Sugar and Spice

by Jean Ure

  “Get a load of this,” she said, holding out a carrier bag. “I’ve been round the stores, getting stuff for our tea. What d’you reckon?”

  I took one look in the bag and went, “Wow!”

  “Is it enough?”

  “That’d feed an army,” I said.

  It looked like she’d visited every food shop in the centre. There was stuff from Sainsbury’s, stuff from Marks, stuff from the cake shop in the Arcade, stuff from the chocolate shop on the top level, even stuff from the health food shop.

  “Yeah, I dunno about that,” said Shay. “I’m actually getting into junk food right now. It’s just they had this lying about, so I took some. Oh, and look! I got this for you.” She thrust her hand into the bag and pulled something out. Garlic! “Remember, if the Vampire appears, just hold it up, like this, then she can’t get you.”

  I giggled, but a bit uncertainly. I said, “That’s a joke, right?”

  “Best not take any chances,” said Shay.

  We caught the bus to Shay’s place. She lived up on the hill, just out of town, in an actual real house with its own grass outside, and a proper bit of garden at the back.

  Shay said, “Stupid if you ask me! Why can’t we all live in flats? Wouldn’t take up nearly as much space.”

  I expect that is true, but I don’t care! I have decided that when I am grown up and can afford it, that is when I am a doctor – if I get to pass my exams – I am going to have a house just like Shay’s. Shay said, “It’s not anything special. There’s houses heaps bigger than this. This is just a titchy little thing.”

  Well! It may have seemed titchy to her, but I could hardly believe it. It had three floors, with different sorts of rooms on each floor, like a special room for watching television in and a special room for eating in and a basement where the kitchen was. Shay said we’d go down to the kitchen first of all and dump our junk food ready for later. The way she said it, “our junk food”, she made it sound like it was some sort of gormy dish that you might get in a restaurant. Except that I don’t think it’s spelt gormy, cos I think it’s French. I think it might be gourmet.

  “Bacon-flavoured crisps,” said Shay, lovingly. “Chocolate-covered jelly babies…fudge ice cream. This is going to be good!”

  She led the way down some steps and into this huge great room like an underground cavern. There was a long counter running down the middle and rows of pots and pans, and strings of onions hanging off the walls. The kitchen! It was practically as big as the whole of our flat. I thought to myself how Mum would love it; she’s always complaining how she can’t move for tripping over bodies.

  “Right.” Shay laid out all her bits and pieces, her bacon-flavoured crisps and chocolate-covered jelly babies, and sticky buns and sausage rolls, in a long line across the counter. “We’ll leave our junk food here,” she said, moving a potted plant out of the way. “And now we’ll go up to my room.”

  Shay’s room was on the top floor. All the time we’re going up the stairs I’m, like, looking over my shoulder in case her mum, the Vampire, might suddenly appear.

  “It’s OK,” said Shay. “I told you, she hardly ever gets out of her coffin till five o’clock. They shrivel in the light, vampires do.”

  I whispered, “W-where is her coffin?”

  Shay cackled and said, “In there!” pointing at a room on the second floor. “Better tiptoe or she might wake up and come and sink her fangs into us!”

  I scurried like a frightened mouse up the last flight of stairs.

  As I scurried I couldn’t help noticing how neat and clean everything was. At home we live in a state of what Mum calls “clutter”. There’s toys everywhere, clothes everywhere. Stuff waiting to be ironed, stuff waiting to be put away. Shoes. Socks. Dad’s breakfast tray. It just all mounts up. Plus there’s a big stain on the carpet where I tripped over with a bowl of soup (which I was taking in to Dad), and another, smaller stain where Sammy dropped his bread and jam and then went and trod it in, not to mention marks on the wall made by grubby fingers (mainly those belonging to the Terrible Two) and this thick oily dust, all black and treacly, that leaks in from outside and is very bad, Mum says, for Dad’s emphysema and Lisa’s chest. (It’s why she snuffles all the time.)

