Lily Alone Read online

‘But – it was three!’

  ‘Yes, but I’m not very good at counting today,’ he said, smiling.

  ‘You’re so lovely. Thank you very very much,’ I said. ‘Say thank you, all of you lot.’

  ‘Thank you,’ they said in chorus.

  Pixie said, ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you!’

  Then we carried our ice creams very carefully back to the grass and sat down away from everybody else. We licked and sucked and nibbled very happily indeed. When I was finished I lay down on my back. I relished the cool milky taste in my mouth as I stared up at the blue sky and felt the sun on my face. Maybe I’d get a better suntan than Mum. I felt a little surge of pride. I was coping splendidly. I’d kept all three kids safe and fed and happy, and here we were in this glorious park. Everyone was being kind to us and we had the rest of today and all of Friday to hide out in our tree-house and go exploring.

  When I was grown up I’d maybe live further up the hill in the posh houses and look out at this park from my back bedroom window and remember the time I hid here with my brother and sisters . . . and I felt so fond of them now. I even wondered about inviting them to live with me. I imagined Baxter grown up, strong and bold and capable, able to fix the boiler and frighten away any burglars. Bliss would be sweet and gentle, and she’d like to keep house for us, maybe do all the cooking. Pixie would be beautiful, out every night with a different boyfriend, but she’d always come home to us, because we were her family . . .

  ‘Lily, Lily! I need to do a wee-wee. I need to do a wee-wee right now. Oh dear, oh dear, I’m doing my wee-wee now!’

  ‘Wake up, Lily, Pixie’s wetting herself and it’s boring here, there’s no one to kill.’

  ‘Lily, there’s a big bug on my leg, get it off, it’s so scary!’

  No, I’d be much better off living all alone. I sat up with a sigh and flicked the tiny beetle off Bliss’s skinny leg. I took Pixie by the hand and led her off towards the toilets in the café.

  ‘You two come too,’ I said to Bliss and Baxter.

  ‘I’m not going in the ladies’ toilets,’ said Baxter, but I held him with my other hand and wouldn’t let him go.

  ‘You’re not to be trusted, matey. You ran off last time, right across that dangerous road to the playground. I’m not risking you running off again and getting lost. You’re coming with us!’

  ‘Stop it, you’re twisting my arm!’ Baxter moaned.

  ‘I’ll twist your arm right off if you don’t shut up,’ I said, so fiercely that he knew I meant business and stopped struggling.

  I hauled all three of them into the toilets and mopped Pixie while I made Bliss and Baxter use the loo.

  While they were distracted washing their hands, vying with each other to see who could make the biggest soap bubble, I dashed into a cubicle myself.

  When I came out two old grannies were fussing over the kids, helping them wash their hands. Pixie dimpled at them, and Baxter chatted away, telling them he was a big boy and didn’t really need anyone’s help, but Bliss went rigid with fear when they tried to get her to stick her wet hands in the drying machine. She had this silly idea that it would suck her up completely.

  ‘It’s OK, Bliss, just flap your hands to dry them,’ I said.

  ‘Bliss? is that the little girl’s name?’ said one old granny, smiling. ‘What a delightful name!’

  ‘No, no – it’s – I said Fliss, short for Felicity,’ I said quickly. ‘Thank you for helping them. We have to go now. Our mum’s waiting for us.’

  I pushed the kids quickly out of the toilets.

  ‘Will you quit shoving me, Lily. I’ll be a mass of bruises,’ Baxter grumbled.

  ‘Yeah, like you haven’t been kicking me all over and giving me bruises since you were Pixie’s age,’ I said. I grabbed hold of Pixie as she tried to run into the café.

  ‘Hey, hey, it’s this way.’

  ‘No, I want a cake now. And a sandwich. And chippies,’ she said.

  ‘I want, I want, I want! You’re such a greedy-guts. You’ve just had an ice cream,’ I said – but I guessed it was about lunchtime, and the smell of food was making my tummy rumble.

  ‘I want a cake too – and that pie!’ said Baxter.

  ‘We haven’t got any money. You all know that, even you, Pixie. So shut up, all of you. Come on, we’ll go back to our tree hidey-hole. We’ve got lots of food there.’

  ‘It’s not proper food though, it’s just cornflakes and silly stuff like that,’ said Baxter. ‘You’re useless, Lily.’

  I felt angry tears prickling in my eyes. I’d been trying so hard to look after them all. It was mean of Baxter to call me useless. I wondered if I could somehow have made us better food. There were eggs at home. I could have boiled some and mixed them with salad cream and made lovely egg sandwiches . . . No, we’d run out of bread. What were we going to do if the food we had with us didn’t last till Saturday? I hadn’t realized we’d feel so hungry here.

  It was making it worse, all of us standing staring at the food on display, our mouths watering. Pixie looked particularly wistful, reaching out her hand towards the cake.

  ‘Ah, look at that little moppet,’ said yet another granny. ‘Are you hungry, darling?’

  ‘Very hungry,’ Pixie lisped, blinking her big blue eyes and looking hopeful.

  But the granny just laughed at her and limped off to order some soup for herself.

  ‘Come on, outside. We can’t beg,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, we can. Let Pixie, she’s good at it,’ said Baxter.

  I wavered because I was so very hungry – but I knew this would be a way of drawing attention to ourselves. One of the serving ladies was already hovering, worried we might touch the food.

  ‘No, come on, now,’ I hissed. The kids followed me, grumbling and moaning, back through the café to the outside terrace at the top of the stone steps.

  Almost every table was occupied with lucky people eating. There was one spare table right at the end. No one had cleared it yet. It had four big plates, with quite a lot of chips left, and half a pie. Baxter spotted it and his eyes went big.

  I looked around. No one seemed to be watching us, they were all too busy talking and eating their meals.

  ‘OK,’ I said softly. ‘We’ll sit down at that table and pretend it’s our meal. ‘Follow me. Act casually.’

  Baxter over-acted, tossing his head about and trying to whistle. Bliss started to giggle helplessly, but I quelled her with a look. We sat down at the table, Baxter barging to be first so he could sit in front of the pie plate.

  ‘No, we’re going to share it,’ I said, leaning over and cutting it into four squares. ‘And we’re counting out the chips, OK?’

  ‘Is it all right to eat other people’s food?’ Bliss asked.

  ‘No, it’s very germy indeed – in fact I saw a fat man sneeze into this pie, and he licked all the chips,’ said Baxter.

  ‘Yuck,’ said Bliss, pushing her plate away.

  ‘Don’t be silly, Bliss, Baxter’s just tricking you so he can have your share. It is bad to eat other people’s leftover food but we haven’t any choice, have we? It’s not stealing because someone else has already paid for it – and they don’t want it any more. It would just get chucked in the rubbish bin so we might as well eat it, eh?’

  Bliss didn’t look convinced, and didn’t even try one chip, but Baxter and Pixie tucked in heartily, and so did I. Our small portions were finished in three or four gulps and we were still left hungry. I looked at the people at the tables nearest to us. The two grannies from the toilet were there, eating large slices of coffee-and-walnut cake and sipping frothy coffee. The larger granny wolfed hers down, but the other one nibbled hers in a half-hearted fashion.

  ‘I think we might be getting a bit of cake for pudding,’ I murmured to the others.

  We had to wait a long time because the grannies nattered to each other for ever, but eventually they heaved themselves up and tottered off in their baggy trousers and sensible sandals.