Ice Lolly
Jean Ure

Copyright

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2010 Harper Collins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd, 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

The HarperCollins Children’s Books website address is www.harpercollins.co.uk

Ice Lolly Text © Jean Ure 2010 Illustrations © HarperCollinsPublishers 2010

The author and illustrator assert the moral right to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work.

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Source ISBN: 9780007281732

Ebook Edition © MARCH 2010 ISBN: 9780007367948

Version: 2018-06-18

For Tamesha Pria

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

Also by Jean Ure

About the Publisher

CHAPTER ONE

So this is it; it’s happening. I’m sitting here between Auntie Ellen and Uncle Mark in this room that’s called a chapel, though it isn’t my idea of what a chapel ought to be. Chapels should be beautiful, I think; this is just plain and ordinary. Maybe that is what you get for not believing in God. But you can’t be a hypocrite, just for the sake of a stained-glass window. You can’t say you believe when you don’t. Not however much you would like to. Mum wouldn’t have wanted me to do that. She used to say, “You have to face up to things, Lol.” So that is what I am doing. I am facing up.

We are sitting in the front row, which is reserved for family. But anyone else could have sat here if they’d wanted; I wouldn’t have minded. There’s lots of room, only a few people have come. There’s Stevie, of course. Why isn’t she sitting with us? She is practically family. Far more than Auntie Ellen or Uncle Mark, even if Uncle Mark is Mum’s brother. Mum used to say that Stevie was a rock. Even Uncle Mark agrees that we couldn’t have managed without her. Auntie Ellen just curls her lip and calls her “that dreadful old woman from next door”. She says she looks like a bag lady, meaning someone who lives on the street and carries all her worldly possessions in a plastic bin bag. I think that is such a horrid thing to say.

I know that Stevie dresses kind of weirdly and smells of cat, but I can think of worse things to smell of, and what does it matter how people dress? Today she is wearing her best coat that she got from a charity shop. It is dark purple and reaches to the ground, so that all you can see of her big clumpy boots are the tips, poking out from underneath. Originally the coat had fur round the collar, but Stevie doesn’t approve of fur so she ripped it off and gave it to the cats to play with. Unfortunately, most of the collar came off with it, so I have to admit she does look a bit peculiar, especially as she has put on her see-through plastic rain hat. She told me that she was going to wear her rain hat, specially. She said, “You have to be dressed properly, for church. I wouldn’t want to let you down.”

Generally speaking, Stevie doesn’t give a rap. It’s one of her expressions. She is always shouting it out. “Don’t give a rap!” So I am really touched that she has gone to so much trouble. I think that Mum would be touched too, and agree that Stevie ought to wear her rain hat even though this is only a chapel, and a very plain and boring chapel, and nothing to do with church. And I don’t give a rap if she looks like a bag lady and makes people stare. She was Mum’s friend and Mum loved her.

Apart from Stevie, the only other people are Temeeka’s mum from over the road, and Mr and Mrs Miah from the corner shop, plus some of the people from Mum’s office where she used to work before she got sick. I don’t really know the people from her office, as I was only eight when Mum had to stop working. But they all came and spoke to me while we were waiting to come in, and two of the women kissed me. One of the men is standing up and talking. He’s talking about Mum. I am trying not to listen. I know he’s saying nice things, because that’s what people do, but I am not going to listen. I am squeezing my eyes tight shut and concentrating very hard…I am building a wall, brick by brick, like a fortress. Soon it will be finished and then nothing will be able to reach me. But for the moment there is still this chink, this tiny chink, where things might be able to slip through. I have to keep them out!

Auntie Ellen wasn’t sure that I should be here today. She said why didn’t I stay at Stevie’s until it was over.

“Then we’ll come and fetch you, and take you home.”

She thought that it would be too much for me. She probably thought that I would cry. Well, I haven’t! I haven’t even sniffled. I am frozen, behind my brick wall. Like in an ice house, where in olden days, before they invented refrigerators, they used to store blocks of ice, hidden underground, deep and dark, where the sun could not get at them. The ice never melted. So she doesn’t have to keep shooting those anxious glances at me. Mum never cried, and I am not going to, either.

They haven’t brought Holly and Michael with them, and I am glad about that. They have always disapproved of Mum and me. Well, Holly has. So have Auntie Ellen and Uncle Mark, of course, but they are grown-ups. You have to accept it from grown-ups. But I don’t like being disapproved of by someone that is two years my junior. She is only ten years old! What right does she have to be disapproving?

I stop thinking about Holly and Michael and stare fixedly ahead at what looks like a spider crawling up the wall. Do you get spiders in chapels? I suppose you get them pretty well everywhere. But what would a spider find to live on? It is so cold in here, and bare.

Maybe it isn’t a spider. I wriggle a bit, and Auntie Ellen shoots me one of her glances. The man from Mum’s office is still talking, he is saying something about Mum having a wicked sense of humour.

