Cookie (18 page)

I said it to make her laugh but she still looked as if she was going to cry.

‘Avril thinks I’m bonkers,’ she said shakily. ‘Maybe I
am
. Oh, Beauty, I don’t know what to
do
.’

‘Let’s stay here tonight. I like it here,’ I said, stroking Cream Puff. She stretched herself lazily. She obviously liked it here too. ‘Maybe Auntie Avril will change her mind and let us stay for a while. I could do all sorts of errands for her, feed Cream
Puff
and make cups of tea and do the vacuuming. And you could …’

‘Yeah, what could I do?’ Mum said tearfully. ‘You could make us cookies,’ I said.

I was serious, but this time Mum snorted with laughter, even though the tears were still running down her face.

‘A fat lot of use that is,’ she said, blowing her nose. ‘No, Beauty, we’ll have to go somewhere else tomorrow. Avril’s right, your dad would be furious. It’s very kind of her to let us stay now. Come on, let’s go and see what’s in the fridge.’

There were lots of special ready-meals for one. We heated two in Auntie Avril’s microwave and ate them at her tiny kitchen table. I’d hardly been able to eat any of my special birthday buffet. I realized I was starving now. I wolfed my meal down
and
most of Mum’s, because she just stirred her food round and round with her fork. She was thinking again, frowning hard at her plate, twisting her knife and fork round and round like the hands of a clock. I leaned forward and rubbed her frown lines with my fingers.

‘We’ll be OK, Mum,’ I whispered.

‘Yes. Of course we will,’ she said. ‘Tell you what – shall we see if Avril’s got some flour and sugar and stuff? We could make her some cookies as a thank-you present. Do you think she’d like that?’

‘I think she’d love your cookies, Mum.’

‘You start looking for all the ingredients, then. I’ll go and get the cases. I remembered to pack my recipe book,’ Mum said proudly.

We made sugar and spice cookies, raiding Auntie Avril’s spice rack and sifting cinnamon and cloves into the cookie dough. We washed up carefully while the cookies were baking, looking anxiously at Auntie Avril’s oven every two minutes in case it might misbehave and burn them. When we opened the oven door we breathed a great sigh of relief. The cookies looked perfect and smelled delicious.

‘We could have one each, just to make sure they’re all right,’ said Mum.

It was getting near my bedtime now but I didn’t want to go to bed and leave Mum sitting worrying all by herself.

‘Oh, you might as well stay up if you’re not sleepy. After all, it
is
your birthday,’ said Mum.

I’d totally forgotten it was still my birthday. It seemed to have lasted for weeks already. Mum switched on Auntie Avril’s television but we couldn’t settle to watching anything for more than two minutes.

‘I know,’ said Mum. ‘You packed your Sam and Lily DVD, didn’t you?’

‘You bet I did.’

‘Well, run and fetch it then.’

I slotted Sam and Lily into the DVD player. Mum and I curled up together to watch. Cream Puff woke up to watch too.

‘Who do we want to see?’ said the voice, as Sam and Lily spun round and round.

The little children sang, ‘
Sam and Lily in the Rabbit Hutch
.’ Mum and I sang it too.

‘Hey there!’ said Sam, directly to me.

He looked surprised to see me squashed up on a slippery leather sofa in a completely strange room. Lily blinked at Cream Puff.

‘How are you doing?’ asked Sam. ‘I’m fine,’ I said.

Sam put his head on one side.

‘Well, maybe I’m telling fibs,’ I whispered. I glanced at Mum. She was frowning again, nibbling at her nail, clearly not concentrating on the programme.

‘Sam, Mum and I have left Dad. Something terrible happened. I can’t say it in front of Lily. We’re at Auntie Avril’s now but we can’t stay here and we haven’t got anywhere else to go,’ I mouthed.

‘Oh dear, oh dear,’ Sam said softly. ‘I think you and Mum need a little break. How about a holiday?’ He raised his voice, asking everyone now. ‘Where do
you
go on holiday? Do you go to the seaside?’

‘We don’t really go anywhere on holiday,’ I said. ‘We went to Marbella once but Dad got all fidgety
and
bored on the beach and said it was a waste of time.’

‘Lily doesn’t like to go on holiday much,’ said Sam. ‘She doesn’t like too much sun, she doesn’t like getting her paws all sandy, she doesn’t like paddling – she doesn’t even like ice cream! Isn’t she a funny bunny? I
love
sunbathing, I
love
building sandcastles, I
love
swimming in the sea – and I especially love ice cream!’

‘So do I!’ I said.

‘I should have a little holiday right now,’ Sam said, just to me. ‘You and Mum. You’ll have a lovely time. It will all work out, you’ll see.’

I nodded, snuggling up to Mum and Cream Puff, suddenly soothed. My head went on nod-nod-nodding and then Mum was gently shaking me awake.

‘Your DVD’s finished, pet. You’ve had a little doze. Let’s pop you up to bed. I think I’ll go to bed too. I don’t really want Avril lecturing me when she comes home.’

We had a quick wash in Auntie Avril’s bright turquoise bathroom. Mum had forgotten to pack a nightie so she wore one of my T-shirts. She looked more of a little girl than ever.

The spare room was very grown up and glamorous, with a leopard-skin throw over the bed and a great china leopard baring its teeth at us in a corner.

‘Watch out he doesn’t bite,’ said Mum.

‘He looks almost as scary as that giant pink rabbit!’

We got the giggles again and tried to jump into bed quick, but Auntie Avril had sheets instead of a duvet and she’d tucked them in so firmly you had to pull for all you were worth to prise your way in. They felt icy too so Mum and I had to cuddle up close. We were both shivering though it wasn’t
that
cold.

‘I can’t quite believe we’re here,’ said Mum. ‘It feels so strange. I wonder what your dad’s doing now.’