  There wasn’t any black dust in Shay’s house. There wasn’t any dust at all. No stains on the carpet, no marks on the wall. No shoes or socks or piles of clothes. It was just sooo beautiful! It’s how I shall keep my house, when I have one. It’s how I try to keep my bit of bedroom, but without very much success, cos it’s impossible to stop Kez and Lisa from trespassing.

  As we reached the top landing, I hissed, “How does your mum keep it all so nice?”

  I felt really ashamed when I compared what Shay’s place was like with how it was at home. I didn’t blame Mum for all the mess; I knew she didn’t have time to keep dusting and cleaning and tidying up. But I still felt ashamed, and wondered what Shay must have thought.

  “Do you help?” I said.

  Shay said no. “Mrs Kelly does it.”

  I said, “Who’s Mrs Kelly?”

  “Person that comes in and cleans,” said Shay. “Quick!” She grabbed me and pushed me ahead of her through the door. “Before the Vampire gets wind of us!”

  I was quite astonished at the state of Shay’s room. On the door there was this big angry notice: PRIVATE. KEEP OUT. THIS MEANS YOU. But I didn’t think there was any need to have a notice; just one quick look would be enough to frighten people off. It was like a tip! It was even worse than my bit of bedroom when the Terrible Two had been on the rampage. It looked like someone had emptied bin bags full of rubbish in there. Totally in-de-SCRIBABLE. But if I had to – describe it, I mean – I’d say:

  Tops, bottoms, shoes, socks, knickers

  Coke bottles, water bottles, sweet wrappers

  Knives, forks, spoons

  Books, bags, papers

  Pens, pencils

  Magazines

  CDs

  And just general junk.

  Loads of it, absolutely everywhere.

  “You coming in, or what?” said Shay.

  I slithered past a saucepan containing the shrivelled remains of what looked like spaghetti and waded across the floor through a sea of clothes.

  “Don’t worry about that lot.” Shay kicked them, contemptuously, out of the way. “Sit down!”

  I stared round, helplessly. Sit down where??? Every available bit of space was covered.

  “Here!” Shay swept a hand across the bed and a pile of papers went flying up into the air like a flock of pigeons, then slowly settled back down again, all out of order. If, that is, they’d ever been in any order. Mine always are, but that’s because I hate not being able to find stuff. It upset me, seeing so much mess and muddle.

  “How do you know where anything is?” I said.

  Shay said, “Don’t wanna know where anything is.”

  “But how do you find things?”

  “Don’t wanna find things. If I wanna find things —” she stuck her toe in the middle of the papers and stirred them up again, “I put ’em somewhere. All this is just muck.”

  It was muck. I didn’t know how she could live like that!

  “I thought you said your mum had someone that came and did the cleaning?”

  “Mrs Kelly. Yeah.”

  “So why doesn’t she come and do your room?”

  “Cos she’s not allowed. No one’s allowed. Not without permission.” Shay marched over and yanked open the door. She jabbed a finger at the angry notice. “See? See what it says? PRIVATE! KEEP OUT!”

  “Even your mum?” I said.

  “My mum? What’d she wanna come in for?”

  “Well…I don’t know! Put clothes away? My mum’s always coming into our room.”

  “Your mum’s different,” said Shay.

  Or maybe, I thought, it was Shay’s mum that was different. My mum was normal! Most people’s mums went into their bedrooms. Millie’s mum did. Mariam�
�s mum did. Whoever heard of a mum being told to keep out?

  “Wanna hear some music?” said Shay. She picked a CD off the floor. “What sorta music d’you like?”

  “Um…anything, really,” I said.

  Shay unearthed a CD player from beneath a pile of clothes and slid the disc in. A weird wailing and banging filled the room.

  “Yay! Freaky!” Shay jumped on to the bed, and off again. “That’s cool! That’s my kind of sound!”

  It was pretty loud.

  “Won’t it wake your mum?” I said, nervously.

  “Who cares?” Shay danced about the room, trampling on all the litter, some of which went crack! or scrunch! beneath her feet. I thought, this is gross! I was just so surprised at Shay, of all people.

