‘Um – how many tables are downstairs so far? Because if people are having the Full English Breakfast, you sort of need to cook everything at the same time—’
‘ Move, Sadie,’ she said through gritted teeth. ‘You can finish cleaning up the floor if you're so bloody certain I can't manage on my own.’
I bent down and quickly sponged up the rest of the sticky eggs. ‘But are they?’
Aunt Leona ran the saucepan under the sink. Smoke poured out around us, and she fanned the air, wrinkling her nose. ‘Are they what ?’
I swallowed. ‘Having the Full English? Because I'm really not trying to get at you; it's just that—’
She slammed the saucepan back on the hob. ‘No! No one's having the Full English! They're lucky to get bacon, eggs and toast, for God's sake!’
‘But—’ I stood up slowly, staring at her. ‘What do you mean? You're not cooking everything on Dad's list?’
‘Of course not.’ She unwrapped the butter and sliced a piece into the saucepan. ‘Frank was a bloody obsessive, and Celia's just as bad. There's no way people expect all that food.’
‘But Aunt Leona, they've been staying here for days, some of them! They'll expect to get all the mushrooms and beans and stuff, too – it's not hard, you just have to—’
‘And how would you know? Can you cook?’ She cracked an egg against the side of the saucepan. Bits of shell flaked into the melting butter.
Heat flashed through me. ‘Well, it's not exactly rocket science, is it?’
‘Oh, so now I'm thick!’ She spun round from the hob, hair flying. ‘Just get out, Sadie. Leave me alone.’
My bare feet felt sticky where I had trodden in a bit of egg. ‘Look, you can't just start changing things! This is Mum's business; it has to be done a certain way—’
Aunt Leona slammed the spatula down as the eggs bubbled in the pan. ‘You know what, Sadie? You can do it, since you know so much.’
‘No!’ I grabbed her arm as she started to stalk out of the kitchen. ‘Aunt Leona, come on! I've never cooked the breakfasts on my own before! All I'm saying is—’
She jerked her arm away, her brown eyes bright with tears. ‘All I'm saying is, I am not a cook, and I am not a housekeeper, and I am not a bloody people person, and if Celia expects me to do all of this instead of going on holiday, then it has to be on my own terms!’ Her voice rose higher and higher, breaking on the last words. She looked seriously close to losing it.
‘OK,’ I said quickly. ‘OK. But . . . but can I help, though?’
Aunt Leona sniffled, scowling. ‘I suppose so. But if you say a single word about my cooking, you're on your own.’
Poor Diddums
‘Miss, is there some mistake?’ The middle-aged man at Table Three peered at his plate with a frown. Light steam from the eggs misted his glasses. ‘I ordered the Full English.’
‘Yes, I'm sorry. We, um . . . had a problem with our grocery supply.’ I had said this to every guest I served breakfast to that morning, but it didn't start sounding any better.
Leaving him scowling down at his bacon and eggs, I gathered up the last of the dirty dishes from the tables, stacking them on my arm as I headed back into the kitchen. The corridor felt still and silent as I passed through it, with sunlight streaming in from the landing window.
‘I thought maybe I'd stay at home today.’ I put the dishes onto the counter.
Aunt Leona stood at the sink, splashing water about as she did the dishes. She glared at the new ones I had just brought in. ‘Oh, ta for that.’
‘Is that OK? If I stay at home? It's already after nine anyway.’ I was too old to cross my fingers for luck, but I felt like it. School had never seemed quite so pointless, with Mum in hospital. I seriously couldn't deal with another day of the blonde thing, not today.
Aunt Leona gave me a look. ‘Why should you?’
‘Well, I could help you make up all the guest rooms, and then I thought we could—’
‘Oh, I see. I need supervision for that as well, do I?’ The water churned as she dunked the pile of plates into it.
‘No! It's just that you've never done it before. I mean, I haven't either, not on my own, but with two of us—’
‘No, Sadie, you cannot stay at home.’
I stood up straight. ‘But I thought we could go and see Mum!’
‘You can go after school, can't you?’ She shoved a plate onto the drying rack. A bit of egg was still stuck to it.
‘But—’
‘No!’ Splash, slam. ‘ And if the school calls and says you're not there, I'll tell them you're bunking off, so don't get any ideas.’
