‘A scarf, to wear like a belt. But we can pick one of those up at an op shop somewhere. It doesn’t have to be new. What about the dog?’
‘I’ve got some scarves,’ Mum said. ‘You’re welcome to look through them, too.’
‘She could be just a small dog. Something a little bit fluffy? She wouldn’t get in anyone’s way.’
‘Perhaps a new swimsuit. Maybe bikinis?’
‘Maybe. I’d have to try them on. If I get bikinis, though, I want board shorts to go with them.’
‘In case your bum’s too big?’
‘Everyone wears them. She could sleep on the end of my bed. I’d train her and feed her. She wouldn’t be any trouble.’
‘Mimi, in case you haven’t noticed, I’d rather not discuss a dog right now.’
When Mum sounded like that it was hopeless. I tried one last time, ‘Okay, but can we discuss it closer to Christmas, please?’
‘Christmas,’ Mum said, except she didn’t say it so much as sigh it out in a small, ragged breath. She looked through me as though I wasn’t there. ‘Oh God.’
‘We don’t have to do anything,’ I said quickly. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘It matters to the shop,’ Mum said, her voice hard and tight. ‘There’ll be decorations to put up and window displays and people will bring things. Cards and things. We’ll have to have cards too.’
‘We could make them on the computer,’ I said. ‘With photos of the shop. We’ve got the new camera.’
‘We could do that,’ Mum said thoughtfully. ‘You’re quite right. We could do that and it would be quite different, wouldn’t it?’
I didn’t have to ask her what she meant. I knew she meant it would be one thing we could do that would not be connected with Dad.
‘We’ll talk about the dog later, okay? I’m sorry, Mimi – I have to give that a bit of thought. Please be understanding.’
‘Sure, Mum,’ I said.
You won’t need me if you get a dog! Ableth said.
Don’t be silly. A dog isn’t the same as a slave.
Yes it is. Worse, really – more slavish. At least I have some dignity. A dog doesn’t have any. Look at them and they wag their tails.
You’re just in a bad mood, Ableth.
Am not. And you’ve got Fergus. Don’t think I don’t know about Fergus. A dog, Fergus, the new camera, even Christmas cards. What have I got?
You’ve got me, I told him, now get back to work. Scrub the deck!
I’ve got you now, but for how much longer, Mimi? How much longer will you want to be queen of my heart?
Forever, Ableth. You know that.
That’s what you say. But I know better – a dog, Fergus, a new camera, skinny jeans ... soon you’ll be running on the beach with Fergus and the dog, taking photos with the new camera. Ableth’s voice faded away. I had a twinge of guilt, but really, he had got himself into this mood.
For Mum’s final class at the Neighbourhood House she cooked a special lemon tart to take for supper.
‘We’re all bringing a plate,’ she said. ‘Edie is bringing real coffee and a plunger. I like her.’
Edie had come into our shop and I’d admired her strikingly red hair and the shell tattoo she had on the inside of her wrist.
‘When this course is over, we’re both doing web page design. Edie’s convinced I’ll be fine with it. She reckons I must have an eye – after so long in this business!’
She made me my very own little lemon tart and left me a dollop of cream to have with it.
‘You’ll be okay?’ she said as we opened the back gates for the car.
‘Of course,’ I said. I’d become used to being by myself. One night I’d found all these old photos of Mum and Dad when they were young. I’d seen them before, of course, but I’d forgotten them. I’d sat and cried, but in a good kind of way. They both looked unbelievably young, even Dad, and so in love. Their arms were intertwined as though they couldn’t bear to wrench themselves away from each other. I’d put them back carefully. I didn’t know why I thought me looking at the photos could upset Mum, but I did.
I’d tried on Mum’s jewellery, too. Dad always rescued bits and pieces from the auctions for her. Sometimes they needed repairing. Sometimes they were just out of fashion.