“She used to keep us all in stitches! I remember, one time…”

I scuttle back inside my ice house. I am safe in here. I think of Mr Pooter in his cardboard carrying-box in the car. How long will it be before I can go to him? He will be so confused, he is not used to being shut away. I wish he could have come in with us! I know it’s what Mum would have wanted. After me and Stevie, Mr Pooter was the person she loved best in all the world. Maybe she even loved him more than she loved Stevie. But they would have been bound to say no if I’d suggested bringing him. Auntie Ellen has already hinted that it would be far better if I gave him to Stevie.

“She’s a cat woman.”

The way she said it, it was like a kind of sneering. Like Stevie is old and dotty and mad. Just because she loves cats! She has devoted her life to them. She has eleven at the moment, all of them rescued. Auntie Ellen, with one of her sniffs that she does, said that “one more wouldn’t make much difference. You can hardly move for cats as it is”. I feel good that I stood up to her. Mum would have approved! She wouldn’t want me and Mr Pooter to be parted from each other. But I know Auntie Ellen only gave way in the end because Uncle Mark told her to. I know she’s not pleased. She really doesn’t care about animals.

The man from Mum’s office has finished talking and is returning to his seat. I wonder about what is going to happen next. I have never been to anything like this before.

I have never been to a funeral before.

There. I have said it. But it’s all right, I am safe in my ice house. I am frozen, I feel nothing.

I am thinking back to when my gran died. I was only three, so I don’t really remember very much, except that Mum was sad and that we lived in a flat somewhere near Oxford and that Dad was still with us. And then later on Mum got sad all over again, only this time she was sad because Dad had started shouting a lot and growing angry. So next thing I remember is Dad going off and not coming back and me and Mum being on our own and moving to London and living next door to Stevie. I was six years old by then. I had to start at a new school, which frightened me, as I had only just got used to my other one. Mum said she was so, so sorry, but begged me to be brave. She said that life was full of changes.

“It’s a bit like books, all divided up into different chapters.”

She said that if Oxford had been Chapter 1, then London was Chapter 2. And then she hugged me and said, “Oh, but Lol, there will be so many more to come!” Like she thought that was a good thing. But I never wanted any more; I just wanted Chapter 2 to go on for ever. Only nothing ever does. You don’t realise that when you’re just six years old.

Mrs Miah has been standing up and talking about Mum. I feel guilty that I haven’t been listening, but maybe she would understand. Now she has gone back to her seat, and I think perhaps things are almost over. Nobody else has got up to speak, and somewhere off stage they are playing Mum’s song that I chose.

Though the final curtain’s fallen

And we two have had to part

My love still marches onward

To the drumbeat of my heart.

I can feel Auntie Ellen exchanging glances over my head with Uncle Mark. They don’t approve. Auntie Ellen doesn’t think the song is appropriate. She tried really hard to get me to change my mind.

“I’m not saying it has to be a hymn, necessarily, but at least something a bit more – well! Classical, maybe. Isn’t there anything classical that your mum liked?”

Mum liked all sorts of music, but this was the song that she would have wanted. It was one of her big favourites. She used to say it was her inheritance track that she’d inherited from her mum.

“Your gran used to play it all the time after she lost your grandad.”

I know that this is a really sad song, but it was special to Mum, and that makes it special to me. In any case, it was up to me to choose, not Auntie Ellen.

Now everybody is standing up. Uncle Mark stands up, so I do too.

“All right?” He looks down at me, and I nod. We file out, into the cold sunshine. I hold my head very high.

The women from Mum’s office kiss me again before going off to their car. The man who did the talking tells me that it was “a privilege to have known your mother. She was a very special lady”. I look at him stony-faced. Uncle Mark puts his arm round my shoulders and in slightly reproving tones says, “That is something we must always remember.” He thinks I am being ungracious. He doesn’t realise I am in my ice house, frozen like a fish finger.

Stevie comes over. She says, “Well, then!” She won’t kiss me; she never does. I suppose, really, she is quite a gruff kind of person. But I am glad. I don’t want to be kissed or made a fuss of.

Stevie scratches her head, under her plastic rain hat. She has probably got a flea from one of her cats.

“I’ll be going now,” she says.

She turns and stomps off, down the path. Uncle Mark calls after her. “Are you sure you don’t want a lift?” But Stevie just waves a hand and goes clumping on. Uncle Mark shakes his head. He says it’s a long walk for an old woman. “It must be a good mile.”

I tell him that Stevie walks everywhere. “She doesn’t approve of cars.”

“Tough as old boots,” says Auntie Ellen. She’s sneering again. I don’t think she has any right to sneer, after all that Stevie did for me and Mum.

I say goodbye to Temeeka’s mum, who kisses me and says, “Chin up, luvvie!” I say goodbye to Mr and Mrs Miah. Mrs Miah also kisses me, but Mr Miah takes my hand.

“We shall miss you,” he says.

