by Jean Ure
I said, “What? Why?” What had I done now?
“He’s hopping mad,” said Angel.
But I hadn’t done anything! And then I noticed Rags: all along one side he was covered in something white. Paint?
Mum pointed silently up the stairs. I didn’t want to look, but she seemed to expect it of me. Reluctantly, I swivelled my eyes in the direction of her pointing finger. Great clumps of dog fur were sticking out of Dad’s paintwork. You could see where Rags had bumped and banged against it as he careered down the stairs.
“Furry skirting boards!” sniggered Tom.
Dad had appeared on the upstairs landing. “I am not amused,” he said.
“No one ever is.” Angel said it bitterly. “The things she gets up to.”
I said, “I didn’t do it! It was Rags.”
“Oh, please,” said Angel.
“That’s right, go blaming an innocent dog,” said Dad.
It wouldn’t have been so bad if he’d been a white dog. Unfortunately, he’s grey. And he has this really long hair.
“Maybe it’d pull off—” I grabbed at a bunch and yanked. The hair came away, but so did some of the paintwork. Dad howled.
“Don’t touch it! You’ll only make matters worse.”
I backed away, hastily.
“I have never known anyone,” said Dad, “capable of creating such havoc.”
“Well, I’m sorry,” I said. “But how was I to know the door bell would ring?”
“Cos it’s what door bells do,” said Angel. “Specially,” she added, “when you’ve got people coming.”
“I didn’t know they were going to arrive just at that moment! I was brushing him,” I said. She had some nerve. “Not like you ever lift a finger to do him!”
“That’s cos he’s not my dog. I wanted a rabbit, remember? If I’d had a rabbit,” said Angel, “I’d have brushed him every single day. You were the one that insisted on carting that great lumping thing home.”
“Yes, you’d just have left him there to go mouldy!” We’d found him at the rescue centre. He’d looked so forlorn, all alone in his cage. “Poor little man!”
“Little?” shrieked Angel. “He’s the size of a cart horse!”
“And he’s ruined my paintwork,” said Dad.
“Would you like me to re-do it?” I said.
“I don’t think so,” said Dad. “Thank you all the same.”
“I could!”
“I’m sure you could. You’d no doubt paint the stair carpet and the hall table and the front door mat while you were at it.”
Why would I do that? Honestly! People have such strange ideas.
“I’m only trying to help,” I said.
“What you don’t seem to understand,” hissed Angel, “is that nobody wants your help.”
Well, she was wrong there, cos Jem did! For the first few days after our pilgrimage, she’d been happy just preening. Basking in her newfound glory. Abandoned! In a shawl! What could be more romantic? But once the immediate excitement started to wear off, she began to get worked up and wail that she had to find out more.
“I have to know who she was!”
Even Skye was prepared to admit that it was a mystery which needed to be solved.
“You might not like what you discover, but now that you’ve come this far I guess you have to go on.”
The problem was, none of us had the least idea what to do next.
“We’ve got to do something,” I said to Skye. Finding her birth mum was all Jem could talk about. All day, every day. First break, second break. On the way to school, on the way back home. Why couldn’t she keep me? What made her get rid of me? I’ve got to find out! I can’t go through life not knowing!
I tried to be patient, cos I could imagine what she must be feeling, but quite honestly it was getting to be just a little bit tiresome. Even, almost, a bit worrying.
“She’s become just, like, totally obsessed!”
“You shouldn’t ever have got her going in the first place,” said Skye.
I said, “Me?”
“You were the one that suggested she start looking.”
“Only cos she was in a state about her life being blighted.”
“She’s always in a state. You know what she’s like! Give her a few days and she’d have forgotten all about it.”
“Maybe,” I said, hopefully, “she’ll forget about this too?”
“Maybe,” said Skye; but she didn’t sound very optimistic. I wasn’t very optimistic myself. I’d lost count of the number of things Jem had gone on about in the past, but this was different. This was really intense.
