Ice Lolly (10 page)

I say, “No – and I didn’t read it!” I am anxious for her to know; I don’t want Mum’s friend thinking badly of me.

Andrea says soothingly that it’s all right, she wouldn’t have minded. “And I don’t think your mum would, either. I have it here, you probably should read it, but I’ll
just tell you, very briefly, what it says. I gather your mum had been sick for some time?”

“Yes.” I hold Stripy Tom’s paws, to stop him kneading. “I was the one who looked after her!”

“I know.” Andrea smiles. “She says in her letter…you’re a daughter in a million. She couldn’t have managed without you.”

“And Stevie,” I say.

“Yes, she mentions Stevie. She says no one could have asked for a better neighbour. But she was starting to get really worried in case…well! In case she became so poorly she had to go into care. Or if anything should happen to her. Who would be responsible for her little Lollipop? Obviously you couldn’t stay with Stevie—”

“I could,” I say. I stick a finger inside one of Tom’s paws, wiggling it so that he splays his fingers. “I wouldn’t have minded staying with Stevie!”

“Oh, Lol!” Andrea shakes her head. “They wouldn’t have let you, sweetie. Even if Stevie had been willing, and…let’s face it, she’s not really a people person. and
anyway, she’s an old lady, it wouldn’t have been fair. Your mum knew you couldn’t stay with Stevie. What she was scared of was that you’d end up where you did, with your aunt and uncle. She loved her brother very much, but she really didn’t think you’d be happy living there.”

“I’m not!” I plonk Tom on the back of the chair, and suddenly it all comes bursting out of me in a great unstoppable flood. “I hate it,” I cry. “I hate it, I HATE it!”

The tears are streaming down my cheeks. I’m sobbing and sobbing, an endless stream of tears. I fight to get back into my ice house, but it’s no use, I can’t find the way in. I give a desolate wail and collapse into Andrea’s arms. She holds me, very close, stroking my hair and murmuring words of comfort. I’m crying too hard to hear what she says, but something is happening. A strange, half-remembered sensation is stealing over me. I feel loved, I feel safe!

“Oh, my poor little Lollipop!” Andrea takes out a
tissue and gently blots my eyes. “You’ve had a rough time of it. Let me tell you what your mum says in her letter. She says that if I’m agreeable – which I am! – she would like to appoint me as your guardian.”

I stop crying, and start hiccupping. “You mean…” She hands me a tissue and I scrub, fiercely. “You mean I could…come and live with you?”

“That’s what your mum dearly wanted. Unfortunately she didn’t have time to make it official, but—”

“I’m not going back!” The tears come spurting out again. “I’m not ever going back! I’m not leaving Mr Pooter and I can’t take him with me, and anyway I…I stole money out of Auntie Ellen’s pot!”

“Oh, dear,” says Andrea. She twitches her lips, like mock disapproving. “That sounds serious!”

I tell her that it was the only way I could get to Stevie’s. “I had to rescue Mr Pooter!”

“Don’t worry about the money,” says Andrea. “I’ll take care of that. the only problem as I see it is getting your Uncle Mark to agree to your living with me –
should you decide that you want to.”

“I do want to!” The words come howling out of me.

“Yes, and I want you to,” says Andrea. “Very much! But I think your uncle may point out that you don’t really know me.”

“I do!” I snatch my bag off the floor and scrabble round inside it until I find
Diary of a Nobody.
“Look!” I open it and show her. “
To Sue, with all my love, Andi.
That’s you, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” She takes the book and stares at it with a kind of wonderment. “To think she kept it! All these years…This was almost the first present I ever gave her. It was one of my grandad’s favourites, then it became one of mine.”

“It was one of Mum’s,” I assure her. “We read it together loads of times. And something else!” I dip deep into a pile of T-shirts and pull out Blue Bunny. Rather shyly, cos I’m not absolutely certain, I say, “Were you the lady who gave me this?”

“I was.” For a moment I think that she is going to cry
too. “It was the last time I ever saw you. Fancy you remembering!”

I feel I have to be honest, so I tell her that I only sort of remember.

