The Mixed-Up Summer of Lily McLean (2 page)

Ways to freak out my mum:

• Lie very still on the hall carpet.
  
• Scream like you’re on fire.
  
• Tell her you’re hearing voices. (On second thoughts, don’t.)
  

On a typical weekday evening Mum leaves work about five o’clock, looking frazzled, and picks us up from Gran’s house on her way home. Baby Summer will be tired, hungry and fractious after her day at nursery.

Mum will take one step through the door and Jenna will have flown into a sulk because Mum has “smiled sarcastically” or just existed, really, and within seconds they will be screaming at each other and doors will be slamming and little kids will be wailing. Most days I try and help by bribing the boys with television or by reading stories. I unofficially borrow books I think they will enjoy from our school library, sit Summer on my knee and read aloud to the three of them. Their favourite is
Peace at Last
by Jill Murphy. They like joining in with all the noises… particularly the aeroplane one! I don’t think I’m going to get round to taking that one back to the library. But sometimes, particularly after a hard day at school, all the arguments and the screaming feel too much to stand, and I will back away quietly and head for the hall cupboard.

The cupboard is my haven, my get-away-from-it-all place. It has an electric light, which is handy, as I don’t love the dark,
particularly since I read one of those vampire books my sister left lying in the bathroom. Most of it was sick-making romantic guff, but there was a really scary bit and I can’t stop remembering the scratching fingers and chalk-white vampire faces when the lights go out at night.

I share this cosy space with a vacuum cleaner and a rather stale-smelling mop and bucket, both of which smell sweeter than Hudson and Bronx. But stuffed right at the back, where nobody will spot it, there’s a small wicker basket. Inside the basket there’s a stack of books and magazines, a tiny portable radio Mum gave me last Christmas, and a notebook and pen.

I bought the notebook with my Christmas money from Gran and it’s nearly full. I write poetry in my notebook, and sometimes stories, and most days, lists. I love lists. I have a lot to remember and they help me to stay organised. I don’t call my notebook a diary because then I’d feel under pressure to write a lot every day, and sometimes that’s just not possible. But there’s always time for a list.

When I grow up, I want to be a famous author, or perhaps a lawyer, because they are mega-loaded. No way am I being poor like my mum.

I keep a cushion in the basket too, which I ‘borrowed’ from Jenna’s room. It’s purple and fluffy, and has sequins spelling out the word LOVE, which would be mega-mortifying if my pals saw it, but Rowan and David are never here so it isn’t a worry. My cupboard will stay top secret, even from them.

My friend David’s house has three bedrooms like mine, but a lot fewer kids to cram into it. And they have two bathrooms and a kitchen that my whole house would fit into quite nicely. You could swing several cats in there, maybe even a puma or a leopard. And he has a big bedroom all to himself, painted cobalt blue – David was very specific about it being
cobalt
blue. When I was at his place, I
was mega-jealous of everything in it, except his enormous collection of Star Wars memorabilia. He can keep that.

David’s dad is an accountant and his mum’s a teacher and they go somewhere like Turkey or Menorca every summer for a fortnight. I’ll bet Jenna would not be carrying on like this if Gran had suggested Menorca instead of Millport, internet connection or not. She would be upstairs packing her case right now.

I take my earphones out to check that my crazy family haven’t chosen today, a long, dull Sunday, to kill each other or something. I’d seriously have to intervene then.

“Jenna, come out your room right now! You can’t stay in there forever, madam! We need to discuss this calmly!”

My mum is sounding a long way from calm. There’s no reply from Jenna, but I can hear a squeaky battle going on between Bronx and Hudson over control of the remote, and Summer is wailing loudly.

“It’s my turn. Gimme it!”

“No way, you watched three programmes yesterday and I only got to watch one. Mummmm, Hudson took the batteries out!”

Excellent, everyone’s still alive. I put my earphones back in and go back to thinking about David, who isn’t going to be invited to my house any time soon. Even though I’m sure he wouldn’t sneer at the mess. He has nice manners, drilled into him by his mum, who teaches gym, so that tells you what she’s like. And David isn’t the tidiest person himself. His hair is always sticking up at funny angles, as though he has slept on it, and his clothes look permanently dishevelled and ill fitting, probably because he is a bit of a tricky shape. David is shorter than the average eleven-year-old boy, a fact which worries him a lot, and he’s a little overweight, which doesn’t bother him at all.

