by Jean Ure
She did! She wrote, “WHAT THINGS?”
I waited till Mrs Saeed was chalking stuff on the board, then whispered, “She made me go down the shops, twice, and then she made me go and borrow some rhubarb from Mrs Kenny, and then I had to help her make a pie, and then —”
Mrs Saeed turned round and I immediately stopped. I don’t know why, since most everyone else was talking. People just talked all the time. If they weren’t talking they were playing games or reading magazines. Brett Thomas was chucking things about the room, Dulcie Tucker was plaiting someone’s hair, a girl called Livvy Briggs was painting her nails. But I guess I felt I’d already upset Mrs Saeed quite enough.
“Then what?” hissed Shay.
“Then…we had to get the lunch-boxes, and then I did the washing up and made a cup of tea, and then Dad was taken bad and I had to help Mum with his oxygen, and then – then I had to see to the others, and – and by then it was time for bed!”
Shay went, “Hm!” She was looking at me, frowning, but not like I was an earthworm. More like I was…some kind of problem that had to be solved.
“Gotta get things sorted,” she said.
At breaktime she told Karina to “Just go away and do something else. All right?” Karina turned an odd mottled colour, all red and blotchy, and shrieked, “Who d’you think you are, telling me what to do?”
Shay, in this really bored tone, said, “We’ve been through all this before.”
“Yes, we have!” shrilled Karina.
“Well, then…just go away and leave us alone! This is between me and Spice.”
I wanted to say that it didn’t really matter if Karina stayed, but I knew that it did. It wasn’t that we were having secrets, but it was definitely something private. Just between the two of us.
“You’ll regret this!” Karina hurled it venomously over her shoulder as she stalked off. “You’ll be sorry!”
It was me she was saying it to, not Shay. She knew Shay wouldn’t care.
“Forget about her,” said Shay. “She’s rubbish! Tell me again why you couldn’t do your homework.”
I sighed. “Well, there was this Home Bake day at my sister’s school —”
I went through it all, from the beginning. The pastry, the rhubarb, the pie, the lunch boxes, the tea, Dad’s oxygen.
It all sounded completely mad! Well, it did to my ears. But Shay just listened, without saying a word.
“So then it was, like, ten o’clock,” I said, “and I was just too tired!”
“Not surprised,” said Shay. “Anyone’d be too tired.”
I looked at her, gratefully. She wasn’t mad at me!
“Does this sort of thing happen all the time?” she said.
I nodded. “Most of the time. See, my dad’s got this thing where he can’t breathe properly. Sometimes he has to have oxygen, and the oxygen cylinder’s, like, really heavy? And Mum can’t manage it on her own, so I have to help her, and then there’s Sammy, he’s my little brother, and Kez and Lisa, they’re my sisters, and I have to help her with them cos she’s got Dad to take care of, plus she goes out to work all day, so —”
“This is crazy!” cried Shay. “You ought to tell your mum that you’ve got homework to do.”
“I have! But Mum doesn’t believe in homework. She says we get too much of it. It’s not her fault!” I was anxious that Shay shouldn’t think badly of Mum. “It’s just that she’s so worn out, you know? She really needs me to help her.”
“Yeah, but you really need to do your homework,” said Shay. “Know what?”
I said, “What?”
“You oughta go to the library and do it.” I looked at her, doubtfully.
Before Karina latched on to me I used to spend every lunch break in the library (except that it’s actually called the Resource Centre and has more people using the computers than reading books) but no way did I want to stay on at school at the end of the day. I didn’t want to stay on at school a minute longer than I had to! I said this to Shay and she said she wasn’t talking about Krapfilled’s library, she was talking about the public library.
Surprised, I said, “Do they let you?”
“Course they let you! What d’you think?”
I didn’t know. I’d only ever been to the public library once, and that was at juniors, when Mrs Henson had taken us all on a class visit and had shown us how to borrow books. I’d asked Mum if I could have a ticket, but somehow we’d never got around to doing it.
“It’s not right,” said Shay, “not even having half an hour to do your homework. And look, just stop worrying about that stupid Karina.” She’d obviously noticed my eyes straying across the playground, to where Karina was hovering on the outskirts of Amie Phillips and her gang. “She’s not good for you – she’ll just drag you down.”
I said, “I know, but I wouldn’t want her feelings to be hurt.”
“You don’t actually like her?” said Shay.
I wrestled with my conscience. I think it was my conscience. I felt that I ought to like Karina, seeing as we’d been sort of sticking together ever since half way through last term; but I kept remembering stuff she’d said, like for instance about Anne Frank, and I knew that I didn’t really.
“You don’t, do you?” said Shay. “You just put up with her. But she’s a blob, same as the rest of ’em, and that’s what you’ll be if you don’t junk her. You gotta think of yourself,” urged Shay. “Won’t get anywhere, otherwise.”
I knew that Shay was right, though I still didn’t want Karina’s feelings to be hurt. She deliberately went to sit somewhere else for our first class after break and I must say it was a huge relief not to have her nudging and poking at me all the time, but she wasn’t sitting anywhere near Amie, and that was a bit of a worry because what would she do if Amie wouldn’t let her be part of her gang? She’d be on her own and then I’d feel dreadful.
