Gone Missing (9 page)

Later, crammed next to Honey in Joe's single bed, I grumbled that “It'll be way too late by the time I'm sixteen.”

Honey said, “Joe doesn't know that.”

Joe might not, but I did. “I'm going to have to waste two whole years!”

I'd never seriously considered going to uni before. I'd always thought vaguely that I might–but then again, I might not. Now, suddenly, it had become a burning ambition. My one aim in life.
I had to get to uni
! I didn't want to end up scrubbing tables. I didn't
even want to end up waiting tables. I wanted a proper career!

I said this to Honey. Trying to be helpful, she suggested that maybe I could enrol at one of the local schools.

“Cos maybe,” she said, “the police aren't looking for us at all. Maybe they've given up.”

“No!” I almost shouted it. “They can't have done!”

Not already! Mum would never let them give up so quickly. She'd be calling them every day, nagging at them. Pleading with them.
Find my daughter
…I knew she would!

“You don't
want
them to come looking?” said Honey.

I wanted them to
be
looking; I didn't want them to actually find me. I wanted to go back of my own accord. I wanted Mum and Dad to tell me they still loved me!

One morning, when I was on my own, scrubbing the stupid counter, the door clanged open and Darcy came breezing in.

“Thought it was you! You taken up residence?”

I said, “Just until something better turns up.”

“Wouldn't take much to be better than this lot.” She gave one of her cackles. I found it quite annoying.

“Why aren't you at school?” I said.

“Didn't feel like it. Only go when I'm in the mood. Which isn't that often!” She cackled again, and I felt a strong desire to slap her with my wet dishcloth.

“I'm going up west, meet some mates. Wanna come?”

Primly I said, “No, thank you. I've got work to do.”

“Oh, well, suit yourself.” She flapped a hand. “See ya!”

With that, she breezed back out. I watched as she walked up the road, in the direction of the Underground. I didn't want to end up like Darcy, I thought. I couldn't imagine how I'd ever been friends with her. She was a stupid, stupid person!

Joe came out through the bead curtain which separated the caff from the private living space.

“Who's that, then?” he said. “Your mate from the flats?” He wandered across to the window and squinted out at Darcy's disappearing figure. “She's a bad 'un, that one.”

A week ago, if he'd dared say that, I'd have leaped to Darcy's defence; now I thought that he was probably right. Which meant that Dad had been right, too, when he'd wanted to send her packing.

“You shouldn't be friends with the likes of her,” said Joe. “You got more going for you than that.”

Maybe I had; but all I was doing was sweeping floors and cleaning counters.

“Back to school,” said Joe. “That's your best bet.”

Although he stayed open till seven o'clock every night, Joe had said that five was to be our “knocking-off time”. Honey would willingly have worked right through, but Joe wouldn't let her.

“Can't afford to pay you overtime.”

Honey said, “
Over
time? I don't want
over
time.”

She was so naïve! Even I knew that you had to get paid extra for working longer hours.

“I just want to help,” she said. “I don't want to be
paid
.”

But Joe shook his head. “Can't have that,” he said. “Against union rules.”

Honey giggled. “We don't belong to a union!”

I thought to myself that if we did we'd be earning a whole lot more than Joe was giving us. I bet he was making a small fortune! He was just using me and Honey; we were nothing but a convenience.

“Don't you worry about no unions,” said Joe. “I'll see you all right! You go off, now, and relax.”

“But you'll be on your own!”

That was Honey, needless to say. Not me! Joe told her he could manage. He said his nan would help out for the last couple of hours.

“You go and sit down and watch a bit of telly. I reckon you've deserved it.”

So did I! My legs were aching from standing up all day, and my hands were red raw from all the beastly washing up. The first few nights, I just flopped down in an armchair and went straight to sleep. I had never been so exhausted in my life. Honey, on the other hand, said she didn't feel in the least bit tired.

“It was such fun! I really really enjoy working!”

