Gone Missing (8 page)

“It didn't make any difference,” muttered Honey. “He'd already guessed.”

“Like he's some kind of genius?” Darcy swung her feet back to the floor. “He's got a brain the size of a pea!”

Accusingly I said that if Joe had guessed it must have been because of something Honey had said when she'd been on her own with him in the caff.

“I knew I shouldn't have left you! I knew you couldn't be trusted. Now he'll go straight to the police!”

“He won't,” said Honey. “I made him promise. I told him that your dad used to hit you and that's why you had to run away, and why you couldn't be sent back.” She announced it with an air of triumph. “I said that if you went back he'd bash you to a pulp.”

I stared at her, in outrage. How dare she tell such wicked lies about my dad? He might be a bully, and a self-righteous pain, but he'd never laid so much as a finger on me. Not once, in all the humungous great rows we'd had.

Angrily, I said, “Did you tell him that your mum was a raging alcoholic?”

Honey's cheeks turned slowly scarlet.

“Well,” I said, “did you?”

With dignity, Honey said, “I didn't have to invent excuses why I couldn't go back. I'm sixteen. I can do what I like!”

With that, she marched from the room, taking her flowers with her.

“I'm sixteen,” squeaked Darcy. “I can do what I like!”

“She is,” I said. “She is sixteen.”

“Yeah, sixteen going on six! I told you you shouldn't have brought her.”

I thought to myself that if I hadn't had Honey to keep me company, I probably wouldn't have been brave enough to run away. But I wasn't going to admit that to Darcy, so I just grunted and went, “Maybe.”

“No maybe,” said Darcy. “I bet he's on the phone right now. Hey, did your dad really used to bash you?”

I said, “No, he didn't! She had no right to say that.”

“But her mum is an alky?”

I frowned. “I don't know; p'raps she just drinks a lot. But my dad's never bashed anyone, ever!”

I spent the rest of the afternoon and most of the evening waiting for a knock at the door. Well, or more likely a
hammering
at the door. Or even the sound of splintering wood and the door crashing open as the whole place flooded with armed men. When I told Darcy, she said I was mad.

“They're not gonna send armed cops just for a couple of teenage girls! Who d'you think you are? Al-Qaeda, or something?”

“They're not going to come anyway,” said Honey. “I told you…I made him
promise
. He gave me his word.”

I muttered, “What makes you think he's going to keep it?”

“He will,” said Honey.

“But suppose he doesn't?” I hadn't run away just to be picked up by the police. That wasn't how I wanted it! I wanted Mum and Dad on the television, pleading with me. I wanted to go home of my own accord, not be taken back in disgrace.

“Just chill,” said Darcy. “You can always go and hide in a cupboard.”

When it came to bedtime and the door still hadn't been battered down, I began to relax a bit. If Joe had given us away, they'd have been round in a flash.

“I told you it'd be all right,” said Honey.

“We're still not on the news!”

Darcy rolled her eyes. “There she goes again! You've got ideas above your station, you have. Think the whole world's gonna come to a standstill just cos you've run away from home?”

“It's probably better if we're not on the news.” Honey said it as if it had just struck her. “That way, maybe, nobody'll ever come looking for us.”

I said, “Yeah, right.”

“We don't
want
them to,” said Honey, “do we?”

I said no, I supposed not.

“So why do we want to be on the news?”

“Cos she wants it both ways,” said Darcy. “She doesn't wanna be caught, but she wants to feel important. She wants to be a celeb!”

“
Do
you?” said Honey.

I snapped, “No, of course I don't! Just shut up talking about it. I'm going to bed!”

Next morning, I woke up feeling quite miserable; I don't know why. But it was like all sense of purpose had vanished from my life. I'd been so bound up, the last couple of weeks, what with plotting and planning, and laying clues. Then there'd been the excitement of actually taking off, and getting down to London, and finding Darcy. Now, suddenly, it had all gone flat.

I was at a really low point, so that when Darcy made her surprise announcement shortly after breakfast, I just went to pieces. The telephone had rung, and Darcy had gone off to answer it. When she returned she said, “Well, sorry, guys, but that's it! My sister's coming back, you'll have to go.”

I said, “G—go? Go where?”

“Not my problem,” said Darcy.

“But why? I mean, what—I mean—”

“Look, you can't stay here,” said Darcy. “There's not enough room, for one thing, and anyway, who's supposed to pay for all your food?”

“But what are we going to do? We don't know anyone, we don't have anywhere else to go to!”

“Shoulda thought of that before.”

“I did think of it before! You told me we could always crash here.”