I did my best to harden my heart, but it wasn’t easy. Not even when I was leaving school that afternoon and Karina came up to me and hissed, “I hate you, Ruth Spicer! The only reason I ever hung out with you in the first place was cos I felt sorry for you, cos you’re such a pathetic nerd!” I suppose I should have hated her back, but I knew what she was saying wasn’t true. I don’t mean about me being a nerd, but about that being the reason she’d hung out with me. She’d hung out with me because we were both on our own. Nobody wanted Karina any more than they wanted me. And now I had Shay and Karina didn’t have anyone and I felt quite bad about it.
Next morning she still wasn’t talking to me, and she didn’t seem to be talking to anyone else, either. I did so wish Amie Phillips would let her join her lot! I didn’t want to have her on my conscience.
I’d thought Shay might have forgotten her idea of me going to the library. I might have known she wouldn’t. She said she’d been thinking about it and she’d decided I ought to go there straight away, after school, and get started.
“No time like the present,” she said, in this bossy, grown-up way.
I told her, apologetically, that I couldn’t do it that day cos my dad would be worried where I was. I always get home an hour before Mum and if I didn’t arrive he’d think something had happened. Dad gets very wound up. I suppose it’s because of not being well. Shay said, “Phone him!”
“I can’t,” I said. “I haven’t got a phone!”
I’d once said this to Karina and she’d stared at me like I was something that had just crawled out of a pond. “You haven’t got a mobile?”
I was so ashamed! I thought that Shay would stare at me as well, but she just shook her head, like “Stop making excuses!” and said, “Use mine. Here!” She thrust one at me. “Ring your dad and tell him.”
“What, n-now?” I said.
“Why not?” said Shay.
I thought that Dad might be snoozing, or watching telly, but I wasn’t brave enough to argue. Meekly I took the phone and dialled our number. Dad sounded puzzled when I said that I was going to the library
to do my homework. He said, “Why? What’s in the library?” I explained that it was somewhere you could sit and work. Dad wanted to know what was wrong with sitting at home, so I mumbled something about the library being more peaceful, cos you weren’t allowed to talk in there. That was what Shay had said.
“No one’s allowed to talk, so you can just get on with things.”
“Well, suit yourself,” said Dad. “I don’t know what your mum’s going to say.”
We had maths and French to do that night. I was quite nervous about going to the library. I kept asking Shay what you had to do. She said, “You don’t have to do anything! Just go in and sit down.”
She could obviously see that I was anxious, and maybe she thought that left to myself I mightn’t ever get there, so in the end she said that she’d come with me.
“Just this one time.”
I was humbly grateful as I knew that Shay lived way over the other side of town and it would take her for ever to get home.
“You’ll be really late getting back,” I said.
“So who cares?” said Shay.
“Well…your mum?” I said. “Won’t your mum be worried?”
Shay tossed her head. “My mum never worries. She’s not there, anyway.”
“What, you mean…when you get back the flat is empty?”
“House. Yeah. ’s empty.”
I couldn’t imagine getting back to an empty house. Well, I couldn’t imagine getting back to a house, cos I’ve always lived in a flat. And there’s always been someone there. When I was little it was Mum and now, of course, there’s Dad. I asked Shay if she minded and she said no, why should she? She sounded a bit aggressive, like she thought I was being nosy, or criticising the way she lived, so after that I didn’t say any more. I’d learnt that if Shay wanted me to know things, she’d tell me. If she didn’t, there was no point in asking. She wasn’t exactly secretive. Just, like, what she did was her business and no one else’s, not even mine. She was looking out for me, but we still weren’t proper friends. Not like I’d been with Millie and Mariam, when we’d all exchanged confidences and knew everything there was to know about each other.
Anyway, I was really glad that Shay had come with me as the library is this huge, important-looking building with great wide steps going up to it and a big green dome on top, so that if I’d been on my own I’d probably just have turned round and run away.
But Shay marched in there as bold as could be, with me creeping behind her, and nobody stopped us or asked us what we thought we were doing. Shay consulted a board which said Ground Floor, 1st Floor, 2nd Floor, etc.
“Children’s,” she said. “You don’t want that! It’ll be full of kids. We’ll go up to the Adults.”
I wasn’t sure that I wanted to go up to the Adults, but she didn’t give me any choice, just dragged me on to the escalator.
The first floor was full of tables and chairs, and racks of magazines and newspapers. Grown-ups were sitting all around, reading or writing and looking solemn.
“This’ll do.” said Shay. She very firmly led me over to an empty table and sat me down. “There! Now you can get on with things.”
I squeaked, “You’re not going?”
“Gotta get back,” said Shay. “You’ll be all right here.”