Auntie Ellen is growing impatient. She wants us to get a move on. She says we have a long journey ahead of us and the traffic will be horrendous at this time of day.

I hurry after her to the car. I can see that Mr Miah has something more he would like to say, and I don’t want to seem rude, but I am worried about Mr Pooter. I cram myself into the back seat and pull his carrying box on to my lap. It is an old cardboard one of Stevie’s, a bit crushed and battered. I waggle my finger through one of the air holes and hear a chirrup. I relax. If he’s chirruping, it means he’s happy.

There’s not much room on the back seat as it is piled with boxes. The whole car is crowded out with boxes. We got them from Mr Miah, and me and Stevie spent all yesterday filling them. Auntie Ellen had already warned me that there wouldn’t be room for everything.

“We don’t have much cupboard space, so try to be a bit selective. Just bring what’s most important. Clothes, obviously.”

But clothes are the least important. What’s most important, apart from Mr Pooter, is books. Mum loved her books! I have packed all of them. Every single one. I told Stevie she could have everything that was left over for the local Animal Samaritans. I know that’s what Mum would have wanted.

Auntie Ellen turned a bit pale when she saw how many boxes there were. She said, “Laurel, I told you to be selective!”

I said that I had been. “Most of it’s books.”

“Books?” She almost shrieked it. I wanted to giggle, cos it was like I’d said I’d packed up a load of tarantulas, or something. Imagine being scared of books! She looked across at Uncle Mark and said, “Now what do we do? We don’t have room for all this lot!”

Uncle Mark said that we didn’t have time to start unpacking. “We’ll just have to sort it out the other end.”

Auntie Ellen wanted me to leave some of the boxes behind, but I wouldn’t. So here they all are, and here are me and Mr Pooter, squashed up against them. I wish we could have gone to live with Stevie. I’m sure she wouldn’t have minded Mum’s books, not even if they did have to be kept in heaps on the floor. Stevie isn’t houseproud like Auntie Ellen. But of course they wouldn’t let me. They said it wasn’t a suitable placement, meaning there are cats roaming everywhere and it isn’t hygienic. People are a great deal too bothered about hygiene, if you ask me. Stevie seems to have lived quite happily all these years without being troubled by it. They’d probably have said me and Mum weren’t hygienic, either. We didn’t go in very much for housework. We had more important things to worry about than dust, or cobwebs, or whether there was a rim round the bath – which I now realise there was, since Auntie Ellen remarked on it only this morning, shuddering as she did so. People care about the weirdest things.

I stare out of the window, wondering where we are.

Auntie Ellen says, “I told you the traffic would be bad.” Uncle Mark says it’s no problem. Once we hit the motorway we’ll be all right.

“Assuming there aren’t any hold-ups,” says Auntie Ellen.

I think to myself that Auntie Ellen is one of those people who enjoy looking on the black side. Uncle Mark catches my eye in the driving mirror.

“OK back there?”

I nod, without speaking, and bury my nose in Mr Pooter’s fur. I’ve opened his box so that we can have a cuddle.

“Home in time for tea,” says Uncle Mark.

I force my lips into a smile. He is trying so hard to make me feel wanted, though I am sure I can’t really be. I know Auntie Ellen doesn’t want me. And I don’t suppose Holly does, either. They are only taking me because they feel it’s their duty. I know I ought to be grateful, and I am doing my best, but it is not easy. I would so much rather have gone to live with Stevie!

Mr Pooter sits up and rubs his head against mine. I rub back. Auntie Ellen says, “You make sure that cat doesn’t start jumping about.”

I tell her that Mr Pooter is too old to jump about. Mum had him before she was married. “He’s almost sixteen.”

Auntie Ellen says she doesn’t care. “It’s not safe, having a cat loose in the car.”

I close up one side of the box, so that it looks like he’s shut away. I keep my hand in there, to reassure him. Mr Pooter purrs and dribbles.

“Motorway coming up,” says Uncle Mark. “Home before you know it!”

Up until last week, home was the cottage that I shared with Mum. Old, and crumbly, and tiny as a dolls’ house, with a narrow strip of garden going down to the railway. Now I shall be living on an estate, with hundreds of houses all the same, and everything bright and new. Our cottage was cosy, even if we did have a rim round the bath and cobwebs hanging from the ceiling. Uncle Mark’s house is not cosy. It is too tidy. And too clean.

Uncle Mark looks at me again, in the mirror. “It’s been a while,” he says, “hasn’t it?”

I don’t understand what he means.

“Since you were last with us,” he says.

I say, “Oh.” And then, “Yes.”

“You must have been about Holly’s age. The age she is now.”

The Christmas before last. I was ten and a half. I’m thinking back. Remembering me and Mum, wrapping up presents at the last minute, waiting for Uncle Mark to come and fetch us. I can hear Mum saying that we must be on our best behaviour and not do anything to upset Auntie Ellen.

“It’s very good of her to put up with us.”