But I wouldn’t want to watch him stepping over the broken toys and dirty laundry and the pushchair in the hall. And then where
would we go? We wouldn’t get any peace in the cramped pigsty of a bedroom I share with Hudson and Bronx. And I wouldn’t want to take him into our cluttered, untidy living room. Even the newish table lamp has a bash in it now, thanks to Jenna’s latest meltdown. Nope, it’s not happening.

And Rowan’s parents won’t let her through the door of my house. Her mum came round to our old house in Kelvin Street one evening last October. I think she was selling tickets for the PTA Halloween disco or something. My step-dad had started early on the vodka. He was totally off his face and pretty unpleasant.

Rowan has explained repeatedly to her mum that my step-dad has gone for good, but she is still not allowed to visit, which is fine with me, even if I’m mortified by the reason for it.

So, at this precise moment, I’m in the cupboard in the hall, earplugs in and the radio blaring, reading
Anne of Green Gables
for the umpteenth time. Anne always says exactly what she’s thinking, which both impresses and appals me, and I can totally sympathise with her red hair issues. The words are bouncing about on the page though, as they always do when I’ve got a headache, so I close the book and sit and think about my troublesome family.

Jenna is probably still stropping about being forced to go to Millport for her summer holidays, leaving her beloved ‘bezzies’ behind. Bronx and Hudson will be squabbling over the remote or sitting glassy-eyed on the couch, watching Sponge Bob or Scooby Doo. Summer might be wailing, because nobody is paying her any attention. If she is, I will go and pick her up and play with her for a wee while. Somebody has to and it isn’t going to be Mum or Jenna at this rate. I put my book down, take my earphones out and listen intently.

The television is blaring, the boys are silent and I can hear Mum clattering about, obviously having given up on attempting to talk Jenna out of her room.

“Right, Summer,” she says, sounding a bit grumpy and impatient. “Let’s get that smelly nappy off.”

“Not here, Mum!” yells Bronx. “Take her somewhere else! She stinks!”

“Don’t say that,” tuts Mum. “She can’t help having a dirty nappy. You’ll hurt her feelings.”

“Summer hasn’t got feelings, silly, she’s only a baby! An ugly, buggly, stinky-poo baby!”

That’s really mean, Bronx. Admittedly, Summer may have a permanently runny nose and stained hand-me-downs, but I think she’s pretty cute. She has curly ginger hair, a freckly face and a snub nose, like Little Orphan Annie in the musical, if Orphan Annie had been shrunk in the wash. And had a permanently runny nose. But I am very fond of her. She smiles at me sunnily every time I pick her up and we’ve got to do something to make up for the fact that she’s got the dad from hell.

I keep my earphones out, since it’s quite peaceful now in the house, and make myself comfortable on my cushion. I lean back against the wall, pick up my book again and am trying to enjoy the quiet, when my cupboard door is flung open and daylight streams in. Can a person not get any peace? I poke my head out, but there’s nobody in the hall. I can hear the television, and Mum clattering in the kitchen, and Summer banging a rattle against the wall of her playpen, happy to finally be wearing a clean nappy. Silence from Jenna. She has probably barricaded herself in her bedroom and is now messaging her friends, threatening to run away from home.

If only.

I pull the door shut and sit back down on that hideous cushion.

“I wish you were here, Lily.”

I shoot into the air and bang my head on the electricity meter. Crumple back down on the floor, head throbbing and heart racing. Glance around, eyes wide. But there’s definitely nobody there.

Then the light bulb pops. The cupboard instantly goes pitch black. I’m sitting in total darkness, my hand fumbling for the door handle, numb with fear, when I hear it again, right next to my ear.

“And I wish you could hear me, Lily,” the voice whispers.

My hand finds the handle and I roll, Ninja-like, out of the cupboard and faceplant onto our garishly patterned hall carpet. I lie there for a moment, staring at the weird squiggly design, and waiting for my heart to stop leaping about in my chest. I’m scared that I’m having a heart attack, like old Mrs McInnes over the road.

