by Jean Ure
Impulsively, as we stepped off the bucket, I said, “Joey seems so much happier! D’you think he’s getting better?”
Cupcake didn’t say anything. She just frowned, and dug the tip of her trainer into a bit of soft earth at the bottom of the wall.
“I mean… he almost managed to get on his bike by himself!”
In this small, tight voice Cupcake said, “This time last year he could get on his bike by himself.”
“Well… y-yes. But he’s better than he has been!”
“Last year,” said Cupcake, “he could still ride round the garden. When we first came here, he could still walk.”
I fell silent, chewing on my lip. I could remember Joey walking. He used to come with Mrs Costello to pick Cupcake up from school.
“He just gets worse all the time,” she cried. “He’s not ever going to get better!”
And then she burst into tears and I didn’t know what to say. I felt that I should do something, like put my arms round her or something, but I just stood there, staring at the ground and twiddling my tennis racquet.
After a bit I managed to mumble that I was sorry.
“It’s all right. It’s not your fault.” Cupcake wiped her nose on the back of her hand. “You weren’t to know.”
But I should have done! I’d watched Joey grow weaker and weaker and I’d never once asked any questions. I’d tried telling myself it was because of not liking to think about people being ill, but maybe it was simply because I was scared of what the answer might be. The truth is, I hadn’t really wanted to know.
“I should have told you,” said Cupcake. She said that she had always known, right from the beginning. Her mum had never kept any secrets from her. “I’m sorry! It’s just – ” the tears came welling up again – “I couldn’t bring myself to talk about it!”
I pulled a crumpled tissue from my pocket and silently handed it to her. Then I patted her on the back a few times, like I’d seen people do in movies when they were trying to comfort someone. I felt really ashamed of being so useless. I’m not usually so useless! If Cupcake had fallen off a cliff I would be the first one scrambling down to save her. If she were to fall into the canal I would dive straight in after her, never mind that I can’t swim. If she got sucked into a bog I would tear off the branch of a nearby tree and push it out to her, and wouldn’t let go no matter how close I came to being sucked in with her. But now, because she was crying, I couldn’t think of a single thing to do except just stand helplessly by and watch.
After a while she dried her eyes and blew her nose and said again that she was sorry.
“Want to play some tennis?” I asked.
We played for a bit, but not for very long. It suddenly seemed kind of pointless, bashing tennis balls against a wall when Cupcake was so sad. We didn’t go and look round the shops, either; I didn’t even suggest it.
“Think I’ll go home now,” said Cupcake.
She didn’t ask me to go with her, but I understood.
“See you tomorrow,” I said.
Cupcake just nodded, and ran off.
CHAPTER THREE
Mum was surprised to see me back so soon.
“I thought you were out there training for Wimbledon?”
It was her idea of a joke. Danielle training for Wimbledon, ha ha! Mum always treats my ambitions as a joke, it doesn’t matter what they are. She thinks my present ambition, to be a TV celeb, is the biggest joke ever. She says, “Surely celebs have to do something?”
I will do something! It’s just I haven’t yet decided what.
Rather sternly I said, “Cupcake had to go home.”
“Oh. Well! In that case, if you’re at a loose end,” said Mum, “maybe you could entertain Rosie.”
I didn’t want to entertain Rosie.
“I wish you would,” said Mum. “She’s feeling a bit sorry for herself.”
Just because she had the sniffles. Not even a proper cold! And there was poor little Joey, stuck in a wheelchair and still managing to laugh.
“Go on,” said Mum. “Do something nice for once!”
I said, “I don’t feel like it.”
“Why? What’s wrong?”
“Cupcake said Joey isn’t going to get any better!” I blurted out. “She said he’s only going to get worse!”
“Oh.” Mum stopped what she was doing, which was chopping stuff for dinner. She wiped her hands on her apron and held them out to me. “Oh, sweetheart, I’m so sorry!”
