Ice Lolly

by Jean Ure

  Holly bangs at the door and shouts that it’s time for tea. I settle Mr Pooter on the bed and tell him I’ll be back in a minute. I think that maybe after tea I might take him in the garden so he can get some air. I’ve been doing this lately; he likes to potter about, smelling the flowers. It gets Auntie Ellen a bit fussed in case he “does something”. She means in case he goes to the toilet. But I have assured her that I will be very careful to clear up after him if he does. She says, “Just make sure that you do.” She thinks there is nothing worse than someone’s cat wandering into the garden and doing something.

  Uncle Mark is home. I ask if I can have a stamp for a letter. He says, “Of course you can! First or second?”

  I say please could it be first, and Auntie Ellen frowns. “What’s wrong with second class?” she says.

  I tell her that I’ve just discovered a letter I was supposed to post and never did. She says, “Oh, very well, then,” but I know she isn’t pleased. Lots of things I do don’t please Auntie Ellen. Uncle Mark gives me a first-class stamp and I offer to pay for it, because I think this will make Auntie Ellen happy with me, but Uncle Mark tells me not to be so silly.

  “What’s a first-class stamp between friends?”

  I’m not quite sure what this means, except that I don’t seem to get on Uncle Mark’s nerves the way I get on Auntie Ellen’s. Maybe it’s because Mum was his sister and he feels like I’m part of the family. auntie Ellen doesn’t feel that. Neither does Holly. They’d rather I wasn’t here. I don’t think Michael minds so much.

  After tea, Uncle Mark goes out to his shed in the garden, where he makes things; Michael goes over the road to visit a friend; Holly and Auntie Ellen go into the other room and I go back upstairs to fetch Mr Pooter. to my horror, as I open the door I step in something: it’s a pile of sick. Mr Pooter has brought up all his lovely dinner! He is crouched in the corner, looking sorry for himself. I want to go and cuddle him, and tell him it’s all right, he hasn’t done anything wrong, but in fact I am in a panic. the sick is on the carpet, and the carpet is pink. I must get rid of it! I must clean it up immediately, before Auntie Ellen sees.

  I turn and rush back downstairs and into the kitchen, where I rip off sheet after sheet of kitchen roll. Then I grab a sponge from under the sink and tear back upstairs. Frantically I mop up the sick with the kitchen roll and dash along the landing with it and into the toilet, where I stuff it down the pan, a whole great wodge of it, and pull the chain. Next I soak the sponge in the bathroom basin and go whizzing back to clean the carpet. My heart is pounding. I expect Auntie Ellen to appear at any moment. I rub and I scrub until the sponge starts to break up and little bits of yellow go flaking all over the floor. It looks like confetti. and there is still a stain, which won’t come out.

  Desperately, I seize the flowered rug at the end of my bed. I am about to place it over the stain when I hear Holly’s voice, shrieking hysterically.

  “Mu-u-u-u-um!”

  I drop the rug and go dashing out, on to the landing. Holly is standing at the top of the stairs. I ask her what the matter is. She turns, wild-eyed.

  “The toilet’s overflowing! It’s all full of kitchen roll!”

  My heart goes plummeting, right down into the pit of my stomach. I rush to the toilet. Holly is right. Water is welling up, with masses of kitchen roll floating in it. I yank the chain, and more water wells up. It won’t stop. It’s starting to trickle out on to the floor.

  “We’re going to be flooded,” moans Holly.

  Auntie Ellen has arrived. She takes one look and goes, “Holly! Get your father.”

  Holly skitters off. auntie Ellen snaps, “Laurel, don’t just stand there! Go and get some rubber gloves.”

  I race down to the kitchen, snatch the gloves and gallop back up. auntie Ellen pulls on the gloves and starts fishing out mounds of waterlogged kitchen roll and dumping them in the hand basin. The water level drops very slightly, but the water doesn’t actually go away. Uncle Mark comes pounding along the landing, with Holly in tow.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Someone,” says Auntie Ellen, “has clogged the toilet. Who did it?” She whirls round on me and Holly. “Who was stupid enough to put kitchen roll in there?”

  “It wasn’t me!” shrills Holly.

  “Laurel? Was it you?”

