Lottie Project (22 page)

LAW AND ORDER

WE WERE ALL
very quiet in the car going home. Jo and Mark kept giving little quick glances at each other. I couldn’t stand it. They both seemed to have forgotten that there were passengers in the back.

I started singing stupid songs as loudly as I could.

‘Charlie!’ said Jo. ‘For heaven’s sake, you can’t even sing in tune.’

‘It’s fun to sing in the car,’ said Mark. ‘Let’s all have a sing-song, eh? What about “Ten Green Bottles”? We know that one, don’t we, Robin?’

Robin didn’t reply. He was scrunched up with Birdie’s wing right over his face.

‘Are you feeling sick again, Robin?’ Jo asked, peering round at him.

No response.

‘Is he asleep?’ she whispered to me.

‘I don’t know,’ I said, taking a deep breath for my next song.

‘Shut up,’ said Jo. ‘Don’t you dare wake him up.’

He wasn’t actually asleep. Whenever we were on a brightly lit road I could see the gleam of his eye.
And
when I went quiet I could just hear his snuffling above the car engine.

I should have reached out and given him a cuddle. I should have told him that he mustn’t worry, of course his dad would still want him. I should have told Mark and Jo that he was crying.

I didn’t. Oh, how I wish I had. But I didn’t. I stayed hard and hating.

Mark dropped me and Jo off outside our flats.

‘Thank you for a fantastic day out,’ said Jo, putting her head so close to his that I thought she was going to kiss him again right in front of me. But she straightened out and he started to wind up his window.

‘Say thank you, Charlie,’ said Jo.

‘Thank you,’ I said, with absolutely no expression, total Dalek daughter.

‘What the hell is the matter with you?’ Jo exploded, the moment we were inside our own front door. ‘You’ve been foul the entire day.’

‘I’m surprised you noticed. You’ve only had eyes for one person all day long. Oooh Mark, how lovely, what a treat, gee-whizz how fantastic,’ I said, imitating her gushing tone.

She blushed, but she tried to stare me out.

‘Grow up a bit,’ said Jo. ‘You’re acting like a toddler whose mum has started to talk to someone else. Surely you don’t seriously mind that I’ve made one nice friend all by myself? You’ve got hundreds of friends, you always have done, and I’ve been thrilled you’ve got such a good
independent
social life. I’ve always been useless at making friends. And now for the first time ever I’ve found someone I get on with, why do you have to make all this fuss?’

‘But he’s not just a friend, is he?’ I said.

‘Yes, he is!’

‘Don’t give me that rubbish. I don’t go round snogging my friends.’

‘What?’

‘You heard. I saw you. On that stupid Stardust ride.’

She went redder than ever, and now she couldn’t meet my eyes.

I couldn’t stand to look at her either. She looked so stupid and flushed and girlie, like Angela swooning over her beloved rock group or Lisa dithering over Dave Wood. But she was Jo. She was my mother. She was mine.

I didn’t say another word to her all evening. We both went to bed early but we didn’t sleep. We tossed and turned separately, a great gap in the middle of the bed.

It still seemed like night-time when the phone rang. Jo sat up, looking dazed. ‘Have I slept in for work?’ she said.

I peered at the alarm clock. ‘It’s only three o’clock. So who on earth’s phoning . . .?’ I said, as I jumped out of bed and ran into the living room. ‘Hello?’ I said, as I snatched up the phone. ‘Hello, who is it?’

‘It’s Mark here, Charlie.’

I couldn’t believe it!

‘Can I speak to Jo, please? It’s urgent.’

I dropped the receiver as if it were burning me. Jo came rushing into the room.

‘Who is it? What’s going on?’

‘It’s only your
friend
,’ I said. ‘And he says it’s
urgent
. Well, would you mind asking him to save his urgent little lovey-dovey messages till it’s actually daylight. I’d like to get some sleep before I go to school, if it’s all the same to you two lovebirds.’

‘Do shut up, Charlie,’ said Jo, picking up the receiver. ‘Mark? What is it?’ She was silent for a few seconds.

I started to do a mime of exaggerated kissing and then pretended to puke. But then I saw the shock on her face and I stopped the pantomime.

‘What’s happened?’ I said.

‘It’s Robin,’ said Jo. ‘It’s little Robin, he’s gone missing.’

The words sizzled in my brain like an electric shock.

‘Missing?’ I whispered.

Jo was asking Mark heaps of questions, and I could hear the frantic tone of his answers.