I remember being cheeky and telling Mum that she was the one that did all the upsetting. “Arguing about politics and stuff.” And Mum saying that this year she wasn’t going to even mention politics. “And if anyone else does, I shall just keep quiet.”

To which I said, “Ha ha.” But Mum insisted that she meant it. She said it was very bad manners, in someone else’s house. “Though I suppose,” she added, “we shall have to watch the Queen’s speech.” And then she snatched up a cereal bowl and balanced it on her head, like a crown, and posed, all regal, on her chair. “My husband and I…”

Mum was brilliant at being the Queen. She sounded just like her! I give a sudden squawk of laughter. Auntie Ellen springs round.

“What’s the matter?”

Nothing’s the matter. I’m just remembering Mum, being the Queen. I stick my head inside Mr Pooter’s box, to stifle another squawk which is about to burst out of me.

“What’s so funny?” says Uncle Mark.

I can’t tell him; he would think I was being rude. Mum said afterwards that our behaviour was unforgivable. But it was her fault! We were all sitting there on Christmas Day, in front of the television, waiting for the Queen to get going, when Mum leant across and whispered in my ear, “My husband and I…” and I immediately started giggling and couldn’t stop. So then Mum started giggling and she couldn’t stop. We just sat there, helpless, with Auntie Ellen growing more and more offended, which I suppose you can’t really blame her for, what with it being her house, and us being her guests.

I can’t remember whether we were invited last Christmas or not. Mum was in her wheelchair by then. Everything was getting a bit difficult for her, so we probably couldn’t have gone anyway. But most likely we weren’t invited, cos of having disgraced ourselves.

“Lol?” We’ve come off the motorway and pulled up at some traffic lights. Uncle Mark turns to look at me. “You sure you’re OK?”

I tell him yes. I try to force my lips back into a smile, but this time they won’t do it. I know Uncle Mark is only trying to be kind, but he shouldn’t call me Lol! That was one of Mum’s names for me. Lol, Lolly. Lollipop. Lol was for every day. Lollipop was when I was little. Lolly was for fun. I suppose now that I am frozen, I am an ice lolly…

That is a good joke! Ice Lolly. I wish I could tell Mum, we would have had such a laugh about it together. We laughed at most things, me and Mum. We didn’t believe in being miserable.

Mr Pooter reaches out a paw and dabs at my face.

“Laurel, I told you before, put that cat back in its box!” thunders Auntie Ellen.

The Ice Lolly does what she is told. She closes the box and sits, frozen, staring straight ahead.

“That’s better,” says Auntie Ellen.

CHAPTER TWO

I’m upstairs in my bedroom. My new bedroom, in my new home. I’ve been here four days, now. I suppose I’ll get used to it in time, though it is a bit like living in a foreign country where everyone has different customs and speaks a different language. However hard I try, I know that I don’t really fit in. Auntie Ellen blames Mum; I heard her say so to Uncle Mark. She said, “What can you expect, with that upbringing?”

When she says things like that, it makes me think that I just won’t bother, I’ll just go on being me. Except that if you are in someone else’s house, that is maybe not very polite. Mum always insisted on good manners. It is why she was so cross with us for giggling during the Queen’s speech. I wish she was here! I wish I could ask her what to do.

Holly is standing in the doorway, watching. “You going to get started?” she says.

I’m supposed to be choosing books to go on the bookshelf that Uncle Mark has put up for me. I’ve opened all the boxes, and very slowly, one by one, I’m taking out the books.

“Better get a move on,” says Holly. “Be here all day, otherwise.”

I know that she’s right. But there are far more books than there’s room for on the bookshelf. The shelf will only take about thirty. All the rest are going to have to be put back in their boxes and shut away in the loft. How can I possibly decide which ones get to stay and which ones are banished?

“Just pick your favourites,” says Holly. She makes it sound easy. But it’s not! They are all my favourites. Well, Mum’s favourites. I hate the thought of Mum’s books being sent into exile. I say this to Holly, and she looks at me like I’m something from another planet.

“They’re only books,” she says. This is what I mean about people speaking a different language. “Keep the ones with the nicest covers.”

I tell her that you don’t choose a book by its cover, but Holly says that way they’ll look good on the shelf. “Specially if you get them all the same size, so they line up. It’s untidy when some are short and some are tall. I think you should just have paperbacks, then you’ll get more in.” I guess she’s trying to be helpful. She’s come into the room and is rummaging about in the boxes, in search of books with nice covers that are all the same size. She takes one out and pulls a face. “What’s this, all falling to pieces?”

It’s Middlemarch. I have to admit it hasn’t got a very nice cover, and it is a bit tatty. Me and Mum found it in an Oxfam shop.

“Don’t want to keep that,” says Holly. She tosses Middlemarch on to the bed. Mr Pooter, who is snoozing, opens an eye. “Ought to be chucked out.”

