Lily Alone (16 page)

‘Oh, Mr Abbott!' I said again, thrilled.
He
was an angel, flying here to see me and give me my special present.

I wanted us to sit together for ever, sipping tea and discussing angels, but Baxter and Pixie came running in, sniggering. They were wearing each other's clothes: Baxter was squeezed into one of Pixie's tiny T-shirts and she was wearing his jeans, shuffling because the empty ends trailed across the carpet. Bliss crept in anxiously behind them, clearly worried she would be blamed.

‘Oh, ha ha, very funny,' I said, sighing. ‘Watch out, Pixie, you'll fall over. And Baxter, take that T-shirt off, you'll rip it.'

Baxter tried to pull it over his head and got stuck.

‘Can't!' he said, charging up and down like a bull.

I caught him with one hand and whipped the T-shirt off with the other. Then I grabbed Pixie.

‘Come on, Bliss, help me pull her jeans off.'

Mr Abbott watched me, smiling, as I sorted them out.

‘You make a marvellous little mother, Lily,' he said.

I smiled back at him shyly.

Mr Abbott looked at his watch.

‘When did your mum go out?' he asked.

Bliss and Baxter looked at me.

‘Oh, not long ago,' I said quickly. ‘She might be quite a while, especially if she decides to do a big shop. I wouldn't wait if I were you, Mr Abbott.'

‘Your mum has a mobile, doesn't she? Perhaps we could phone her and tell her I'm here? I'd really like to talk to her.'

Bliss gave a little gasp of dismay. I went on looking steadily at Mr Abbott.

‘I think I'd better be truthful, Mr Abbott,' I said.

The three kids stared at me.

‘I think Mum might be a bit – a bit embarrassed if she knew that
you
knew she'd left us on our own,' I said, as calmly as I could. ‘She knows she's not supposed to leave us, but it's difficult, see. She's got to do the shopping and she can't cart all of us with her, especially with this bug and us needing the toilet all the time.'

‘Does your mum often leave you in charge of the children, Lily?'

‘Oh no, hardly ever. She gets our neighbour to look after us, doesn't she, Bliss? Old Kath along the balcony.'

Bliss nodded vigorously, doing her best to be helpful.

‘And my dad Mikey comes too,' said Baxter.

‘Yes, he does, but just this once they were all out, you see, so Mum took a chance.
We
don't mind. You said how good I was with the kids, Mr Abbott.'

‘Yes, you are. It's just – well, you're still quite young to be in charge. Lily, don't get me wrong, I don't want to get you or your mum into trouble. I just want to see if I can help in any way. I know how hard it must be for your mum bringing you up single-handed. Maybe if we spoke to social services—'

‘No! Oh please, don't. That would get Mum really upset. You won't say anything, will you? Oh please, Mr Abbott, promise?'

‘Well, I don't know what to do for the best,' he said.

‘The
best
would be for you to go away now, before Mum gets back. Please. We'll all get into trouble if she finds out we let you in the house. We're not supposed to even answer the door. Mum will go nuts if she knows.'

‘I can understand that,' said Mr Abbott uncomfortably. ‘Well, I certainly don't want to get you into trouble. All right, I'll go away now, but I'll leave you my phone number. If Mum hasn't come back in an hour or so, will you give me a ring? Do you promise?'

‘Oh yes, I promise,' I lied.

‘And I hope to see you in school tomorrow. If not I'll come round again. Now don't look so worried, I just want to make sure you're all right.'

‘Yes. Thank you. And thank you very much for my lovely angel postcards. I think they're really lovely, Mr Abbott,' I said, and then I blushed because it sounded so silly.

‘I think you're really lovely too, Lily,' said Mr Abbott. I think he was just teasing me. I hoped he might have meant it just a little bit, but when I looked in Mum's mirror after he'd gone, I groaned. I looked even worse than I'd imagined, my hair all stringy, a smear of mud still on my nose, and my T-shirt and jeans looked
awful
, as if I'd been rolling around in a pigsty.

Bliss followed me into the bedroom.

‘Are you going to phone Mr Abbott?'

‘Of course not.'

‘Are we going to school tomorrow?'

‘Nope. We can't leave Pixie.'

‘Then Mr Abbott will come round again and want to see Mum.'

‘Yes. Just stop saying the bleeding obvious, will you, Bliss. You're doing my head in,' I snapped.

‘But what are we going to
do
?'

‘I don't know. Oh, for goodness' sake, don't cry. Trust me, I'll think of something, OK?'

I lay awake half the night trying to think what to do. Then I got up really early and sat on the living-room floor with my angel postcards spread all around me. I stroked their wings with the tips of my fingers. I imagined white feathers sprouting from my back, great strong wings so I could soar into the sky, right up over the park . . .

And then I knew what we had to do. It was simple. I sat up and started writing a letter in my best handwriting.

I decorated the corners of the letter with flying angels to make it look pretty, colouring them in carefully, and I drew a lily flower beside my name.

Then I sat with my head on my knees, planning. I heard Pixie starting to mutter to herself, bouncing about in her cot. I went into our bedroom. Bliss and Baxter were still asleep, curled up together like two little dormice. Pixie smiled at me and put her arms up to be lifted out of her cot.

I hauled her out and gave her a big cuddle and then took her to the toilet. When she was sitting there I played ‘This little piggy' with her toes and she giggled delightedly, as if it was a brand-new exciting game.

‘There now, Pixie. Let's wash our hands and then make breakfast. What would you like for a special treat? Let's see: gravy powder, salt and pepper, cooking fat – or ice cream?'