I used to have lots of cuddles with Mum when I was little, until Rosie came along. Not that I cared. I was too old for all that kind of stuff in any case. But just now and then, like when she isn’t around, we have a bit of a secret snuggle. It can be quite a comfort.
“Is that why you’re back early?” said Mum.
I nodded, with my head pressed into the bib of her apron, which smelt for some reason of oranges. Now I always think of oranges when I think of Joey. I expect I always will.
“It’s not true, is it?” I whispered. “He won’t just go on getting worse?”
Mum knows how much I love that little boy. She made me sit down with her at the kitchen table, and explained to me how Joey had this condition that made his muscles weak. She told me that what Cupcake had said was true: Joey wouldn’t ever get any better. He would just slowly get worse. I cried, then, like Cupcake had cried. I was still crying when Rosie came into the kitchen whining that she was bored. For once, Mum sent her packing.
“Not now, Rosie! I’m talking to your sister.”
She’s not used to being spoken to like that. She went into this massive sulk and curled up on the sofa sucking her thumb like a stupid baby. Thankfully, Mum didn’t suggest I might like to entertain her. Instead, she took a £5 note out of her purse and told me to “Go and buy something to cheer yourself up.”
It’s the funny thing about my mum. She is one of those people who can either be totally unreasonable – like the time I accidentally set fire to my bedroom curtains and she started yelling and bawling and going completely raving berserk like I’d purposely run at them with a lighted match – or she can be, quite simply, THE BEST.
I immediately rushed down to the shops to find something for Joey. I spent ages dithering about like Cupcake, unable to decide whether to get him a boy thing, like an Action Man or a Star Wars figure, or a boy/girl thing, like a soft toy. I thought maybe a soft toy that he could cuddle. First I picked up a fluffy bunny, and then I picked up a woolly frog, and then I put the frog back and picked up a tiger. And then I put that back and picked up the frog again. I just couldn’t make up my mind. I thought how awful it must be to be Cup, and to live like that the whole time. I was driving myself mad!
And then I saw it… a tiny little dog, like a miniature Cookie. It was only a few centimetres high, but it was brown and white with big, flappy ears, just like Cookie. It also cost more than Mum had given me, but I didn’t mind. I still had my pocket money, which I’d probably only have spent on sweets.
When I got home, Rosie was full of her usual nauseating bounce.
“What have you got there?” she said.
I told her it was none of her business. “It’s a present for someone far nicer than you!”
“I suppose it’s for Joey,” she said.
I said, “Yes, cos he deserves it!”
“Just cos he’s in a wheelchair.”
There are times when I really would like to hit her. If I believed in violence, which I don’t. But sometimes you can just about be driven to it.
“I saw you crying earlier,” she said. “What were you crying about?”
I said, “I wasn’t crying. You just shut up!”
She immediately started screeching. “I’ll tell Mum you said that!”
At that point Mum came in and asked rather wearily what was going on.
“She told me to shut up!” screeched Rosie.
I said, “Yes, cos she was sticking her nose in where it doesn’t belong!”
> Later, Mum told me that I shouldn’t be too hard on my dear little sister. She said, “Sometimes I think she feels a bit jealous.”
I said, “Jealous? What of?”
“The way you make it seem that you love Joey more than you love her,” said Mum. “I know he’s a very sweet little boy, but Rosie is your sister!”
I was gobsmacked when Mum said that. If anyone was going to be jealous I’d have thought it should be me, considering how Mum always always took Rosie’s side.
When Dad got back from football, happy cos for once his team had won, she hurled herself at him going, “Daddy, Daddy!” in this silly little voice that grown-ups seem to find cute. Dad said, “Hey! How’s my little one?” and picked her up and tossed her about and started tickling her. Totally sick-making. “Feeling any better, Babyface?”
And then he remembered that he had another daughter, and turned to me and ruffled my hair and said, “And how about old Fudgekins here? No need to ask how she is. Tough as old boots, this one!”