  I mumble that I am very sorry. “I thought it would go away.”

  “Well, of course it won’t just go away! It’s far too thick. Mark, what are we going to do?”

  “Try and unblock it,” says Uncle Mark. “We need some kind of plunger…do we have a mop, or anything?”

  Auntie Ellen says there’s an old one in the kitchen cupboard. She tells Holly to go and fetch it. Holly scoots off again, and I stand, like I’m mesmerised, looking at the water.

  “Why did you put kitchen roll in there, anyway?” says Auntie ellen.

  “I—” I swallow. I daren’t tell her about Mr Pooter. “I spilt something…I used kitchen roll to mop it up.”

  “Spilt what?” says Auntie Ellen; but at that moment Holly comes back with the mop and everyone’s attention turns to Uncle Mark. We all watch as he stuffs the head of the mop into the toilet bowl and pumps up and down with it. I hear the water going glob. Please, I think, please let it go away!

  But it doesn’t. It gurgles and globs, but the level stays the same. Holly wails that she needs to use the toilet.

  “I can’t hold it!”

  Michael, who is back indoors and has come upstairs to see what all the fuss is about, tells her to use the garden. Holly bawls, “I’m not using the garden. that’s disgusting!”

  “Be even more disgusting if you wet your knickers,” says Michael.

  Holly turns pink. auntie Ellen tells Michael to leave his sister alone. “It’s not her fault.” Michael looks with interest at the soggy mounds of tissue in the basin.

  “So who did it?”

  “She did.” Holly stabs a finger in my direction. “She went and stuffed kitchen roll down there.”

  “Cool,” says Michael.

  “It’s not cool, you idiot!” Holly takes a swipe at him. “It’s stupid!”

  “It certainly will be stupid,” says Uncle Mark, “if we have to get the drain people in…Michael, take over for a minute. I’ll give them a ring and see what they charge.”

  Michael kneels by the side of the toilet and begins energetically pumping up and down. I think secretly he is quite enjoying it. But he does it so vigorously that water starts splashing over the floor and makes Auntie Ellen cross.

  “You don’t have to go mad,” she says.

  “Got to get it unblocked,” pants Michael.

  Uncle Mark comes back. He pulls a face. “Well,” he says, “we can knock that idea on the head.”

  “Why?” says Auntie Ellen. “What did they say?”

  “Emergency call out, this time of night…two hundred quid.”

  “What?”

  “Two hundred quid.”

  “That’s ridiculous!” Auntie Ellen turns on me. “This is all your doing!”

  I hang my head. Uncle Mark takes back the mop and begins plunging again. Holly clutches at herself and whines.

  “Oh, go downstairs and do what your brother says!” snarls Auntie Ellen. “For goodness’ sake!”

  Holly goes grizzling off. The nightmare continues. I know that if we have to call the drain people and pay them £200, Auntie Ellen will never forgive me. and if she discovers the stain on the carpet she will never forgive Mr Pooter.

  At long last, after Holly has come back from the garden, sending filthy looks at Michael, the water level begins to drop. Slowly, slowly, the water drains away. Uncle Mark pulls the chain, and all the kitchen roll is gone. I let out my breath with a sigh of relief. Michael goes, “Yay!” and punches the air.

  “Well,” says Uncle Mark, “that was an experience.”

  “Just don’t let it happen again,” says Auntie Ellen. “Someone your age…you really ought to have
more sense.”

  “Kitchen roll,” squeals Holly. “Down the toilet!”

  Everyone troops back downstairs except me. I go into my bedroom to check on Mr Pooter. He’s on the bed, and he’s purring. I think that he must be hungry, sicking up all his food, so I get out his tin and show it to him, but he’s not interested. I even smear a bit of cat food on my finger in the hope he will lick it off, but he just turns his head away. I think that I will try again later.

  I spit on a paper hanky and wipe my finger, then take out my maths book, intending to do some homework. But it’s no use, I can’t settle. I curl up next to Mr Pooter and press my face into his fur. I tell him that I wish we weren’t here. I wish we were somewhere else.

  If only we could have stayed with Stevie! Stevie loves Mr Pooter. She loves all cats. She would be able to tell me what to do.

