‘Well . . . it’s kinda not in Bianca’s nature to do that,’ Poppy dives in.
‘Yeah, well maybe Bianca just hasn’t met Leslie Rachel yet?’ My eyes twinkle. Leslie Rachel, my one and only Barbie that lies waiting patiently under my bed in a swimming costume and glittery leggings, Leslie Rachel with the pink and purple dip dye and the flaming fire in her eyes. She has been waiting for this moment for ever. ‘Timothy . . . let’s play Barbies.’
Hours later when the doorbell rings we just know it’s Timothy’s mum come to collect him. This bliss couldn’t go on for the rest of lives, but we are sad. Timothy is the world’s best fun. Watching him play with a doll dressed as a ballerina fairy was just very . . . I can’t think of the exact wording . . . but good. It was really good. We roll reluctantly down the stairs. Timothy’s mum has beautiful long make-you-jealous dreadlocks and loads of wooden jewellery on. She has a big silver nose piercing and long red nails and a happy face.
‘Bet you loved it here, eh, Tim? These girls look like fun!’ she beams.
‘They’ll do, I suppose,’ Timothy jokes and gets his fur coat from off the banister. We all giggle.
‘He’s so cheeky. That coat was mine, you know,’ his mum says.
‘From the eighties. His older sister didn’t want it, it’s not real fur or nothing, but it was expensive. Never did I imagine Timothy would want to wear it.’ She laughs. ‘Thing is though, he looks better than any of us would.’ And we all laugh at that because it’s true.
We say goodnights and then we close the door. Poppy looks so proud she could burst. She found a good one, she really did. Mum puts the TV on and we all pile up for a bit of The Simpsons before Mum’s boring real-life TV show starts.
Dad comes home from work smelling like a sawdusty hamster – his job is working with wood so sometimes he smells all pet-like. He has to go on a work trip tomorrow so he doesn’t want to watch TV with us. He’s going to FRANCE!!! Even on a SATURDAY!! And I can tell he’s mostly really being in a bad mood because of this. Even though he has to go, he doesn’t like being away from us lot one bit. It’s that weird thing people do when they ruin the time they have with their families by moaning about the times they have to go away. It’s silly. But I understand, I hate saying goodbye to my dad. He kicks his shoes off all grumpy.
‘You and your bloody soap operas,’ Dad tuts, making Mum go Shhhh, shhhhh, shhhhh and try to listen in closer to the TV. I’m just sooo jealous thinking about all the baguette Dad’s going to get to eat.
‘What’s a soap opera, Mum?’ I ask her, but her eyes are all squinty. I hate soap. The way it slides and glides out of your grasp when you are trying to make it stay still for just simply one moment. New soap is just as annoying because when you immediately see it all you want to do is dig your nails into it one billion times but you are not allowed to, otherwise Mum goes, ‘Now that’s silly, isn’t it?’
Have you ever been to the opera? It’s where people all go with massive mouths and giant frowns and sing words but really draaaaaag them out for an ever. Just like Henrietta from next door. That was her job before she retired and just started her career as being nosy. So what is a Soap Opera? I have heard this word a couple of times and I just cannot imagine for my mind what on earth this is at all. I bet you are thinking of singing soap. I do hope so.
Dad’s all of a sudden laughing to himself, sniggering like he is a fat hen sitting on a secret story egg. He seems to have cheered up,
‘What are you laughing at?’ Mum asks him, as they cuddle a bit.
‘Nothing.’ He grins.
‘You might be able to lie to your customers but you cannot lie to your wife, what are you laughing at?’
‘My new game,’ he chokes.
‘What game?’ Mum smile-frowns.
‘It’s a silly thing,’ Dad says.
‘Well, you’re a silly man.’
‘OK, when I drive, in the car, on my own, sometimes . . . I wave at people.’
‘To who?’
‘Everybody.’
‘Why?’
‘To see who waves back.’
‘But why?’
‘Why not?’
‘And do people wave back?’
‘Not usually, but that’s why I’m laughing now.’
