Four Children and It Read online

  ‘Peaceful?’ I said, thinking of the constant fiddling and barking and mooing and sneezing and singing yesterday.

  ‘Almost too peaceful. I always seem to doze off and time goes haywire. The day just disappears. Your whole holiday is slipping by and it seems such a waste. I wanted you to have a really brilliant time.’

  ‘We are, Dad, we are.’

  ‘I didn’t fix up for you to go on any holiday courses or do any special activities because I wanted us all to have fun together.’

  ‘We are having fun, Dad,’ I said.

  ‘I know we can’t comfortably all fit in the car together, but we could always leave the others to hang out here and go off just us three. We could go to the seaside – or up to London? No, I know, how about if we went to the zoo? You used to like going to the zoo when you were little, Robbie.’

  Robbie wavered. I knew how much he’d like to go to the zoo now. He loved seeing all those animals so much. But there was one small monkey-type creature he wanted to see more – especially as it was his turn to make a wish.

  ‘I love the zoo, Dad, but I’d really sooner go and have a picnic in Oxshott woods,’ he said.

  ‘You’re a funny little tyke,’ said Dad. He patted Robbie on the shoulder. ‘I wish I saw more of you, son. I don’t think it’s necessarily good for you growing up without your old dad. You’re such a little worry-guts at times. All this fussing about silly stuff like going on the tube! You should have grown out of that years ago. I think maybe your mum’s too soft with you.’

  ‘Robbie’s fine, Dad,’ I said. ‘Mostly.’

  ‘Let Robbie speak for himself, Ros. You’re always sticking up for him, doing his talking for him. I know you mean well and it’s very sweet, but he’s got to stand on his own two feet. You’re a little man, Robbie – remember that! And as for you, Rosy-Posy …’

  Oh dear. Now it was my turn.

  ‘You’re such an earnest old-fashioned head-in-a-book girly,’ said Dad, pulling one of my plaits. ‘I think maybe Mum’s keeping you a little too young. Maybe it’s time you had a few fancy up-to-the-minute outfits.’

  He plucked at my T-shirt shoulder and tutted at my torn jeans.

  ‘Perhaps you could go shopping with Alice. She’s got a real eye for clothes, great fashion sense. She’d help you choose some stuff.’

  ‘I like my old T-shirt and jeans,’ I said. ‘I don’t really want to go shopping.’

  I’d have loved new clothes, of course. I sighed enviously whenever I looked at the clothes in Smash’s wardrobe. But I couldn’t bear the thought of shopping anywhere with Alice. She sometimes looked me up and down with one eyebrow raised. She never said anything, but she didn’t need to. That look was enough.

  Dad sighed at both of us, as if we’d failed an exam.

  ‘Well, we’ll go on yet another picnic to ye olde Oxshott woods,’ he said. ‘But mind you tell your mum I offered to take you anywhere you wanted, money no object. I don’t want her to think I’m a cheapskate, not prepared to make a fuss of you.’

  Robbie and I murmured and smiled and wriggled away. Robbie sloped off to his room and collected his favourite animals and let them roam in the soft dusty terrain underneath Maudie’s bed.

  I went to my bedroom and hunched up with The Railway Children. I couldn’t help envying Bobbie and Peter and Phyllis, whose father was totally out of the picture until the very last chapter.

  Smash came kicking her way into the bedroom, playing football with her velvet bomber jacket.

  ‘You shouldn’t scrunch it up like that – and you’re getting it all dusty,’ I said.

  ‘Who cares?’ said Smash.

  ‘You care,’ I said. ‘That’s your best jacket. Didn’t your dad buy it for you when he was in the States?’

  ‘Yeah, well, I don’t care much about him any more,’ said Smash. ‘I sent him this ever so long funny email, reams and reams of it, and do you know how he replied? Hey kid, Have fun, Love Dad. Six words. And I asked him all sorts of questions and he’s just ignored everything. He didn’t even respond when I moaned about Mum and he normally loves it when I do that. He’s obviously way too busy with his new little wifie to give a stuff about me. Are you sure you don’t want to think up some brilliant anti-dad wish for the Psammead?’

  ‘No, though I agree it’s tempting. But it’s Robbie’s turn for a wish, you know that.’

  ‘Well, have a word with him, see what he wants to wish. He’s such a little weirdo, goodness knows what he’ll come up with.’

  ‘He is not a weirdo,’ I said fiercely.

  ‘Hey, calm down, I’m just realizing we haven’t got that many wishes left till you guys go home and if you don’t mind my saying so, my wish has been the best of the lot so far, and ultra unselfish too, because we all enjoyed being rich and famous,’ said Smash.

  I wandered off to see what Robbie was up to. He was under the bed now, mumbling to his creatures.

  ‘Hey there, Robs,’ I said, kneeling right down and peering at him.

  Maudie’s night-time potty was under there too. I hoped he wasn’t playing that his animals were at a waterhole.

  ‘It’s your turn for a wish! Have you thought what you’re going to ask for?’

  ‘Yep,’ said Robbie.

  I waited.

  ‘Well? What’s it going to be?’

  ‘I don’t have to tell you first,’ said Robbie.

  I blinked at him. Robbie usually told me everything. I felt a little foolish, kneeling there with my bottom stuck in the air.

  ‘Do come out, Robbie.’

  ‘I don’t have to do what you say,’ said Robbie. ‘Dad said.’

  ‘I sighed heavily.

  ‘Okay, okay. Stay there. Stay there forever if you like, though you’re getting dust all over yourself – and Alice will be doing the picnic soon and I expect she’d have let you make some more cakes.’

  Robbie pondered. Then he rolled out from under the bed.

  ‘You’d better have a good wash and change your clothes. Look at you!’ I said.

  ‘I don’t want to,’ said Robbie. ‘You can’t boss me about.’

  ‘Okay, don’t then. But I’m not bossy. I’m trying to be helpful. I just want to talk over your wish, in case anything might go wrong.’

  ‘You were the one who made the wish by mistake and got trapped in the past, not me,’ Robbie pointed out unkindly.

  He felt for his animals under the bed, stuffed a handful down his T-shirt and took them off to the bathroom with him. I heard him thumping about making gorilla noises, and then roaring and trumpeting.

  ‘I give up,’ I said, and went downstairs to help Alice myself.

  She’d decided on bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwiches this time. Smash grilled the bacon and I washed and shredded the lettuce and chopped tomatoes. There were also little sausage rolls. Robbie had emerged, reasonably clean, so Alice let him roll the pastry. Then she made individual gooseberry fools in little pots with lids and washed a punnet of big strawberries and a pound of cherries. Best of all, she made fairy cakes, letting us all have a turn at mixing – and licking out the bowl afterwards. When the cakes were in the oven she made some icing and then let us decorate the cakes when they’d cooled down.

  ‘You’re ever so good at making picnics, Alice,’ I said – but then I felt disloyal to Mum. Her picnics weren’t anywhere near as elaborate. They were usually cheese-spread sandwiches and an apple each.

  ‘Why are you sucking up to my mum?’ Smash hissed.

  ‘I’m not. I’m just stating a fact,’ I said.

  ‘She’s mad. She makes all this food yet, you watch, she hardly eats anything herself, just because she wants to keep thin as a pin,’ said Smash. ‘When I’m grown up, I’m going to eat whatever I want, all the time.’

  ‘Well, you’ll look pretty weird wearing those skimpy stage costumes. But I don’t suppose it’ll matter too much just so long as you can sing okay,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah, I want to do another concert at the O2. H