Secrets Read online

  I still love Dad best even now, but I’m going to live with Mum most of the time. I couldn’t live with Dad because he’s renting a studio flat now and it’s much too small. And maybe he doesn’t want me around too much because it would cramp his style with his girlfriends. I think he’s started seeing Suzi. He is totally disgusting. Sometimes I think he almost deserves to go to prison.

  The police let him go after they charged him. Dad’s got a super-sharp lawyer who’s sure he’ll get him off the embezzlement charge, no bother at all. Mum thinks she’ll have to pay his legal bills. I suppose this is very generous of her.

  I asked Mum if she thought Dad had really stolen the money from Major Products.

  ‘Of course not, India! It’s all a ludicrous mistake. Dad got a bit muddled with his accounts, that’s all.’

  But I heard them having heaps of rows about it, night after night before Dad moved out. Mum didn’t say anything about muddles and mistakes. She kept asking him what he’d done with all the money, and had he really just frittered it away on girls and good times?

  I know one thing. Dad didn’t give poor Wanda a good time.

  Wanda disappeared. Mum said she wasn’t very well and had to go to a special clinic for a rest. I think I know exactly what happened at this special clinic. I think they got rid of Wanda’s baby. I said as much to Mum. She said I’ve been watching too many soaps on television and insisted Wanda wasn’t ever pregnant. I don’t believe Mum. I can’t ask Wanda. As soon as she was well enough to leave the clinic she went back to Australia. Mum paid her air fare.

  Mum’s having to sell the house because she’s had to pay for so much. She says it’s time to move on anyway. We’re probably going to live in a flat, just the two of us. Not a Latimer Estate sort of flat. Mum wants us to live in a Victorian mansion block near her work. It’s still quite near here, though it’s too far to go to my school. I’m not sure Mrs Blandford would want me to stay on anyway. It was her idea to send me to the educational psychologist. She obviously thinks I’m some kind of nutcase. Mum does too.

  But Chris says I’m the sanest person he’s ever met. And I’m boasting again now, but he also says I’m one of the brightest. He’s given me an IQ test. It would be gross to tell you the exact number, but if the average IQ is 100 then I have enough intelligence for one and a half people. Mum asked him if I stood a chance of getting a scholarship to one of the posh, big girls’ schools and he said I shouldn’t have any problems at all.

  Chris is the educational psychologist. I see him once a week and it is wonderful. I was dreading seeing him the first time. I thought he’d be some suspicious old man with a funny accent and a probing manner. But Chris is twenty-five and he actually looks a lot younger in his jeans and T-shirt. He’s not really what you might call good-looking. He’s got this really great smile though and freckles all over his face and fuzzy ginger hair. It’s exactly like my hair.

  ‘Hi, Ginger Twin,’ he said, grinning. ‘Now, I’ve always hated my hair but it looks great on you.’

  ‘Do people always think you’ve got a terrible temper?’ I asked.

  ‘You bet. It’s so tiresome. Maybe I’ll get round to doing a special research project on red hair and temperament.’

  If Chris doesn’t do it, I will. I have decided that I’m going to be a psychologist too. We have long, long, long talks on psychology every week. It’s a fascinating way of studying human behaviour. You do it all very scientifically, with experiments. There have been lots and lots of studies on family behaviour and what makes a good or bad parent.

  Although it’s difficult to make up your mind. Perhaps psychology can’t ever be an exact science. Even the worst parent in the world can be good some of the time.

  Anne Frank wrote that she didn’t love her mother at all but when they were in the concentration camp they clung together, inseparable.

  Mum took Treasure and me to see Anne Frank’s house! OK, she was spending a weekend in Amsterdam anyway doing a photo-shoot. Treasure got kitted out in Moya Upton from head to foot. She got made up whiter than ever, with smudged circles under her eyes. She struck scary poses in cobbled streets by the canals while I sat reading an A-level psychology book and eating Dutch apple cake. When Mum and the photographer and the stylist had finished with Treasure at long last, Mum took us to 263 Prinsengracht where Anne hid in the secret annexe. We heard the Westertoren clock strike as we went into the museum, just as Anne describes in her diary.

  My heart started beating hard as we went up the narrow stairs and saw the bookcase door. It was all just as I’d imagined it. I stepped into Anne’s bedroom and there were her cards and photos still stuck up on the wall. I cried then. So did Treasure.

  We saw Anne’s red-and-white checked diary too. We couldn’t read her neat Dutch handwriting but we didn’t need to. We know her story off by heart.

  Treasure has a difficult home life, and the story begins with her leaving her mum and violent stepdad to live with her nan, who’s the most supportive member of Treasure’s family. When Terry lashes out at Treasure, what do you think of her mum Tammy’s reaction? Was she right to want to protect her husband, or should her daughter have been her priority? Why do you think she seemed so terrified at Nan’s suggestion that Treasure should go to hospital?

  India loves and looks up to her dad, but like Treasure, she has a very difficult relationship with her mum, Moya. Why do you think this is? What things do they clash about? How do you feel about the way Moya speaks to her daughter?

  As the story progresses, how does India’s relationship with her parents change? Do you think she and her mum will ever be close?

  To the outside world, India has a much nicer home and lifestyle than Treasure – her family is wealthy, she lives in a lovely house and attends a good school – but is she any happier than her new friend? Compare their situations at the start of the story. Which girl would you rather be for a day, and why?

  When the girls first meet, they don’t appear to have very much in common. Why do you think they strike up such a close friendship, so quickly?

  Treasure realises that Wanda is pregnant before India does, and is surprised that her friend has not spotted the signs, saying, ‘India seems so grown-up and she uses all these la-di-da long words but she’s like a little kid really.’ Is this a fair description of India? Which of the girls would you say is more grown-up?

  Was India right to hide Treasure in the attic? Did the girls have any other choice?

  When Treasure comes out of hiding, she tells the police and the newspapers that she wants to live with Nan because she just ‘doesn’t get on with’ Terry – but she never publicly accuses him of hitting her, even though she knows that this would result in him going to prison. Why do you think she decides to do this? Would you have acted differently?

  I hate my dad.

  I know lots of teenage girls say that but they don’t really mean it. Well, I don’t think they do. I don’t really know any other teenage girls. That’s one of the reasons why I hate Dad. He keeps me a virtual prisoner.

  I’m interrogated if I slip down the road to Krisha’s Korner Shop. I’m not allowed to go into town by myself. I can’t go to see any films. I can’t eat in McDonald’s.

  Dad even fussed about me making a simple bus ride by myself to go to Miss Roberts for maths tuition. He took my sister Grace and me out of school ages ago, when I’d just gone into the Juniors and she was still at the finger-painting stage. Dad said he was going to educate us.

  We were left to get on with it for ages, but this summer we had a home visit from a Mr Miles, who was from some kind of education authority. He wanted to know what provision Dad was making for my GCSE coursework. Dad said he didn’t believe in examinations. Mr Miles smiled through Dad’s tirade, obviously having heard it all before. He looked at Grace and me when Dad ran out of steam.

  ‘What do you want to do when you’re older, Prudence and Grace?’ he asked.

  Grace mumbled something about working with animal