Lola Rose Read online

  ‘No I haven’t, Mum. She’s ever so nice. She says I’m special.’

  ‘Special needs, more like, gabbing away to that nosy old bag.’

  ‘She’s not nosy. You’ve got her all wrong, Mum. She’s just friendly.’

  ‘Rubbish!’ said Mum. ‘Now listen here, Lola Rose. You keep right out of her way. Don’t let her worm anything out of you, OK? Else you’ll be put into care as quick as a wink – and Kendall too.’

  ‘I don’t want to be put into care,’ Kendall wailed. He didn’t know what ‘care’ was but he spilled cornflakes all down his T-shirt in his anguish.

  ‘There. Now look what you’ve made him do!’ said Mum. ‘And we’re late for school as it is. Come on, mucky pup, let’s get you shifted.’

  ‘Lola Rose can change him and take him to school,’ said Jake. ‘We’re going to the doctor’s, Vic.’

  Mum went red in the face. ‘You might be going to the doctor’s, matie. I’m certainly not going to waste my time sitting in some dismal surgery breathing in everyone’s germs. Come here, Kendall.’

  My heart was thudding. ‘What’s the matter, Mum? Are you ill?’

  ‘Of course I’m not ill. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with me,’ she insisted.

  ‘Victoria,’ said Jake.

  ‘Shut up, will you,’ said Mum.

  I kept on at her but she wouldn’t tell me anything. I did as Jake said and took Kendall to school. I kept worrying about it all morning.

  ‘What’s up, Lola Rose?’ said Harpreet at lunch time. ‘You’re not in a huff with me, are you? Is it because my mum wouldn’t let you stay for dinner? She’s a bit funny like that. I’m ever so sorry.’

  ‘It’s not your mum I’m worrying about, Harpreet. It’s mine,’ I said. I stopped eating my half of Harpreet’s banana. ‘Jake was nagging at her to go to the doctor’s this morning. They wouldn’t tell me why. Mum kept saying she wasn’t ill but why else would she need to go?’

  ‘I know!’ said Harpreet. ‘She could be having a baby!’

  I stared at her.

  ‘Don’t look so gobsmacked. Your mum could be having Jake’s baby, right?’

  ‘I-I suppose so,’ I said. ‘Though I don’t think she wants any more children.’

  ‘These things happen,’ said Harpreet, in a very worldly-wise way.

  I tried to get my head round the idea of a baby. I pictured this little squirmy pink creature with Jake’s long hair falling right down to its toes. Maybe I could brush it and plait it and play hairdressers. Kendall wouldn’t always let me pick him up and baby him nowadays. Maybe it would be fun to have a real baby to play with. Mum didn’t have much patience with babies. I could look after it for her and pretend it was mine.

  I gobbled up the rest of the banana and then got stuck into my six squares of Cadbury’s chocolate. I stroked the wrapping paper. Maybe we could dress the baby in purple? I could get Jake to help me make little purple dungarees with red flowers on the pockets. The baby could have a tiny purple teddy to match . . .

  I spent the afternoon designing baby outfits on the back of my school jotter. I went arm in arm with Harpreet to pick up Kendall and Amandeep from their after-school club. We talked babies all the way home.

  ‘Who’s going to have a baby?’ Kendall asked.

  ‘Mum. Well, maybe she is. Harpreet thinks so,’ I said.

  ‘Mum!’ said Kendall, astounded. ‘She’s not! She hasn’t got a big tummy.’

  ‘Not yet. It’ll grow.’

  ‘Is our mum going to have a baby?’ said Amandeep. ‘She’s got a big tummy.’

  ‘I know, but she’s just fat. I hope I don’t get fat like her when I’m grown up,’ said Harpreet, rubbing her hands up and down her skinny hips. ‘My sister’s getting a bit fat around the tummy. If she’s pregnant our whole family will go bananas.’

  ‘I don’t want Mum to have a baby,’ said Kendall.