‘Ice cream!' said Pixie. ‘Ice cream, ice cream!'

Baxter woke up and heard the magic word too. He hurtled after us into the kitchen.

‘Hey, sleepy boy,' I said, catching hold of him and swinging him round.

He clung to me like a little monkey and rubbed his bristly head against my cheek.

‘Why don't you stay cuddly like this all day long, eh?' I said. ‘Come on, you get the ice cream out of the freezer.'

I bustled about, setting the table, the children helping me. Bliss hadn't yet appeared when the others were already tucking in, so I went to fetch her. She was still curled up in bed clutching Headless, but her eyes were open.

‘Bliss, baby, what's up? Don't you want to come and have some ice cream for breakfast?' I said.

‘Are you still cross with me?' she whispered.

‘Oh, darling, I'm not the slightest bit cross. I'm sorry I was mean to you last night.'

I gave my sister a great big hug. ‘I do love you, Bliss. Come and have some breakfast quick, or Baxter and Pixie will have eaten up all the ice cream.'

I let them finish up the whole carton, together with a can of peaches.

‘There now! Good breakfast, eh?'

‘Can we have cornflakes now?' said Baxter.

‘No, greedy-guts, we're saving the cornflakes. I'm going to pack up lots of food. Go and get me Mum's big shopper.'

‘Are we having a picnic?' said Bliss.

‘Yes, we're going to have lots of special picnics.'

‘In the magic garden?'

‘We are going to have picnics all over the park. Because do you know what? We're going to camp there, just till Saturday, when Mum will come back.'

‘Camp!' said Baxter, clapping his hands. ‘Where's our tent?'

‘We haven't got a tent, you know that. But we'll take a blanket and pillows and the plastic tablecloth to go over the top of us in case it rains,' I said, proud that I'd thought it all out.

‘Will there be horrible creepy-crawlies if we camp?' said Bliss. She'd watched
I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!

‘Absolutely not. If even the tiniest little ant dares to come anywhere near I'll swat it flat, I promise,' I said.

‘What about the deer?'

‘Oh, Bliss! You're the only person in the entire world who could possibly be afraid of deer. They're so sweet and shy and soft and gentle.'

‘They've got those big horn things,' Bliss persisted.

‘Antlers!' Baxter shouted. ‘I'm a huge great daddy deer and these are my antlers.' He held his arms in an arc over his head, and started making snorty noises. ‘Now I'm going to
charge
.' He lunged at Bliss, who started squealing.

‘Stop it, Baxter,' I said, grabbing him.

Baxter subsided, screwing up his face.

‘What? You're not
crying
, are you?'

‘No!' Baxter shouted, though his eyes were watering.

‘I didn't hurt you. I barely touched you,' I said, astonished as his tears spilled over. ‘What
is
it?'

‘I want
my
daddy,' Baxter sniffed.

‘Oh, for goodness' sake,' I said. I tried to put my arms round him but he pushed me away.

‘I don't want you, I want
Dad
.'

I sat on the bench, running my finger round my ice-cream bowl and licking it. I didn't know what to do. I knew Mikey's mobile-phone number. All right, he was in Scotland, but if I told him Mum had gone off and left us I thought he'd come, job or not. He loved Baxter, I knew that. He loved Bliss too, though she irritated him. He was fond of Pixie. They'd be safe with him. But I wouldn't. I hated the way he looked at me, some of the things he said. It was just about all right when Mum was around. It would be much too scary without her.

No, we'd be fine. We just had to hide in the park for two days and then it would be Saturday and Mum would be back.

I started packing Mum's big shopping bag with cornflakes and biscuits and chocolate and apples and Dairylea and crisps. I put cans of Coke and Lilt in another bag, and filled two empty squash bottles with tap water. There! We had just about enough to keep us going for a couple of days. The bags were very heavy though. I'd have to hang them on Pixie's buggy. I could stuff the buggy with our blankets and pillows too, plus the plastic tablecloth. So what else did we need? A change of clothes each, in case the kids got muddy again. It would be best to pack several pairs of knickers for Pixie, just in case.

I gathered up clothes and inspected our coats. I'd forgotten to hang them up so they were still in a dank sodden heap. Well, it wasn't cold any more. I had to hope it wouldn't rain again. I found sweatshirts for each of us, because I knew it would be cooler at night. I didn't think we need bother with pyjamas. We could just sleep in our clothes.

The last bag was for our favourite things. I packed my angel postcards, my drawing pad and crayons, the fairy-tale book, Headless, the fork-lift truck and Pixie's pink plastic handbag.

‘There!' I said at last. ‘Come on, get dressed. And put your sweatshirts on.'

‘It's too hot!' said Baxter.

‘Yes, but we can't carry them, not when we've got all these bags. I want
you
to carry the biggest bag, Baxter. I hope it's not too heavy for you.'

‘Heavy! It's ever so light. I can carry it easy-peasy,' said Baxter proudly.

‘And you must carry the favourite things, Bliss. Do you think you can manage it?'

‘I think so,' said Bliss. She was scrambling into her clothes, but she looked at her trainers doubtfully. They were thick with mud. ‘Look!' she said, holding them at arm's length.

‘It's OK, we'll just brush it off. It's easy now it's gone hard. Look, we'll put a newspaper on the floor and then you can bang them together.'

Baxter started banging his together without benefit of the newspaper, sending flakes of mud everywhere. Pixie sat on the floor wiggling her pink toes.

‘No welly boots!' she said.

‘Well, go and get your shoes, silly. You can put them on yourself because they've got sticky straps.'

Pixie put her shoes on and stomped about uncertainly.

‘They feel funny.'