Oh, stop acting all adult; you're only seven years older than me. The words almost burst out of me, like water smashing through a dam. I held them back with an effort.
‘Well, will you at least write me a note for being late?’
She smirked at me. ‘I'd love to.’
Fuming, I went to take a shower, peeling off the jeans and T-shirt I had thrown on to help with breakfast. The warm water pounded over me like wet needles. I stayed in for ages, soaping and re-soaping myself, until it felt like my skin was shrinking. After I towelled off, I had to climb back into my crumpled uniform from the day before, since my other uniforms were still in the wash.
I went to tell Aunt Leona I was leaving, and found her sitting hunched on the sofa, talking into her mobile. ‘Yes, I know the flight leaves tonight. Will you stop making me feel guilty?’
Silence for a moment. Aunt Leona groaned and rubbed her temple. ‘Oh, I don't know, it depends on Celia. I'd love to fly out later if I could, but—’ She broke off as she saw me. ‘Hang on,’ she said, and looked at me with her eyebrows raised.
‘I need a note,’ I reminded her coldly.
She found a piece of paper and scribbled something on it. ‘Here.’ She handed it to me, and flopped back against the brown cushions. ‘Yes, I know! Oh, Ron, it's awful here. I'm sick of it already, and it's only been one day . . .’
I banged the front door after me. Yes, poor diddums, it's all just so awful for you, having to cook breakfast and make up a few beds. As opposed to being in hospital with your legs not working. What had happened to Oh, poor Celia, I just can't bear it?
Vampira
Mrs Clark, the school secretary, let out a huge sigh when she saw me. ‘Late again, Sadie?’
This was really unfair. I'm not late that often. It's just that sometimes I get distracted by the beach on my way to school. But before I could say anything in my defence, the office door opened behind her and Miss Bodley, our form head, walked out. I gulped, and suddenly couldn't say a word.
Everyone calls Miss Bodley ‘Vampira’, but only behind her back, because no one would ever say it to her face. She was only about five feet tall, but she had paper-white skin, and dark, staring eyes that saw right through you. And she never, ever smiled.
‘Is there a problem?’ Vampira said.
‘Sadie's late again,’ Mrs Clark told her, squeaking around in her chair.
‘I've – I've got a note.’
I started to hand it to Mrs Clark, but Vampira stepped forward. ‘Let's see.’
I handed it to her, and she stared at it like it was a secret document. ‘ Please excuse Sadie for being late. Sincerely, Leona Harris,’ she read aloud. ‘Who's Leona Harris?’
‘My aunt.’
Mrs Clark tapped something into the computer, and frowned. ‘We don't have her down as a contact name for you.’
Vampira gave me a hard look. ‘Are you sure that you didn't just get a friend to write this, Sadie?’
My skin turned hot and prickly. ‘No! She's my aunt – my mum's in hospital, and she's staying with me!’
‘In hospital?’ Mrs Clark's expression struggled between Oh, dear and Right, tell me another one. She glanced at Vampira.
‘Yes, in Brixham Hospital! She's been there since last night. She has something called GBS; she'll be in hospital for ages.’ Hot tears leaped to my eyes.
Vampira's expression hardly even changed. ‘Come into my office and sit down for a minute, Sadie.’ She held her door open for me.
My fingers felt numb as I went into her office. It was like venturing into a graveyard at midnight. God, how terrible, to start crying in front of Vampira, of all people!
‘Your mum's really in hospital, then?’
My head snapped up. ‘Yes! You can ring them if you don't believe me!’
She leaned back in her seat. ‘That's all right, I believe you. It's nothing serious, I hope?’
‘I don't know; she can't move her legs. They say it'll go away, but it might take months . . .’ I wiped at my eyes, struggling not to start crying for real. ‘Um . . . could I go now? I have to get to class.’
Vampira stared intently at me, as if she were trying to see all the way into my soul. She wasn't all that old – younger than Mum, probably – but her eyes looked as though they'd been narrowed into slits for centuries. Finally she nodded. ‘Yes, go on.’
