Lottie Project (25 page)

‘Why did the little boy run away, I wonder?’

I just shrugged and backed away to my desk, sharpish.

Jamie stared at me, looking a little puzzled. ‘I love the way you tell things, Charlie. Making it ever so exciting and funny,’ he said.

I made little slurpy noises with my lips, to show I thought he was sucking up to me.

‘But did it all really happen?’ Jamie persisted.

‘Yes! What do you think I am, some kind of nutter with a compulsion to tell blatant lies to everyone?’

‘But how come your mum looks after this little boy? I thought you said she was a lecturer, like mine?’

I took a deep breath, thinking hard. A blatant lie indeed. Well, call it an elaborate evasion. It was time for another.

‘She lost that job, right? So for the moment she . . . she teaches little Robin.’

I had to tell my story all over again at playtime to kids in different classes, and they went off and told other kids, so that by dinner time it was all over the school. There were many different versions by this time. Some assumed that my mum and Robin’s dad were already a definite item, which infuriated me. Others gave me an even more prominent role in the story, so that I’d gone out in the early morning and tracked Robin through the park to the station all by myself. It was starting to turn into a story about how I’d saved little Robin’s life.

It was a relief when school was over at last. I went rushing straight home, wondering if Jo would be round at Mark’s place with Robin.

But she was at home, looking tired out herself, pulling fluff out of her bunny jumper, pick pick pick.

‘Is Mark’s ex-wife round at his place then?’ I asked delicately.

‘I think she’s at the hospital. With Mark,’ said Jo.

‘What? Is Robin still there then?’ I paused. ‘He is OK, isn’t he?’

Jo’s fingers fidgeted down the sleeve of her fluffy jumper. ‘Well, I’m sure he’s going to be OK, yes, but . . .’

‘But what? Tell me!’

‘I don’t really know much. Mark only had ten pence for the phone. He just said that the doctor was a bit worried about Robin’s chest—’

‘His chest?’

‘Apparently he’s always been slightly asthmatic, and he did get very chilled, so now he’s got a touch of pneumonia.’

‘Pneumonia! People die of pneumonia!’

‘Now calm down, Charlie. There’s no need to get yourself all worked up. I promise Robin’s not going to die—’

‘You promised he’d be as right as rain, out of hospital as soon as they’d got him warmed up.’

‘Well, he
will
be as right as rain. They’ll just need to give him some antibiotics.’

‘And people always get completely better after pneumonia if they take antibiotics?’

‘Well, nearly always. How do I know anyway?’

‘Let’s go and see him now.’

‘I shouldn’t imagine he can have too many visitors. He’ll need to be kept quiet. He’s got his dad – and his mum.’ Jo’s jumper was going to be picked bald quite soon.

‘Couldn’t we go to the hospital just to ask if we could see him for two minutes?’ I said.

‘No, we can’t just keep pushing in,’ said Jo.

I kept going on at her. I can always wear her down. I had to see Robin again. I hadn’t been able to talk to him when he was trussed up in tinfoil like a tiny turkey. I had to tell him something.

But I still didn’t get a chance. We found our way to the children’s ward and it was still visiting time so we walked the long length of the polished floor, looking for Robin. There was no sign of him.

We walked back again, pausing at every bed. There was one empty one and I suddenly took Jo’s hand.

‘Can I help you?’ said a nurse, hurrying past.

‘We’re looking for Robin West,’ said Jo anxiously. ‘He’s the little boy who was lost.’

‘Yes, I know. He’s in the side ward up at the end – but I’m not sure he should have any more visitors,’ said the nurse.

‘There, Charlie,’ said Jo. ‘I told you.’

‘Couldn’t we just put our heads round the door to say hello?’ I pleaded.

‘I suppose you can take a quick peep, if you promise to be quiet,’ said the nurse.

‘As a mouse,’ I said.

When we got near the side ward we walked on tiptoe, though the polish made our shoes squeak like real mice. We were still hand in hand. Our clasp was clammy.