“Well, of course,” she says. “You were a tiny little thing. Oh, how I did miss you!” She hugs me to her. “You were going to be our very own little baby. Your mum’s and mine. We were going to be a family. that was the plan.”

I’m confused. “But what about my dad?”

Andrea says that my dad was quite happy. “He never really wanted to be a dad. Until you were actually born…and then he changed his mind. Couldn’t resist you! So he and your mum got married, and – well! After a bit your dad decided he didn’t want me seeing you any more. He said it upset your mum.”

Indignantly I say, “
He
was the one that upset her!”

“Yes, sweetie, I know.” Andrea takes my hand. “That’s why I had to go away.”

“Why?” The tears come welling back up. “I wish you hadn’t!”

“Oh, Lol,” she says, “I never wanted to. It nearly broke my heart, knowing I wasn’t going to see you again. But it just made things so difficult for your mum. I didn’t want to add to your problems. I loved your mum very very dearly.”

I say, “More than my dad did!”

“That’s probably true,” agrees Andrea.

I glare at her, like it’s somehow her fault. “Why did they ever get married?”

She shakes her head. “It seemed the right thing at the time.”

I think to myself,
it didn’t later
, but I don’t say it in case it sets me off weeping again. I’m almost glad when Stevie punches the door open and in her usual aggressive tones says, “Still at it?”

“We’re pretty well through,” says Andrea.

Stevie grunts. “I suppose you’ll be expecting a cup of tea.” She stomps back down the hall. I give Andrea a watery grin.

“Her tea is
awful
. Mum used to say it tasted like
stale pond water.”

“Well, we must just grit our teeth,” says Andrea. “We don’t want to hurt her feelings. Now, we must decide on a plan. I think what we shall have to do is leave Mr Pooter here for the time being—”

I stare at her, stricken. Leave Mr Pooter?

“Just until we can get things sorted. I promise you we’ll come back for him as soon as we possibly can. We’re not abandoning him. I wouldn’t abandon Mr Pooter! Your mum and I had him when he was a tiny kitten. We’ll come and fetch him, don’t worry. In the meantime, he’ll be quite safe with Stevie.”

I know this is true; but I am still anxious. “Why can’t we just take him with us?”

“To your aunt and uncle’s?”

“No!” I thump, wildly, on the arm of the chair. “To your place!”

“The thing is, Lol.” Andrea looks at me, gravely. “I can’t just kidnap you, much as I should like to. We have to do everything strictly by the book. that means going back to speak with your uncle and seeing what we can arrange. It may even mean you have to stay there for another day or two—” she holds up a hand as I open my mouth to protest – “but I won’t abandon you any more than I’ll abandon Mr Pooter. I’ll be there. If necessary, I’ll book myself into a hotel. It’s just that we have to do things properly if we want it all to work out. Fortunately your uncle knows me from the old days, so it’s not like a total stranger turning up on the doorstep. And I have your mum’s letter, so with any luck we’ll be able to get things moving quite quickly – especially when he realises how you feel. It just means that you have to be brave for a little while longer. You have to trust me.” She tips my face up towards her. “Do you trust me?”

I do. I feel, in an odd kind of way, that we’ve known each other for ever. That we’re already friends. And besides, it’s what Mum wanted.

“So let’s just drink our pond water,” says Andrea, “then leave poor old Stevie in peace.”

It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, coming back here with Andrea. We take a cab from the station, and as we get out I see that Uncle Mark’s car is in the drive. My heart goes plummeting, right down to my shoes. they’ve come back early! I’ve been praying we would at least get here in time for me to tear up my note and for Andrea
to put Auntie Ellen’s money back. I start to tremble. Andrea stretches out her hand and takes hold of mine, and we go up the path together.

“Courage!” she whispers.

It’s Auntie Ellen who opens the door. “So!” she snaps. “You decided to come back, did you?” She is very angry; I knew she would be. Partly she’s angry cos of me taking her money, but also because she’s been forced to come home early, all on my account.

“Dad was
worried
about you,” says Holly.

It seems that after reading my note, Uncle Mark immediately rang Stevie to see if I was there. When we hear this, me and Andrea exchange glances. In spite of being scared, it’s all I can do not to giggle. Stevie is always so
rude
on the phone.

