- -
- 100%
- +
It sounded like a lot. But was it? I wasn’t sure. I realised that I simply didn’t know. I had no idea what anything cost! When Mum sent us up the road it was usually just for bread, or milk, or maybe a tin of something. She’d give us a couple of pounds, and we’d hand it over and come back with the change, but I’d never properly bothered to count how much change. I’d always just accepted whatever Mrs Petrides gave us. It had never occurred to me to check prices. If Mum said buy a large loaf, I bought a large loaf. I picked it off the shelf and took it to the checkout and that was that.
I wished, now, that I’d paid a bit more attention.
Tizz was busy on another load of sums. She looked up and glared, fiercely, across the table.
“I don’t think,” she said, “that a person can live on 49p a day.”
I said, “What are you talking about?”
“49p,” said Tizz. “That’s how much we’ll each have to live on if Mum is away for ten days.”
I looked at her, doubtfully. I wasn’t sure what you could actually buy for 49p. Just bars of chocolate, maybe, or packets of crisps. But they weren’t healthy! Even I knew that.
“We’ve got all this stuff,” I said, pointing at the tins we’d taken out of the cupboard.
“Yeah.” Tizz barely glanced at them. “That’ll go a long way.”
I did wish she would stop being so negative all the time. It really didn’t help. I pointed out that people had been known to survive on nothing but bread and water for days on end.
“Just so long as you have enough to drink,” I said. “That’s the main thing.”
“We’ll starve,” said Tizz.
“We won’t starve!” Didn’t she listen to a word I said? “Watch my lips: we are not going to starve. I won’t let us!”
“Dunno what you think you’re gonna do about it,” said Tizz. She scrunched up the paper she’d been doing her sums on and hurled it savagely across the room. “Mum might at least have left us some money!”
I said, “She didn’t know.” It wasn’t like Mum planned these things. She just got overwhelmed. “Anyway,” I said, “after yesterday she probably doesn’t have any money.”
Yesterday had been such a good day. Mum’s friend Nikki had come round with her boyfriend and we’d all gone off to the Carnival on the Common. It’s held every year, but this was the first time we’d ever been. There were all kinds of stalls, where you could play Guess the Weight or have a lucky dip or throw hoop-las, and lots of different rides, some of them quite scary. Well, I found them scary! I am a bit of a cowardy custard like that. Tizz was eager to try everything, and Mum let her. Like she let Sammy have three goes at the lucky dip, until she managed to pick something she really wanted.
We were so busy enjoying ourselves we didn’t ever stop to wonder where the money was coming from. Mum just kept laughing, and spending, and Nikki and her boyfriend kept saying, “Go for it!” Like egging her on. Encouraging her. Mum doesn’t need encouragement! Not when she’s all hyper. She needs someone to take charge and be responsible.
I should have taken charge. I should have been responsible. I knew Mum couldn’t afford to pay for all those rides, and all those goes on the lucky dip. Plus we all had vegeburgers, and doughnuts, and fizzy drinks. And Mum paid for Nikki and her boyfriend. And they let her. Just taking advantage of Mum’s good nature. They know when she’s on a high she loses all control.
She’d gone off again, that evening, to meet them. She’d been in a mad whirl, all laughing and flying about from room to room, trying on clothes then tearing them off again.
“Darlings, how do I look? Do I look like a hag?”
Like she ever could! Mum is really pretty. Very slim and delicate, with big blue eyes and a foaming mass of hair, red as the setting sun.
“I feel haglike,” she said. “I can’t go out feeling haglike!”
How I wished, now, that she hadn’t gone out. But we’d assured her she looked beautiful, and we’d even helped her, in the end, choose which clothes to wear. She’d gone waltzing off, as happy as could be. But I couldn’t help wondering how much money she’d had left. It couldn’t have been very much; not after her mad spending spree. Almost nothing, I’d have thought. How was she going to manage, without any money?
Tizz could obviously sense what was going through my mind.
“It’s that Nikki,” she said. “She leads Mum astray.”
“She’s supposed to be Mum’s friend,” I said.
Tizz snorted. “Some friend!”
I wondered if Nikki knew that Mum hadn’t come home. I couldn’t ring her cos I didn’t have her number. I didn’t even know where she lived.
“Her and that stupid Zak.” Tizz said it vengefully. “They’re the ones that made Mum spend all her money!”
They certainly hadn’t done anything to stop her. But then neither had I. On the other hand, even if I’d tried I doubt Mum would have taken any notice. She’d just have laughed and cried, “Oh, darling, don’t be such a bore! You take life far too seriously. Try to have a bit of fun, for once.”
I had had fun! It had been the best day I could remember for a long time. And now I was feeling guilty.
I thrust my hair back, behind my ears.