I think sadly of poor Middlemarch, thrown away with the rubbish. Mum was so happy the day we found it. She said, “Middlemarch! I did that for A level. It’s a wonderful book, Lol! You must read it when you’re older.”

I’m not chucking out a book that Mum wanted me to read. But for the moment I reluctantly agree that it can go up to the loft. It still makes me feel like I’m some kind of traitor. Like I’m committing cruelty to books. Mum’s books are like free range. They’re used to being out in the open, where books ought to be. Not shut away in the dark.

“Maybe they could go on the floor,” I say, hopefully. I have visions of them lined up all the way round the room. But Holly looks outraged. She says, “This is where Nan sleeps when she stays.”

I personally think it would be quite comforting, sleeping in a room full of books. When I have my own house I will have shelves of books going from floor to ceiling in every room. I try saying this to Holly, but she doesn’t respond. She’s pulled out Mum’s Shakespeare that used to belong to Gran. She looks at the title – Collected Works of William Shakespeare – and pulls another face. “Don’t want that.” Shakespeare is dumped on the bed next to Middlemarch. I can’t help wondering what Mum would say. But the Collected Works are so big and fat they’d take up almost a quarter of the shelf. It wouldn’t be fair on all the others.

Holly is tossing books like mad, thump thump thump, on to the bed. Mr Pooter curls up into a tight ball and tries to pretend it’s not happening. I try too.

Thump. There goes another one. “Honestly! Is reading all you ever did?” says Holly.

I say no, of course not. But I’m thinking to myself that it was one of the best things we ever did. I used to love curling up on the sofa, cuddling Mr Pooter, while Mum read to me.

“So what else did you do?” says Holly.

I say, “Lots of things.”

“Like what?”

Like listening to music. Watching television. Playing Scrabble. Talking. Me and Mum used to talk all the time. But that isn’t what Holly means. She means didn’t we get out, and go places, like normal people. She thinks that me and Mum were seriously weird. She throws another book on to the bed.

“Didn’t you have any friends, or anything?”

I hesitate. If I say no, she’ll think I’m weirder than ever. Not that I really care what she thinks.

“You must have had some.” She yanks out another book. “Who was your best friend?”

I mutter that I didn’t have a best friend.

“Well, who did you hang out with?”

I hesitate again, then say, “Girl over the road.”

“What was her name?”

“Temeeka.” We didn’t really hang out. We just used to play together when we were little.

“Was she an immigrant?” says Holly.

I frown and say, “Why?”

“It’s a funny name.”

“So what?”

Holly tosses another book on to the pile of rejects. “Mum says there’s lots of them where you were. She says it made her feel like a stranger in her own land.”

I point out that Auntie Ellen is Welsh, which means it’s not her land anyway. Not if you’re going to think like that. I don’t, and neither did Mum, but I know that Auntie Ellen does. Was it rude of me to say about her being Welsh? Well, it doesn’t matter; Holly doesn’t get it. She’s still going on about Temeeka and her funny name and whether she was an immigrant. She says, “Was she?”

I play for time, trying to make up my mind. I say, “Was she what?”

“Was she an immigrant!”

OK. I take a deep breath and say, “Yes, since you ask.” It’s a whopping great lie. I only said it to show that I wouldn’t have given a rap even if she was. Holly rubs me up the wrong way, same as Auntie Ellen used to rub Mum. She’s nodding now, looking smug and satisfied, like she’s scored some sort of point. She picks up yet more books and lobs them on to the bed. In this really condescending voice she says that it must have been hard to make friends “living where you lived.”

It wasn’t anything to do with where we lived; it was cos of Mum not being well. At the end of school each day I used to rush home fast as I could, cos of knowing Mum would be there waiting for me. I’d call her when I was on my way, to see if we needed anything, then I’d stop off at the shop on the corner. Weekends I stayed in so we could be together. Even if I was invited to parties, though that didn’t happen very often, I used to make excuses and say I couldn’t go. I didn’t tell Mum; I wouldn’t have wanted her thinking she was holding me back. Cos she wasn’t! It was my choice. I enjoyed being with Mum more than with anybody. If the weather was good we’d go up the park. I’d push Mum in her wheelchair and we’d go all the way round. Mum used to worry in case it was too much for me, but my arms are really strong. I could even push her uphill. There was that one time, though, when the chair tipped over going up a kerb and Mum nearly fell out. I was so ashamed! I feel ashamed even now, just thinking about it. How could I have let such a thing happen? To my own mum? Mum just giggled. She said, “You have to see the funny side of things!”

Mum always saw the funny side. It is what I try to do. It is just people like Holly and Auntie Ellen who make it so difficult.

Holly’s still throwing books on to the bed. “Don’t want that! Don’t want that! This one’s too big. Don’t want big ones! Don’t want—”

Quickly I say, “I want that one!”

“This one?” She looks at it, scornfully. “Winnie-the-Pooh? You can’t still be reading Winnie-the-Pooh! I grew out of that years ago.”