‘Oh?’
‘Because today somebody waved me back and I was so excited, I thought, finally, as human beings we can actually say hello to each other and then I looked up and I realized it was Henrietta from next door walking her dog.’
We all laugh and so does he. And then Mum turns to Dad with a Mask of Seriousness on and says, ‘Do me a favour, love? Stop waving at strangers, it’s odd and the neighbours will talk.’
Poor only-trying-to-be-nice Dad.
Before bed I don’t know why but I suddenly really don’t want Dad to go away tomorrow, even though he goes away all the time I just can’t imagine him not being there for when I wake up. I should be used to it by now and know exactly how to act but I feel lonesome. I sit on his lap and curl into a ball to try and be tiny, even smaller than Hector, and bunch my whole body up and I want to say ‘Don’t go.’ But Mum says we are not allowed to say that to Dad when he has to go away because it makes it more hard for him. Why am I being such a delicate fragile baby child? I just want to stay there and let Dad wrap his arms all tight around me and I hear him breathe me in. I feel a blob of little water touch my shoulder and I secretly taste it and it tastes like tear but I would never ask if it was tear because he’s a dad and I don’t want him to never not feel like a lion.
Chapter Thirteen
Saturday morning, yawn-o’-clock, and just like last week I have more homework than I had in my whole life at my old school pushed together. I physically couldn’t even get any more homework, like it actually properly isn’t possible, unless they want me to wind up being flattened like a pancake under a giant heap of home-work paper like the hoarder people you see on TV that can’t throw anything away. I won’t be able to make my 100th birthday party because I’ll just be too busy ‘finishing this bit of homework’. I bet Will is looking forward to stupid Clementine’s birthday. I can’t even believe that he would even contemplate going to that horror banquet. Some people never fail to immensely depress me. Playing Barbies with Poppy and Timothy was refreshing because it took the worries off my back for a bit and made me feel young and caring free-ish. I try to think abut that and not to care that Will still hasn’t tried to speak to me once. A cuddle with my sheep always helps . . .
LAMB-BETH. Where is she? She usually appears in my room for a snuggle as soon as I wake up . . .
I look under the bed – no Lamb-Beth.
I look behind my bookcase – no Lamb-Beth.
I look on top of my washing pile – no Lamb-Beth.
NOT . . .
In the bathroom
In the bath
In the sink
In Poppy’s bedroom
On her bed
On her desk
In her bin
In Hector’s room
In his toy box
Not hidden in with his pants and socks
Not in Mum and Dad’s room
Not on the staircase
Not in the garage because we don’t actually have one
Not in the living room
Not in the kitchen
Not in the toaster
Not rolled up under the oven
Not behind the curtains silently sleeping
Not on the sofa
Not behind the TV
Not hidden in the magazines
Not rolled up in my mittens
And then it hit me like a rock . . .
Lamb-Beth has gone missing!
Chapter Fourteen
Drip drip drip drip went the kitchen tap. Tick tick tick tick went the living-room clock. Sob sob sob sob went Poppy. But the only noise I could hear was empty. It was official: Lamb-Beth was gone. Grandma arrived just in time for the drama. Just having my grandma with me made me
feel a bit safer.
Mum went driving around in the car looking for Lamb-Beth with our family circumstance friend, Marnie Pincher, and we waited indoors, feeling helpless and worried. Her posh snobby son Donald Pincher walked around with his hands in his pockets trying to recite as many jokes as he could remember to cheer us up, but it was just sounding annoying so I told him to shut up and he started to tuck into the crisps drawer. He better not eat all the beef ones or else we will be coming to blows. I keep thinking Haven’t you got SOMETHING to do on a Saturday? about Donald but stop myself from being mean, it’s not his fault he annoys everybody and so has to be best friends with his mum.
We sat with Grandma as the reality of a lost Lamb-Beth crept on like an invisibility cloak and made everything harder to see and made things feel sadder and weirder and colder and only made Lamb-Beth more losterer.