‘But perfect for your colouring, Lou. Look at this gorgeous piece of frippery I got for a song.’ I remembered his happy voice when I picked up a dark red brooch – a mosaic, really – made into a flower.
I’d tried on her lipstick and the mascara she used. I’d painted my eyelids silver and gold and paraded around her bedroom for Ableth.
A pirate queen doesn’t need fancy things, he said . Don’t grow up too fast, Mimi.
I’m Griselda to you, I told him coldly. You know that, slave.
Whatever, he said, and then, as though sorry that he’d been so rude, that blue suits you, Griselda.
A pirate queen shouldn’t wear nighties, I said, slipping off one of Mum’s special nighties that I’d put on top of my own pyjamas. You can’t be caught napping on the job!
But this night I had no time to do anything like that. I had homework of the worst possible kind. I had to write an essay on my family. I’d put it off for as long as I possibly could, but it was due soon and a week’s worth of detention loomed if I didn’t get it done.
I’d even thought of accepting the detention, but Angel was just speaking normally to me again. She’d seen Fergus and me walking home together and wanted to get all the details of us going out together no matter how many times I told her it wasn’t like that. She didn’t care – she wanted to know anything – like what was the upstairs of their shop like, what did he wear to serve customers and how often did he work there. When she’d found out everything she possibly could about Fergus, I thought we could go back to being the kinds of friends who swapped magazines and talked about other stuff. I didn’t want a week of detentions getting in my way.
I settled down at my desk. It was hard to concentrate because how could I write a whole essay on my family without mentioning the fact that my father was dead? Also a wind had sprung up and Ableth was right, everything sounded sinister in the wind.
I went downstairs three times. Once to check that I had locked the back door, once to check that the window was locked, too, and once to just stand in the kitchen and listen. Part of the noise was made by one of the big gates scraping backwards and forwards on the driveway. I hadn’t locked the gates, of course, because Mum was coming back, but the wind had wrenched the catch loose. That was the noise that gave me the jitters.
Told you, Ableth said. Not so much fun now.
I forbid you to talk to me, I snapped at him. I have work to do. Important work.
I went back upstairs and sat at my desk. The backyard was full of shadows. Mum was right. We seriously needed to do more with it. A few more actual plants would make it a friendlier place. As it was, it looked too grim. Almost like a prison exercise yard. That thought made me shiver. At least the shed was friendly.
I picked up my pen. For as long as I can remember, I wrote, my family has lived above our antique shop. Well, not the aunties, of course. They live in their own places.
Perhaps if I described the aunties and their places I’d have less space to talk about me and Mum and Dad. They were still my family, right?
A big gust of wind shook the walls of the house and I gasped out loud. I checked the time. It was just after 8.30. Mum wouldn’t be home for another hour, at least. This was definitely not fun. I thought about ringing Aunty Marita or Aunty Ann, but I couldn’t do it. It would be defeat. I wasn’t going to give in. It was just a bit of wind. I was a pirate queen!
Aunty Ann is very proper. She used to be a librarian, but now she works part-time because of her health. Or her hypoch
ondria – that’s what Dad always said. I couldn’t write that, though, because I couldn’t spell hypochondria and the big dictionary was down in the shop.
Aunty Marita is a bit of a hippy. She drinks a lot of herbal tea and wears crystals.
The gate gave a bigger than normal screech, only the wind hadn’t gusted up. I looked out at the backyard and my breath suddenly left me. Someone was coming through the gate. If they looked up – and surely they must – I’d be dead. I practically threw myself off the chair onto the floor. One of my legs got caught up in a chair leg and the chair landed on top of me. Fortunately it was a small, old chair Dad had rescued from a hard rubbish collection and glued back together specially for me. It banged my knee but didn’t hurt too much.
I crawled up next to the desk and peered out the window. Had I imagined it? No. There was a figure at the shed door. He – I couldn’t see whether it was a he or a she, but I assumed it was a man – was fiddling with the door handle. The lock had broken years ago, but we’d never bothered to get it mended because the gates were always locked. Besides, Dad was always out there. Except he wasn’t now.