‘He’ll be ranting,’ I said.

‘But he’s all by himself,’ said Mum.

I imagined Dad stomping up and down the house in his socks, bellowing abuse. I saw him very big at first, but he started to get smaller and the empty house got bigger until he was scampering about like a mouse, squeak-squeak-squeaking to no one at all.

‘Mum?’

‘Yes, darling?’

‘I feel kind of sorry for Dad.’

‘I know. So do I.’ ‘But if we went back he’d just start all over again.’

‘I know that too.’

We were quiet for a little. I thought of Dad bashing the cookies. I thought about Birthday.

‘Beauty? Don’t cry, darling.’

‘Oh, Mum. Look, this sounds daft, but do you think baby rabbits go to heaven?’

‘Yes, definitely,’ said Mum.

‘And do you think he’ll be … whole there? His little head will be back in place?’

‘Yes, of course. He’ll be skipping about with all the angels. They’ll be having little arguments over who gets to have him as their special pet,’ said Mum.

We were quiet again. We heard the front door open and Auntie Avril come in. We heard her go into the kitchen and give a little gasp. We nudged each other, knowing she must have spotted the plate of cookies. We heard a glass clinking downstairs, and then after ten minutes or so she came upstairs. We stayed quiet until she’d been in bed a while.

Then I whispered in Mum’s ear, ‘Are you still awake?’

‘Yes.’

‘I know you’re right. Auntie Avril’s OK but we can’t stay here,’ I said.

‘Mm.’

‘So have you thought where we can go?’

‘I’ve thought and thought and thought, but
I
haven’t come up with anything just yet,’ said Mum.

‘I think I know where we can go!’

‘Where, darling?’ ‘The seaside!’ ‘But we don’t know anyone at the seaside, do we?’

‘It doesn’t matter, does it? We could pretend we’re going on holiday. We haven’t had a holiday for ages. We’ve got a
bit
of money. Let’s just go to the seaside and paddle and sunbathe and it’ll all feel easy and normal. We’ll just be like everyone else, on our holiday.’

I was cuddled up so close to Mum I could feel her heart beating fast.

‘OK,’ she said. ‘That’s what we’ll do. For tomorrow, anyway. Well done, Beauty, it’s a great idea.’

We lugged our cases into the car and thanked Auntie Avril for letting us stay overnight.

‘Well, if you get into totally dire straits you’d better come back, Gerry or no Gerry,’ she said. ‘And thanks for the cookies, girls. They were a lovely surprise. They’re very good, Dilys. I thought you couldn’t cook!’

‘Mum’s the greatest cookie cook in the whole world,’ I said. ‘And I’m learning fast, so maybe I’m the second greatest!’

We drove off, Auntie Avril standing on her doorstep under her hanging basket of petunias, waving and waving until we turned the corner.

‘So, which seaside shall we pick?’ said Mum. ‘Brighton’s fun.’

I remembered Brighton from a day trip.

‘It’s too big and busy and the beach is all pebbles,’ I said. ‘Let’s find a sandy seaside place.’

‘OK,’ said Mum. ‘Well, we’ll drive due south and see what we find. If we tip over into the sea we’ll know we’ve gone too far.’

We couldn’t go directly south all the time because the roads wiggled around and once or twice we had to stop the car and peer hard at the map. I couldn’t
read
it when we were driving along because it made me feel sick. I wasn’t much better sorting out the route when we were stopped. I kept squinting at red roads and yellow roads and little spidery black roads, trying to work out which one we were on.

‘Don’t worry, babes, we’ll make it to the seaside somehow,’ said Mum. ‘Bournemouth’s very sandy. And Bognor. Which one shall we aim at?’

I peered at the map. A name in tiny print suddenly swam into focus.

‘Oh, Mum! Not Bournemouth, not Bognor. I’ve found a place here right by the sea and guess what it’s called: Rabbit Cove! Oh, Mum,
please
let’s go to Rabbit Cove!’

‘I’ve never even heard of it. Let’s see where it is.’ Mum squinted at the map. ‘It’s obviously a very
small
place, not a proper town. I wonder why it’s got such a funny name? You don’t get rabbits at the seaside, do you?’

‘I think it must be because of the shape of the cove. See those two sticking-out bits of land? They look like rabbit’s ears!’ I said.

‘So they do! OK, OK, we’ll go and have a look at Rabbit Cove if you’ve set your heart on it, though I’m not sure there’ll be anywhere to stay there.’

I tried hard to keep us on a direct route now, peering at the map as Mum drove, though I started to feel horribly travel sick.

‘Open your window a bit – and sit back and close your eyes,’ said Mum.

I did as I was told because all the world outside the window had started spinning and I kept yawning and swallowing spit. It seemed to be spinning inside my own head now. I was falling down and down and down into a scary black nothingness.

I called and called for Mum but she wasn’t there. And then I called for Dad and I could hear him calling back. I struggled to get closer to him, reaching out, but then a light flashed on his face and I saw it was screwed up with rage.

‘You don’t want me and I don’t want
you
, because you’re ugly ugly ugly,’ he shouted.

He shoved me hard and I tumbled on downwards, mile after mile, but I could still hear him shouting
ugly
. Other voices joined in. Skye and Arabella and Emily were shouting it, all the girls in my class, even Rhona, and I started crying, my hands over my ears …

‘Beauty! Beauty, sweetheart, wake up. It’s all right, Mum’s here.’

I blinked in sudden dazzling daylight. Mum leaned over and pulled my head onto her shoulder.

‘Oh, Mum, I couldn’t find you!’ I sobbed.

‘It was just a horrible nightmare, darling, that’s all. You were crying out and tossing about. I had to stop driving,’ said Mum.