You see what I mean? One of us is spoilt and pampered, the other is tough as old boots. Well, OK! That suits me. I might have had a bit of a cry in the kitchen earlier on, but it wasn’t the sort of thing I do every day. When Dad came up to me later and put his arm round me, he said, “Sorry, Fudgekins! Mum told me you’ve been a bit upset.” I just shook my head and muttered, “I’m all right.”
“About Joey… ” Dad sat down next to me on the sofa and tried to pull me close, but I made myself go stiff, like a board. I did not want to cry. Crying makes your head ache. It also makes your eyes go red. I didn’t want Rosie to see me like that.
“Fudgekins? I know it’s unfair,” said Dad, “especially when he’s hardly any older than Rosie, but it’s a sad fact of life that these things happen. At least he has a mum and a sister who love him, which lots of kids don’t have.”
My eyes were starting to prick. I wished Dad would just go away!
“You love him, too, don’t you?” said Dad. “See, in some ways he’s a very lucky little boy.”
I thought, Dad, how can you say that? I swallowed very hard. Any minute now, I’d be in floods of tears.
That was when Rosie came prancing in. Again. But for once I was actually glad to see her. I immediately jumped up, going, “I just remembered! I’ve got homework to do!” and rushed down the passage to my bedroom.
I did actually do some homework. It was only boring geography, but at least it took my mind off things.
Next day, I whizzed round to give Joey his present.
“See? Look! A tiny little Cookie!”
His face lit up and he stretched his hands out eagerly. His mum said, “Joey! What do you say?”
He obediently told me “A big THANK YOU!”
“And give Dani a kiss?”
“Give Dani a BIG kiss!”
And he did, too, reaching out with both arms and hooking them round my neck.
“Thank you, thank you!”
It seems very odd to me, that a little boy who has so many problems should be so easy to please, while Rosie does nothing but whinge and complain. She wouldn’t be content with anything less than the latest mobile phone or a flat-screen telly. She actually asked Mum the other day if she could have an ipod for her birthday. “For when I’m seven.” What does she want with an ipod??? I don’t expect Joey even knows what an ipod is. Unlike Rosie, who thinks she’s just so smart and so sophisticated, Joey is still just a little boy. Rosie likes to pretend she’s six-going-on-sixteen, but Joey is more like an innocent five-year-old. It’s not that he’s slow, just that he’s never had a chance to get streetwise. That’s all.
Anyway, we went into the garden, same as usual, and Joey insisted on taking Cookie for a ride on his bike. Cupcake said, “Why don’t we make a collar and lead for him? Then you could ride and he could walk.”
Joey liked that.
“I’ll go and do it,” said Cupcake.
It was while she was indoors, making the collar and lead, that I had my bright idea: we could take Joey to see the real Cookie. I suggested it to Cupcake, and she said, “Oh! Yes. He’d love that!” We had to check first with Mrs Costello that it would be OK. Naturally, we didn’t tell her about climbing over the wall to get tennis balls back, we just said there was this adorable little puppy that looked like Cookie. Mrs Costello said all right, so long as we were back by midday, and we set off triumphantly with Joey in his wheelchair, still clutching his new toy.
“We’re going to see a real Cookie,” I told him.
Well! I really do think it was one of the very best ideas I’ve ever had. I think Cupcake would agree with me. She doesn’t always approve of my ideas as sometimes in the past they have got us into trouble, like when I decided to give us both a fake tattoo and our arms swelled up and we had to have antibiotics. Our mums were quite cross, and so was Cupcake, as antibiotics make her tummy go funny. But even she said that watching Cookie chasing round the garden was the best treat Joey had had since coming to see me in our school play at Christmas. He was, like, transfixed. We stood him up on the seat of his wheelchair, with me on one side and Cupcake on the other, supporting him. I was on the bucket, and Cupcake was on an old car tyre we’d lugged over. It wasn’t as high as the bucket, but she’s taller than me so she could still see OK.
