Eva's Holiday (2 page)

Chapter Three

A
fter another half hour of driving, Joey was sound asleep again. Dad drove down a narrow laneway and stopped the van. Mum, Dad and I climbed out and stretched. We gazed at the cottage, and then we gazed at it some more. No one said anything for a long time.

The cottage was a complete and utter dump. The walls were all grey and mouldy-looking, the windows looked like the next gust of wind would blow them out, and the garden was like something from a horror movie.

‘You’re sure this is the right place?’ said Dad after a while.

‘We followed Monica’s directions to the letter,’
said Mum. ‘But…….’

‘This has to be the wrong….’ I began, but I stopped as Joey suddenly hurtled from the car and started to jump up and down on the lumpy lawn.

‘Yay! We’re here at last,’ he shouted, crushing the last of my hopes.

‘Lovely,’ said Dad weakly. ‘The cottage of lost dreams.’

Mum gave him a cross look, but she couldn’t really argue with him. She pulled a key from her pocket and unlocked the door.

The four of us stepped inside. I shut my eyes and counted to ten. Unfortunately, when I opened my eyes, nothing had changed. We were in a room full of junk. A crooked table was surrounded by five wobbly chairs of varying sizes and colours. A dusty-looking dresser was covered with odd cups and saucers. An old sofa looked like it was about to burst open, spraying the room with grey foam. Over by the only
window were a rusty sink and a tiny cooker about the size of the one I used to play with when I was five.

Joey ran across the room and threw himself onto an ugly armchair that looked like it might once have been green.

‘Home sweet home,’ he said, before he began to choke on the cloud of dust he’d raised.

I’d have laughed, if I hadn’t been so close to crying.

‘I wonder what the other rooms are like,’ said Mum brightly.

I looked through an open door into a room that contained nothing but a huge lumpy bed and lots of cobwebs. I ran upstairs and discovered two more bedrooms and a bathroom. I ran downstairs again. There were so many things I wanted to say, I didn’t know where to start.

Dad was poking the window and watching how it rattled at every touch.

‘You can’t act all surprised, Andrew,’ said
Mum. ‘Monica did warn us that the cottage needed fixing up a bit.’

‘The kindest thing would be to knock the whole place down, and put it out of its misery,’ said Dad, laughing.

He stopped laughing though, when he saw Mum’s face.

‘Oh,’ he said. ‘I’ll get my toolbox out of the van and I can start work at once.’

I started to smile. Dad absolutely loves fixing stuff.

But then I had a horrible thought. I gazed frantically around the room.

‘Where’s the TV?’

‘Oh,’ said Mum. ‘Didn’t I tell you?’

‘Tell me
what
?’ I said in my toughest voice.

‘About the TV.’

‘What about the TV?’

Mum gave a little laugh, ‘There isn’t one.’

Was this Mum’s idea of a joke? Did she really think we were going to stay here for a whole
summer, without even a TV to console us?

She came over and hugged me.

‘Don’t worry, Eva,’ she said. ‘All this place needs is a good clean out, and then it will be lovely. And we’ll all have the time of our lives.’

We unpacked the car, and after that, Mum and Dad insisted that we all go for a walk on the beach. The beach was small and not very exciting, and I was almost glad when Mum said it was time to get back to work.

We spent the rest of the day scrubbing and cleaning. Finally when there was nothing left to clean, Mum and Dad let us sit down. I looked around the small room.

‘That’s a big improvement,’ I said. ‘Before, it was dirty and ugly, and now it’s clean and ugly.’

Mum looked pointedly at Joey.

‘Shh, Eva,’ she said. ‘Don’t say things like
that, since Monica was so kind to let us use her house.’

‘I won’t “shhh”,’ I said, not caring what Joey thought. ‘You always say I have to tell the truth, and the truth is this place is a total dump.’

Joey opened his eyes wide, but for once in his life, he said nothing.

Dad tried to comfort me.

‘It’s not so bad, Eva,’ he said. ‘Money is still very tight, and what your mother said earlier is true – if we weren’t here, we’d have no holiday at all this year.’

‘No holiday at all would be better than a holiday from hell,’ I shouted.

‘Eva!’ said Mum crossly. ‘If you can’t think of something nice to say, it’s better to say nothing at all.’

Dad laughed. ‘Looks like it’s going to be a quiet summer so,’ he said.

I said a rude word then, and was sent to bed.

And that was the first day of my holidays.