One Friday afternoon I went back with her after school. She said she had something she wanted to show me. Skye couldn’t come as she had a music lesson, so it was just the two of us. I hadn’t been round to Jem’s for ages. Mrs McClusky was in the kitchen, standing all comfortable and roly-poly at the sink in a bright pink tracksuit. She was happily sloshing around with mounds of bubbles frothing and foaming across the draining board. Mum would go demented if I used that much washing-up liquid! Mrs McClusky obviously enjoyed having lots of bubbles.
“Hello, stranger!” She flapped a hand and water went spraying into the air. “I’m washing up from this morning.” She laughed, happily. “And from last night! I bet your mum doesn’t let dirty dishes mount up like this?”
It’s true, she doesn’t; but then my mum is at home all day. I know she’s working, but Jem’s mum has to go out and work. In the morning she’s a school dinner lady (not at our school) and in the evening she cleans people’s offices, so I could perfectly understand why it was she was doing last night’s dishes at four o’clock the next day. It didn’t seem to me at all unreasonable. Personally, if it were left to me, I would just dump everything in the sink and take stuff out when it’s needed. I can’t think all this washing up is good for the environment. But I felt sorry for poor Mrs McClusky, having to come home and do all this work and then go out cleaning offices.
“Shall I help?” I said.
“No.” Jem beckoned, impatiently. “I’ve got something I want you to see!”
“I’ll just dry,” I said. “And you can put away.” Jem screwed up her face as if in some kind of agony. I dried a cereal bowl and placed it carefully on the kitchen table. Ungraciously, Jem snatched it up, but before she could put it away her mobile had started ringing and she immediately plonked it back down again. I saw her glance at the caller ID.
“I’ve just got to go and take this,” she said.
I gave up. She was away for so long that I had to start putting things away myself. If she’d taken the call in the kitchen she could have put things away at the same time, which means I wouldn’t have tripped over my school bag and smashed a plate.
“Now look what you’ve done!” she said, reappearing at precisely the wrong moment. She said it like it was my fault. Like if I hadn’t insisted on helping, it wouldn’t have happened.
Mrs McClusky just laughed and said not to worry. “It was probably cracked, anyway.”
“I’ll clear it up,” I said.
“That’s all right, just chuck it in the bin.”
I really do love Jem’s mum! There is no fuss and bother with her. Mum would have gone on and on about me leaving my school bag in the middle of the floor, and if the plate had been cracked to begin with she would have been bound to say that I had done it. I am responsible for everything!
Jem was tugging at me. “You coming, or not?”
“Yes, off you go!” Mrs McClusky waved us away. “You obviously have things to do.”
“Who was on the phone?” I asked Jem.
“That,” said Jem, “was Liliana. She’s got another modelling job!”
I said, “Oh.” I didn’t know whether to be sympathetic, like, “All right for some people,” or whether to say something bracing on the lines of, “Don’t worry, it probably won’t last.” In the end I didn’t say anything, and neither did Jem. She just thre
w open the door of her bedroom and noisily banged it shut again behind us. I thought, uh-oh! Trouble ahead. I expected her to get going on her usual my-life-has-been-blighted routine, and was quite surprised when she didn’t. It seemed that whatever it was she’d asked me round to see was more important.
I was curious. I bounced down on to her bed while Jem crawled on hands and knees across the floor, then lay flat on her side and groped with one hand under a chest of drawers. I watched with growing astonishment. What could be so secret that she had to keep it hidden from her mum? I know my mum has this truly annoying habit of prowling about my room when I’m not there, tidying things up and putting things away, but I don’t think she would ever actually spy. Like if I kept a diary and wrote PRIVATE on the front, she wouldn’t immediately sit down and have a read of it. I don’t think she would. And if my mum wouldn’t, then I didn’t reckon Mrs McClusky would, either. Jem obviously had something she felt guilty about.
“Here.” She handed me a cardboard folder that she’d slid out from under the chest. On the front it had a big red question mark.
“What is it?” I said.