  “Ooh! Look at you!” Shay skipped round me, laughing and scrunching. “You look like a prune!”

  And she sucked in her cheeks so that her lips practically disappeared inside her mouth, which made me feel that I was being sour and small-minded. I was glad I hadn’t admitted to her that last Christmas I’d actually asked Mum and Dad if I could have a filing cabinet, one of those metal ones with drawers, and a key, so that I could put all my things away nicely in different-coloured files, with proper labels, in alphabetical order, so Kez and Lisa couldn’t get at them. I had this feeling that she’d utterly despise me. (I didn’t get the filing cabinet, anyway; Mum said they were too expensive and that in any case there wasn’t any room.)

  “Wanna see what I keep in here?” said Shay. She pulled open a drawer, where normally, I should think, people would put knickers and socks and pairs of tights, and dumped the contents on the bed beside me. I gasped; I couldn’t help it. It was full of jewellery! Bracelets and chains, rings, necklaces, hair slides, all winking and glittering.

  “And in here —” she yanked out a second drawer, “I got make-up.”

  I could feel my eyes boggling. I had never seen so many pots and tubs and tubes and jars.

  “I call it my collection,” said Shay.

  I remembered what she’d said about her mum being a beauty consultant. I thought perhaps that was where she’d got it from, but scornfully she said, “Nah! Got it myself, didn’t I? There’s loads of other stuff I could show you. I got —”

  And then she stopped, and I felt this little shiver run through me. Someone was calling up the stairs.

  “Shay!”

  Could it be the Vampire?

  Shay ran out on to the landing. “What d’you want?”

  “I wanted t—Oh! Hallo. Who’s this?”

  Curiosity had made me a little bit brave. I’d gone pattering out behind Shay. I just couldn’t resist! Shay scowled and said, “Someone from school.”

  “And doesn’t someone from school have a name?”

  I squeaked, “I’m Ruth Spicer.”

  “Well, hallo there, Ruth Spicer! I’m Shay’s mum.”

  I could see why Shay called her the Vampire. Unlike Shay, who was dark-skinned, her mum was very pale, like a water lily. She just had no colour at all, and was so amazingly slender that she looked like the long white stem of a plant. She’d made up her eyes with thick black stuff on the lashes and purple on the eyelids, while her mouth and fingernails were deep blood red. I wasn’t sure that I’d like her for a mum, but she was kind of fascinating, in a weird sort of way.

  “Are you staying for tea?” she said.

  “Yes, she is,” said Shay. “I’ve got all the stuff.”

  “I saw.” The Vampire tightened her blood red lips. She was obviously not pleased about something, but whether it was me staying to tea, or Shay not telling her that I was staying to tea, or something else entirely, I couldn’t quite work out. “I presume,” she said, “that that was what you wanted?”

  “What?” said Shay.

  “For me to see!”

  “Dunno what you’re talking about.”

  “Oh, come on! Everything all nicely laid out so I couldn’t miss it?”

  “I just laid it out ready,” said Shay.

  Slowly, her mum shook her head. “You do these things on purpose, don’t you? Your one aim in life is to rile me. Well, all right! Go ahead, stuff yourself with artificial muck. Why should I bother?”

  “You shouldn’t,” said Shay.

  “No, well, I’m not going to. I’m off down the gym, now, then I’m meeting up with Boo and Ellie. I probably won’t be back till late, but your father should be here well before then. He said he’d be home by eight. OK? Nice to meet you, Ruth. Have fun!”

  “She really hates me eating junk food,” said Shay, as we returned to her bedroom. “It drives her whacko!” She sounded quite jubilant about it, so that I began to think maybe her mum was right, and it really was her aim in life. “You don’t have to look like that, prune face! She already is a whacko. Can’t you tell?” She made her eyes go crossed and stuck out her tongue and waggled her fingers either side of her head. “Totally bonkers! Wanna try on some of my jewellery?”