When we visited her afterwards in the hospital, Mrs McInnes told Mum that it had felt like her heart was being squeezed in a vice. I’m not sure what that feels like, but it sounds sore, and as I calm down a bit, I realise I’m not actually in pain at all. It must just be a panic attack, brought on by extreme terror. A disembodied voice will do that to a person, especially when the disembodied voice knows your name.

I roll over on to my back and gaze up at the ceiling with its swirly loops of plaster. This house does not have restful décor. I try and gather my thoughts.

I’m hearing voices
, is my first thought.

Well, just one voice, but that’s quite crazy enough, thanks,
is my second.

“Um, Lily, what are you doing?” asks Mum. She’s standing at the kitchen door, wiping her hands on a tea towel. “Why on earth are you lying on the floor?”

“No reason,” I reply, trying to look nonchalant while lying on my back on the hall carpet. I haul myself upright and smile cheerfully. Hiding my real feelings is my area of expertise – I’ve had years of practice. “I was just checking for holes in the skirting boards. I heard scratching when I was walking through the hall and I thought I should check, just in case.”

Mum’s look of abject horror makes me wish I’d told her I’d
simply gone mad instead. “Jenna!” she screeches at the closed bedroom door. “Get those dirty plates out of your room and into the sink! I told you we’d get rats!”

“I think I must have imagined the scratching,” I break in hastily. “It was probably Bronx or Hudson carrying on in the living room. You know what they’re like.”

Mum looks uncertain. She clearly wants to believe that there are no rodents in the house, but needs a bit more persuasion. Then I have a brainwave.

“Mac and Quipp would have caught any rats or mice as soon as they dared show their little whiskery faces. You can tell Quipp’s a great mouser just by watching him stalk spiders,” I say firmly.

I see Mum visibly relax, and decide that distraction would be an excellent tactic at this point. Maybe I should be a lawyer, after all?

“So Mum, what’s all the fuss about Millport?” I ask casually. “Jenna doesn’t seem too thrilled,” I add, with spectacular understatement.

“I knew Jenna wouldn’t be keen to stay with Gran in a caravan this year. I did suggest Bronx and Hudson go instead of her, but Gran was having none of that. Mean old so and so.”

I can see both sides of this story. I have a lot of sympathy with Gran, as a holiday in a caravan with Hudson and Bronx would be no holiday at all. And Gran loves her holidays in Millport. But for Mum, it would be an answer to a prayer. She would have a whole week without the gruesome twosome’s constant squabbling.

“That’s a shame,” I say, although I don’t sound terribly convincing. From a purely selfish point of view, I am completely on Gran’s side on this one. I share a room with Bronx and Hudson all year. I would like some peace and privacy on my summer holiday too.

“So I was trying to persuade Jenna to go,” says Mum with an exasperated sigh. “But she is dead against it. I’m not going to force her.”

I wouldn’t fancy Mum’s chances of success, but if by some miracle she did manage to convince Jenna to go, it would be Gran and me who would suffer. It’d be the holiday from hell. She would make every minute miserable, with her sulks, tantrums and complaints. Now that I think about it, perhaps I’d rather have Bronx and Hudson. At least they would enjoy themselves.

“Gran will be disappointed if Jenna doesn’t come,” I say carefully.

I think I’m on safe ground here.

My gran dotes on Jenna and me, despite Jenna’s recent transformation. She is not nearly so fond of the other three, which is sad for them, and sometimes a bit uncomfortable for us, particularly at Christmas and birthdays, when Gran’s favouritism really shows (much to my mum’s fury). The fact is, she’s mine and Jenna’s gran by blood, but not theirs – and while she looks out for
all
of us, I guess she can’t hide her affection for her own son’s daughters. Gran would be mortified if we said anything though.

Despite her love for Jenna, Gran isn’t afraid to muscle in with the discipline. She says she needs a good smack. Mind you, Gran says that a lot, mostly in a big loud voice when she sees a kid misbehaving in the street or in a shop. It’s mega-embarrassing.

“Listen to that cheeky wee so and so!” she bawled last weekend, when she and I were out getting her shopping. (She needs me to be her bag-carrier.) “If I’d spoken to my mother like that, she’d have boxed my ears!”

The child’s mother whirled round and swore at my gran, who now felt completely justified.

“That explains everything,” Gran said loudly as she flounced out, while I trailed behind, scarlet-faced and laden with plastic carrier bags. “Poor wee wean, having a mother so foul mouthed.”