“I said
you
could crash here, and I didn't mean indefinitely. I just meant for a day or two. You've been here a day or two.”

“B—b—” My mouth was opening and shutting like a goldfish, without any words coming out. Just bubbles of sound.

“Probably be best,” said Darcy, “you just turn tail and go home.
She's
not fit to be out on her own, and
what d'you think you're gonna do?”

“Find a job,” said Honey.

“A job? You must be joking!”

“I'm sixteen,” said Honey. “I can work.”

“Yeah? Doing what?”

“Anything! I'll earn enough for both of us.”

I finally managed to stop blowing air bubbles and say something. “We'll both find jobs! There must be some way of making money.”

“Not anything you'd wanna know about,” said Darcy. “You wouldn't last five minutes! Just go home,” she said, “and play with your Barbie doll.”

She wanted us out by two o'clock. She said her sister was coming back that afternoon and we had to be gone before she arrived.

“She'll do her nut if she thinks the police are gonna turn up!”

“The police aren't going to turn up,” whispered Honey, as Darcy whisked herself off down the hall. “Why is she doing this?”

I shook my head, helplessly.

“It's cos of me, isn't it? If it was just you, she'd let you stay!”

“She wouldn't, you heard what she said. She doesn't want either of us.”

“So what are we going to do?”

“I don't know!” I heard the words come wailing out of me. As a rule I am a very positive sort of person; I can sum things up and make decisions quite quickly. But my brain seemed to have gone into a state of shock.

Honey sat there, waiting. I felt this terrible sense of responsibility. Honey trusted me! I was the one who'd encouraged her to run away, I was the one who'd planned it all, it was up to me to come up with a solution–and I couldn't. I just felt completely useless. I also felt a bit scared.

“Jade?” said Honey. “What are we going to do?”

In defeated tones I said, “I guess we'll just have to go home.”

“No!” Honey thumped with her fist on the table. “I'm not going back! Not ever!”

“But—”

“No! I'm not!”

“But what else can we do? We can't live on the streets!”

“I know what we'll do,” said Honey. “We'll go and ask Joe.”

I really couldn't see what good it was going to do, asking Joe, but Honey seemed set on it and I didn't feel strong enough to fight her. We shoved all our stuff into our rucksacks and told Darcy that we were off.

“It's for the best,” she said. “Let's face it…you'd have had to go back sooner or later.”

“We're not going back,” said Honey. “We're—”

“Don't tell me!” Darcy clapped her hands to her ears. “I don't wanna know! It's safer that way. Case they come looking for you…I can say I've got no idea where you are.”

“Oh. All right! That's a good idea.” Honey slung her rucksack over her shoulder and opened the door. I trailed dismally after her.

“See ya!” said Darcy.

I said, “Yeah, see ya.” But I didn't honestly think that I'd ever want to. Partly because she'd chucked us out, but also because I wasn't terribly sure that I really liked her any more. She'd changed, since coming to London. In the old days she'd been fun, but now she seemed quite cold and hard. Or maybe she'd always been like that and I'd just never seen it.

Honey obviously felt that I needed cheering up. In this bright, breezy voice, like she was talking to a child, she said, “Joe will think what to do!” I made a hrrumphing sound. I had absolutely
no
faith in Joe. As far as I was concerned, he was nothing but a podgy slob with the IQ of a mollusc.

“It's the baby I feel sorry for,” said Honey. “Poor little thing!”

I felt like snarling, “Never mind the baby! What about us?”

“The baby'll be all right,” I said, instead. “It's going to have its mother back.”

“Yes, but I don't think she looks after it properly. I don't think she loves her enough. I wish we could have
brought her with us!”

“Well, we couldn't,” I said. “You can't go round kidnapping babies.”

Soup 'n Sarnies was full of people eating their lunch.

An old lady was behind the counter; Honey told me she was Joe's nan. Unlike Joe, she was very small and frail-looking. She shot us an inquiring glance, out of beady eyes, then Joe himself came lumbering over, wiping his hands on a tea towel, with this big soppy grin on his face.

He sat us down at a table in a dark corner.

“Get you some food,” he said. “Ham sarnies?”

I could really have gone for a ham sarnie, but Honey had to go and tell him I was a vegetarian so he brought
me a cheese and tomato bap, instead. There is no denying that having principles involves
a great deal of sacrifice
, but I forced myself to smile and be polite and tried not to be too aware of Honey, happily munching at my side.

Joe pulled up a chair and asked us how things were going.

“We've had to leave,” said Honey. “We've been thrown out.”

“That's not good,” said Joe.

“No, it's not,” said Honey. “We don't know where to go. We can't go back home!”