Mrs Clark gave me a late pass after I came out of Vampira's office, and I rushed off, practically running down the corridor. I slowed down once I got away from Reception. I didn't actually have any desire to get to class, especially since I hadn't done any homework.
It was weird – even though I had the perfect excuse for not doing my homework, I didn't want to use it. Telling Vampira had been bad enough. I wasn't about to tell all of my teachers, too, and then have everyone looking at me all sympathetic and worried, asking questions about what GBS was when I didn't have a clue myself. It was scary, that was all I knew. It had paralysed my mum.
The bell was about to ring when I got to my English class. I leaned against the wall and stared over at a display of Year Eight artwork, trying to calm down. I wished that I could just go to the hospital right now, and make sure that Mum was OK.
The bell rang, making me jump. A few seconds later the door opened, and everyone started streaming out in a blur of blue uniforms.
The moment I saw Tara and Hannah, laughing together over some private joke, I knew I couldn't tell them about Mum. They'd be sure to blab it to everyone else, Jan and Alice and all that lot, and I couldn't bear it.
‘Did you just get here?’ asked Tara. She and Hannah paused when they saw me, and I started walking with them, the three of us jostling our way to PE.
‘Yeah, I had to, um – get my eyes tested,’ I told them. ‘Did I miss anything good?’
Tara laughed. ‘Ooh, yeah, if commas are good.’
‘Don't confuse her; she hasn't got to those yet,’ said Hannah with a grin. ‘So are you going to get glasses, Sadie?’
‘You'd look dead scholarly with glasses,’ said Tara.
‘Scholarly Sadie . . . no, I don't think so, actually,’ said Hannah.
I put on my ‘blonde’ face. ‘Scholarly Sadie, that's me. Ooh, d’you think wearing specs would raise my IQ up to seventy?’
‘Don't count on it,’ said Hannah. And we all laughed.
Crawling Ants
When I pushed open the door to Mum's room that afternoon, she lay propped up on pillows, staring at the TV set on the wall. Her brown hair stuck out a bit on the sides, like it does first thing in the morning. An old woman lay in the next bed. I hadn't seen her the night before; a curtain had been drawn around her.
‘Sadie!’ Mum's face brightened.
I ran over and hugged her, wanting so much to believe that it had all been a horrible nightmare, and that she wasn't that ill, really. And maybe I would even have convinced myself of it, except that she couldn't hug me back. Her hand was like a feeble old lady's as she tried to pat my arm.
‘Mum, are you OK?’ I sank down onto the bed beside her. The old lady in the next bed peered over at me, and then looked back at the TV screen.
She gave a barking laugh. ‘Well, I would say I'm fine, but . . . well, to be honest, my arms seem to be going now, too.’
‘Your arms?’ I stared down at them.
‘I can move them a bit, but not much,’ she said grimly. ‘God, what a mess.’ Her neck twisted as she peered at the doorway. ‘Where's Leona? Didn't she come?’
‘No, I came straight from school. She'll probably come later.’ I tried to fight down the panic that was rising in me. She was worse, and it had only been a day! What did that mean?
‘How did breakfast go this morning?’
Dr Sarjeem flashed into my mind, and I stretched a smile across my face. ‘Oh, it was OK, actually. Aunt Leona really seemed to be getting the hang of it . . . after a while.’
Surprise and pleasure fought on Mum's face. ‘Really?’
‘Yeah, she was fine. I mean, I helped her with some of it, but she was really trying.’
Mum's eyebrows lifted, and she nodded thoughtfully. ‘Well, that's a relief. Maybe it'll be all right after all, then. Now, tell me how your day went. How was your homework; did you do OK?’
My spirits sank like a dropped anchor. Couldn't she ever, ever think of anything else? Then I felt guilty for thinking that, with Mum lying there so weak and helpless.
‘Yeah, I did fine. I, um – got eight out of ten for maths.’
I don't know where that came from. I just . . . said it.
All at once Mum's eyes shone like a light had been switched on behind them. ‘Sadie! Well done.’ Even the woman in the next bed looked pleased.
‘Thanks.’ My face grew warm as I looked at the plastic water pitcher on her bedside table.
Mum was still smiling. ‘See, I knew you had it in you! Now you just need to keep up the good work.’
