Lottie Project (18 page)

She didn’t say anything to me, but Eliza and Mrs Angel stopped calling me Baby and laughing behind my back – and yesterday when the children were asleep Eliza slipped into the nursery with a bowl of Mrs Angel’s special sherry trifle for my supper.

Mrs Angel is Mother’s age but she has gentlemen callers too! The fat policeman for the street calls on a regular basis for his piece of pie and Mrs Angel’s patter. I was astonished to see a woman so old go rosy-cheeked and chuckle when he praised her pastry.

I received a letter from Rose today and now I am starting to worry that Mother herself might be courting!!! Rose says that Mr Higgins from the Dog and Duck brings Mother a jug of ale from time to time, and in return she cooks him a meal. I do not like the sound of this!

Rose’s letter makes me feel so homesick. It is a poor ill-spelt half-page but I have read it as avidly as if it were a masterpiece by Mr Dickens. Rose has never tried hard enough at school. She writes that Miss Worthbeck sends her kindest regards and can scarce manage without me. And a certain Edward James sends a most impertinent message to Dear Little Lottie. Hmm!

SUNDAY

I FOUND IT
seriously weird going round to Jamie’s house. I mean, this was Jamie Edwards, the worst boy in the whole class, old chubby-chops super-swot wimpy-wuss Jamie. I made pretty sure all the boys in our class treated me with respect but I wanted a capital ‘R’ from Jamie.

Yet in his huge great famously Victorian villa he was so different. As if he’d grown to fit his fourteen-roomed house. (I counted.) And I felt different too. As if I’d shrunk considerably. It felt strange just going into his house through that dark-blue front door with the big brass lion knocker. I felt as if I should slink round the back or down the basement steps like my Lottie.

If Jamie and his family had lorded it over me I’d somehow have felt easier. I could just dismiss them as horrible snobs and sneer at them. But they were ever so friendly. Even Jamie’s elder brother Jules.

Elder brothers are usually a race apart. Angela’s elder brother charges straight past you without
even
bothering to say hello. He doesn’t even mean to be rude, it’s just that you don’t register with him. But Jules said Hi and chatted like I was his age and he made me and Jamie a toasted sandwich. We ate it in the kitchen – but
what
a kitchen! I stared round, scarcely able to swallow.

There was a shelf of cookery books and I had a quick peer but I couldn’t see anything special on cakes. When Jamie’s mum got home much later I saw she wasn’t really a cake-maker. She came in clutching all these files and folders, her cardie falling off her shoulders, her scarf trailing on the ground. She said hello as if she was really pleased to see me, and then she unpacked some shopping and made us an amazing treat of cream cheese and smoked salmon in a strange round roll. (No wonder Jamie is chubby round his chops with all these delicious snacks on offer.)Jules had one of these bagel things too, and then went up to his room to get on with his homework.

All Jamie’s family are seriously brainy. Jules is going to take
twelve
GCSEs, and then there are two older brothers, both at university. Jamie’s mum and dad
lecture
at the university. He teaches French, she teaches Politics and Economics.

‘The Economics is a bit of a laugh,’ said Jamie.
‘Mum
can hardly add up. She’s meant to pay me when I do stuff like vacuuming and that, two quid an hour, plus appropriate percentage for ten minutes extra, say, and
can
she work it out? Nope! Clueless, aren’t you, Mum?’

I didn’t think his mum clueless at all, paying Jamie a measly two quid per hour when the rock-bottom going rate was £3.50 and the Rosens right next door paid Jo a fiver an hour – dead Economical! Things got a bit awkward when Jamie’s mum started chatting about how she remembered me from way back when I had my hair in a pony tail (yuck!) and then she said: ‘And you always looked so cute because your big sister had a pony tail too, so you both walked along to the school, hair bobbing away.’

I smiled in a strained sort of way and decided to keep my mouth shut. But Jamie didn’t.

‘Oh, Mum, honestly! That wasn’t Charlie’s sister. She’s her mum.’

Jamie’s mum looked startled. ‘Good Heavens! Oh Charlie, what a lovely young mum you’ve got! Not an old bag like me, eh? What does your mum do?’

I swallowed. ‘Well . . . she used to be sort of a lecturer like you.’ It was true in a way. She was always having to give her staff a right lecture in her shop.

‘So now . . .?’

‘Now she’s – well, she’s been made redundant, I mean, it’s not her fault, she didn’t get the sack or anything, it’s just—’

‘Oh, tell me about it! We’re in a sticky situation at
the
moment too. We’re all very worried. So has your mother found another post at all?’

‘Well. Not – not lecturing. She’s having to do temporary work.’

‘I see. Well, I do hope things sort themselves out soon for her. Is it . . .?’ She paused delicately, trying very hard not to put her foot in it again. ‘Is it just your mother and you at home?’

‘Yes.’

Just Jo and me in a home we’re hanging on to by the skin of our teeth. If Jamie’s mum loses her posh job then they’ll maybe have to swop from smoked salmon to tinned, but they’ll still be able to live in their huge great house. OK, they have actually got a couple of lodgers right upstairs, two students from the university. They’ve got a bedroom each, a shared living room and kitchenette, and their own bathroom and loo. The students’ rooms are bigger than our flat.

It still leaves the Edwards with so many different rooms. This includes a
library
. They’ve got books in absolutely every room, even the downstairs loo, and there are shelves in the hall and the living room downstairs, but there’s this huge great room on the first floor absolutely crammed full of books, and there are shelves and shelves of Victorian stuff.

‘See,’ said Jamie proudly, pulling various volumes down and displaying them in front of me.

I saw. No wonder Jamie’s Victorian project was
so
brilliant. Still, he was letting me look at the books if I wanted.

‘You’ve still got time to do a proper project instead of that old diary thing,’ he said. Unwisely.

‘Cheek! I don’t want to do a boring old project. Who wants to be like everyone else? I’m doing my diary – and yes it is “old”, it’s
supposed
to be old, it’s meant to be written by a Victorian, for goodness’ sake.’

‘OK, OK. You don’t have to get all heavy with me,’ said Jamie. ‘You’re so fierce, Charlie.’

‘Fierce?’ I said. I said it again, savouring the word. I felt as if he’d paid me a real compliment.

‘So don’t you want to borrow any of the Victorian books, then? Because we can go and play a game on my computer if you want. Or I’ll show you my dinosaur stuff. Or we can play War.’

‘War? You mean fight?’ I said, grinning. ‘I know who’s going to win.’

‘No, it’s a game, with all these little soldiers –
they
fight, and there are little guns and land mines and all that stuff. It’s great to play but Jules won’t play it with me, neither will Mum or Dad or anyone because they’re all pacifists.’

‘I’m not. I’ll play you. But just let me look at this book a tick.’

I’d found a whole set of Victorian girls’ books. I wanted to see if there might be any Lottie could have read. There was one huge fat annual with lots of pictures, like a magazine. There was one coloured picture of a huge table groaning with wobbly jellies
and
puddings like castles and all sorts of dinky sweets and teeny sandwiches . . . and fancy cakes.

‘Hey, look! I just want to take a couple of notes, OK?’

‘OK. Though why don’t you borrow it?’

‘You mean I can take it home with me?’

‘Sure.’

‘Oh. Well. Great.’ I tucked the huge book under my arm. ‘So let’s play War.’

We played War for hours. It was a great game. And guess who won!

Jamie’s mum ran me home in her car. I was worried she might object about the book because it was probably valuable as it’s so old but she didn’t turn a hair. Her hair is already grey. I wonder what it’s like to have a mum old enough to be your granny. I think it’s much more fun to have a mum young enough to be your sister.