I put my head round the door first. There was Mark, sitting right by the bed, his head in his hands. A pretty blonde woman with a pinched face was wiping her red eyes. And there was Robin lying very still in bed, his face milky white, his eyes closed. Birdie was on his chest, wings spread.

‘He’s dead!’ I burst out, forgetting all about my promise to be quiet.

Robin stirred and whimpered.

‘Who on earth . . .?’ said the blonde woman, glaring at me.

‘What do you want, Charlie?’ said Mark, standing up. His grey face was going patchy red with anger. ‘Haven’t you done enough?’

‘I just wanted to say . . . I’m sorry,’ I said.

‘Oh, that makes all the difference in the world, does it?’ said Mark.

Jo was tugging at me to get me to go. ‘We shouldn’t have come. We were both just so worried about Robin,’ she muttered. ‘Come
on
, Charlie.’

‘He is going to get better, isn’t he?’ I said desperately.

Mark ignored me but touched Jo on the shoulder to reassure her. The blonde woman tightened her eyebrows.

‘He’s still got a high temperature but they’re pumping him full of antibiotics and they keep saying he’ll be fine,’ he said. Then his eyes swivelled to me. ‘No thanks to you.’

I let Jo tug me out of the doorway and out of the ward. We had to wait a long while for a bus outside the hospital and then it was a twenty-minute walk home. Jo kept talking to me but I hardly said anything.

She thought it was because I was scared of crying
in
public. When we got home at last she put her arms round me and said, ‘Right, you can let it all out now. Have a really good cry and then you’ll feel better.’

I did cry a bit. Jo did too. I don’t know whether she felt better. I didn’t.

I felt really bad at school the next day. Angela and Lisa still kept on about Robin, asking if I’d seen him and how he was, wanting me to tell them all about it.

‘Look, I don’t really want to talk about Robin,’ I said.

‘What are you on about? You did nothing
but
talk about Robin yesterday,’ said Lisa.

‘OK, OK. That was yesterday. This is today, right? Let’s talk about something
else
,’ I said.

Angela immediately started burbling about the birthsigns of her beloveds and I groaned and pretended to gag.

‘There’s no need to take that attitude,’ said Angela, hurt. ‘You told me to talk about something else, so I did. There’s no pleasing you sometimes, Charlie.’

‘Hey, my dad says he’s still taking us to the Red River Theme Park for my birthday,’ said Lisa. ‘Which rides are the best, Charlie? Come on, you didn’t get a chance to tell us yesterday.’

‘No!’ I said fiercely.

‘You can be a right pain sometimes, Charlie,’ said Lisa huffily. ‘There’s me inviting you out on my birthday treat and yet you just shout at me.’

‘Yeah, I can’t stick it when you throw a moody like this,’ said Angela. ‘You think you can treat us like dirt, Charlie Enright, but we might just start to get fed up with it. Isn’t that right, Lisa?’

‘You bet,’ said Lisa. ‘Come on, Angela.’

They walked off across the playground arm in arm. I was left all by myself.

I decided I didn’t care a bit. There were lots of other girls desperate to be my friend. Or even boys. Like Jamie.

I went and found him in his usual place, head deep in a book. Still
Tess of the d’Urbervilles
, but he’d nearly finished it, even though it’s hundreds and hundreds of pages long.

‘You’ll go cross-eyed reading so much,’ I said, flopping down beside him. ‘Are you really enjoying that?’

‘It’s great,’ said Jamie. ‘Here, Tess murders this guy at the end, the one who had his wicked way with her – Alec.’

‘The one she had the baby with?’ I said. I tried to remember the film, but I just had this hazy picture of pretty girls in white frocks doing a dance, and afterwards Jo and I had done our own dance in our white nighties. ‘Did Tess have a daughter or a son?’

‘A little boy.’

‘So what happens to him? I don’t think there was a little boy in the film.’

‘No, he dies when he’s a baby.’

‘What of?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t think it says.’

‘Babies don’t just
die
.’

‘They did then. Especially little puny ones. They just need to get a little cold and then it develops into pneumonia or something—’

‘Shut up!’ I shouted.

Jamie jumped. ‘What’s up?’ he said. ‘Hey, Charlie – where are you going?’