did not like to go back upstairs and leave him alone, and so I kept him company and after a while I offered to make toast for supper. I had missed the earlier version of this meal that Saffy had produced because I was not hungry at the time. But now my forest was finished that feeling was past and I was suddenly starving.
‘Starving?’ asked David.
Then with no further fuss he made delicious Welsh rarebit for me and him, and a poached egg and a cup of weak tea for Mummy which he took out to her stony tower, dismal dungeon, black hole, shed.
‘It is funny,’ he said when he came back (glowing because Mummy had been very pleased with the tea and polite about the egg),‘a lot of people would think it was weird, the way your mum hangs out in that shed—’
‘It is not weird at all,’ I interrupted defensively. ‘She is just staying there because of her painting and germs. It makes perfect sense.’
‘I know,’ said David, ‘that’s what I was going to say. Just like it makes perfect sense for me to live in the attic.’
He sounded very pleased indeed when he said this, like he had proved something that really mattered.
So I did not argue.
But I did wonder.
‘What would your mum do if she found out?’ I asked.
‘Kill me,’ said David.
Oh.
She’d better not find out then.
Wednesday 14th December
Only at Night
Today at lunchtime Molly told Kai and Kiran and me that David Attenborough says that only at night can you truly feel the magnificence of the wild animals all around you.
‘Could you have misheard?’ asked Kiran.
Molly also told us that her gran says that when you are stuck in an old people’s home gone at the knees and not even able to get out to the shops to choose your own wool then you have plenty of time to Regret. And the things you regret most are the ones you didn’t do, not the ones you did.
‘I think that is very true and sad and pathetic,’ said Molly.
‘Your gran wasn’t sad and pathetic last time when we went round for the shoe box stuff,’ pointed out Kiran. ‘She was watching Sky Sport and not regretting anything.’
‘I was talking about usually,’ said Molly patiently. ‘That time wasn’t usual. Nottingham Forest had just scored. She can’t count on it happening very often.’
‘She should support a better team,’ said Kai. ‘Then she could. What about Man U?’
‘Yes, what about Man U?’ agreed Kiran. ‘It would be more sensible, you’ve got to admit.’
Molly clearly did not intend to be side-tracked because she agreed straight away that her grandmother should be ordered to desist from her lifetime’s support of Nottingham Forest and turn instead to Manchester United, and then she went back to her original preoccupation of Only at Night.
With particular reference to the Zoo.
The Zoo and Molly’s Impossible Plan and the Reason Why When Molly Said, ‘Promise You Will Help, Please Promise You Will Help!’ Kiran and I Should Not Have Said, ‘Of Course We Will!’ We Should Have Said, ‘Help You With What?’
I have known since Monday what Molly was planning. Or dreaming. And I knew she was quite serious, because Molly is always quite serious, but I didn’t really realise (I mean, really realise)
she actually
completely
totally
Meant it.
‘Yes well,’ said Kiran crossly. ‘You should have realised! Where else around here is there going to be any sort of magnificent even slightly wild animals all around you at night?’
Last Sunday, while I was enjoying Snow White Christmas Pudding guess what Molly was doing? Homework? No. Recorder practice? No. Laminating autographs? No.
Molly was on a reconnaissance trip to the Zoo.
‘The arctic fox enclosure is completely deserted,’ she said. ‘They have been gone all year. Grass and bushes have grown up everywhere and their shed is empty. It will be the perfect place. Anyone could get over the wire, it is not even as high as me.’
‘Is she saying what I think she’s saying?’ asked Kai in utter amazement.
‘Yes,’ said Kiran, and she described Molly’s awful plan in all its ridiculous David-Attenborough-fuelled space-blanketed detail.
This was a great mistake. Kai’s subsidiary interest in practical jokes suddenly became a major total enthusiasm and he said, ‘Oh fantastic! Brilliant! The boys will help! I can’t believe Molly thought of all that on her own!’
Molly blushed happily.
‘I wish I could do it too,’ said Kai. ‘Only I am grounded from sleepovers and parties for the rest of the year because of that phone call I shouldn’t have made on Mum’s birthday.’
‘That’s an idea!’ exclaimed Kiran. ‘Let’s get ourselves grounded right away, Rose!’
‘Oh!’ said Molly and got tears in her eyes and said that we had promised. And that this was the first not boring thing she had ever thought of and it was being ruined.
And yesterday I had agreed with everything she said and so now why was I changing my mind?
And perhaps we are scared of getting Mr Spencer in trouble and that’s why we are being so horrible.
And other similar things.
With little sniffs in between.
‘I don’t remember agreeing to anything yesterday,’ I said a bit crossly, because emotional blackmail does make you cross.
‘You did!’ said Kiran. ‘And when I tried to warn you you took no notice and talked about your bedroom walls.’
‘Well, anyway,’ I continued. ‘How could it ever really happen?’
‘Mrs Shah said it was amazing what Class 6 could accomplish when they worked together as a team,’ sniffed Molly, and Kai said, ‘Stop being rotten to Moll! I thought you were supposed to be her friends!’
Then the bell went because it was one o’clock (eight in New York), the end of lunch, and time for Mr Spencer to attempt to teach us Vectors.