“Have a look!” Jem seemed both excited and at the same time a bit anxious, like maybe I might not approve. Her face had turned a give-away pink.
I opened the folder. Inside was a drawing. A girl, quite young, with thick, black, glossy hair, big dark eyes and a creamy complexion. Rather like Jem herself. Underneath it said, My birth mum?
I stared at it for a while, wondering how to react.
“What do you think?” said Jem.
I swallowed. I didn’t know what to think, quite honestly. “Did you copy it from somewhere?” I said.
“No! It came out of my head. It’s what I think she might have looked like.”
It was a good drawing. Art is one of Jem’s best subjects. But I still didn’t know what to think.
“Here.” Jem reached across and pulled an envelope out of the folder. “Read this!”
On the envelope she’d printed the words, Letter to my Daughter. I took out a sheet of paper, covered in handwriting I didn’t recognise. It wasn’t Jem’s round, bouncy hand.
I turned to her, puzzled. “Is this really from your birth mum?”
Jem giggled, a bit shamefaced. “No, it’s something I made up. Read it!”
I really didn’t want to; it felt like intruding. This was Jem’s private dream world. Nothing to do with me! But she was waiting, eagerly watching, so I didn’t have much choice.
“My dearest darling daughter,” I read, in the handwriting that wasn’t Jem’s.
“I am walking into the churchyard with you in my arms. I will lie you down at the top of the steps where you will be sheltered from the wind. At least you have your nice warm shawl that I knitted for you. That is some comfort. I couldn’t bear the thought of you being cold.
“Now I fear it is time for me to leave you. It breaks my heart to go but I am very scared and confused and do not know what else to do. There is no one I can speak to. My mum and dad are very harsh cruel people and I shudder to think what would happen if I told them about you. You are so precious to me!
“This is the moment I have been dreading. The moment when I must say goodbye. For ever! Goodbye, my dear little baby! I will give you one last kiss on your sweet soft cheek. I know you will not remember me but I will remember you until the end of my days. I will never stop thinking about you and wondering what has become of you. I love you so much, I pray with all my heart that you will find happiness in your life.
“With all my love, Mum.”
I finished reading and folded the letter back up. There was a long silence.
“Well?” Jem flung herself down next to me on the bed. “What d’you think? D’you think it’s the sort of letter she might have written?”
Actually, to be honest, I thought it was kind of embarrassing. The sort of thing best kept hidden away and read only in strictest privacy. Preferably late at night, under the duvet, with a torch. But Jem had her eyes fixed on me, obviously waiting for me to say something. I didn’t want to hurt her. She’s my friend and I knew how important it was. So I said yes, I thought it sounded exactly the sort of letter her birth mum might have written. Jem’s face glowed with pleasure.
“Mind you,” I said, “I don’t quite see how she’d have been able to write it the same time she was saying goodbye.”
Jem crinkled her nose. “How d’you mean?”
“Well… that bit about I am walking into the churchyard with you in my arms. How’d she manage to walk and write at the same time?”
Jem obviously hadn’t thought of that. The pinkness came surging back into her cheeks. So then I felt mean and wished I hadn’t said anything.
“P’raps it was artistic licence,” I said. “Like, she went home and sat down to write the letter and was kind of re-living things in her mind?”
“Mm.” Jem nodded, slowly. “’Cept I imagined her writing it before. So’s she could leave it with me, you know?”
“OK! So instead of re-living it she was pre-living it.”
I thought that was pretty neat, and so did Jem. She liked that explanation. Her face went into a big happy beam.
“Of course –” she said it bravely – “if there is a letter it probably won’t be anything like this one.”
“You never know,” I said. “It might be. Are you…” I waved at the folder. “Are you planning on adding anything else?”
“Like what? What sort of things d’you think I could add?” She leant forward, excitedly. “I thought of more photographs. Ones when she was younger? Like my age? And maybe she’d have left me a school report, or something, so I’d know what kind of things she was good at. See if they’re the kind of things I’m good at. That’d be interesting, wouldn’t it? Don’t you think?”