“We’ll manage,” I said. “Don’t worry!” I leaned over and gave Sammy a hug. She had been listening, solemnly, darting anxious glances from one to the other of us. “What we have to do,” I said, “is decide what’s most important. Stuff we need to keep us going. Like bread, and milk, and stuff.”
Sammy brightened. “Fishy fingers!”
“Chips,” said Tizz.
I said, “Chips aren’t good for you. We’ve got to have stuff that’s healthy. Like pasta,” I said. “That’s supposed to be good for you.”
Tizz pulled a face. “Bo-ring!”
“Doesn’t matter if it’s boring. You don’t think when people go to the North Pole they worry about stuff being boring? They worry about what’s good for them, like – I don’t know! Dried fish, and stuff.”
“You gotta be joking,” said Tizz, “if you think we’re going to eat dried fish!”
I could see that my task was not going to be easy. Tizz is just so difficult at times.
“Wait there,” I said. I went back to the bedroom and dug a notebook out of my school bag. “Right!” I slapped it down on the table. Tizz eyed it suspiciously.
“What’s that for?”
“We need to work things out,” I said.
“You mean, you’re going to get all bossy?”
I said, “Well, someone has to. Would you rather it was you?”
Tizz hunched a shoulder.
“You want to take over?” I pushed the pad towards her, but she shoved it back at me.
“I don’t want it!”
I knew she wouldn’t. The thing about Tizz, she may be sharp as needles and full of mouth, but she is far too impatient to ever sit down and actually plan anything. She also hates being told what to do. It is a constant battle! I know that I am not as bright as she is, but I do usually get things done in the end. Slow but sure, is what Mum says.
“OK!” I reached out for a pen. “We’re going to sit here,” I said, “and make a shopping list.”
In the end, we made two lists. The first was things we had to have:
Bread
Milk
Marge
Cheese
Eggs
Cereal
Mostly chosen by me.
The second was things we’d like to have:
Pizza
Fish Fingers
Chocolate Biscuits
Orange Squash
Sugar
Jam
Meatballs
All of them chosen by Tizz and Sammy.
“We’ll have to go to Tesco,” I said. “You can get stuff cheaper there.”
Tizz didn’t like that idea. She complained that it was a long way to walk and we’d have to carry heavy bags back with us. I told her that couldn’t be helped.
“We’ve got to go where it’s cheapest.”
Tizz said, “That’s not fair on Mr Petrides. He’s a small shopkeeper. He has to be saved! It’s people like you,” said Tizz, “that put people like him out of business.”
I did feel a slight twinge of guilt, cos in the past Mr and Mrs Petrides had been really good to us. Sometimes when Mum ran out of money they’d actually let us take stuff and pay for it later. You couldn’t do that at Tesco. But I hardened my heart. I had to! It was a question of survival.
“I bet if we asked him,” said Tizz, “he’d let us have things on tick.”
On tick was what Mum called it when she couldn’t afford to pay. I think maybe it meant that Mr Petrides put a tick by the side of her name in his account book.
“We’ll only do that if we get desperate,” I said. “Otherwise he might ask questions, like where’s your mum or why hasn’t she been in?”
“Mm… I s’ppose.” Tizz said it reluctantly, but at least it stopped her arguing. The one thing we were terrified of was people asking questions. We’d be safe in Tesco cos nobody knew us.
I put all the money in my purse except for five £1 coins and five 20p pieces. Tizz watched, suspiciously.
“What are you doing with that lot?”
I said, “Saving it. I’m going to put this –” I scooped up the 20p pieces – “in here.” I dropped them into the saucer that Mum kept on the windowsill. “They’re in case we need a bit extra. And this –” the five pound coins – “is our emergency fund. I’m going to leave it indoors so we can’t spend it. I’m going to hide it somewhere. Somewhere safe. Like…” I roamed about the kitchen, looking for a hiding place. “In with the flour!”
There was a half packet of flour in the cupboard, with an elastic band wrapped round it. I pushed the coins in there and put the flour back on the shelf.
Tizz said, “I bet that’s the first place a burglar would think of looking.”
I told her that I wasn’t scared of burglars. “I’m scared of it getting lost.”
“Like it absolutely would,” said Tizz, “if it wasn’t hidden in a bag of flour. I mean, if it was just put in an ordinary purse like any normal person would put it.”
“I just don’t want us being tempted into spending it,” I said. “We’ve got to have something to fall back on.”
Tizz said, “Yeah, like living on bread and marge. Yuck!”
Sammy said, “Ugh! Yuck! Bluurgh.”
They both bent over and pretended to be sick.
“We want chips,” said Tizz. “We want pizza! We want—”
“Fishy fingers!”
“Yay!”
Tizz and Sammy smacked their hands together in a triumphant high five. I was glad that Sammy had cheered up, but I did hope we weren’t going to have scenes in Tesco. I wasn’t sure I could cope with that. It would be just so embarrassing! Everyone would look at us, especially if Sammy worked herself up into one of her states. Just now and again, if she can’t get what she wants, she’ll throw herself on the ground and drum her heels and refuse to get up. Mum is the only one who knows how to deal with her.