The morning Darcy came breezing in was our sixth day there. For some reason, her visit really depressed me. That evening, I was overcome by a great sense of despair. An endless future of greasy washing up seemed to loom before me. I curled into my armchair with my knees hugged against my chest and drifted into a foggy kind of sleep. I could dimly hear the sound of the television, but not anything that was being said. It was like I was at the bottom of a deep pit; and way up high, out of sight, out of reach, the world was carrying on without me.

Suddenly, I was jerked into wakefulness by Honey poking at me.

“Jade! Hey!”

“What?” I sprang up, in alarm. Honey pointed urgently at the television.

“Look!”

My mouth gagged open; I actually felt it go. There, on the screen, were pictures of me and Honey. My horrible old school photo.

“They're looking for us!” cried Honey. “They're—”

“Sh!” I wanted to hear what was being said.

“Concern is growing for the safety of two teenage girls who went missing from the Birmingham area over a week ago. Honey de Vito, aged sixteen, and her friend
Jade Rutherford, fourteen, were initially believed to have taken the train to Glasgow to meet up with their boyfriends. It is now thought more likely, however, that they are somewhere in London. Th—”

“How did they find out?” wailed Honey. “How d—”

“Sh!”

Jade' s parents today issued the following appeal: “Please, Jade, wherever you are, please, please get in touch with us!”

It was Mum. Mum, on the television, just as I'd imagined her! And Dad, as well, standing there with his arm round her.

“Why have th—”

“
Quiet
!”

Dad was saying something. I snatched at the remote and bumped up the volume.

“Just come home to us, Jade. That's all we ask. Nobody's going to be cross with you…we just need to have you back.”

He wasn't pleading, cos Dad wouldn't. But he wanted me back!

“I thought Darcy said they wouldn't bother,” wailed Honey.

“Well, that's it,” I said. “They have. That's our cover blown! They'll find us now, for sure.”

“I'm not going back,” said Honey.

“We don't have any choice!”

“I do, I'm sixteen. I'm not going!”

“They'll find you.”

“I don't care! They can't force me. You go. I'm staying!”

“Honey, you can't stay here,” I said. “It's horrible!”

A slow flush spread across her face. “I don't think it's horrible. I'm happy! I've never been happy like this before. Running away is the best thing I ever did. I am
not
going back again, not ever!”

I didn't know what to say; I wasn't used to Honey taking a stand against me. I made one last attempt.

“If it's the money you're bothered about—”

“It's not!”

“I mean the money you took from your mum…I'm sure she wouldn't really do you for stealing. She'd just be so relieved to have you back!”

“She wouldn't,” said Honey. “She doesn't want me back.”

“Of course she does! She's your mum.”

“She wasn't on the television. She didn't ask me to get in touch.”

“Well–no. But she probably would have, if they'd given her the chance. They probably only had room for two people, and you know my dad, he's really pushy!”

Honey just looked at me. I knew I hadn't convinced her; I hadn't even convinced myself.

“Suppose she had asked you?” I said. “Would you go back then?”

Honey hesitated. Then she said, “No.”

“Not even though she's your mum?”

“Mums don't always love their kids,” said Honey. “I'll love mine, when I have some. I won't care if they're a bit slow. I'll always love them! But you can't go back when you're not wanted. It's all right!” she
said. “You don't have to be sad for me.”

How could I help it?

“You go back,” said Honey, “cos you don't like it here.”

I didn't; I hated it. “I'll tell her you're OK,” I said. “I'll tell her you just want to stay where you are.”

“You won't give them this address?”

“I won't if they don't ask. But I think they might make me.”

“Maybe if you just turned up,” said Honey, “like not actually ringing them first…maybe they'd be so pleased to see you they wouldn't bother about me.”

Somewhat doubtfully I said that I could always try.

“Please! I really don't want them knowing where I am,” said Honey.

I promised that I would do my best. “I'll just turn up on the doorstep.”

Once I'd made the decision, I couldn't wait to go. I'd have left right there and then but Joe put his foot down. He said it was too late for me to be travelling all the way up to Birmingham on my own.