I said, “Yes. Why not?” But I can’t have sounded very convincing cos Jem suddenly dropped her gaze and began plucking at the duvet.
“I know it’s only pretend,” she muttered. “But it’s all I’ve got!”
On the way home I called Skye on my mobile.
“You know we were talking about Jem being obsessed?” I said. “Well, it’s getting worse!” I told her about the folder and the letter.
“Hm. Acting out her fantasies,” said Skye.
“But I think she really believes them! She says it’s only pretend, but then she says it’s all she’s got.”
“I dunno what we can do.”
“We’ve got to help her find her birth mum!”
But how, that was the problem?
Chapter Seven
Next day, which was Saturday, I found myself in the bathroom with Mum, explaining how it couldn’t possibly have been me that had left the hot tap running cos last time I’d used it the water had come out boiling hot and I’d got burnt, so now I only used the cold.
“I wash in cold water,” I said. “It’s good for you! And it saves on electricity.”
“Whereas leaving the tap running does anything but,” said Mum.
“Well, exactly! That’s why I wouldn’t do it. Ooh, that must be the post!” Rags had started his postman bark at the front door. “I’ll get it!”
Apart from the fact that I enjoy collecting letters off the front door mat, I was glad to get away before Mum could start falsely accusing me. I wasn’t the one that wasted water! Even if I’d turned the hot tap on by mistake, which I just might have done, I’d have quickly turned it back off. I wouldn’t want to get burnt again, would I?
I hurtled down the stairs to find Rags busily ripping and tearing at something. Fortunately it was the local paper, not the post, but I still yelled at him.
“Rags! Get off!”
I like the local paper, it has interesting headlines. Like last week it had been, DOCTORS CURED MY SON’S FLAT HEAD. This week it was, RAT THE SIZE OF CAT IN WOMAN’S BACK GARDEN, except I couldn’t get to read about it cos of Rags having torn the front page to shreds.
“Stupid dog!” I
said, but he only grinned, like it was some big joke. He never takes me seriously.
I sat at the foot of the stairs to read what was left. Mostly sport and cars. I’m not into either of them, so I chucked the pages at Rags, who immediately jumped on them and began his shredding act. Near the back of the paper there’s a page called YOUTH CULTURE. That is more my sort of thing. Rags had torn it down the middle, so I fitted the pieces together – and had a bit of a shock. Cos there, staring up at me, was a girl who looked incredibly like the drawing Jem had done of her birth mum. There was a long interview with her, taking up half the page, under the heading LOCAL GIRL MAKES GOOD.
Her name was Mia Jelena, and it seemed she was some kind of a singer.
“Have you ever heard of her?” I asked Angel, who had just rudely shoved past me on her way down the stairs.
“Who?” She peered over my shoulder. “Mia Jelena? Of course I’ve heard of her! She’s famous. Hey, give me that!”
She made a grab at the paper, but I whisked it out of her way.
“I got it first!”
“Looks like that dog got it first.”
“He likes to read things,” I said. “He’s an intellectual. You can have it when I’m through.”
“Well, just don’t take all day!”
“I won’t,” I said. “I’m a very fast reader.”
But by the time I came to the end of the article I’d forgotten all about Angel. My heart was pumping, furiously. The blood was pounding in my ears. I’d solved Jem’s mystery!
It was all there, in front of me, printed in the paper. It couldn’t be clearer! I forced myself to stay calm – a little bit calm – and started to read the article again, more slowly, this time, just to make sure. I wouldn’t want to get Jem’s hopes up for nothing.
LOCAL GIRL MAKES GOOD
It’s only been a few months since singer Mia Jelena released her first attention-grabbing album, Gonna Get Going, for Pineapple Records, but already she’s being hailed as the new Queen of Soul. Now she’s back with album no. 2, There’s Got to be Love, and she’s coming to the Daycroft Halls on 15th December as part of a nationwide tour to celebrate her success.