Chapter Four

T
he next morning, I woke to the sound of hammering. By the time I was dressed, Dad had fixed the crooked table and the wobbly chairs, and was pacing the living room with a screwdriver in his hand.

‘That’s enough for the moment, Andrew,’ said Mum, laughing. ‘Come and join us for breakfast.’

‘So,’ said Dad as he sat down. ‘What’s the plan for today?’

‘I
had
thought we could have a picnic on the beach,’ said Mum. ‘But I think maybe it’s a bit grey and cold for that.’

‘Well,’ I said. ‘Since we can’t go to the beach,
let’s think of something else to do. We could look out the front window, or we could look out the back window or we could walk to the stupid village, or we could … oh yeah that’s it, isn’t it? That’s everything we can do in this stupid place.’

Mum put on her dangerous face.

‘Now, Eva,…’ she began, before she was interrupted by a knock on the front door.

We all looked at each other.

‘Are we expecting someone?’ asked Dad.

‘Not that I know of,’ said Mum.

‘Maybe it’s my fairy godmother, come to rescue me,’ I said. ‘I wonder where I left my pumpkin?’

No one laughed.

‘Do you know any of the neighbours here, Joey?’ asked Mum.

Joey shook his head.

‘I’ve only been here once before,’ he said.

There was another knock.

Joey stood up.

‘
I’ll
go,’ he said in a bored voice, like he’d done nothing except answer the door all morning.

He opened the door and stood there for a second. Then he closed the door and ran back over to us.

‘There’s someone out there, but I don’t know if it’s a boy or a girl,’ he whispered.

‘What did they want?’ asked Dad.

Joey shrugged, ‘Dunno. Didn’t ask did I? I was too busy trying to decide what it was.’

Mum nudged me.

‘Go and see who it is, there’s a love.’

I sighed and got up and went to the door. Our visitor was still standing on the step. She was a girl, but I could see why Joey had been confused. She had short, untidy hair that looked like it had been cut by a blind hairdresser. She was dressed in what looked like a boy’s tracksuit, and runners. She looked about my age. She stared at me, and I stared back at her.

‘Hello,’ I said, as ‘hi’ seemed a bit too friendly for this strange, silent person.

‘Hello,’ she said back, and then we looked at each other some more.

I was starting to feel a bit embarrassed.

Would it be rude to say,
what do you want?

In the end I couldn’t take any more. ‘Can I help you?’ I asked, sounding like somebody’s ancient old granny.

The girl looked like she was about to laugh.

Was she going to laugh at
me
?

I was wearing Victoria’s blue hoodie, and one of Ella’s totally cool tops, so how dare someone wearing a boy’s tracksuit laugh at me?

‘I don’t need help, thanks,’ she said.

And there was another long silence.

This was totally stupid.

‘I’ll go inside, so,’ I said.

Now the girl went red.

‘No! Don’t go. I live over there,’ she said, pointing vaguely in the direction of our hedge.
‘I saw you arriving yesterday.’

Oh no!

Had she heard me shouting at Mum and Dad and acting like a total baby?

I could feel my face going red now, giving me something in common with this strange girl.

Then I tossed my head. Why did I care what she thought of me anyway?

‘And?’ I said coolly.

‘… and I was wondering if you’d like to … I don’t know … go for a walk or something?’

Great.

There was a crazy girl living at the other side of our hedge, and she wanted to be my friend and do totally fun stuff like going for walks.

Summer was looking up.

Not.

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘We’ve just got here, and I probably have to help my mum and dad around the house for a while. I––’

Suddenly Dad was at my shoulder.

‘Who’s this, Eva?’ he said, like I was supposed to know.

‘I’m Kate,’ said the girl.

I turned and made a face at Dad. ‘Kate asked me to go for a walk with her, but I was just telling her how you and Mum need me to stay here and do a few jobs for you.’

Dad beamed at me. ‘Oh, that’s very kind of you, Eva, but I think we’ll manage without you for a while. You go off and have fun with your new friend.’

‘But I haven’t even had my breakfast yet!’ I wailed.

Dad shoved the piece of toast he had in his hand towards me.

‘Here,’ he said. ‘Have mine.’

I took the toast and made another face at Dad, but he ignored it. He practically pushed me outside.

‘See you later,’ he said, as he closed the door behind me. ‘And don’t rush back, we’ll be
absolutely fine.’

I stood outside the closed door. Part of me wanted to run around to the back of the cottage, and climb in through a window. If I did that though, I knew Mum and Dad would just make me go back out again, so I’d still have to go on the stupid walk, and I’d be in heaps of trouble as well.