  I hesitated. I was worried by the thought of her dad not getting home till eight o’clock, because Mum was expecting me ages before then. I said apologetically to Shay that maybe I’d better leave now, while it was still light.

  “I know it’s silly,” I said, though I didn’t really think it was, “but my mum gets all fussed if I’m out late on my own.”

  “Won’t be on your own,” said Shay. “I’ll come with you.”

  “But how will you get back?”

  “Same as I did last week. Told you the Vampire wasn’t the worrying sort. She doesn’t care what I do – apart from eating junk food!”

  I was beginning to think that Shay lived in a very peculiar sort of family. I couldn’t imagine my mum and dad not caring what I did. Or going out and leaving me in the flat by myself. I’m always wishing that I could have a room of my own and enjoy a bit of peace and quiet, but I’d absolutely hate it if the whole flat was empty. I think, actually, I’d be a bit scared. Shay obviously wasn’t scared, but maybe that was because she was used to it. It just didn’t seem to bother her.

  After we’d tried on some of her jewellery, and listened to another CD that she discovered by almost treading on it, we went down to the kitchen to eat our junk food. I suppose it was junk food. Shay said it was, though it seemed just ordinary to me. When we’d finished eating, I said that I’d have to go or Mum would start frothing, so Shay came with me all the way across town. I did feel a bit guilty seeing her go off again by herself, and thought that if anything happened to her it would be all my fault, but she really didn’t seem to mind.

  Mum opened the front door. She said, “Ah, there you are! Not before time. Did they bring you back?”

  I said yes, because after all Shay had brought me back, and Mum then said, “I hope they saw you up in the lift?” to which I made a fluffy sort of mumbling sound.

  “I hope they did!” said Mum, following me into the kitchen. “That lift’s not safe this time of night – anyone could get in there with you. So what was it like? What’s her mum like?”

  I wasn’t going to say that Shay’s mum was a vampire and a whacko. I had more sense than that! I said, “She’s very thin – she looks like a model.” Mum sniffed and said that she could probably afford to.

  “I suppose the place is dead posh?”

  “Yes, but it’s not as cosy as ours.”

  I said it partly cos I knew that it would please Mum, and partly cos it was true. Shay’s place wasn’t cosy, any more than Shay herself was. But I still felt flattered that she’d invited me!

  The next week was half term. I didn’t think, probably, that Shay would want to bother seeing me at half term, so when Millie called round and asked if I’d like to sleep over her place one night, I was quite pleased.

  It was ages since Millie and I had done anything together. I could tell that Mum was pleased, too. She likes Millie and I don’t think, really, that she did like Shay. She always said that she was “too knowing”. I’ve never actually understood this, as I w
ouldn’t have thought it would be possible to be too knowing. I’d have thought the more you knew, the better. But Mum obviously felt it was a bad thing, maybe because she thought Shay knew things she ought not to know, like grown-up type things, whereas Millie (Mum said) was “natural and unspoilt”. I dunno! Just because Millie lived round the corner and wore the sort of clothes that Mum considered “suitable”. She didn’t consider Shay’s clothes suitable. It really irritated her, Shay going round in designer labels. She kept on and on about it.

  “Totally ridiculous! A girl that age.”

  So when I asked if it was OK for me to spend the night with Millie she said yes without any hesitation, even though she’d been hinting that it would be nice, now it was half term, if I could stay in and keep an eye on the kids for a change, while she went out. Dad would still have been there, cos Dad hasn’t left the flat for I don’t know how long, but Mum would never leave him on his own all evening with Sammy and the Terrible Two. I knew she’d been looking forward to having some time off and I thought perhaps I was being selfish, wanting to go to Millie’s. But Mum seemed really keen.

  “Maybe you’ll get back together again. I’d far rather you had Millie as a friend than that Shay.”

  It was fun, being round at Millie’s. For a little while it was almost like we were back at Juniors again, giggling together and sharing secrets. But Mariam had been with us then; it didn’t seem the same without her. It had always been the three of us. Millie said she’d called round Mariam’s place and hadn’t been able to get any reply.