And she waltzed off to the escalator, leaving me on my own. It was a really bad moment. I was still expecting someone to come over and tell me that I wasn’t allowed in the library all by myself, without a grown-up, and that I must go away immediately, but nobody did. Nobody took any notice of me at all. After a while I started to relax and concentrate on my homework, and oh, it was so lovely sitting there! I’d never been anywhere without noise or bustle Without music or the telly, or Mum nagging at me to do things, or Sammy and the Terrible Two roaring in and out. I mean, just at first it was, like, a bit weird; I kept listening to the silence and wondering what was wrong, but once I’d got used to it I thought that this was how I’d like to live. I’d have one room all of my own, with a table and chair and lots of bookshelves, where no one could come in without being invited, or at any rate asking permission. In other words, it would be totally, utterly and completely PRIVATE. And I’d get all my homework done with no trouble at all. Even maths. Even decimal fractions. Hooray!
Mum wasn’t too pleased when I got home. She said, “Where have you been?”
I said, “In the library! I told Dad, I —”
“I know you’ve been in the library, but what for?”
“Doing my homework! It’s quiet in there, I can get on with things.”
Mum said, “I could’ve done with you getting on with a few things here!” She said how was Dad expected to cope, all by himself, when the Terrible Two got back and I wasn’t there? “Seems to me your dad’s health is more important than your homework! Who told you to go to the library, anyway?”
I said, “A girl at school.”
“What girl?”
“New girl. Shay. She said the library was a good place to work in, and it is, cos I’ve done all my homework,” I said, proudly, “and now I can help you!”
“Bit late for that,” grumbled Mum, but she agreed that I could go to the library if I had to, so long as I was home by quarter to five. She still wasn’t happy about it. She still didn’t really see why I should want to go and shut myself away in “a stuffy old place like that” when I could be sitting here in the kitchen at home.
I said, “Mum, it’s not stuffy! They’ve got computers and CDs and a coffee bar. And books, and newspapers, and —”
“Yeah, yeah,” said Mum. “So who is this girl? Shay? What kind of a name is Shay?”
I said, “It’s short for Shayanne.”
“What, like she’s a Red Indian or something?”
Shocked, I told Mum that people didn’t refer to Red Indians any more. “They’re Native Americans!” We’d learnt that in Juniors.
Mum said, “Whatever! Is that what she is?”
I said, “I don’t think so.”
“Well, whoever she is,” said Mum, “she sounds like she’s really pushing you around.”
“I only do what I want to do,” I said.
“Huh!” Mum obviously wasn’t convinced. She said that Shay sounded like a bit of a bully. “Perhaps I’d better meet her. Why don’t you ask her over?”
Me? Ask Shay?
“Well why not?” said Mum. “It’s time I met some of your new friends.”
“Yes, but —” Shay wasn’t that sort of friend. “She lives in Westfield.”
“So? If you’re saying we’re not grand enough for her —”
“It’s not that!”
“She goes to the same school as you even if she does live in Westfield. What’s she got to be snotty about?”
“She’s not snotty,” I said, but even as I said it, I thought to myself that I didn’t actually know. I didn’t actually know very much at all. But I did know that Westfield was posh, cos Mum always said it was. It was where Mum dreamt of moving to if ever she had a big win on the lottery. And if Westfield was posh, Ennis Road, where we lived, was the pits. How could I invite Shay to Ennis Road?
“It’s been a long time since you had anyone over,” said Mum.
Not since Juniors. But that had been different cos we all lived on the same estate. Millie lived in Archer Court, which was the big block of flats right opposite, and Mariam lived round the block, just five minutes away.
“Dunno how she’d get here.” I said.
“Trust me,” said Mum, “if they live in Westfield, they’ll have a car. You ask her over for Saturday. I’ll get something in for tea.”
I really didn’t think that Shay would want to come. I plucked up my courage and asked her in the playground at break next day. I said, “My mum said to invite you to tea, Saturday, but it’s all right if you’d rather not.” I knew she wouldn’t just make an excuse, like anyone else would. She wouldn’t pretend she was going somewhere or had to see her nan or her auntie. She
’d say, straight out, if she didn’t want to come. I was just so surprised when she said yes!
“I’ll get the Vampire to drop me off.” She always called her mum the Vampire; I didn’t like to ask why. “What time d’you want me there?”
That threw me into a fluster as I hadn’t thought that far ahead. I said, “Um…’bout two o’clock?”
And then immediately wished I’d made it later because what were we going to do from two o’clock until tea time? Shay wasn’t the sort of person you could have cosy conversations with and I didn’t fancy sitting down to watch TV. I hardly ever watch telly, as a matter of fact; only if there are hospital programmes I like those! Unfortunately Dad says they “turn him up” so I can only watch if he’s doing something else, which usually he isn’t.
I told Mum I’d asked Shay for two o’clock and Mum said that was fine. “You can take the kids up the park.”
“Mu-u-u-m!” I was horrified. I couldn’t expect Shay to trail up the park with a bunch of snotty kids! But Shay totally astonished me, cos when she arrived and Mum said, “Well, now, how about you all getting out from under my feet for a bit?” she seemed to think it was quite a good idea.
And in fact it wasn’t so bad as it at least gave us something to do. We went to the adventure playground and me and Shay sat on the swings while the others went on the kiddy slide and the roundabout and the dotty little climbing frame and kept out of our hair, except for Sammy falling over and hurting himself and bursting into loud bawling sobs, and then it was Shay who went over and picked him up and kissed him better.
“He’s kind of cute,” she said, as she came back.