“You wait till morning,” he said, “then I'll put you on the train myself. Make sure you're safe.”

He and Honey both went with me to Euston the next morning. The old lady was left in charge. She looked
daggers at me as I came downstairs with my rucksack.

“Always knew you weren't sixteen,” she said. “Could have caused my Joe a lot of grief, you could! You get yourself back home and stay there. You're nothing but a troublemaker!”

“I'm sorry,” I said. “I didn't mean to be.”

“Didn't think, did you? It's all
me me me
with your sort.”

It was Joe who came to my rescue. He said, “Nan, let her be. She's going back, there's no harm done.”

At the last minute, as I was about to get on the train, Honey flung her arms round me and whispered, “I'm going to miss you so much!”

“Me, too,” I said. “I'm going to miss you! Are you really sure you know what you're doing? It's not too late to change your mind! We could get the next train, go and buy another ticket—”

But she wouldn't. In this really grown-up voice she said, “I do know what I'm doing…honestly!”

I didn't like getting on the train without Honey. Whenever I'd pictured this moment, I'd always pictured us going back together; picking up where we'd left off. Now I was leaving her behind–except that in an odd sort of way, it felt more like Honey was leaving me behind.

“Don't forget,” said Joe, “any problems, you go straight to social services. Any signs of violence…you know what I'm talking about.”

“If you're talking about my dad,” I said, “he's never hit me my whole life!”

 

Dad kept his word: he didn't get mad at me. There was a moment when I thought he might be going to. It was after I'd walked into the shop and Mum had cried
“Jade!”
and hurled herself at me. We'd hugged and kissed, and Mum had wept, and so had I, a little bit. Well, quite a lot, actually. I was just so glad to be home!

There were customers in the shop, and they were all nodding and smiling, cos everyone knows everyone else's business in Steeple Norton. They'd all have known that me and Honey had run away.

Dad said, “Come into the back,” and that was when I thought he was going to get mad at me. His face had that look that it got, with his lips all turned in and his eyes narrowed to slits. But Mum said, “Alec?” in this tone that was like half pleading and half a warning, and I could see that he was struggling.

I said, “Dad, I'm sorry!” and quite suddenly he relaxed. All the crossness went out of him and he did something he'd almost never done before, he put his arms round me and crushed me, really tight, against him.

“Don't ever do that to us again,” he said. “These have been the worst ten days of my life!”

Afterwards, we had this long talk, just Dad and me. Dad said that we were both going to have to try a great deal harder from now on.

“Both of us,” he said. “Not just you–not just me. Both of us. Right?”

I said, “Right.”

He admitted that maybe in the past he'd been a bit
too harsh. I muttered that I'd sometimes done things on purpose to upset him.

Dad said, “Well, I'm a grown-up and you're not a child any more, so we surely ought to be able to work out some way of getting along together. What do you think?”

I thought that this was the first time I could remember Dad ever asking me my opinion. About anything.

“Your mother and I love you very much,” he said. “If you ran away on purpose to upset us, you certainly succeeded.”

I said again that I was sorry.

“That makes two of us,” said Dad. “How about we kiss and make up?”

Dad's not very good at kissing; he's not at all a physical sort of person. It was a bit awkward, and even embarrassing, to be honest. But all the resentment I'd been building up over the years just melted away, cos I knew what an effort it was for him.

Mum told me later that she was so relieved me and Dad had been able to talk at last. She said, “Your going off like that was a total nightmare, but if it brings you and your dad a bit closer then it won't have been all bad.”

 

Over a year has passed since I ran away. I've let my hair grow back, much to Mum and Dad's relief. They really
hated
it, all chopped off. Mum said, “I nearly passed out when I saw what you'd done to yourself!” Personally I thought it was pretty cool, and so did most of my mates, but I reckoned I'd caused Mum and Dad enough grief. It's no big deal, having ordinary boring hair, if that's what it takes to make them happy.