Joe frowned. He turned, solemnly, towards me. “You ought to go to the police,” he said.

“You can't let your stepdad bash you and get away with it.”

I glowered at Honey. She was responsible for this! Blackening my dad's name.

“'Tisn't right,” said Joe. “He's the one ought to leave home, not you.”

Honey wriggled, uncomfortably, on her chair. I noticed that she was deliberately avoiding looking at me.

“Dangerous, a young girl like you on her own.”

“She's not as young as all that,” said Honey. “It's her
birthday next week. Isn't it?” She nudged at me with her foot under the table. “She's going to be sixteen.”

Joe turned, somewhat doubtfully, to look at me.

“She can do what she likes, then,” said Honey.

“All the same…” Joe shook his head. “You ought to be back with your mum!”

“Oh, her mum doesn't want her,” said Honey. “She wouldn't have her back.”

What???
I scraped my chair away from the table, with a great clanging and clatter.

“I'm going to the loo,” I said.

As I came out of the loo I almost bumped into Joe, carrying mugs of coffee to one of the tables. He nodded gravely at me and said, “It's all right. All taken care of!”

“What did he mean?” I said to Honey. “All taken care of?”

“It's all taken care of! I told you Joe would help us. He said if you really didn't want to go home we can stay here, with him and his nan.”

“Stay
here
? In this place?”

“Why not?”

“Cos it's disgusting!” The loo was even more primitive than the ones at school. A horrible little cell, so narrow you could hardly turn round, with great spidery cobwebs hanging in the corners. “It's a dump!”

“That is a really rude thing to say,” said Honey.

“It's the truth,” I said. “It's a dump!”

“So where else are we going to go?”

I thought glumly that we really didn't any alternative; we would have to go back whether we liked it or not. Darcy was right: I wasn't a survivor. I'd thought I was street smart, but I was beginning to feel more and more helpless and frightened.

“I'm not going back,” said Honey. “I'm not ever going back!”

Why wasn't Honey feeling helpless and frightened? Always, before, she'd followed my lead; now suddenly she was the one making all the arrangements and coming to decisions.

“Your mum must be missing you,” I said.

Honey hooked her hair over her ears. “She won't be missing me. She doesn't like me.”

It was somehow quite chilling, to hear Honey say that.

“She's always been ashamed of me. She thinks I'm stupid.”

“You're not stupid!”

“I am a bit,” said Honey.

“You're not! Think how you looked after the baby.”

“That's different. There's nothing to just looking after a baby.”

I told her that I begged to differ. I couldn't have done it! I wouldn't even have known where to begin.

“I bet if you wanted,” I said, “you could train to be a nursery nurse, or something. Working with babies! You'd like that.”

“Not if it means going back,” said Honey. Then she put it to me, straight. “You were the one that told me I had to leave.”

“Yes, because your mum was really mean to you, but maybe while you've been away she's, like…thought about things. Like maybe my dad has. So if we go back, it'll be different. You know?”

“I'm not going back,” said Honey. “I don't want to go back! If I'm not there, my mum can get on with her life.
She doesn't want me
!”

I muttered that she didn't actually know that; not for certain.

“I do know it,” said Honey. “She's told me, lots of times.”

“Only when she's drunk! People don't always say
what they mean when they're drunk.”

“That's exactly when they say what they mean.
You
can go back,” said Honey. “I'm staying here. Joe says I can have his room–we can have his room. If you stay. He'll sleep downstairs. He says it would be really helpful if we could take over some of the work from his nan, cos she's got these bad knees? Like arthritis? He says he couldn't afford to pay us much, but we'd have free food and somewhere to sleep.” Honey looked at me, earnestly. “It's better than being on the streets!”

I grunted.

“Anyway, I told him we were grateful,” said Honey.

“You told him we'd do it?”

“Yes! I did. Well, I told him I would.”

I heaved a sigh. I desperately didn't want to, but if we weren't going to go home I honestly couldn't think what else we could do. “What about the old lady?” I said. “What's he going to tell her?”

“He'll think of something.”

“Like what?”

“Something.”

“God, this is so exciting,” I said. “I can't wait! The big brain swings into action.”

I felt ashamed the minute I'd said it; it was mean of me. I didn't have any cause to be snotty with Honey,
when all she was doing was trying to solve our problems for us. It was just that nothing was working out the way I'd imagined. Staying with a fat slob and his ancient old gran in a tatty caff? It wasn't in the least bit romantic. If anything, it was
sordid
. But if Honey wasn't going to give in and creep back with her tail between her legs, then neither was I.