The door swung open noisily and the guy looked around quickly. Nothing in the backyard moved. He stepped inside the shed and closed the door behind him.
Ableth! I breathed. What do I do?
I can’t talk to you, Ableth replied. You’ve forbidden me to. You have work to do.
This is an emergency. I was still crouched down beside the desk. He’s turned on a light in the shed. Look!
He’s probably just some homeless guy trying to keep warm in this wind.
I can’t leave him in the shed, I said. What will Mum do when she comes home? He might jump out and kill her. He might jump out, grab her keys, kill her and then come in, kill me and steal everything in the shop.
It’s unlikely. But why don’t you ring her? See what she says? Or you could ring the police.
I don’t think I can walk, I said miserably. Some pirate queen I’d turned out to be. My legs were trembling so much I didn’t think I could even get up off the floor.
Course you can. Come on, up you get. One, two, three.
On the count of three I stood shakily up, keeping clear of the window so the intruder couldn’t see me if he happened to pop his head out of the shed. I stared down at the shed, but I couldn’t see anything. Then the light went out so I could just see a dark nothing.
I can’t breathe, I told Ableth. My heart was beating too quickly. Every hammer my heart made roared in my ears.
Slowly. In through the nose, count one, two, three and out through the mouth.
Ableth sounded like Aunty Ann the one time that I’d almost hyperventilated.
Okay. Okay. The phone’s in Mum’s room. I’ll just walk through, quietly, and I’ll ring her mobile.
I tiptoed from my room to Mum’s. The phone was on her bedside table. I speed-dialled her mobile.
What if he’s got an accomplice? I whispered to Ableth.
Why would a homeless man have an accomplice?
I hadn’t turned the light on in Mum’s room – there was no need because the streetlight lit up the room – so I tiptoed to the window and, keeping my eyes level with the windowsill, looked out into the street. There was a handful of people, ordinary people walking down the street. They’d been out to dinner, or were going. It made me feel better to see them. I could just lean my head out the window and call, Help! Help! Someone would look up and I could tell them about the shed.
‘Mimi!’ Mum’s voice was loud in my ear. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Oh Mum,’ the breath whooshed out of me and I slumped against the window. ‘It’s terrible. Someone’s in the shed.’
‘In the shed? What do you mean in the shed? Are you okay, baby?’
I explained to her in little jerky sentences.
‘Call the police,’ she said straightaway.
‘What if he’s just a homeless person?’
‘I’ll come now. Don’t move. No, move. Go outside. The front, not the back. Go outside and wait for me. Don’t talk to anyone. Stay inside the front door of the shop, but where you can get out in a hurry. Is the back door locked?’
‘Yeah. I checked it because of the wind.’
‘Okay. This is what I want you to do. I want you to stand just inside the front door of the shop with the phone in your hand. Don’t go out the back. Don’t go out the front unless you hear someone coming through the shop. If you hear anything from the back, dash out the front and wait for me there. Don’t talk to anyone. Unless they look safe. You know what I mean. A group of people. You can talk to a group of people. If you feel really scared. Do you feel really scared?’
‘No,’ I lied, my voice screeching up like a seagull. ‘I think he’s just a homeless person. Honest. Trying to get out of the wind and the cold.’
‘We’ve had that before,’ Mum said. ‘Your dad always dealt with them. Okay. Make sure you’re warm. Have you got a jumper on?’
‘I’m in my pyjamas.’
‘Don’t go back to your room. Grab something of mine. I’m going back to the class to grab my stuff but I’ll keep talking, okay. You start going down the stairs.’
I grabbed Mum’s big shawl and wrapped it round myself. I was shivering, but I hadn’t even noticed before. I walked out of her room. It was horrible having to turn my back on her window and the friendly streetlights. I could hear Mum saying things rapidly to someone and then she was back on to me. Her voice made me jump.
‘You okay? Where are you?’
