The Suitcase Kid Read online

  I was really glad I had a sore throat then, even though it hurt so much. Dad tucked me up in his and Carrie’s bed, making a special nest for me, and then we played paper games all morning, noughts and crosses and Hangman and Battleships. We haven’t been able to play paper games properly for ages because Zen and Crystal are always around and they’re too little to play and just scribble and waste the paper.

  Carrie made this bean casserole thing for lunch but the only sort of beans I like are baked beans out of a tin so I wouldn’t eat any.

  ‘My throat’s too sore,’ I said, making it croak a little more.

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Carrie, looking sad. ‘Isn’t there anything I can get you, Andy? What would you really fancy?’

  ‘Jelly.’

  ‘Jelly. Right. I’ll make you a lovely fruit jelly for tea,’ said Carrie.

  She went out and bought some oranges specially, and spent ages in the kitchen.

  ‘I’ve never made a jelly before but I think it’s going to turn out all right,’ she said.

  ‘It’s easy peasy to make jelly, you just pour on boiling water and stir,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, that’s jelly out of a packet,’ said Carrie, looking shocked. ‘I’d never give you junk food, Andy. You need natural fresh food with lots of nourishment.’

  Carrie’s jelly didn’t look very nourishing when she brought me a plate at teatime. It was supposed to be orange jelly but it wasn’t orange-coloured. It was a weird sickly brown. It wasn’t jelly either. It didn’t stick. It sort of slid about the plate. Radish was quivering in my hand, ready for another glorious jelly glut, but when she saw it for herself she jumped back into my pyjama pocket, her ears drooping.

  ‘Come on, Andy, eat up your nice jelly,’ said Dad. ‘Isn’t Carrie kind to make it for you specially?’

  ‘I’m not really hungry now.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Andy. You’ve got to eat something.’

  ‘I feel sick.’

  ‘Now don’t start.’

  But I did feel sick, and it wasn’t just to do with the jelly. Mum was due to come and collect me and I knew there was going to be trouble.

  I lay waiting. I heard my un-Uncle Bill’s van draw up outside. I heard Mum’s footsteps and the tap on the steps down to the basement flat. I heard the door-knocker. And then I heard the quarrel.

  ‘What do you mean, Andrea’s in bed? My God, I simply can’t believe this! I didn’t think even you could stoop so low! Just because Andrea was genuinely ill the other weekend . . . Oh, of course she’s not ill this time! You’re just being deliberately obstructive, trying to get your own back in as nasty and spiteful a way as possible . . . It’s just typical! Come on, hand Andrea over this minute.’

  ‘The child is very ill. She has a sore throat, and a fever—’

  ‘Well, I’m not surprised, stuck in this damp old flat. It’s disgraceful, no place for young children—’

  ‘Well, if you hadn’t bled me dry over the divorce we could afford a better place—’

  ‘Oh don’t give me that rubbish. And you don’t even make sure Andy has a proper bed. She’s told me about having to sleep on the floor. I can’t believe it, you’re too mean to buy a proper bed for your own little girl – and yet her kids have got bunk-beds, I know. Well, if Andy really is ill then I insist she comes home with me where I can nurse her properly. Andrea? Andrea, where are you, darling? It’s Mummy. I’ve come to take you home with me.’

  I heard her blundering about the flat for quite a while before she got the right room.

  ‘You poor little lamb!’ she said, rushing to me. ‘Why have they stuck you in here? Ugh, in their bed. Come on, let’s put your coat on over your pyjamas. You’re coming home with me this instant.’

  I jumped out of bed obediently and stepped straight into the plate of jelly. I stood shivering, up to my ankles in brown slime.

  ‘Oh my God! What’s that?’ Mum screeched.

  ‘It’s jelly. Carrie made it for me.’

  ‘Jelly!’ snorted Mum. ‘That stupid hippy’s been feeding you that muck and calling it jelly?’

  ‘Will you quit calling Carrie names?’ Dad roared.

  ‘I’ll call her anything I like, the dirty slut! She’s not looking after my daughter again, do you hear me? I’ll send the social services round. You’re daft enough to take on her hippy twins and she looks as if she’s about to have your baby any minute, but I’m telling you one thing – she’s not looking after my daughter, not any more.’

  MUM TOOK ME home with her and said I wasn’t ever going to go back to Dad’s. Dad phoned up and came round and sent furious letters. I stayed in bed with my sore throat and tried to forget about them both. I played lots of Under-the-Bedcovers games with Radish. She had a sore throat too and we knew the only possible cure would be a sip of magical mulberry juice so we searched high and low acrossthe dark and barren land (you try crawling around under your bedcovers) but our throats remained sorely parched.

  ‘What are you doing under there, you daft berk?’

  It was Katie, back from school.

  ‘How’s the poor lickle invalid then?’ she said nastily. ‘When are you going to shove off back to your boring old dad, eh? I’m getting sick of you cluttering up my bedroom. Your mum’s not serious, is she? You’re not going to be here always?’

  I emerged red-faced from under the covers.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I mumbled.

  Katie slotted a video into place and pressed the button. A horribly familiar little puppet wobbled into view.

  ‘Oh ha ha, very funny,’ I said.

  Katie played the fast forward so Andy Pandy and Teddy jerked about like crazies and then stopped the tape the moment she spotted the basket.

  ‘Time to get into your basket, Andy,’ Katie said, in the lady’s silly high-pitched tone. ‘Did you get that, Andy Pandy? Fold up your great huge horrible arms and legs and stuff your fat head into your basket, right? I’ll post you off to your dad. Only once the new baby’s born they won’t have room for you there either so you’ll just have to stay stuffed up in your basket for ever, OK, because nobody wants you.’

  I clutched Radish tightly. I knew Katie was just winding me up deliberately. But it was working. I felt wound up. Tied up so tight I could hardly breathe.

  ‘They do so want me,’ I croaked. ‘My mum wants me. My dad wants me. That’s what all the fuss is about now. They both want me so much.’

  ‘Oh no they don’t,’ said Katie. ‘They only go on about you because they want to get at each other. If they really truly wanted you then they’d have stayed in that boring old cottage you keep going on about. But your dad left and your mum left. Your dad wants his new lady. Your mum wants my dad. They want them, not you.’

  ‘Shut up!’ I said, and I reached out of bed and tried to hit her.

  It was just a flabby punch, it couldn’t have hurt her at all, but she immediately started squealing and Mum came running.

  ‘Whatever’s the matter now?’ Mum shouted above the racket, taking hold of Katie.

  ‘Andy’s poked my eye out and it hurts!’ Katie roared.

  ‘Andrea! I thought I’d put a stop to this nonsense! I won’t have you bullying poor little Katie. Come here, Katie, let’s see. Of course your eye’s all right. Although, oh dear, yes, it is a bit red. Andrea, how could you?’

  ‘I didn’t touch her silly old eye,’ I protested truthfully. But then I looked at my fist. Radish’s ears were sticking out of it. It looked as if Radish had done the poking for me.

  I tried to explain but Mum wouldn’t listen. She was very very cross. Then the baboon came home and I eavesdropped anxiously and she told him. And Katie started crying all over again just so that he would make a fuss of her. Then he came into the bedroom to see me and I got really scared.

  I decided to poke his eye too if he shouted or smacked me. He had no right to tell me off. He wasn’t my dad. I suddenly badly wanted my own dad and burst into tears.

  ‘Yes, well, I’m glad t