Diamond Girls Read online

  ‘No!’ I wailed, clinging to him.

  ‘Stop that nonsense, Dixie, you’re showing me up,’ Mum snapped. ‘You’re just being silly now.’

  I looked Mum straight in the eyes. ‘You’re being silly too, Mum,’ I said. I looked over at little Sundance abandoned on the mattress.

  Mum looked too. She suddenly shut up. ‘My baby,’ she whispered, and went back to the mattress. She cradled Sundance, kissing the tufty hair.

  Martine and Jude and Rochelle shook their heads in disbelief. Mum was usually incapable of shutting up when she went off on one of her rants. She always yelled herself hoarse and then she’d burst into noisy tears and give us all a hug and say she was a bad-tempered old bag and the worst mum in the world and we’d all be better off in care. Then we’d hug her back and tell her she was the best mum in the world and we didn’t want to live with anyone else but her even if she was a bad-tempered old bag.

  ‘Please please please don’t go, Uncle Bruce,’ I said.

  ‘I have to go back home, Dixie. I’ve got to be up at crack of dawn to get to the flower market. But don’t worry, dear, I’ll keep in touch, if it’s OK with your mum.’

  ‘And you’ll still be my uncle?’ I asked.

  Bruce glanced at Mum. She was rocking the baby, not bothering with either of us any more.

  ‘If you want,’ he whispered.

  ‘I don’t want you to be my soppy old uncle, but I need you to be my Wing Chun instructor,’ said Jude.

  ‘You’re on,’ said Bruce. ‘Come on then, let’s get some of this blessed furniture upstairs. It looks like it’s just you and me doing the heaving and hauling.’

  ‘I would help, but I can’t,’ said Martine. Her hands were cupped over her tummy.

  ‘You got a stomach ache then?’ said Jude.

  ‘Yeah,’ Martine said quickly.

  ‘Yeah, me too,’ said Rochelle.

  ‘Rubbish!’ I said.

  ‘Fat lot you know about it, Dixie,’ said Rochelle.

  ‘Well OK, I’ll help,’ I said. ‘I can, I can, I’m much stronger than I look, Uncle Bruce.’ I took off my cardie and flexed my arms to show him.

  ‘You’ve got muscles like little peanuts, sweetheart,’ said Bruce. He rolled his own sleeves up in a businesslike fashion. He couldn’t help flexing his own muscles proudly. It looked like he had an orange inside each skinny arm.

  ‘Wow, Mr Body Builder!’ said Jude. ‘That’s not from Wing Chun, is it?’

  ‘I did use to go down the gym a lot too,’ said Bruce.

  ‘Get you, Freda Flowershop,’ said Rochelle. ‘Hey, Martine, can I borrow your mobile a sec? I want to text someone.’

  ‘Not that creep in McDonald’s!’ said Jude.

  ‘No, you can’t have my mobile, I need it,’ said Martine. ‘What creep?’

  ‘Get out of the way, all of you,’ said Jude. ‘Why can’t you help, Martine? I know it’s not your time of the month, so don’t use that as an excuse.’

  ‘Will you just shut up, Jude! I’ve got a stomach bug, if you must know. I feel sick.’

  ‘Rubbish!’ said Jude.

  ‘It’s not rubbish, Jude, I heard her being sick this morning,’ I said. I was trying to be helpful but Martine looked horrified.

  ‘Shut up, Dixie. Can’t you ever keep your mouth shut?’ she hissed.

  ‘Yeah, she’s the biggest telltale-tit ever,’ said Rochelle.

  ‘I can keep secrets! I can keep the most amazing secrets, so you two just shut up yourselves. Just you wait till you find out my secret!’

  ‘Dixie!’ Mum was shouting from the living room. ‘Come in here! I need you. Now!’

  ‘I’ll help you, Mum,’ said Martine, pushing me out the way.

  ‘No, Martine, I want Dixie.’

  ‘Oh, all right, then, suit yourself,’ said Martine huffily, flouncing off.