‘At the top of the stairs,’ I whispered. The stairs seemed quite dark and they ended in the middle room which was right next to the kitchen and I didn’t know where the guy in the shed was now. He could be out of the shed, standing next to the kitchen door. He might have decided that being warm wasn’t enough and he wanted a cup of coffee or the money to buy one. I shuddered.
He turned the light out, Ableth reminded me. If he was going anywhere, wouldn’t he have left the light on so he could see where he was going? Come on, shake a leg. They’re just stairs.
I put one foot on the top stair.
‘Edie’s coming with me,’ Mum said. ‘We’ll work out what to do when we get there. We’ll assess the situation. You’re being very brave, Mimi. Very, very brave.’
That gave me the courage to creep down to the landing. The stair after the landing always creaked. I didn’t want to stand on it. I held the banister carefully with one hand and the phone tightly with the other and stepped over it.
‘Hi Mimi, Edie here. Got yourself a situation there, eh? Your mum’s put me on because she’s driving. How you going there?’
‘Fine.’ My voice was mouse-small.
‘Good girl. You’re being very brave, but I reckon you’re right. He’s just some derro. Nothing to worry about.’
‘Yep.’ I was on the ground now. Fully visible, I was sure, from the kitchen window because I was in the corridor that ran right through the shop. My knees nearly buckled at the thought. Edie’s voice was too loud and too bright.
More of a drama queen than a pirate queen. There won’t be anyone there. Look at the shop. Safe as a tugboat. Walk forward, Mimi, one, two, three.
I took a step down the corridor and then another. A few more steps and I was in the front of the shop.
‘How’s it going, Mimi? We’re nearly there. What about you?’
‘Yes,’ I whispered. ‘I’m at the door. Waiting.’
‘Good girl. We’ve just turned the corner. We’ll be there in a sec.’
I had my back to the shop but I could feel all the familiar things and I knew they were looking after me and so was Ableth, for all his bravado. I knew that anyone coming into the front room of the shop wouldn’t know that a floorboard gave a
giveaway creak or that the corner of the glass cabinet could snag you, particularly if you were wearing an old, raggedy jumper. The dodgy floorboard made the glasses in the other cabinet tinkle sometimes, too, if someone walked heavily, or even just normally.
Mum’s car came to a stop right outside the shop. I undid the locks on the front door and stepped out into the cold.
‘Mum!’ I said.
‘Mimi! Well done, you! Look, all safe and sound.’ Mum’s voice was happy-shaky and she hugged me tight. Then Edie hugged me, as though we’d known each other all our lives, rather than only met once.
‘Well, what’ll we do then?’ Edie asked.
‘If I was sure it was only old Sam,’ Mum said, ‘I’d make us all a cup of tea and take him out one too. That’s what Doug would have done.’
‘Who’s Sam?’
‘You’ve seen him,’ Mum said. ‘You know the old codger Dad used to talk to? We’d sometimes give him a couple of dollars.’
I vaguely remembered someone Dad would always make a point of talking to on the street even though he smelt a bit like the tip.
‘We could just call the cops,’ Edie said. ‘You don’t want to muck around, Lou. Not being here by yourself.’
‘The light’s off in the shed, you said, Mimi?’
I nodded. I was holding on to Mum’s hand very tightly.
‘No sign of a torch or anything?’
I shook my head.
Mum took a deep breath. ‘Okay, this is what we’re going to do, girls.’
I couldn’t believe how brave she was.
Mum had the old Fijian war club that Dad had kept behind the counter of the shop in case there was ever any trouble. Edie had her mobile phone and the best torch and I had Mum’s mobile and the smaller torch. We moved quietly but efficiently, like soldiers, and surrounded the shed door. It was totally silent in there without any lights.
By the little light of her iPhone, Edie counted down from three with her finger. On the last finger-fall, Edie and I shone our torches at the shed and we all yelled together.
‘Get out of there whoever you are!’
Mimi and the Blue Slave Page 8