“She gave me very short shrift,” says Uncle Mark. “Practically boxed my ears…but at least I knew you were on your way back. Thank you for that,” he adds, turning to Andrea. “It made me feel a bit better, knowing she was with you.” He looks at me, reproachfully, like
how
could you?
“You and I,” he says, “are obviously going to have to have a bit of a chat.”

Michael wants to know where Mr Pooter is. I tell him that he’s with Stevie. “Just for the moment.”

“Should have been left there in the first place,” says Auntie Ellen. “It’s what I’ve said all along.”

My hand reaches out again for Andrea’s. She gives it a reassuring squeeze. “Mark, I wonder,” she says, “whether we could have that chat right now…just you and me. Could we do that?”

I clutch, rather desperately, at her arm. I don’t want to be left alone with Auntie Ellen!

“Well, and maybe Laurel, too,” says Andrea. “After all, she’s the one it most concerns.”

I don’t think Auntie Ellen’s very pleased at being excluded, but nobody invites her to join us so she gives one of her sniffs and takes her money pot out of the cupboard to check how much I’ve stolen.

“I’ll pay you back!” I cry.

“I’ll pay your aunt back,” says Andrea. “Let’s go, now,
and thrash things out. See if we can’t come to some arrangement.”

So that is what we do. Uncle Mark reads Mum’s letter, nodding now and again and pursing his lips. I wait anxiously for his response.

“Right,” he says. “Well!” Carefully, he folds the letter and gives it back to Andrea. “It’s not such a bad idea, I suppose. It’s true that Laurel’s never really settled with us, and since it’s what Sue wanted…I’d be quite agreeable, assuming you’re both OK with it?”

“Oh, I think we are,” says Andrea. “Aren’t we?” She smiles at me, and I nod, vigorously.

“Well, in that case,” says Uncle Mark, “let’s give it a go. We’ll see how it works out.”

He’s obviously relieved that he won’t have to be responsible for me any more, though I don’t have the feeling he actually wants to be rid of me. Just that he wants me to be happy, and he knows I never could be with him and Auntie Ellen.

He insists that we stay for a meal, which I don’t really
want to and I’m not sure that Andrea does, either, but you have to be a little bit polite.

“Are you
going
?” says Holly.

Holly is not at all polite. Even Auntie Ellen tries to pretend that she’s sad things didn’t work out.

“It’s just…you know…Laurel really didn’t have what I would call a normal upbringing. But of course, you were Sue’s friend, you knew what she was like. You’ll be able to cope.”

“I’m sure I shall,” says Andrea.

As soon as we’ve eaten, we pack up a few more of my things and Uncle Mark takes us back to the station.

“Now, don’t forget,” he says, as he kisses me goodbye, “if things don’t work out, you can always come back.”

But I know, I just know, that they
will
work out. It’s just this feeling I have.

I’m right. They do! I stay with Andi all through the summer, in her flat near the university where she teaches. We get Mr Pooter back from Stevie, and he’s on
his special diet, and he’s taking his tablets, and he’s not being sick any more, though even if he was, Andi wouldn’t get mad at him. She loves Mr Pooter as much as I do. I’m never tired of hearing how she and Mum went to the local animal shelter to adopt a kitten, and how it was Mr Pooter who adopted
them.

“He was such a tiny scrap, the smallest of the litter. But he stretched out his scrawny little arms and made these funny little squeaking noises, and we just knew that he was the one for us. We always meant to adopt another one, so he’d have a companion, but somehow we never got around to it, and then…well! It was all too late.”

But it wasn’t too late, cos now Mr Pooter has
two
catty companions. When we collected him from Stevie we found that a stray she had rescued had just had kittens, and she told us rather crossly that we had better take two of them.

“I don’t want kittens getting under my feet! Not at my age.”

So it was like we didn’t really have much choice. As Andi says, you don’t argue with Stevie. They are both black, which sometimes makes it quite difficult to tell them apart. “Is that Carrie?” we go. “Or is it Lupin?” I was the one who chose their names! They already answer to them.

