The Bed and Breakfast Star (4 page)

But we didn’t live happily ever after.

Mack’s job finished. He got another for a bit but it didn’t pay nearly so well. And then he lost that one. And he couldn’t get another. Mum worked in a supermarket while Mack looked after Pippa and Hank.
(I
can look after myself.)

But Mum’s money wouldn’t pay all the bills. It wouldn’t pay for the lovely new house. So some people came and took nearly all our things away. We had to leave our new house. I cried. So did Pippa and Hank. Mum cried too. Mack didn’t cry, but he looked as if he might.

We thought we’d have to go back to the mouldy flat. But they’d put another family in there. There wasn’t any room for us.

So guess where we ended up. In a bed-and-breakfast hotel.

We went to stay at the Royal Hotel. The Royal sounds very grand, doesn’t it? And when we were down one end of the street and got our first glimpse of the Royal right at the other end, I thought it looked very grand too. I started to get excited. I’d never stayed in a great big posh hotel before. Maybe we’d all have our own rooms with satellite telly and people would make our beds and serve us our breakfasts from silver trays. As if we were Royalty staying in the Royal.

But the Royal started to look a bit shabby the nearer we got. We saw it needed painting. We saw one of the windows was broken and patched with cardboard. We saw the big gilt lettering had gone all wobbly and some of it was missing. We were going to be staying in the oyal H t 1.

‘O Yal Htl,’ I said. It sounded funny. ‘O Yal Htl,’ I repeated. I thought of a song we sang at school about an old man river who just went rolling along. ‘O Yal Htl,’ I sang to the same tune.

‘Will you just shut it, Elsa?’ said Mack the Smack.

‘I can’t shut, I’m not a door,’ I said. ‘Hey, when is a door not a door? When it’s ajar!’

No-one laughed. Mum looked as if she was about to cry. She was staring up at the Royal, shaking her head.

‘No,’ she said. ‘No, no, no.’ She started off quietly enough, but her voice got louder and louder.
‘No, no, no!’

‘Come on, it’s maybe not that bad,’ said Mack, putting his arm round her.

Mum was carrying Hank. He got a bit squashed and started squawking. Pippa’s mouth went wobbly and she tried to clutch at Mum too.

‘I don’t like this place, Mum,’ she said. ‘We don’t have to go and live here, do we?’

‘No, we don’t, kids. We’re not living in a dump like this,’ said Mum. She kicked the litter in the driveway. An old Chinese take-away leaked orange liquid all over her suede shoes.

‘For heaven’s sake,’ Mum wept. ‘Look at all this muck. There’ll be rats. And if it’s like this outside, what’s it going to be like inside? Cockroaches. Fleas. I’m not taking my kids into a lousy dump like this.’

‘So where
are
you going to take them?’ said Mack. ‘Come on, answer me. Where?’

Hank cried harder. Pippa sniffed and stuck her thumb in her mouth. I fiddled with my hair. Mum pressed her lips tight together, as if she was rubbing in her lipstick. Only she wasn’t wearing any make-up at all. Her face was as white as ice-cream. When I tried to take her hand, her fingers were as cold as ice too.

She shook her head. She didn’t know how to answer Mack. She didn’t have any other place to take us.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Mack. ‘I’ve failed you, haven’t I?’ He suddenly didn’t seem so big any more. It was as if he was shrinking inside his clothes.

‘Oh don’t be daft,’ said Mum wearily. She joggled Hank and wiped Pippa’s nose and tried to pat my hair into place. We all wriggled and protested. ‘It’s not your fault, Mack.’

‘Well, whose fault is it then?’ Mack mumbled. ‘I’ve let you down. I can’t get work, I can’t even provide a proper home for you and the kids.’

‘It’s not your fault. It’s not anybody’s fault. It’s just . . . circumstances,’ said Mum.

I saw a horrible snooty old gent, Sir Come-Stances, pointing his fat finger in our direction, while all his servants snatched our house and our furniture and our television and our toys. I was so busy thinking about him that I hardly noticed Mum marching off into the entrance of the Royal, Hank on one hip, Pippa hanging on her arm. Mack shuffled after her, carrying all our stuff. He turned round when he got to the revolving door.

‘Elsa!’ he called irritably. ‘Don’t just stand there looking gormless. Come on!’

‘What’s a gorm, Mack? And how come I’ve lost mine?’

‘Elsa!
Are you asking for a good smacking?’

I decided it was time to scuttle after him. I squashed into the doorway and pushed hard. It bumped against Mack’s leg and he yelled and stumbled out the other side, cursing. I stayed revolving round the door by myself. I felt as if I wanted to go on spinning and spinning. Maybe if I twirled really fast like a top then there would be this humming sound and everything would blur and I’d shoot out into somewhere else entirely, a warm bright world where everyone liked me and laughed at my jokes.

I stepped into the grubby foyer of the Royal Hotel instead. There was a dark carpet on the floor, red with lots of stains. The thick wallpaper was red too, with a crusty pattern like dried blood. The ceiling was studded with pale polystyrene tiles but several were missing. I wondered if anyone went away wearing one as a hat without noticing.

There was a big counter with a bell. We could see through a glass door behind the counter into an office. A woman was sitting in there, scoffing sweets out of a paper-bag and reading a big fat book. She didn’t seem to notice us, even though Hank was crying and Mack was creating a commotion hauling all our cases and plastic bags around the revolving doors and into the hallway.

Mum touched the bell on the counter. It gave a brisk trill. The woman popped another pear-drop in her mouth and turned a page of her Jackie Collins. Mum cleared her throat loudly and pinged on the bell. I had a go too. And Pippa. The woman turned her back on us with one swivel of her chair.

‘Oi! You in there!’ Mack bellowed, thumping his big fist on the counter.

The woman put down her book with a sigh, marking her place with a sweet wrapper. She stretched out her arm and opened the glass door a fraction.

‘There’s no need to take that tone. Manners don’t cost a penny,’ she said in a pained voice.

‘Well, we did ring the bell,’ said Mum. ‘You must have heard it.’

‘Yes, but it’s nothing to do with me. I’m only switchboard. That bell’s for management.’

‘But there doesn’t seem to
be
any management,’ said Mum. ‘This is ridiculous.’

‘If you want to make a complaint you must put it in writing and give it to the Manager.’

‘Where is this Manager then?’ asked Mack.

‘I’ve no idea. I told you, it’s nothing to do with me. I’m only switchboard.’ She closed her glass door and stuck her nose back in her book.

‘I don’t believe this,’ said Mum. ‘It’s a total nightmare.’

I shut my eyes tight, hoping like mad that it really was a nightmare. I badly wanted to be back in bouncy bed number six in the lovely new house. I put my hands over my ears to blot out Hank’s bawling and tried hard to dream myself back into that bed. I felt I was very nearly there . . . but then Mack’s big hand shook my shoulder.

‘What are you playing at, Elsa? Stop screwing up your face like that, you look like you’re having a fit or something,’ said Mack.

I glared and shook my shoulder free. I shuffled away from him, scuffing my trainers on the worn carpet. I saw a door at the end of the hallway. It had a nameplate.

I pushed the door open and peeped round. There was a little man in a brown suit sitting at a desk. A big lady in a fluffy pink jumper was sitting at the desk too. She was perched on the man’s lap and they were
kissing.
When they saw me the lady leapt up, going pink in the face to match her jumper. The little man seemed to be catching his breath. No wonder. The lady was
very
big, especially in certain places.