  ‘Please lend us your mobile, Martine,’ said Rochelle, running after her. ‘Hey, Jude, do my stuff first, eh? I want to get my room sorted. But be careful, don’t bash it all about. Watch my dressing table, won’t you?’

  ‘You watch it or we’ll bash you all about, Roxanne,’ said Bruce. ‘Don’t go giving us your orders. We’re not the removal men. We’re doing this as a favour, aren’t we, Jude?’

  ‘Spot on, Bruce,’ said Jude.

  She dragged Rochelle’s bed out of Mum’s room, tipping it on its side. She looked as if she’d like to tip Rochelle right over too.

  ‘Dixie!’ Mum said urgently. ‘Come in here. Come nearer!’

  I squatted beside her on the mattress.

  ‘Now look, stop hinting stuff! Your sisters aren’t idiots even though they act like it most of the time. You and me have a pact, kiddo. You swore you wouldn’t breathe a word.’

  ‘Only for a few days, Mum.’

  ‘A few weeks?’

  ‘That’s not going to work, Mum. Imagine pushing Sundance down the shops in a buggy and people stopping you and doing all that coo-coo ga-ga Is-it-a-boy-or-a-girl? stuff. You can’t say he’s a little boy and then a few weeks later start putting her in a little pink dress.’

  ‘I won’t speak to anyone. They’re a load of nutters and no-hopers round here anyway.’ Mum paused. ‘Maybe that’s me. Ms Nutter No-Hope, who can’t provide for her kids or find one single decent guy to be their dad. I knew we couldn’t stay in Bletchworth for all sorts of reasons but why did I ever think this dump was the answer? I’ve just landed us in a worse mess. I got it all wrong – all the charts, the cards, the crystal ball. I got my baby wrong wrong wrong. I so wanted a boy, Dixie. I need my little baby boy. Don’t take him away from me, please, darling. Let me keep him for a bit longer.’

  Mum started crying. Sundance started wailing too, threshing sadly in her blue blanket. She smelled as if her nappy needed changing, but Jude and Bruce would be in and out all the time, shifting the furniture upstairs.

  ‘Let me take Sundance upstairs to the bathroom and I’ll change her— him,’ I said. ‘Don’t cry, Mum. I won’t breathe another word about our secret, I promise. Sundance can stay a boy for a bit if it’ll really make you happy.’

  I picked Sundance up and carried her carefully out of the room. Jude and Bruce were halfway up the stairs with Rochelle’s bed. Bruce was sweating, his glasses misting up.

  ‘You be careful, Uncle Bruce,’ I said anxiously.

  ‘I’ll be OK – if I take it – slowly,’ he panted.

  Jude hauled, Bruce pushed, and they got the bed to the top of the stairs.

  ‘I want it under the window,’ said Rochelle. ‘No, hang on, maybe it would be better against the wall.’

  ‘You shove it wherever you want it, Lady Muck,’ said Jude. ‘Come on, Bruce, mate. Are you all right?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Bruce, though he was leaning against the wall, trying to catch his breath.

  ‘Leave Rochelle’s stuff. You go and have a sit down, Uncle Bruce. You look done in,’ I said.

  He just chuckled at me and walked stiffly downstairs.

  I took Sundance into the bathroom and gingerly unpeeled her. She wasn’t just wet. It was far worse than I’d imagined. I didn’t know what to do.

  ‘Please hurry up and get toilet trained,’ I said to my little sister, rolling my cardie sleeves right up.

  I tore off a wad of loo roll, seized her by the ankles and started dabbing at her. I dabbed and dabbed and dabbed. I wondered if it would be better to give her a bath. I didn’t know how you bathed a baby. She was so little. I was scared I might drop her if she was all slippery with soap. Her head was too wobbly and she wriggled too much.

  I managed the best I could, and then squidged the dirty nappy into a plastic carrier bag.

  ‘There now, little Sundance. All clean and dry. Try to stay that way, eh? You’re a lovely little baby but I wish you didn’t have a bottom.’

  It would be so easy if Sundance was like a little doll with smooth plastic instead of rude bits. Then she’d never need to be changed and no one would ever find out she was