The Bed and Breakfast Star (18 page)

OK, I thought. Maybe just
one
joke to try to cheer myself up. So I whispered all to myself, ‘What do you get if you cross an elephant with a mouse? Socking great holes in the skirting board!’ I couldn’t help laughing. You can’t really do that quietly. The director glared in my direction. ‘Dear goodness, you dippy kids! I don’t want merriment, I don’t want laughter, I don’t want JOKES.’

‘OK, OK, no jokes,’ I said, and I pinched my lips together with my fingers so he could see I was serious. Only it was such a pity. The mouse and elephant joke had triggered off a whole herd of elephant jokes inside my head, and they were trumpeting tremendously.

‘Well
I
can’t tell jokes,’ said Naomi truthfully. ‘I can’t dance or sing or anything. So you’d really better pick Elsa.’

‘Oh Naomi,’ I said, immensely touched. ‘You can’t do all the showy things, but you’re ever so brainy. You could get to be on one of the quiz shows, eh?’

‘Never mind quiz shows. This little girl’s perfect for
Children in Crisis.
Now just stand here, sweetie – little brothers too, that’s it, and I’ll ask you a few questions while the camera rolls, right?’

‘No, wait! Neil, come and get your nose wiped and stop that silly sniffling,’ Naomi said urgently. ‘And you, Nicky, pull your socks up.’

‘No, we want you just as you are, runny nose and all! Now, I want you to tell me how miserable it is in the hotel and how your little brothers keep crying and how lousy it is not to have enough money for lots of dolls and video games like other kids. OK, action!’

Naomi chewed her lip anxiously, not going into action at all. She was thinking hard.

‘It
is
miserable sometimes. But my mum gives me a cuddle or I read my book or my friend Elsa tells me a joke and then I cheer up.’

I cheered up too, but the director seemed determined to damp everything down. He practically told Naomi what she had to say. The first time she had a go she came out all weird and wooden, and she kept looking up at the director anxiously and hissing, ‘Is that right? Have I remembered it?’

‘No, sweetie, don’t keep saying that. Just act natural, for pity’s sake,’ said the director, practically tearing his hair.

The bunny lady receptionist came clopping out into the street in her high heels, wagging her pointed nails at the television crew.

‘Now look! You’re harassing our tenants. We’ll call the police again. The Manager’s on the phone right this minute. And as for you kids, I’m warning you. We don’t have to house you, you know. If you’ve got any complaints then you can push off somewhere else.’

She clip-clopped back into the hotel. Naomi stared after her worriedly, her eyes filling with tears.

‘Does she mean that? She wouldn’t really throw us out, would she?’ Naomi whispered. ‘We haven’t got anywhere else to go. And it’s so unfair, because we’ve put up with ever such a lot – we’ve even had those horrible bugs, cockroaches, squiggling all over the floor. One even got in the toe of our baby Nathan’s bootee, and yet the Manager wouldn’t even send for the pest-control people. He said it was our fault because we were dirty! And my mum cried when he said that because we’re as clean as we can be – we bath every day even when there isn’t any hot water, and my mum keeps the room spotless, and that’s not easy with the four of us kids. I don’t know what we’re going to do, because we’ve been waiting six months and we still can’t get a flat and if we get turned out the hotel then us kids will have to go into Care and we’ve got to stay with our mum.’

‘We want our mum,’ said Nicky.

‘Mum! Mum!’ wailed Neil.

‘Perfect!’ said the director. The cameras had been rolling for all of Naomi’s outburst. ‘Absolutely great, sweetie. Lovely emotive stuff. Right folks, I think we can hit the road now.’

‘But what about us?’ said Naomi, wiping her eyes. ‘Are we going to get thrown out?’

‘Mmm? Oh, I shouldn’t think so,’ he said vaguely.

He’d turned his back on us. He didn’t know. He didn’t even care. He just wanted to make a good television programme.

I put my arm round Naomi.