“I think,” said Tizz, “if you want my opinion, we ought to be allowed to have whatever we want to have. Without you dictating to us!”
“Just buy nice things,” said Sammy.
“Yeah! Right. ‘Stead of all that boring muck!” Tizz waved a hand at my list of things we had to have.
I felt quite cross with her. She wasn’t being at all helpful.
“Let’s put down some other stuff.” Tizz snatched up the second list and added CRISPS in big capital letters at the bottom of it.
“Sweeties!” shouted Sammy.
“SWEETIES,” wrote Tizz.
She was being deliberately provoking. I almost felt like throwing my purse at her and telling her to get on with it. Let her take the responsibility. But of course she wouldn’t; not when it came to it. She just wanted to challenge my authority. It is very difficult, sometimes, being the oldest, especially when you have a sister who refuses to do what she’s told. And keeps getting the littlest one all worked up. I could see that Sammy was well on the way to having one of her screaming fits.
“Listen,” I said. I squatted down beside her. Even a five-year-old can be made to see reason. “We’ll try to buy some nice things, I promise you! But nice things are expensive and we can’t afford too many of them, so—”
That was as far as I got because at that point someone hammered on the front door and we all froze. Well, me and Tizz froze. Sammy hesitated for just a second, then with a joyous cry of, “Mum!” went galloping off.
It wasn’t Mum. It was Her Upstairs. Mrs Bagley. Mum calls her ‘that woman’. We call her Her Upstairs. We don’t like her.
She came pounding into the room with a scared-looking Sammy trailing behind her. She is such a huge great woman that the floor trembles as she walks.
“Where is your mother?” she said, in this big booming voice that practically made the walls shake.
I was about to say in quavering tones that Mum wasn’t here when Tizz jumped in ahead of me.
“She’s out,” she said.
It is just as well that Tizz is so quick. The way she said it – “She’s OUT” – was like, what’s it to do with you? If I’d told her that Mum wasn’t home, you can just bet she’d have demanded to know where she was, and then I wouldn’t have known what to say. I don’t think as fast as Tizz. She can always be relied on to come up with a smart answer.
Her Upstairs did this huffing thing. Sort of ‘Pouf!’ With her lips billowing out and her nostrils flaring, like she suspected Tizz of being impertinent. Tizz faced up to her, boldly.
“Can we give her a message?”
“You can indeed.” Her Upstairs has these big bosoms. I mean, like, really really big. Like massive. Mum says you could lay a dinner table on them. When she gets indignant, which is what she was now, she kind of inflates them. I watched them heave and wondered what we’d done to upset her this time.
“You can tell your mother,” she said, “that I have called for my flour.”
I said, “F-flour?”
Even Tizz looked a bit taken aback. At any rate, she didn’t say anything.
“My flour. My self-raising! I should like to have it back. If, of course –” her lip curled – “there is anything left to have back. Shall we go into the kitchen and see?”
She set off across the room. Thud, bang, stamp, across the floor. Tizz sprang into action.
“It’s all right! Ruby’ll get it for you.”
“I will,” I said. “I’ll get it for you!”
I rushed into the kitchen, grabbed the bag of flour and scrabbled frantically in search of our pound coins. I had to plunge my hand in so deep that great white clouds came puffing out all over me. And then, in my panic, I went and dropped the bag and loads of flour went and spilt over the floor.
But at least I had the coins! All five of them. I stuffed them into the back pocket of my jeans and wiped my top with the dish rag. Unfortunately, by now, there didn’t seem to be very much flour left in the bag. Hardly any, in fact. Most of it was on the kitchen floor.
Hastily, I seized a tablespoon out of the drawer, scooped up as much as I could and poured it back into the bag. It probably wasn’t very hygienic cos I didn’t know when Mum had last had a cleaning session, but the way I saw it, flour was used for cooking and cooking killed germs. Anyhow, it was only Her Upstairs.
I went back into the sitting room. Her Upstairs was standing there, with her arms folded. Tizz was looking defiant. Sammy had rushed off to hide behind the sofa.
“I found it,” I said. “There’s still some left.”
I held out the bag. Her Upstairs took it, rather grimly. She removed the elastic band, looked in the bag and went, “Huh!” Then she looked at my top and went, “Hmph!”
“Mum was going to give it back,” I said.
“Not before she managed to get through three quarters of it, I see. What on earth was she making?”
I looked helplessly at Tizz.
“Can’t remember,” said Tizz.
“I was under the impression she merely wanted a sprinkle. Perhaps you would be kind enough to inform her, when she gets back, that I should appreciate it, in future, if she would not come to me when she runs out of something.”