We’re all so happy together in Andi’s flat, but the new school year is looming and I’m dreading what might be going to happen. Will I have to start all over again at yet another school? Or, worse still, will I have to go and live with Uncle Mark and Auntie Ellen again? I think to myself that I just couldn’t bear it! But Andi has a surprise. She’s rented a house near to Uncle Mark so that I can continue at the same school
and
we don’t have to be separated. Hooray! It means that Andi has quite a long drive every day to get to work, but she says that she thinks it will be better if I don’t have to cope with any more changes.

I am grateful for this as I am not good at changes, and I’ve sort of got used to Bennington. Also it means that I
can still see Michael. He is a really nice boy. Some of the girls in my class tease me and say he’s my boyfriend, but that is just totally not true. I am not into boys yet. Andrea says I will be, soon. Then, she says, there will be TROUBLE. I will be a regular, tiresome teenager!

I’m still a library assistant. I still have long talks about books with Mrs Caton, but I don’t spend as much time in the library as I used to, mainly because I have now made some friends. Proper friends. two new girls were put into our class, Janis and Elvi, and we have become quite close. Being new, they didn’t realise that I was weird! Maybe I’m not, any more; at any rate, they don’t seem to think so. I’m not called Dalek any more, either. Most people seem to call me Lol. That’s OK! I don’t mind.

Andi calls me Lollipop. Or sometimes Lolly. I feel as if I have known Andi all my life. We are hoping that next year she will be able to adopt me; then if I want I can be Laurel Stafford. I think I would rather have Andi’s name than the name of my dad. I think it is what Mum would
have liked. She would have been really pleased if she knew how things had turned out.

We now have all her books back. Michael got them down from the attic, and Uncle Mark and Auntie Ellen brought them over. Now that I am not living with her any more, Auntie Ellen doesn’t seem to find me so irritating. She has become almost quite friendly. I will never be her sort of person; there is nothing much I can do about that. But when she kisses me hello or goodbye I no longer feel that she is gritting her teeth and just doing it as a duty. Last time she visited she said, “Well, things seem to be working out for you at last. I’m pleased about that. It really used to upset me, you were such a sad little ghost of a creature.” So I think perhaps she is not so bad after all. Except for not liking cats!

Andi and me have put all Mum’s books back in the open. they are free-range again! We are going out next week to buy a bookcase for them, as they are mostly on the floor at the moment. Andi has lots of books of her own, which I am exploring. She has also written one! It
is rather learned; it is called
The Female Psyche in Time of War
. She was delighted to find that Mum had a copy of it. It was one of the ones that Michael brought down from the attic. I said that Mum used to keep it by the side of her bed, like it was something special.

“But it wasn’t one we read together.” To be honest, I can’t really understand it. I’ve looked at it loads of times, but it is full of words I have never met before. Andi laughs and says, “Later!” And then she says, “Funny to think that I’d originally planned to write novels.” I tell her that she should.

“You could write one about you and Mum! And me, when I was a baby.”

I reckon that would make a really neat story. andi has promised that she will think about it.

“Or if I don’t do it,” she says, “how about you?”

Hmm…I suppose I could.

I am sitting here now, on the sofa, with my laptop, wondering how to begin. Mr Pooter is curled up beside me. He is such a sweet old cat! When we got the kittens
we were worried in case he felt that he was being pushed aside, but he is like a big daddy to them. They climb all over him, and just occasionally, when they are too rough or he has had enough, he smacks at them with his paw and they go skittering off.

One of them, Carrie, is sitting on top of my head. It is not very comfortable, as she keeps overbalancing and digging her claws in, which is actually quite painful, but I haven’t the heart to move her. the other one, Lupin, is very interested in my laptop. He keeps dabbing with his paw and wer709yfoj62kouyh6#[1

That was Lupin, typing a row of nonsense. He is very interested in computers. Heq’#mhjnwp

That was him again! This obviously isn’t going to work. Maybe I’ll give up for now, and play with the kittens instead. It’s not like there is any rush. But I
will
write the story. All about Andi and Sue who had a baby girl called Lollipop and a cat called Mr Pooter. I’ll start it tomorrow…