“He doesn't have to let us stay,” said Honey. “I think it's really nice of him.”

“He's only doing it because he fancies you,” I said.

She blushed at that, but she didn't deny it. I thought, heavens! Don't say she's
flattered?
Plenty of far better-looking boys than old slob-like Joe had fancied her. What on earth did she see in him?

Honey, as if reading my thoughts, said, “I bet
he
wouldn't leave poor little babies to starve.”

“No,” I said, “but he'll probably want us to work our fingers to the bone. Cheap labour, that's all we'll be. Nothing comes for free…not in this life!”

The next day, we started work. I'd never had a job before; the most I'd ever done was help Mum and Dad in the shop occasionally, during school holidays. I'd quite enjoyed stacking shelves and putting prices on things. Dad didn't like me taking money, but sometimes when he wasn't there Mum used to let me, and that had
always made me feel pleasantly important.

I didn't feel in the
least
bit important working for Joe and his nan. His nan said I wasn't old enough to serve people, so mostly what I got stuck with was doing the washing up. Mounds and mounds of washing up, cos they didn't have a dishwasher.
Or
rubber gloves, which meant my hands had to go plunging into horrible greasy water. The water wouldn't have been greasy if they'd let me use the proper amount of washing-up liquid, but the old lady got well fussed the first time I did it and screeched that I'd bankrupt them if I carried on like that. So then she made me measure it out in teaspoons, and hung around behind the counter spying on me to make sure I didn't overdose on Fairy Liquid.

When I wasn't washing up I was sweeping the floor, or mopping the tables, or cleaning the beastly horrible coffee machine. I hated that coffee machine! It was
always going wrong and spewing its contents over everything. Sometimes it spat hot coffee grounds at me; other times it blew off great clouds of steam.

Honey was luckier:
she
got to play waitress. She also got to make sandwiches and do a bit of cooking. I didn't mind not being allowed to cook as it was mostly fried stuff, like eggs-bacon-sausages, and you got all covered in dobs of grease and smelled of cooking fat; but making sandwiches would have been a change from everlastingly washing up. Joe did let me have a go at it, right at the beginning. I made a great pile ready to be delivered to a nearby office…ham, cheese, beef, salami. I was quite proud of them! But then the old lady came tottering in to take a look, and let out this indignant squawk. It seemed I'd used way too much of everything.
Again
. Too much ham, too much cheese, even too much marge, for goodness' sake. That was
when she said I'd better stick to cleaning duties.

I had the feeling that Joe's nan wasn't too keen on me being there. She was OK with Honey, but she always seemed a bit suspicious of me, like she didn't really believe that I was going to be sixteen in a few days' time.

Honey said, “I had to tell them that! If they knew you were only fourteen they'd call the police.”

“Yeah, like if they knew my mum really wanted me back…telling them she didn't! How could you do that?”

“I was only trying to help,” said Honey. “I found us a job!”

“So how long do you think you're going to go on doing this
job
?” I said.

“We can do it as long as we like! We can do it till you're really sixteen, and then—”

“What?”

“Get other jobs! If we want to.”

Honey seemed in her element, waiting tables, doing the cooking. She was all busy and bustling and full of a happy sense of her own importance. Joe was pleased cos the customers liked her. She smiled at them and talked to them and laughed at their jokes. We'd only been there a couple of days and she seemed to know
everything there was to know about them. She tried telling me, but I was too impatient to listen.

“How come you don't get bored?” I said. “I'd be bored out of my skull!”

“The customers aren't
boring
,” said Honey. She sounded quite shocked. “It's nice, hearing all about their families and stuff.”

I said, “Whatever turns you on.”

“Don't you like it here?” said Honey.

“What's to like?”

“I like it!”

I didn't know how she could, but she and Joe got on like a house on fire. Honey had discovered that Joe was a fan of the Beany Boys, and they played their CDs till I thought that I'd scream. The Beany Boys are just so naff it's unbelievable. I mean, that anyone would ever have bothered recording them in the first place! I sat and sulked, and worried about the future. I just couldn't imagine still being here, mopping floors and scrubbing
tables, in two years' time. But where else could I go? What else could I do?

Honey insisted that once I was sixteen I'd be able to do anything I wanted. I said, “Like go to uni? I don't think so!”

Honey munched on her lip; she didn't have an answer to that. Joe said, “You want to go to uni, you got to study. You want to study, you got to go back to school.”

I felt like hitting him. Stupid slob-like thing! How could I go back to school with the police out searching for me?

“Soon as you're sixteen,” said Joe. “Do anything you like, when you're sixteen.”