Whatever they may be.
‘Kai and Molly!’ said Kiran as we walked home from school together after this unhappy experience. ‘Do you think so? Or not?’
‘Don’t know.’
‘One of my aunties met one of my uncles at junior school,’ said Kiran.
‘Then what?’
‘Nothing for about a million years and then they got married.’
‘Oh.’
‘So that was good until she got run over. Then not so good. Although…’
‘What?’ I asked, because Kiran was suddenly speechless with giggles. ‘What?’
‘She still haunts him.’
We doubled up and staggered, leaned against walls and moaned at the pain in our ribs.
‘I’m going to live in the Zoo-hoo-hoo,’ sang Kiran madly. ‘I’ve made up my mind. Suddenly. I’ve decided that I need locking up for my own safety. How many times can you spin round without falling over?’
‘About one.’
‘Would you mind very much coming back to the school gates and starting walking home all over again so that I can see if I can go the whole way spinning?’ asked Kiran, spinning.
No, I would not mind doing that.
‘You will have to steer me across the road because the lollipop lady will have gone.’
Of course.
‘Then if you liked you could come to tea at my house. We’ve got our Christmas trees up.’
‘Trees?’
‘One in the garden,’ said Kiran, revolving slowly past two shocked old ladies. ‘One on the upstairs landing outside my bedroom and a Six-Foot Deluxe Fibre-Optic Norwegian Fir in the lounge.’
Kiran’s family is all ready for Christmas. It could happen tomorrow and they would not be disturbed. Christmas cards are arranged in beautiful tidy fans on the walls of the hall and kitchen. The Christmas trees are wonderful. The one in the garden is covered in tiny lanterns, all colours of the rainbow. Upstairs the tree on the landing is decorated entirely with chocolate and red-and-white candy canes. In the lounge the Deluxe Fibre-Optic Norwegian Fir has piles of presents waiting beneath it already.
The whole house is incredibly tidy.
When I got home I arranged some of our Christmas cards in fans. It took a lot of Sellotape.
Later I took the housekeeping jar to bed with me and counted the contents to see if we could afford a Six-Foot Deluxe Fibre-Optic Norwegian Fir.
Probably not.
Thursday 14th December
Oh Bloody Bloody Hell!
I did not mean to fall asleep with the housekeeping jar but somehow I did. There happens to be a vast accumulation of pennies and tuppences in it at the moment, and in the dark the lid unscrewed itself so that I woke in the very early morning to find I had been sleeping on a pile of coins.
‘Like a dragon,’ remarked Indigo, popping his head round the door for a moment. ‘Can I have a bit of your hoard for the bus? You don’t need to get up yet, Rose, it’s still really early.’
‘Good,’ I said. I had a favour to ask Saffron and I wanted to catch her before she began her early morning acceleration of shower and hair and mirrors and bags and I-only-have-time-for-toast and lip-gloss and Rose-have-you-got-my-mobile, say-bye-to-Eve-for-me, I-don’t-know-when-I’ll-be-home-but-I-will-be-home…
…. Zoom
….. Out of the Door
Sometimes Saffy moves so fast that it is weird that you don’t see smoke.
My plan was to catch her before she got started.
‘Gosh Rose, go away!’ moaned Saffy when I began to gently joggle her awake (I notice that she sleeps with her back to the drum kit).‘It’s still the middle of the night.’<
br />
‘No it isn’t,’ I told her. ‘Indigo has left already to do his papers and I can hear Mummy making coffee in the kitchen. Saffy, did you know it was twelve shopping days until Christmas last Saturday and now it’s Thursday and we still haven’t got a Christmas tree? Kiran has three, one outside and one upstairs and a Six-Foot Deluxe Fibre-Optic Norwegian Fir in the lounge.’
Saffron got under her pillow and said,
‘Just buzz off, please, Rose?’
‘So I thought,’ I said, lifting the pillow slightly off her head so that she could hear, ‘we could go shopping after school and get one too. I’ve got the housekeeping jar.’
‘Rose,’ said Saffron, ‘I don’t care if you’ve got the pin number of the Bank of England no way is a six-foot deluxe fibre-optic Norwegian fir becoming part of my world.’
I thought she might say that.
‘What about an ordinary Christmas tree then?’ I asked.
‘Since when do I have to organise the rotten Christmas tree?’ complained Saffy.
Since Daddy went to London and Mummy got ill and Caddy went away to hunt for Michael and never came back. As Saffy knew perfectly well and I did not have to explain.
Saffy is not daft.
A poignant silence is usually enough.
‘Oh, all right,’ she groaned with her eyes shut. ‘I’ll do it. But not today. I’m meeting Oscar straight after school today.’
‘Tomorrow?’
‘Tomorrow’s impossible because it’s Friday. Saturday.’
‘Saturday?’
‘Saturday afternoon (I’m going with Sarah to get her hair done in the morning).About two-ish.’
‘I wish it could be sooner.’
‘Saturday afternoon will be perfect,’ said Saffron firmly. ‘Then you can fling on the bling on Saturday night with Eve and Indy and that will be nice for you…’