“I will,” I said. “I’ll tell her.”
“Thank you. I should be grateful.”
Her Upstairs moved off, towards the door. I followed her, anxiously. Please, just let her go.
As she passed the table, where we’d laid out the stuff we’d found in the cupboard, she paused for a moment. I could almost hear her nosy parker brain ticking over.
What are they doing with all those tins? Where is their mother? What is going on?
It was Tizz, again, who came to the rescue.
“We’re tidying up the cupboard,” she said.
“Hm!” Her Upstairs gave a sniff. “Not before time, I dare say.”
I resented that! It was criticism of Mum. Like saying she wasn’t good at keeping things in order. Maybe she wasn’t, but so what? She was our mum and we loved her! We didn’t mind if the cupboards were in a mess. And what was it to do with Her Upstairs anyway?
“I hate that woman,” said Tizz, when the door was safely closed.
I didn’t like her very much either, especially when she was so mean about Mum, though I could sort of understand why she didn’t want Mum asking for stuff any more. Cos I didn’t think, really, that Mum had been going to give the flour back. Not that she would have kept it on purpose; just that it would have slipped her mind.
I said this to Tizz, but she got all angry and snapped, “Don’t defend her, she’s horrible! And you—” she whizzed round on Sammy, crawling out from behind the sofa. “Don’t go running off to answer the door when you don’t know who it is! You don’t want us all to be split up, do you? Cos that’s what’ll happen if Her Upstairs finds out!”
Sammy’s lower lip started to wobble. Tears came into her eyes. “I thought it was Mum!”
“If it had been Mum, she’d have used her key.”
I thought, yes, if she hadn’t lost it or had her bag stolen. I told Sammy to cheer up.
“We’ll go shopping in a minute. That’ll be fun!”
“Buy nice things?” said Sammy.
“We’ll see.”
“Fishy fingers!”
“Maybe.”
Sammy glanced slyly at Tizz. “– Fishy fingers! We want fishy fingers!”
But Tizz wasn’t playing any more. “Don’t keep on,” she said. “It’s a question of what we can afford.”
At last! She was beginning to give me some support. She didn’t even grumble when I insisted on finding a new hiding place for our emergency fund.
“I’m just scared,” I said, “that if we take it with us we might be tempted to spend it, and then we’ll be left with nothing.”
Tizz said, “Right.”
“I mean, I know Mum could be back at any moment—”
She could! She really could! She could be there waiting for us when we got back from Tesco.
“It’s just… you know! In case she isn’t.”
“This is it,” said Tizz. “Got to be prepared.”
Life was so much easier when Tizz decided to cooperate.
“We’ve absolutely got to watch what we’re spending,” I said, as we wheeled our trolley into Tesco. It did make me feel a bit important, being in charge of the shopping. I told Tizz that she was to add things up as we went round.
“Make sure we don’t overspend.”
Tizz said, “OK.”
“We’ve got £9.75. So when we get up to £9 you’ve got to let me know.”
“OK,” said Tizz.
We set off down the first aisle, heading for the bread counter. We’d been to Tesco loads of times with Mum, which was just as well cos otherwise it would have been really confusing. I picked up two large loaves and put them in the trolley.
“That’s two at 55p,” I said.
“Got it,” said Tizz.
Sammy’s hand was already reaching out towards the cakes. She likes the little squishy ones covered in green and pink goo. Mum sometimes lets her have one as a treat.
“Rubeee!” She tugged at my arm. “Cakies!”
“Not now,” I said.
“Mum would let me!”
“Mum’s not here,” said Tizz.
“And anyway,” I said, “they’re not good for you.”
Sammy’s face crumpled. A woman walking past smiled, sympathetically.
“They are nice, though,” she said, “aren’t they?”
Well! That wasn’t a very helpful remark. I hastily hauled Sammy off towards the milk and eggs. I reached out for two cartons of milk and stared in outrage.
“£1.18?” Just for a carton of milk?
“That’s £3.36,” said Tizz.
“Just for milk?”
Tizz shrugged.
“That’ll only leave us…” I did some frantic finger work.
“£6.39,” said Tizz.
I was beginning to understand how it was that Mum kept running out of money and having to buy things on tick and borrow stuff from Her Upstairs. Rather grimly, I marched on down the aisle.
“Marge.”
Sammy opened her mouth and let out a wail. “Don’t like marge!”
“Nobody does,” said Tizz. “We’ve all just got to put up with it.”
I was so thankful that Tizz was being supportive at last. It was like the reality of the situation had suddenly hit her. Mum had disappeared and we were on our own. And if we didn’t want to be split up, we had to learn how to take care of ourselves. It wasn’t any use splurging on pink cakes and chocolate biscuits, then being forced to throw ourselves on the mercy of Her Upstairs cos we’d run out of money and there wasn’t any food left.
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