  “Let’s go down to the garden,” I say. I gather Mr Pooter into my arms. It seems safer to carry him; that way, Auntie Ellen can’t complain of cat hairs on her carpet. As we go into the garden, she appears at the back door.

  “What were you mopping up, anyway?” she says. “What was it you spilt?”

  I don’t as a rule tell lies; not if I can help it. But sometimes you just have to. I tell Auntie Ellen that I spilt some water.

  “I was carrying Mr Pooter’s bowl, and I dropped it.”

  “Well, just be more careful in future,” she says.

  Oh, I wish we could be somewhere else!

  CHAPTER SIX

  Today in the library Mrs Caton gives me a book to read in the holidays. It’s called Three Men in a Boat, and it’s old. I like old books! I like the thought of other people reading them. People from long ago, before I was born. I imagine them turning the pages and chuckling to themselves at bits they find amusing, or maybe going tut if there’s something they don’t approve of, and never dreaming that years later, in another century, someone like me will be turning those same pages and reading the exact same words.

  I put the book to my nose and sniff. I always do this with books; Mum used to do it, too. She used to say that the smell of a book was better than the smell of the most expensive perfume. Mrs Caton laughs.

  “Why is it that real book people always do that?” she says.

  “Do what?” says Jolene, jealously. She likes to think of herself as a book person, in spite of not knowing whether Elinor M. Brent-Dyer goes under B or D. I bet she couldn’t get through Jane Eyre, even though she is in Year 9. I read it with Mum when I was only ten!

  Now I am being boastful. I have nothing to be boastful about. Yesterday we had the results of our end-of-term maths exam, and I came next to bottom. On the other hand, I came top of English. Mum would have been ever so proud. She would have said, “You take after me, Lollipop, you don’t have a mathematical brain. You’re more of a language person.”

  But coming next to bottom is nothing to boast about; even Mum would agree with that. So I have absolutely no right to feel superior to Jolene. She might have come top of her maths exam, for all I know.

  I tell her about books smelling better than perfume, and she does that thing that people are always doing, she looks at me like I’m from outer space.

  “Dalek!” she hisses, as she flounces off across the library.

  “What did she call you?” says Mrs Caton.

  I mutter, “Dalek,” hoping that she won’t hear and will just forget about it. But she’s frowning.

  “Why Dalek?” she says.

  I say that I don’t know.

  “It doesn’t seem a very pleasant thing to call someone.”

  I tell her that it’s like a sort of nickname. Nickname makes it sound friendly. Mrs Caton doesn’t look like she’s convinced. She says, “Well, anyway, I was going through my bookshelves and I came across Three Men in a Boat and I thought of you immediately. It was written round about the same time as your big favourite, Diary of a Nobody. My dad introduced me to it, I used to think it was absolutely hilarious! Mind you, that was when I was about fifteen or sixteen, so I was quite a bit older than you. But you’re such a mature reader…I’ll be interested to know how you get on. Give it a go, and see what you feel.”

  I promise her that I will.

  “You can read it over the summer holiday. Just a little bit at a time.”

  Earnestly, I say that I never read books a little bit at a time. “Once I’ve started I can’t stop. I just get greedy and gobble them up!”

  “Well, don’t get too greedy,” says Mrs Caton. “You’ve got weeks and weeks ahead of you.”

  The bell rings for the start of afternoon school. Tomorrow is the last day of term. I tell Mrs Caton a big thank you.

  “I’ll start reading straight away! And I’ll take really good care of it.”

  “I know you will,” she says. “You’re a book person. But don’t forget…a little bit at a time. I don’t want you being bored.”

  I couldn’t be bored by a book. I tell her this, and she smiles and says, “Different books suit different people…and don’t gobble! You’ve got the whole of the summer.”

  I go slowly back to class. I can’t imagine what I’m going to do all through the summer. I can’t imagine not going to the library every day and seeing Mrs Caton. I don’t think, really, that I’m looking forward to all those empty weeks.