I tell her that you can’t grow out of Winnie-the-Pooh. Mum and me used to read it every Christmas. It was one of our traditions. “Anyway,” I say, “it was a present.”

“Who from?” She’s peering inside, to see what’s written there. “To Lollipop, from Mum.” Plus a row of kisses, but she doesn’t read that bit. “Was that what she called you?”

“When I was little.”

“Lollipop.” Holly giggles. “D’you know what I call you? The girl that laughed at the Queen!”

Mum and me apologised for that. And I wasn’t laughing at the Queen, I was laughing at Mum pretending to be the Queen.

“My husband and I…” The words come shooting out of my mouth before I can stop them.

“You’re doing it again!” Holly glares at me, accusingly. “You are such a rude person!”

I say that I’m sorry. I don’t quite see what’s rude about it, just standing here in the bedroom, but I’m sure Mum would say I shouldn’t have done it.

Holly slams Winnie-the-Pooh on to the shelf and dives back into the box. By the time she gets started on the last one I’ve managed to rescue thirty-five books, including Little Women, Jane Eyre, David Copperfield, I Capture the Castle, Just William and all of Jane Austen, cos she was Mum’s favourite. Holly objects to David Copperfield on the grounds that he’s the wrong size and looks untidy.

“He’s too short and fat!”

For one wicked moment I’m almost tempted to say, “So are you!” But that would be really rude. And she isn’t exactly fat, just plumped up like a pillow cos of Auntie Ellen letting her eat junk food all the time. I suppose, actually, she’s quite pretty. She has this little round face with freckles, and her hair’s bright red and curly. She gets her hair from Auntie Ellen. And the freckles. Uncle Mark is fair, like me and Mum. I’d rather be fair than ginger, but it would be nice, I think, to be curly instead of dead straight and limp. I toss back my ponytail and wrench David Copperfield away from her.

“He’s staying!”

I put him on the shelf with the others. Holly, with an air of triumph, says that now I’ve only got room for one more. “You could have had two if you got rid of that fat one.”

I say yes, well, I don’t want two. I want David Copperfield.

“There’s not many left anyway,” says Holly. She burrows back into the box. “War and Peace…yuck! Poetry. Double yuck! Diary of a Nobody. Yuck yuck triple yuck! Pil—”

“Excuse me,” I say, “I want that one.”

“Which one?”

“Diary of a Nobody.”

“What for?” She looks at it, suspiciously, like it might be something dirty.

“It’s funny.”

“Doesn’t look funny.”

“Well,” I say, “it is.”

“Why? What’s it about?”

I tell her that it’s about a man called Mr Pooter and his wife Carrie. “They’ve just moved into a new house and Mr Pooter’s keeping a diary, all about the things that are happening to them.”

“Funny things.”

“Yes, and Mr Pooter keeps making these really bad jokes, like when he discovers his cuffs are frayed he says, I’m ’fraid, my love, my cuffs are rather frayed. And Carrie calls him a spooney old thing.”

“You think that’s funny?” says Holly.

I have to admit it doesn’t sound very funny. It did when Mum read it out, doing all the different voices. I try to think of a bit that doesn’t need voices.

“One time he’s doing some decorating and he’s got this red paint left over, so he paints the bath? Then later on when he’s lying there in the water the paint all comes off and he thinks he’s burst an artery!”

Holly doesn’t say anything; she just looks at me, like you are seriously weird. I know people think I’m weird. There was that girl at school, Alice Marshall, that I found crying in the girls’ toilets one day, and when I asked her what the matter was she said nobody liked her and she didn’t have any friends, so I said I’d be friends with her and she said what would be the point of that? “You’re just weird!”

I suppose I must be, if everyone thinks I am. I never used to mind, once upon a time; I was happy just being me. Now I’m not so sure. I begin to have this feeling that it might be easier if I could somehow learn to be a bit more like other people. I really would like to be! But I don’t seem to know how to do it.

I hold out my hand for the book. “Please,” I say. “I have to keep that one.”

Holly shrugs. “That’s it then. The rest’ll have to go. I’ll tell Michael.”

It’s Michael who’s going to take the boxes up to the loft. Into exile. Holly opens the door, then stops as something strikes her. “Is that why he’s called Mr Pooter?” she says.

Mr Pooter twitches an ear at the sound of his name. I say yes, Mum called him that because he has a long beard, like Mr Pooter in the book. Well, long for a cat; cats don’t usually have beards. But Mr Pooter is special. He has this lovely fringe of white fur all round his face.

“He’s odd-looking,” says Holly. “And he shouldn’t be on your bed! It’s not healthy, having cats in the bedroom. As for that—” She points an accusing finger at Mr Pooter’s litter box, tucked away in the corner. “That’s just disgusting!”

I tell her, indignantly, that it’s clean as can be. “I empty it all the time!”

“Cats ought to go in the garden,” says Holly.