  ‘Yes you do. You like playing babies in the playhouse. I could show you how to bath the baby and feed it and change its nappy,’ I offered.

  ‘I don’t want to change pooey nappies!’ said Kendall.

  ‘I changed heaps of yours!’

  ‘Kendall wears a nappy!’ Amandeep exclaimed.

  ‘I don’t!’ Kendall shrieked. He punched me hard in the stomach. ‘Tell her I don’t.’

  ‘Ouch,’ I said, doubled up. ‘Will you give over punching, it hurts. Listen, you must never ever hit Mum in the tummy now. You could really hurt her – and the baby.’

  ‘Kendall wears a nappy, a nappy, a nappy!’ Amandeep chanted.

  Kendall punched her too. She punched him straight back, her little fist as hard as a stone. Kendall howled. I ended up having to carry him half the way home.

  ‘It’s your own fault, stupid,’ I said, after I’d said goodbye to Harpreet. ‘You hit her in the first place. And she’s much better at fighting than you are. You shouldn’t take any notice when she teases you.’

  ‘But I don’t wear a nappy!’

  ‘I know. And she knows. She was just being silly.’

  ‘I don’t like her any more. I want George!’ Kendall butted my shoulder with his head, trying to turn me into turquoise plush.

  George had been banished from school because he’d attacked too many children in the infants. He lurked behind Kendall and then bobbed out and gnawed their legs. Kendall’s teacher kept telling him off. Kendall said it wasn’t him, it was George, and sharks couldn’t help biting legs, it was their nature.

  Kendall’s teacher had a word with me. I told Kendall to quit it. Kendall said he’d try, but he couldn’t always stop George.

  ‘Bitey bitey bitey,’ Kendall shouted, while George attacked a big boy called Dean who said Kendall was a nutter. George couldn’t really bite – but Dean could. He bent down and sank his teeth straight into Kendall’s skinny leg.

  Mum was furious when she saw the bite marks on Kendall. She was all set to charge up to the school and have a punch-up with the teacher, big Dean and his even bigger mother. I told Mum the whole story and she backed down. She whacked Kendall over the head with George and said he had to stay shut up at home while Kendall went to school.

  Kendall wept and wailed every morning when he had to say goodbye to George. Mum told him it was his own fault and wouldn’t give in.

  Jake bought Kendall special shark-shaped turquoise jelly sweets to cheer him up on the way to school. Kendall sucked the shark sweets but howled just as hard. Turquoise drool ran down his chin and dripped onto his T-shirt.

  I tried to turn Kendall’s bed into an aquarium for George, spreading Jake’s blue denim jacket over the cover and draping my green socks here and there like seaweed. I said George could be a basking shark, so he’d love lolling around all day doing nothing.

  ‘He’ll miss me terribly,’ Kendall wept.

  ‘If he gets a little bit lonely he can always snuffle into your pillow and pretend it’s you,’ I said.

  ‘What can I snuffle into at school?’ Kendall asked.

  I suggested snipping a tiny sliver off George’s fin to go in Kendall’s pocket to use like a very tiny cuddle blanket. Kendall didn’t like the idea of a mini-amputation. He snuffled into me instead.

  I sighed about it, but I quite liked being needed so much. I’d have to watch out for Kendall when the new baby came. I’d make a big fuss of both of them. I’d pick Kendall up from school and the baby from the nursery and take them for walks in the park. I’d find a proper park with swings and a duck pond and an ice cream van. I’d strap Kendall into one swing and then sit on another with the baby on my lap.

  We’d feed the ducks. I’d hold the baby on one hip and hang onto Kendall’s T-shirt tight while he chucked bread into the water. Then we’d feed ourselves, an ice cream for me, a red lolly for Kendall and a little lick of ice cream for the baby.

  I’d be utterly Lola Rose, my hair down to my waist, and much much much thinner. Maybe people would think I was the baby’s mother. Maybe I’d go ahead and have my own babies,