‘You’re
sure
he’s not just hiding somewhere? Under his bed? In one of the cupboards? Let me come over and search,’ said Jo.

More talk.

‘No, I want to come anyway. I’ll be with you in ten minutes,’ said Jo, and hung up.

She ran to the bathroom. I followed her.

She was on the loo, cleaning her teeth at the same time, shaking her head to wake herself up. She shook it again at me.

‘Look, Charlie, I can’t take any sneering from you just now. This is nothing to do with Mark and me. It’s serious.’

‘I know,’ I said, biting my knuckle. ‘Has Robin really run away?’

‘I don’t know! Mark woke up and he just popped his head into Robin’s room to check up on him – he’d been a bit funny when he put him to bed after the day out – and – and he wasn’t there. Mark says he’s searched everywhere. I don’t see how Robin could have got out the door and run off somewhere, I mean, he’s such a timid little thing – oh God, I keep thinking of awful possibilities . . .’ Jo was nearly in tears as she rushed round the bathroom and then ran back into the bedroom, pulling on jeans and a jacket over her nightie.

I started yanking on my own clothes too.

‘Charlie? Look, you’d better not come. Go back to bed. Maybe you could phone the supermarket later if I’m not back. And you get yourself off to school and—’

‘No! I’m coming too! Oh, Jo, something awful will have happened to him, won’t it?’ I clung to her as if I were a tiny kid myself.

‘Hey, hey. We’ll find him. He’ll be OK,’ said Jo, although neither of us believed it. ‘Someone will have found him wandering about and—’

‘But that’s what I’m scared of. What if some really
creepy
pervert gets hold of him and—’

‘Don’t. No. Look, he’ll have just wandered down the road – maybe sleepwalking, something like that – and he’ll be curled up in a doorway somewhere, perfectly safe, sound asleep.’

‘But it’s cold out – really cold for a kid like Robin. And if he was just wearing his pyjamas . . .’

‘Mark said his school jumper’s missing too – and his slippers.’

The thought of Robin setting off in his new too-big school jumper, his pyjamas and his scuffed slippers made me bite my knuckle almost to the bone.

The lights were all on in Mark’s flat – and there was a police car outside.

‘There! They’ve found him,’ said Jo, taking my hand and hauling us both up the stairs.

But they hadn’t found him. Mark had called the police and was telling them over and over again how he’d looked in on Robin’s room, and he wasn’t in his bed, and he’d gone to the bathroom, he’d gone to the kitchen, gone round and round every room in the house, calling and calling . . . His voice was hoarse now, and his face looked dreadful, pale grey and shiny. He caught hold of Jo but this was different; he was just so desperate to get Robin back safe and she might be able to help.

I might be able to help.

I had to tell them.

I opened my mouth but I couldn’t get the words out.

‘Don’t worry,’ said this young policewoman, patting my shoulder. ‘We’re doing our very best to find him. We’ve sent out his description and everyone’s searching. Children go missing every week – and they nearly always turn up safe and sound.’

‘Not kids as little as Robin. It’s all my fault,’ I said. ‘I made him run away. I even gave him that little cake with
GET LOST
on it.’

‘Oh, come on, Charlie – that was silly, yes, but that’s got nothing to do with it,’ said Jo.

‘But I said . . . I said all this hateful stuff . . . when we saw you kissing . . .’ I waited.

Mark put his hands on my shoulders. His hands dug right into me. ‘What did you say, Charlie?’

‘I – I – it was so awful . . .’

‘I don’t care how awful. You’ve got to tell us. It might give us some clue where he’s gone. I’ve been running round the streets this past hour, everywhere he goes, down to the shop on the corner, up the road to the park, he’s not anywhere – I’ve looked, I’ve called – and yet how could he have got further, just wearing his slippers, and he hates going for walks, and he’d never go off willingly without me . . .’ Mark’s voice cracked.

‘I told him you wouldn’t want him any more,’ I whispered. ‘I didn’t really mean it, I said I was joking, but – but it was a horrible thing to say to him, I’m so sorry, it made him cry in the car going home
and
I didn’t tell and it’s so awful and if anything’s happened to him—’

‘Nothing will have happened to him,’ Jo said, putting her arm round me. We’re nearly the same height and yet I seemed to have shrunk and she’d become a great big enveloping mother. ‘We’ll find him, I promise you, we’ll find him.’ She was promising Mark too, saying it over and over, trying to convince us.