I looked at Kate.

‘OK’ I said in my most bored voice. ‘It’s too cold for the beach, so where are we going to go?’

She shrugged. ‘Where do you want to go?’

‘Home,’ I said.

I thought that was quite funny, but Kate didn’t even smile.

‘Let’s just walk in to town, so,’ she said.

There’s a town?

I really wanted to know more about this town, but that would have involved having a conversation with Kate, so I bottled up my curiosity and looked bored again
Kate started walking and I walked beside her. What else could I do?

Chapter Five

W
e walked along the rough, narrow road. The only sound came from the rattling of the small stone that Kate was kicking along in front of her. It was weird walking along beside this silent person. I started to feel nervous, which I knew was stupid. I was totally fed up. This was supposed to be a holiday, not an ordeal.

Talking would probably have helped, but there was no way I was starting a conversation. Kate was the one who had called for me, and had come up with the idea of this stupid walk. If she wanted to be my friend,
she
could do the talking bit.

But after what felt like half an hour, the
silence was getting to me, and I knew I couldn’t take it any more.

‘Have you got any brothers or sisters?’ I asked.

‘No.’

‘Oh, me neither.’

Was I owning up to having something in common with her?

Kate didn’t seem to care much, but I tried again anyway.

‘Have you lived here all your life?’ I asked.

‘Yes,’ said Kate.

‘And is your school near here?’

‘Yes,’ she said again, not making any effort to help the conversation along.

I felt like shaking her, but even if I’d been brave enough to do it, I had a horrible feeling that she wouldn’t react.

Then, without thinking, I flicked my fingers under the collar of Ella’s top, and made it stand up over the neck of Victoria’s hoodie. As I did this, Kate looked over at me. She reached up,
and almost touched my collar, but pulled back at the last moment.

‘Don’t
do
that,’ she said.

‘Do what?’ I asked.

I was confused, but glad that I’d got a reaction from her at last.

‘Don’t do that … that thing with your collar.’

This was getting crazier by the second.

‘Why shouldn’t I?’ I asked. ‘Is there a law against it in this part of the world?’

Kate didn’t answer for a minute, and when she did, she spoke so quietly I could hardly hear her.

‘That’s what
they
do.’

‘Who are “they”,’ I asked, looking around nervously.

Kate stopped walking and glared at me.

‘The cool girls. That’s what they do all day long – fix their collars.’

Now I stopped walking too.

There were cool girls in this place?

Where were they?

How could I find them?

How quickly could I get away from this loser and make some proper friends?

I tried not to sound too interested.

‘Er, who exactly are the “cool girls”?’

Kate gave a big long sigh.

‘There are two of them. Cathy and Lily. Lily lives near here, and she goes to my school. We were best friends in Junior Infants.’

‘And now?’

‘Junior Infants was a long time ago,’ she said.

‘And Cathy?’

‘Cathy comes to stay in the town for the summer. Lily’s a pain all year round, but when Cathy shows up, she turns into a total nightmare.’

‘What kind of a nightmare?’ I asked.

If these girls were cool enough, I might be able to overlook their faults.

‘They think they are
so
great,’ said Kate. ‘They
wear fancy clothes and they spend all day fixing their collars and admiring their nails. Years ago they used to have normal hair, but now it’s shiny and they toss it around all the time.

She stopped talking and looked at me.

‘At least you don’t do that hair straightening thing.’

(That’s because Mum had confiscated my hair-straightener the week before. Another sense of humour failure. Just because I decided to straighten the hair on that stupid porcelain doll she keeps on the mantelpiece. Just because I didn’t know that instead of going all straight and shiny, the doll’s hair would melt and burn and then fall out. And Mum waited until I’d spent an hour cleaning the straightener, before she took it from me.)

I suddenly remembered that my hair was all curly. I could feel my face going red again as I tried to flatten my hair with my fingers.

But then I remembered that I didn’t care what
Kate thought of me, so I put my hands into my pockets.

‘I take it Cathy and Lily aren’t friends of yours these days?’ I said.

Kate shook her head.

‘No way. Who’d want to be friends with them?’

Me?

Cathy and Lily sounded like the perfect friends for me.

Kate started walking again, and I followed her.

I had made up my mind. I’d be a nice, generous girl. I’d walk wherever Kate wanted me to walk. I’d even talk to her, if that’s what she wanted.

Then, as soon as I got the chance, I’d find the cool girls, make friends and that would be that.

The summer would be sorted.