“He can’t, he’s too old, and you haven’t got a cat flap. Anyway, it’s scary for him, a new place. He might get lost, or run over.”

Holly doesn’t actually say that she’d be glad if he did, but the truth is, nobody in this house likes cats. She grumbles that she doesn’t know what’s going to happen when her nan comes to stay.

“You’ll have to sleep in my room, and I’m not sleeping with cat poo! Not sleeping with a cat in the room, either. He’ll have to go outside then.”

I say in that case I’ll go outside with him. “We’ll both sleep in the kitchen.”

“Then we’ll have cat poo in the kitchen! That’s even more disgusting. We’ll all get poisoned!”

Stevie’s never got poisoned. I wish I could have stayed and lived with Stevie! I’m sure it’s what Mum would have wanted. But maybe Stevie wouldn’t have liked it. In spite of being so good to Mum, she really only loves her cats.

Holly flounces off and I hear her thudding off down the stairs. I don’t have the heart to begin cramming all the books back into their boxes. I throw myself on to the bed and rub my face in Mr Pooter’s fur.

“It’s all right,” I whisper. “I won’t let them put you out.”

Mr Pooter gives a chirrup and stretches out an arm. He crimps a paw, then yawns and tucks his arm back again. I sit, cross-legged, beside him. What goes on in a cat’s mind? Does Mr Pooter ever wonder where Mum has gone? Does he miss her? I’m sure he must, he was with her such a long time. Ever since he was a tiny kitten. But while he has me to look after him, he is safe. And he will always have me. That is a promise.

I’m still holding Diary of a Nobody. Mum and me were in the middle of reading it again; the bookmark’s still in it. We’d got about halfway through. We were always reading Diary of a Nobody. I can’t remember how old I was when Mum introduced me to it. I think I must have been about eight. Too young to properly enjoy it. Now I know it almost word for word. Mum did too. We both had our favourite bits that we waited for. One bit Mum specially loved was where Carrie and Mr Pooter send out for a bottle of Jackson Frères champagne whenever they feel like celebrating. It always got Mum giggling, so I used to giggle too, though I was never absolutely certain what I was giggling at. But whenever Mum and me wanted a treat, like at Christmas, for instance, or on Mum’s birthday, she’d say, “Let’s have some Jackson Frères!” Then after a while everything became Jackson Frères. A can of Coke, a glass of milk. Even just a glass of water. “Pass the Jackson Frères!” we’d go. It was like our private joke.

Michael has arrived. “Come to take the boxes up,” he says.

I haven’t even started packing them. I scramble guiltily off the bed.

“’s OK,” says Michael. “I’ll do it.” Mr Pooter watches, carefully, as he starts collecting books. Michael looks at him. “Is he some kind of special breed?” he says.

I say no, he’s just a common domestic short hair. That’s what Stevie said.

“He looks like he’s some kind of breed.” Michael pats Mr Pooter on the head as if he’s a dog. Mr Pooter lets him. He is such a good cat. “Pretty,” says Michael. “Like sort of…dappled.”

My heart swells with pride. Me and Mum always thought Mr Pooter was pretty.

“Like someone’s spilt a can of orange paint over him.”

“Or marmalade,” I say.

“Yeah. Maybe he’s a marmalade cat!”

Michael’s busy, now, packing books. I’m handing them to him, one by one, and he’s putting them in the boxes. He’s not just stuffing them in all anyhow, like Holly would have done. He’s stacking them neatly, in piles. Big ones at the bottom, small ones on top.

“This is a lot of books,” he says. “I guess Auntie Sue was really into reading.”

I tell him that Mum loved her books more than anything. “She always said books are what she’d rescue if the house ever caught fire. After Mr Pooter, of course. But once he was safe, she’d go back for her books.”

I can see that Michael thinks it’s strange, anyone rescuing books, but he’s too polite to say so. He’s like Uncle Mark, he’s really trying to be kind. He picks up a box and carries it to the door. It’s obviously heavier than he’d thought.

“Don’t reckon she’d have managed to rescue very many,” he says.

Regretfully I say that I haven’t, either. “There’s not room.”

“Maybe Dad could put up another shelf, only—” He stops. I know why he’s stopped. It’s because Auntie Ellen didn’t want a shelf put up in the first place. This is where Holly’s nan sleeps, and it’s a tiny little room like a cupboard. It’s why I wasn’t allowed to bring Mum’s bookcase. “Far too big,” said Auntie Ellen. “Wouldn’t fit in.” It would if the wardrobe was taken out. I wouldn’t care about not having a wardrobe. But Holly’s nan probably expects it.

In this cheering-up kind of voice Michael says, “It’s not like they’re being got rid of. They’re only up in the loft.” He adds that he can always go up there and get a book down for me if there’s one I specially want.

He is trying so hard. He really wants me to be happy. It ought to make things easier. Why does it make them worse?