I keep feeling tears swamping over my eyes like sinking stones; washed away. I kept trying to be strong as I concentrated on counting the wrinkle lines on Grandma’s hand as it held mine. The sleepy whimpers of a TV programme that Grandma liked churning in the background. I want to not be alive a bit.
Dad kept calling from his work trip in France for news and he kept asking to speak to me but I had nothing to say except for ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch as my heart was hurting so much. Mum kept telling me to call Will, but I didn’t want to speak to him because I didn’t know what to say, but Mum was saying I was only letting Lamb-Beth down by not as we needed as many eyes as we could out searching for her. I picked up the phone but put it down again instantly. I couldn’t do it. Anyway, he was probably getting ready for Clementine’s really posh restaurant and really gross boring party. But Mum was right, we had to get a search party together to comb the London streets, and if anybody knew those London streets it was my greatest enemy of all time, from small school, even worser than Olly and Clementine: Jamie Haddock.
I found him, as always, by the sweet shop, picking bits of wall out of a stranger’s front drive and he actually looked happy to see me. I explained that it was ‘purely business’ and ‘didn’t mean we were friends’ but ‘I would appreciate his help’, and to all of that he said ‘Whatever I can do to help.’ Which I wasn’t expecting, considering he was my all-time enemy. Jamie was at the really rough boys’ school for all the hideously naughty bad boys that the world could collect. They all got scooped up and thrown in there like poisonous spiders, even though Jamie Haddock wasn’t nearly as bad as what everybody thought. Plus he had a bike, so could travel far and wide to find my Lamb-Beth.
Jamie suggested writing down all the things that Lamb-Beth loved, to try and work out where she might be.
Water
Ripping things up
Chewing Dad’s shirts
Food
Flowers
Blankets
Chocolate buttons
Curtains
Me
I started to cry. Tears are sneaky, they are so rude, and they just turn up always uninvited. Gate-crashing everything. I had no control of my eyes or my brain. It was like I was a boily egg and somebody had just whacked a huge teaspoon over my head and split my shell-mind into plenty of bits and pieces and egg brain was going everywhere. Jamie kept his eyes on the denim of his jeans, which judging by how red my face was was probably the best place for them.
‘We will find her,’ he whispered and pulled out some overheated jelly snakes from his pocket that had turned to hairy goo, and offered me one. He then began to shake a bit from nervousness and mumbled something about going to look for Lamb-Beth and then decided to pedal away on his bike really quickly. I feel so touched and happy that he’s helping me to find her, maybe he isn’t such a rotten egg after all?
After the whole day of being scared and worried I was exhausted and Mum said we had to relax now or else we wouldn’t sleep and be able to carry on searching the next day either. I had so much trapped up stuff inside and without any Will to explode with I had to write something down.
You Are More Than A Lamb To Me
Each moment that we are together
Makes me float like I am a feather
When I look up it’s your eyes I see
You are more than a lamb to me.
Every morning when I wake up and see you
I feel noodles in my oodles, I’m so happy I know you
You make each day so light and easy
You are more than a lamb to me.
I know what spins around your precious head
As you snore at the other end of the bed
You are so warm and kind and friendly
You are more than a lamb to me.
I sniff your smell to remind myself
That I couldn’t possibly love another else
Your little soul grumbling next to mine sweetly
You are more than a lamb to me.
Out in the cold wet night all alone
Brings nonsense and worry to my bones
When will you come home to me?
You are more than a lamb to me.
And as I try to be asleep tonight
I dream of you snuggling tight
Nuzzling my face reminding me too
That I am more than a Darcy to you.
Mum comes home with Marnie Pincher all empty-handed and sad and Marnie keeps saying ‘We looked everywhere’ but I don’t believe them. Grandma has made a big pot of pea and ham soup, which everybody starts slurping and burning the roofs of their mouths on, but I don’t feel like eating.
And actually, even if I did decide to burn the roof of my mouth I know I wouldn’t be even able to feel a single one thing because I am that sad.