  I used to love the holidays when Mum was here. We never went away anywhere, we couldn’t afford it, but we used to go on days out. We used to visit places, all over London. Sometimes out of London, like we’d jump on the train and go to the seaside and buy sticks of rock and paddle and build sandcastles. It was fun! Even if we just packed sandwiches and went to Kensington Gardens to see Peter Pan and feed the ducks. Or like maybe Mum would suddenly say, “Let’s go somewhere different! Let’s catch a train and just go off…where shall we go to? Tell me which direction! North, east, south, west…you choose!”

  So then I’d say, like, “North!” and off we’d go to King’s Cross or Euston. We’d look at the indicator boards and Mum would say, “Pick a destination!” I knew I couldn’t pick anywhere too far away, like Birmingham or Manchester, but it still gave us lots to choose from.

  We didn’t really go places so much after Mum was in her wheelchair, but we still had fun. We’d stay home and play games, like Scrabble, or Trivial Pursuit, or Monopoly. We didn’t have a Monopoly board, but Mum said that needn’t stop us, we’d make one for ourselves. Making the board was almost as much fun as playing the game! We printed out lots of money on the computer and Mum giggled and said, “Let’s hope the police don’t break in and catch us at it! They’ll think we’re forgers.”

  I bet if the police had broken in, it would still have been fun. Everything was fun, with Mum. It’s not much fun with Uncle Mark and Auntie Ellen. they never play games, and if I suggested going to the station and choosing a place to visit they’d give me that look, like, How weird is that child?

  They’re going to Wales in August. I suppose I’ll go with them, though I don’t know where I’ll stay. Holly and Michael are staying with their nan, but there isn’t room for anyone else so Uncle Mark and Auntie Ellen are booked into a hotel. I don’t think Auntie Ellen would want to pay for me to be booked in as well, she’s already complaining about how much it costs. So I don’t know quite what will happen. Maybe I could go and stay with Stevie, except that Stevie doesn’t have people to stay. Perhaps I’ll just stay behind, by myself. That would probably be best, otherwise what would happen to Mr Pooter? He couldn’t come to Wales, and Auntie Ellen wouldn’t pay for a cattery, and anyway he would hate being in a cattery. But I’m not leaving him home alone!

  When I get back after school I find him curled up on the bed. He chirrups at me, but doesn’t get up. I look quickly round to check that he hasn’t had any more accidents. Yesterday he was sick on the duvet; just a little bit. I managed to sponge it off. today I can’t see anything. My heart lifts.

  “Good boy,” I say. “Good boy!” I scratch behind his ears, the way he
likes, and try to roll him over to tickle his tummy, but he won’t roll. “OK, dinner time,” I say. I fetch his bowl and one of his new expensive cat food tins. In the old days he was so eager that he used to jump up and head-butt, and push his way into the bowl before Mum had even had a chance to get the food in there. He doesn’t do that, now. I have to coax him.

  I take his bowl over to the bed. He doesn’t look at it.

  “Nice kitty food,” I say. “Yum yum!” I pick up the bowl and pretend to eat out of it myself. Mr Pooter watches me, unblinking. “Now you have some!” I offer him the bowl again, but he turns his head away. “Chicken and liver…yummy yummy!” I smear a bit on my finger. His blunt nose crimples. He’s almost tempted…and then he turns away again. He’s not going to eat, no matter how hard I try.

  I sit on the bed, stroking him. Stevie once said that cats are creatures of habit. “They don’t like change. Upsets them.” I think that maybe Mr Pooter is missing Mum. I whisper, “I miss her, too!” I wish there was something I could do to make him happy. I wish he could creep into my ice house with me. We could huddle there together, and no one could get at us.

  I go down to tea, leaving his bowl beside him on the bed. When I come back, it is still there; the food is still in it. I’m beginning to worry. His coat isn’t as shiny as it used to be, and I can feel his ribs sticking out. I don’t know what to do!

  I’m going to ring Stevie; Stevie will know. She knows everything about cats. I take my mobile out of my bag and bring up her number. My heart is thumping. as a rule, in the evening, she doesn’t bother to answer. She and Mum had a special code. Mum would let the phone ring three times, then immediately ring again, so that Stevie would know it was her. But I’m not sure she’ll remember; her memory isn’t what it was. and even if she does, she still mightn’t answer. She’ll know it can’t be Mum.