We couldn’t call out to Cookie that day as the old woman was out there, sitting at a table drinking coffee. Cookie was doing his usual doggy stuff, digging up bits of garden, tugging at plants, chewing at what looked like one of our tennis balls. Joey got really excited. He kept squealing, and holding up his new toy going, “Cookie! Cookie!” We had to shush him in case the old woman came crosspatching up the garden and told us off. By the time we took him home he was obviously exhausted, cos of standing for so long, but he was still talking excitedly about Cookie.
Mrs Costello said, “Well, I can see you’ve had a good time!”
After that, of course, he wanted to come with us every day. What with wheeling him there, then wheeling him back, it meant I wasn’t getting as much tennis practice as I should have done, but I was already beginning to wonder if perhaps I wasn’t really cut out for life as an international tennis star, so I didn’t really mind. In any case, making a little boy happy was far more important.
One day, when we were watching Cookie dig a hole at the foot of a prickly shrub, we saw his back leg give way again so that he sat down, with a flump, on his bottom. Joey chuckled happily. He said that Cookie was like him.
“Now he fall down, now he get up.”
Another day, he was chasing to and fro in the middle of the garden, tossing something small and bright and shiny into the air and catching it again. Last time he had done that, the old woman had come running out in a rage and whacked him. This time, she obviously hadn’t noticed.
“Serves her right,” said Cupcake.
And then it happened: our second step towards a life of crime. It was Saturday morning, just one week after Cupcake had told me about Joey and I had gone home and cried all over Mum. We’d got Joey standing on the seat of his wheelchair, and we’d scrambled up beside him, but the garden was empty. No sign of Cookie.
“Looks like he’s indoors,” I said. “Want to go for a walk round the park, instead?”
“You can see lots of dogs there,” said Cupcake.
But Joey fiercely shook his head and said no. “Wanna see Cookie!”
It got kind of boring, just standing there, staring at nothing. I was about to suggest the park again when the back door was suddenly flung open and Cookie came hurtling through the air, straight into the side of a big stone flower tub, wham. We heard the old woman’s voice screaming after him: “You get out there and you stay out there!” With that, she slammed the door shut.
There was a startled silence, then Cupcake said, “She threw him!”
We watched, in a kind of frozen horror, as Cookie staggered to his feet. He wobbled a bit, and seemed dazed.
“She’s hurt him,” I said.
“He’s got concussion!”
Joey was almost beside himself. He kept wailing, “Why she do it? Why she hurt him?”
“Cos she’s a mean, hateful old woman,” said Cupcake. “She’s not fit to have a dog!”
Joey was becoming quite distressed. He can’t bear any kind of violence; even cartoons on the television upset him. He begged us to go and see if Cookie was all right. Me and Cupcake exchanged glances.
“Could go and knock at the door,” I said.
“No!” Joey battered at me angrily. “Go inna garden!”
I said, “But it’s not ours.”
“Go inna garden!”
“It’s all right,” said Cupcake. “I’ll go.”
Before I could stop her, she had hoicked one leg over the wall and was jumping down on the other side. I couldn’t believe it! I was the one who was supposed to be bold and fearless. Cupcake was the timid one. But there she was, halfway down the garden, crouched behind a prickly bush, calling to Cookie.
His ears flattened. Very slowly he began to crawl towards her, close to the ground, his tail at half-mast, but wagging ever so slightly. As soon as he reached her, Cupcake gathered him into her arms and came racing back to the wall. I said, “Is he OK?”
“I think so.” Cupcake set him on the ground and he immediately jumped up at her, clutching at one of her legs with his front paws, plainly asking to be picked up again.
“Gimme, gimme!” Joey was holding out both arms, leaning so far forward I was scared he was going to fall. I tried pulling him back, but he screamed and pushed me away. “Gimme, gimme!”
I knew I had to be firm. When Joey is frustrated, he tends to just lash out, which personally I can understand. I wasn’t scared of him hitting me, but I didn’t want him toppling headfirst over the wall and getting hurt.
“Joey, stop it,” I said. “Sit down. If you sit down… we’ll let you cuddle him!”