‘We’ll be OK,’ I said, giving her a hug. ‘Don’t take any notice of him. He’s just been using us. Still, it looks like you really will be on the telly after all, Naomi.’

Naomi didn’t seem very thrilled about the idea. She still worried and worried that her family might get thrown out.

‘Look, they’ve threatened us too. That Manager thinks it’s all my mum and Mack’s fault. We’ll all be thrown out together. We’ll have to set up a little camp. It’s OK, Naomi. Don’t get in such a state.’

I tried to cheer her up, but it wasn’t easy.

‘I wish you hadn’t got us all involved with those telly people,’ Naomi said, sighing.

That’s what Mum and Mack were saying too in room 608. Only they were saying it a lot more angrily. I could hear them yelling from right down the corridor.

‘Oh-oh,’ I said.

‘It’s all your fault, you stupid Scottish git!’ Mum was screaming. ‘You shouldn’t have phoned them. Now that Manager will make our lives a misery.’

‘It’s a flaming misery as it is. It couldn’t be worse. I was simply trying to help, so stop giving me all this hassle, woman.’

I slunk into the room. Pippa was crouched in the duck cot, clutching Baby Pillow. Hank was grizzling in bed, needing his nappy changed. I mopped them up and crept off with them. I don’t think Mum and Mack even noticed.

It was getting near teatime and there were lots of cooking smells coming from the kitchen. Mum still said it was a filthy hole and we couldn’t cook in there or we’d go down with a terrible disease. I was starting to get so starving hungry I was willing to risk the terrible disease, but we didn’t have anything to cook.

Naomi’s mum was stirring a very interesting bean stew that smelt ever so rich and tasty. She had baby Nathan on her hip, and he was smacking his lips in happy anticipation.

Naomi told her mum all about the television people and the Manager’s threats, but Naomi’s mum didn’t get mad at all. She just went on stirring her stew.

‘We’ll be fine, little old lady,’ she said to Naomi. ‘You’re such a worry-guts. Here, tea’s just about ready. Have you got the plates set out in our room?’

She saw Pippa and Hank and me looking at her hungrily.

‘Do you kids want to come and join us for tea?’ she said cheerily.

We wanted to extremely badly, but there didn’t look that much of a stew and it seemed a bit mean to eat their food so I said we’d be having our own tea in a minute.

But when I did a quick sortie back to room 608 the row was getting louder and fiercer and I knew there was no point disturbing them. So Pippa and Hank and I hung around the kitchen some more. Simple Simon’s mum came along and she cooked a whole load of chips in the greasy old chip-pan – so many that they almost came bubbling over the top. They smelt so good and she had such a lot that I decided we’d have a few if we got offered. Only we didn’t.

Simon’s mum is very fierce.

‘What are you kids staring at?’ she said sharply. ‘Clear off out of it. Go and get your own tea.’

But that was easier said than done. The row was still roaring. So we sat outside the room, our tummys rumbling. Mack came storming out eventually. He tripped right over me actually. I felt like calling him a Great Scottish Git too, but I sensed it wasn’t quite the moment. I knew where he was going. Down the pub. And he wouldn’t be back for ages.

At least that meant we could get in our room. But Mum didn’t seem up to considering something ordinary like tea. She was in bed crying and when I tried to talk to her she pulled the covers up over her head. She went on crying for a bit and then she went to sleep.

I felt really funny for about five minutes. Not funny ha-ha. Funny peculiar and horrible. It hadn’t been a good day. I wasn’t going to be on television. I didn’t have any tea. I felt like getting into my own bed and pulling the covers up and having a good cry.

But Pippa and Hank were looking up at me and I couldn’t let them down. I switched on the telly and said they could stay up as long as they liked because Mum was asleep and Mack was out. And I hunted round the room for food and found some stale sliced bread and a pot of raspberry jam.

‘We’re going to have a really special tea, you’ll see,’ I said, scrabbling through Mum’s handbag for her nail scissors. I got snipping and scraping and made us ultra-special jam sandwiches.

I made a clown jam sandwich for Hank.