“There’s no problem,” says Michael. “I’m up and down there all the time. Just let me know. OK?”

I seal up the chinks in my ice house wall.

“I will,” says Ice Lolly, in her icicle tones. “Thank you.”

Michael gives me this strange look. “By the way,” he says, “next week—” Next week is when I’m starting back at school. The same school Michael goes to. “I just heard, you’re going to be in my class.”

I can’t think what to say to this. I wonder if Michael wants me in his class, or whether I’ll be an embarrassment. The girl who laughed at the Queen. Really weird.

Ice Lolly takes over. “That will be nice,” she says.

Michael says, “Yeah…”

I feel almost sorry for him.

CHAPTER THREE

Today is Uncle Mark’s birthday and we’ve all come into town, to the PizzaExpress. Where me and Mum lived, you could just walk up the road. Here, you have to drive. Auntie Ellen says it’s healthier, being in the country, but it’s not really country. Just lots of roads with fields on either side, only not the sort of fields you can walk in. Mostly they are full of cows and sheep and growing stuff. Corn, or something. I don’t know much about it. Auntie Ellen says it’s the ignorance of the town child. Uncle Mark says that I will get used to it. He says, “We’ll always take you wherever you want to go.” But I don’t want to be taken! I want to go by myself. It’s very worrying that I can’t just walk to the library. What am I going to do about books? Maybe this new school will have some.

We’ve been shown to a table. I am sitting between Holly and Michael. Holly is studying the menu.

“Dad,” she says, in wheedling tones, “can I have a starter and a main course and a pudding? Cos it’s your birthday, Dad! And it’s the big one, isn’t it?” She cosies up to Uncle Mark. “It’s the big one, Dad, isn’t it?”

“It sure is,” says Uncle Mark.

“Forty,” says Holly. And then she goes, “Is that older or younger than Auntie Sue?”

Auntie Ellen says “Holly!” and frowns at her, but she can’t ever take a hint. She has to keep on. “It’s older, isn’t it, Dad? Auntie Sue was your little sister.” She turns to me. “Don’t you ever wish you had a sister?”

Michael gives her a thump. “Better off without, if you ask me,” he says.

Holly screws up her face and sticks out her tongue. “Not if it means you’re an only child. Only children get spoilt.”

Did Mum spoil me? Auntie Ellen always says it was “unnatural”, the way I was brought up, but it didn’t feel unnatural to me. And I don’t think I was spoilt. I know Mum never yelled at me or told me off, but that was because we used to talk about things. Like if I did anything she didn’t like she’d make me sit down so we could discuss it. I don’t call that being spoilt. Holly’s more spoilt than I was. She only has to say she wants something and Auntie Ellen immediately buys it for her. She has twenty pairs of shoes in her wardrobe. She showed them to me. I only have two, and one of those is trainers.

Uncle Mark has decided he is going to order a bottle of wine, seeing as it’s his birthday. Before I can stop myself I cry, “Jackson Frères!”

Everyone looks at me, including the waiter. They seem puzzled. They have obviously never read Diary of a Nobody. I say, “Jackson Frères…a bottle of Jackson Frères!”

Uncle Mark shakes his head, like don’t ask me. “We’ll just have the house white,” he says.

“What’s with all this Jackson Frères?” says Michael.

Suddenly, I don’t want to talk about it. I wish I hadn’t said it. It was our private joke, between me and Mum.

“Frère’s French,” says Holly. “Like Frère Jacques.” She opens her mouth to start singing, but Uncle Michael cuts across her.

“What do you kids want? Coke?”

If Mum ever had wine, then I was always allowed a glass, too. But I know if I say so Auntie Ellen will only suck in her breath and that will be another black mark against Mum.

“Three Cokes,” says Uncle Mark. Then he smiles at me and says, “So, Laurel! All set up for tomorrow?”

Tomorrow is the day I’m starting at this new school. Bennington High. It has a black uniform. Auntie Ellen has dyed my old green skirt, but she had to take me into Asda to buy a black blazer and a black sweater. The only nice thing is the badge, which is red.

“Feeling OK about it?” says Uncle Mark.

I don’t say anything; I just nod.

“She’ll be all right,” says Auntie Ellen. “She has Michael to look out for her. and it’s a good school! Far better than where she was before.”

What does Auntie Ellen know about where I was before?

“It’s smaller, for a start,” she says, “and not so mixed.”

“Is mixed bad?” I say.

“It is if you’re in the minority. Some of these inner city schools…hardly hear a word of English one day to the next, all the babble going on.”

Earnestly I assure her that it only sounds like babble just at first. “You get used to it. You start learning other people’s languages. Like I can say hello in French and Polish—” I check them off on my fingers, “and Greek and Turkish and Gujarati and Russian and—”

“Yes, and you probably weren’t allowed to celebrate Christmas,” snaps Auntie Ellen.

“We did! We celebrated everything. Christmas, and Diwali, and Hanukkah, and—”