The Suitcase Kid Read online

  ‘Come along, Andrea, answer the question. It’s no use looking at Aileen, she’s not going to tell you. You weren’t paying attention, were you? It’s simply not good enough. Do you want to end up a complete dunce, is that it?’

  ‘Who’s been mucking around with my tights? They’re all wet and soapy. You’ve been messing about with your little rabbit again, haven’t you?’

  ‘How are things working out for you and Radish, Andrea? Do you mind going from House A to House B and back again?’

  ‘Do you know what time it is, Andy Pandy? Time to go home. Only you haven’t got a home any more, have you?’

  I DIDN’T DARE stay off school for a bit because Mum went to see Miss Maynard and they had a Long Talk. I’m not ever going to be able to make out I’ve got to go to the dentist now even if I get a gum boil and half my fillings fall out. I can’t even get a cold or a cough or a tummy upset. Miss Maynard showed Mum my forged sick notes. And then Mum told Dad so I won’t even be able to swing things when I’m at his place. I have to stay at boring old school even though the teachers just shout at me now and Aileen and Fiona whisper secrets and won’t play with me properly and I keep coming bottom in all the tests.

  I can’t even go to the garden for long after school because Mum knows what time I should get back to her place and even though she’s not there Katie always tells on me. It’s even worse when I’m at Dad’s. Carrie comes to meet me off the bus and she looks awful now with her great huge bump and I’m scared people will think she’s a proper relative instead of just a stupid stepmother. I just have time to charge down Larkspur Lane, climb over the gate, give Radish one quick sail across the lake and back, maybe let her take a two minute trek in the grassy jungle, and then it’s home again home again jiggetty jig only I haven’t got a home any more and Radish seems to be getting a bit fed up with my pocket.

  I wish I could make a real home for her. I tried making her a Japanese bag out of one of Dad’s hankies and then I thought about making her a proper little Japanese house but Crystal kept trailing round after me asking what I was doing, and then when I got the big box of kitchen matches to construct a wooden house Carrie suddenly swooped and snatched them away.

  ‘I’m sorry, Andy, but I can’t let you play with matches.’

  ‘I’m not going to play with them. I’m going to make something with them.’

  ‘Yes, it’s going to be a little house and she’s made a tiny screen out of a cigarette packet and a baby tree out of a bit of twig and she’s going to make Radish a special frock called a kimona,’ Crystal burbled.

  ‘Shut up, Crystal,’ I hissed, because it would all get spoilt if everyone knew.

  It was spoilt anyway. Carrie still wouldn’t let me have the matches. I did try to think of making the house with something else but then Zen trod on the screen after I’d spent ages colouring in little tiny Japanese things all over it. Carrie helped me a bit. In fact she did the drawing part and she had the ideas and Zen kept pestering and eventually he just went stamp. Carrie said we could do another screen but I said no thanks. I didn’t really want her poking her nose in anyway. I wanted it to be a secret for Radish and me with no-one else involved, not even Crystal.

  I tried again when I was at Mum’s. I snaffled an old shoe-box and I spent ages getting all the thread off some cotton reels but Katie was poisonous.

  ‘Oh how sweet. Little Andy Pandy’s playing house with her dinky toy rabbit. But I think it’s rather a dodgy site. I have a feeling this is an earthquake area. What’s that? Did you feel a tremor? Whoops!’

  She reached out and Radish and her home went flying. So then I reached out and Katie went flying.

  Mum was furious and wouldn’t even listen why.

  ‘I’ve told you and told you, Andy. You are not to hit Katie, no matter what. You must stop this disgraceful bullying, especially when Katie’s so much smaller than you.’

  And as if that wasn’t enough, Katie deliberately pulled two buttons off her school blouse. Mum saw and tutted and went to her sewing-box – and then I got into another row because she said I’d mucked up all her thread.

  I was in so much trouble that I decided I might just as well stay for ages in the Larkspur Lane garden and miss my bus. Miss two buses, even three. Katie could blab all she liked to Mum as I’d stopped caring.

  ‘Do you hear that, Radish?’ I said, as we climbed over the gate. ‘We can stay here as long as you like.’

  Radish wriggled excitedly in my hand. She could hardly wait till I got her boat unpacked from my satchel. She hopped on board and was soon sailing across the lake, expertly skimming her way through the shoals of orange whales. I let her sail under her own steam, squatting down on the muddy shore and watching her, but after a while it got a bit cold and damp so I found a long twiggy stick and started propelling her round the lake in uncharted territory. Together we discovered Step Creek and Lily Land and for a while we were caught up in the foetid swamps of Waterweed Bog but we escaped at last after Radish heroically hacked her way through with her bare paws and my scrabbling fingernails.

  She was a bit tired of sailing after that and we’d both got very wet so we ran round and round the lake to get warm. We were hungry too and looked longingly at the mulberry tree but the berries were long since over. I searched the lining of my satchel and salvaged a few biscuit crumbs but they weren’t much of a feast for Radish and they didn’t help my hunger at all.

  I don’t have a watch but I knew it was teatime. I was really really late now. It was starting to get dark. Mum would be back from work and she’d be so cross. She’d tell the baboon and he’d have another go at me. And Katie would give a smug little smile and then whisper about it half the night. I wouldn’t even be able to cry because she’d see.

  I leant against the mulberry tree clutching Radish in my fist and had a bit of a cry there. But then as I moved about to stop my face getting scratched my hand holding Radish suddenly slipped under a branch and went into a little hole.

  ‘Radish? Come back!’

  But Radish was running about inside the dark little hole, getting excited. It was just like a secret cave. I tried to peer in but it was getting too dark to see properly. Radish insisted that she could see. She loved the little hole. Only it wasn’t a hole to her. She wanted me to help her make it into a proper home. Not a proper permanent home, but a holiday home for her visits to the lake.

  ‘OK, Radish. We’ll make it really cosy for you. We could get some moss for a soft green carpet. And I could stick some shiny leaves together to make matching curtains. And we’ll have to see about some sort of light because I can’t see in the dark even if you can.’

  And at that moment a light went on. Not inside the hole. Outside. In the big house behind me. It made me jump and my hand jerked and then suddenly Radish wasn’t there.

  ‘Radish? Radish, where are you? Come back! Come here!’ I said, feeling frantically. And then I felt the drop at the back of the hole. I pushed my arm in as far as it would go. I scrabbled and stretched but it was no use. Radish had fallen out of my reach.

  ‘Radish!’ I screamed.

  And then the door opened and there was a dark figure in the garden and I had to tear my arm out of the tree and run for it.

  ‘WHERE ON EARTH have you been?’ Mum shouted.

  I was too choked up to answer properly.

  ‘I was just . . . playing,’ I mumbled.

  ‘Playing!’ said Mum, and she smacked me hard across the face.

  We both gasped. She’s never hit me before. Then I burst into tears. And Mum did too.

  ‘Oh Andy,’ she said, and she was suddenly hugging me tight. ‘I’m sorry. I was just soworried and I’ve been phoning everyone. I phoned Miss Maynard, and I had to phone your father and he blames me for going out to work and yet if he’d pay his share of the bills then I wouldn’t have to and— Oh darling, never mind all that. All that matters is you’re safe.’

  ‘But Radish isn’t,’ I said, and I started really howling.