I start to get angry at Will too and slip from tears to rage to tears to rage back to tears again. Even though nothing is his fault he should be here but instead he’s probably at a burger bar or rib shack or watching High School Musical with Clementine before going off to her horriblest yuckiest party that was obviously designed by evil horror dream cooker-uppers. It feels like he is on the other side of the moon, so far away, shaking hands with the human form of HATE. It’s like I don’t even know him. I try not to think about it but the idea of him laughing and joking and giving Clementine her present is enough to make me cry or punch a wall. I am full blown utterly sick with jealousy about this. I close my eyes to try and block out the reality and listen to the silence.
Nothing.
Dad’s getting the firstest train back that he can, which will make things a bit better – really can’t wait to see him and our family puzzle to be put a bit more together.
Mum says Timothy (brilliant) and Donald (hmmm) can sleep over, which is betterer than being all by myself. So we all set up a massive duvet den in the living room to make it cosy and warm and Marnie decides to stay over too ‘to keep an eye’ on us so Mum and Grandma can have some rest. It’s funny how situations cause everyday life to get all upside-down and back to front. All we need is Lamb-Beth to come home to put things right again.
We watch a few cartoons and have some hot chocolate but I keep falling in and out of sadness so much like I have a split personality and it’s one by one when everybody gently eventually starts snoring off to sleep that I panic and I think, I’m never going to see my Lamb-Beth ever again.
I can’t stop thinking about her quivering wet rain-soaked coat, her soggy eyelashes, her shivering little feet, her lost mind. Eventually I fall asleep by the soft poundings of my own heart.
The next day is hollow hell. Like, OUCH! No word from anybody about our lamb and it’s Sunday so I really should be enjoying myself on this ‘not being in school day’, planning my world domination or doing something fun, not worrying. But I can’t relax because we’ve still heard nothing. No news.
Dad comes home from France early, which proves he must love Lamb-Beth huge amounts of a lot. He has tired eyes and is carrying a stack of paper and pens and some photocopied pictures of Lamb-Beth to make missing signs and we pin them all the way up the road on every lamppos
t and in the window of the vets and in the windows of some of the shops.
We come home and the house feels very dry and cold like the soil of a dead plant.
‘Oh, monkey.’ Mum kisses me; it sounds the same as when a new pot of jam is opened.
Have you ever lost something you love? Well, it hurts like mad.
Grandma sticks around for a bit more time which is nice and so we try to do normalish things later on, like going to Pizza Express which is a quite normal thing to do as a treat but it isn’t treat or celebration time, is it? No. In fact, quite the opposite and coming into Pizza Express with their marbly tables and men rolling out dough in stripy T-shirts is making me fall on the wrong side of cross. Still, I have to eat, I guess. Each swallow hurts.
And then this happens . . .
DAD I spoke to Marnie (Pincher) today. She says that the house next-door-but-one’s dog has had puppies. I thought that, perhaps, if everybody wanted to, we could perhaps, maybe, go and take a look at them.
POPPY Hooray! Timothy has a pug dog so – Yes yes yes, please, oh, I love dogs and mostly puppies, oh hooray, can we go now, now, now? I’ll eat all my pizza down in one go or we can put it in a takeaway box, oh yes, oh yes, oh yes.
HECTOR Oh, I would LOVE a dog. Let’s call him Monster.
MUM A dog? That’s a good idea.
Then everybody looks at me and my knife and fork are rattling on the table in rage, my pizza has trans-formed into a pit of burning fire. My eyebrows dip, my teeth grit, Angrosaurus rex is coming out of me, my blood is boiling. Grandma orders herself a large brandy.
ME Why on EARTH would we WANT to look at some STUPID PUPPIES when LAMB-BETH is missing?
MUM I don’t think Dad meant it like that, Darcy, I think he was just trying to be helpful.
ME Helpful? How?
POPPY By getting us something new to love, of course.
ME NEW TO LOVE? NEW TO LOVE? Have you lost your mind?
Darcy Burdock, Book 2 Page 9