Katy Read online

  Or maybe I’ll write seven great magic books like J. K. Rowling, because I’m good at making up stories. Then I’ll get very rich and I’ll buy a big castle somewhere, and Cecy and all my brothers and sisters can come and live with me there. I’ll have a cheery servant or two and pay them so much money they won’t mind a bit doing all the chores. They’ll fill and empty the dishwasher and sort the rubbish into the right recycling bins and tidy all the bedrooms – all the boring, boring, boring stuff that Izzie keeps nagging me to do.

  I’ll be famous at something some day, you mark my words.

  2

  At twelve noon on Saturday we all gathered on the garage roof. Well, Clover and Elsie and I did. Dad won’t allow the littlies to climb up the ladder, so they had to wait lolling below us. Izzie says Elsie’s not allowed either, but she so wants to be with us that she never takes any notice.

  It’s a low garage and the ladder’s fixed against the wall, so it’s really quite safe. Sort of. The garage roof was leaking years ago so Dad had these workmen come to retile it. They put the ladder up and forgot to take it away again. Lots of green moss has grown back on the roof now, which makes it very soft and comfortable, like a green carpet.

  I like to sit with my legs swinging down, peering out over next-door’s garden. Not number four next door, where Cecy lives. I mean number eight the other side of us – the sad house. Old Mrs Burton lives there. At least I think she does. No one’s seen her for years and years.

  She used to be this perfectly ordinary old lady when Mr Burton was still around. They invited Clover and me in for tea several times, after Mum died. We didn’t really like to go, because we didn’t know what to say to them and there was nothing very much to do. Mrs Burton had a collection of little china pots with painted lids and she let us look at each one, but we weren’t allowed to touch because they were precious and we were only little.

  The tea was very strange too. We had to drink out of cups on saucers, whereas we were used to mugs, so we found it difficult. Then there was a plate of thin bread and butter to eat. Not even any jam. Just a piece of bread and butter. Mrs Burton said if we ate it all up we would be allowed cakes. So we chewed valiantly and then Mr Burton went into the kitchen and came back with a small plate of little iced cakes. He called them fancies. There were two yellow and two pink. I chose yellow and Mrs Burton and Mr Burton took the pink ones. I saw Clover’s face. I knew just how much she wanted a pink one too. She didn’t eat her yellow one properly; she just bit all the icing off the top and licked the little bit of cream inside.

  Mr and Mrs Burton weren’t cross with her. They shook their heads and patted her curls and said she was a lovely little girlie.

  ‘A real Goldilocks,’ said Mr Burton.

  They didn’t call me any fairy-tale character. Perhaps they thought I was the wicked witch or the big bad wolf but were too polite to say.

  Anyway, it was uncomfortable having tea with the Burtons, so we told Dad we didn’t really want to go any more. Then Mr Burton got ill and died and Mrs Burton stopped inviting us. She stayed indoors by herself. Well, she saw a home help every week, and the Ocado van came every Friday with her very small order, but that was all. Dad went to call on her, partly as a neighbour, partly as her doctor, but he said she simply wanted to be left alone.

  As we got older Clover and I made up stories about her, seeing her as mad and tragic, like a modern Miss Havisham (she’s in Great Expectations too). We even dared each other to go and look through her windows or knock on her door. But now I’m older still I feel a bit uncomfortable about her. I don’t think she’s so much mad as sad. She’s still grieving for Mr Burton, who was clearly the love of her life. That seems a bit strange to me, because Mr Burton didn’t look anything like a romantic hero. He had false teeth that made him hiss a little and a silly moustache and he always wore cardigans – but perhaps he was Mr Perfect in Mrs Burton’s eyes.

  I felt truly sorry for her now but it didn’t stop me leading the others on special secret expeditions into her garden. It’s a very long garden, much bigger than ours. The ordinary back garden is a bit boring. When Mr Burton was alive it used to be bright with flowers in the summer, but now Mrs Burton has a garden firm come once a month and they’ve planted shrubs that don’t need much attention. They just cut them back a bit and mow the lawn. But they only tend the garden as far as the old greenhouse.

  It’s not a proper greenhouse now; it’s all falling to bits. That’s a shame because it would make a marvellous playhouse, but some of the glass is broken and all jagged. I’d be extra careful, and Clover would too, but it’s not somewhere we could ever risk the littlies. Stupid Izzie gave me these sorrowful little lectures about my being the eldest and therefore I should try to set a good example to my brothers and sisters. But I am careful and responsible. I won’t let the children play in the greenhouse. We play behind it. The gardeners never go there because it doesn’t show from the house. Mrs Burton certainly doesn’t go there. No one does. Only us.

  It’s like another wonderful, wild, secret garden. There are still roses there in summer and lots of buttercups and daisies and dandelions in the long grass. It’s so overgrown that it’s like a jungle for our dog Tyler. He absolutely loves it in the secret garden. He plays at being a tiger, stalking his prey.

  There’s a big weeping willow too, which makes an amazing green cave where we can have important meetings and special picnics. Best of all, there’s a big tree right at the end by the fence that has brilliant branches for climbing. I can shin up there whenever I want. You can see for miles, all over everyone’s back gardens, all the way to the park. It would be the most brilliant place for a tree house. I’m gathering bits of wood out of people’s skips and secretly hoarding them. When I’ve got enough I’ll make us all a tree house.

  I told all the children and everyone thought it was a brilliant idea – everyone except Elsie.

  ‘What do you mean, make a tree house? You don’t know how, Katy Carr. It’s not just nailing planks of wood together. You have to make it safe. And how are you going to balance it on those tree trunks? You’re all talk, you are,’ she said, her voice shrill. ‘It won’t be safe!’

  ‘Oh yes it will, just you wait and see,’ I said airily, refusing to be rattled.

  ‘I suppose it will be as safe as that stupid boat you made when we nearly all drowned!’ said Elsie, pink with triumph.

  Once, when we were on our way to the park all together, me in charge, I happened to see a piece of someone’s fallen-down fence in a skip. I had this sudden brilliant idea that we could turn it into a raft. Clover, Cecy and I carried it all the way to the duck pond where I launched it on to the water. It was fine when it was just me perched on it. I even risked paddling it from one side to the other and it floated perfectly. But when the others all crowded on to the raft too it tilted violently and suddenly sank. We all got very wet of course, but we didn’t nearly drown, not when the water only came up as far as Phil’s waist.

  ‘You shut up, Elsie,’ I said, and I gave her a little push.

  She practically made herself fall over and then cried and I got into yet more trouble from Izzie for bullying my little sister. It would be much, much easier if I didn’t ever have to include her in our games, but then she’d whine and whimper that we were leaving her out.

  So there we all were, Clover, Elsie and me up on the garage roof, Dorry, Jonnie, Phil and Tyler playing digging down below, all of us waiting for Cecy. She goes to dancing lessons now, ballet and modern, on Saturday mornings. Clover’s so envious. I don’t really want to go and learn dancing, especially not ballet. Oh dear! The thought of looking like a lamp post in a leotard, a metre taller than everyone else, makes me go hot with horror. But I would like to go to a Saturday-morning class.

  I know you can do drama at the place where Cecy goes. I would so love to do drama! We don’t do it properly at school at all. The only play we’ve ever put on was a Nativity play when we were in the Infants. I wanted to be Mary bec