It felt like ants were crawling all over me. But it was for a good cause, right? Mum's spirits had to be kept up. Dr Sarjeem had said so.
The Dancing Duvet Cover
There was a note on our front door when I got home, stuck to it with a big wad of Blu-tak. I tugged it off, along with the Blu-tak, wiping at the greasy stain with my finger.
Dear Mrs Pollock,
My mum wants me to do a project for school, and I want to do one on business studies, and I thought maybe I could observe your B&B business for the next two weeks and analyse all the areas where you're going wrong—
God! I crumpled it up and shoved it in my bag.
When I got inside, a man with a white moustache was standing in our front hallway, leaning against the wall. He straightened up when he saw me.
‘Sorry to hang about; my room's being made up.’ He glanced at his watch, his mouth dour. ‘Still.’
A feeling of foreboding swept me. It was after four o’clock. Aunt Leona couldn't still be doing the guest rooms, could she?
‘Oh, right . . .’ I edged away from him, smiling. ‘I'll just go and see if I can help.’
I dropped my bag and ran up the stairs, rounding the corner. When I got to the first floor, the landing opened out into a pentagon shape – an open space with five white doors, and a stained-glass window showing a sailboat set high up in the wall.
I found Aunt Leona in Room Three. It wasn't difficult; I just followed the sound of swearing.
‘OH! This . . . bloody . . . bloody thing . . .’
The door was partly open. I pushed it open the rest of the way and peeked in. Room Three was painted in different shades of green, to go with the view of the garden. And now the pale green duvet cover was standing up on the bed, doing some sort of weird aerobic dance.
‘Aunt Leona?’
The duvet cover wriggled about a bit, and Aunt Leona's head popped out. Her cheeks were apple-red.
‘ What?’
I shut the door behind me. ‘Um . . . do you need any help?’
‘No. I am doing perfectly fine, thank you.’ Her feet pressed into the mattress as she wrestled with the duvet cover. The duvet slithered heavily out and puddled about her feet.
‘Here, should I – maybe if I just hold the duvet for you—’
‘Sadie.’ Her eyes were glittering and dangerous. ‘Get out of this room before I scream.’
I got out. And I stood in the h
allway staring at the other four doors on the landing, wondering what they looked like inside. Had she even done them yet? Glancing at the closed door to Room Three (where I could still hear Aunt Leona huffing and puffing about), I walked softly across the pale blue carpet. The doorknob to Room Two turned in my hand, and I slipped inside.
At first glance, the room seemed OK, and my shoulders relaxed. But the more I looked at it, the more I saw that things weren't OK at all.
The fern-patterned duvet cover looked lumpy, and was hanging at a weird angle off the bed. The white wicker waste basket was full of papers and tissues. The coffee and tea caddy on the chest of drawers still had dirty cups on it, and empty, crumpled packets of sugar. I peeked in the en-suite bathroom. A used towel lay on the floor, and there were hairs in the bathtub.
I wasn't some big expert on housework, and normally whether the rooms were made up right was the last thing on the planet I cared about. Because normally Mum was here to do them, nagging me to help and ruining my weekends and holidays.
But now . . . I bit my lip. What if the guests started complaining about how terrible the service had suddenly become, and Mum somehow heard about it? My hands tensed as I saw her lying motionless in her white hospital bed, and before I knew it, I was picking up the towels and grabbing the dirty coffee cups.
‘What are you doing?’
I jumped, holding the towels to my chest. Aunt Leona stood in the doorway, glaring at me.
‘Nothing – I just thought—’
‘You're doing it again, aren't you?’ She gritted the words out, her face drained of colour. ‘You're following along behind me, redoing what I've done. I don't believe this!’
‘I'm not! I mean, yes, I am, but – Aunt Leona, you didn't even clean the bathroom.’
Her face flushed. ‘I hadn't got to it yet, that's all! Don't you dare try to turn this back on me!’
‘Look, you're supposed to totally finish every room, not do them in bits and pieces.’ I tried to keep my voice reasonable, but it was difficult. Aunt Leona scowled.
‘I'll do them however I feel like it! God, I don't even want to be here! I can't believe you're nagging me about the housework now, on top of everything else—’
Breakfast at Sadie's Page 4