Dustbin Baby Read online

  ‘What do mermaids do, April?’ she’d whisper, sitting really close to me, her teeth gleaming. Soapsuds glistened on her pale arms. Her wet black hair lay flat against her head, shiny like a Dutch doll.

  ‘I’m talking to you, April. Can’t you hear me? Haven’t you got any ears?’ She yanked a lock of my hair to one side and jabbed her finger right into my ear, making it ring.

  ‘I – I don’t know what mermaids do,’ I stammered that first time.

  ‘And you’re such a clever-clogs too! Well, dopey, drippy April, mermaids have got long fishy tails so they can – what?’

  I swallowed, trying to edge away from her until the hard enamel of the bath bit into my back.

  ‘Answer me! Maybe you haven’t got a tongue, is that it?’ Her fingers scrabbled at my bottom lip until it opened. ‘No, yuck, there it is, waggling away at me. So make it work. Tell me why mermaids have tails, April.’

  ‘So they can swim,’ I whispered.

  ‘Hurray! She’s got it! Top of the class! Soooo – swim!’

  She suddenly seized me by both ankles and tugged hard. I shot forward and my head went back, under the water. I tried to struggle up, but Pearl’s hands were hard on my chest, pressing me back. My legs kicked at her feebly but I couldn’t see what I was doing. I had a terrible roaring in my head as if the water was whirling through my ears. I knew she was drowning me and in amongst the pain and the panic I had a moment of triumph – at last Pearl would get into trouble. But then her hands were suddenly under my armpits and my head bobbed out of the water. I gasped and coughed and cried.

  ‘Shut up, stupid,’ said Pearl, sitting up calmly. ‘Call yourself a mermaid? You’re not very good at swimming, are you? Better practise, eh?’ She shoved me straight back under.

  She didn’t always have a go at drowning me. Big Mo was there a lot of the time – and even when she wasn’t, Pearl could sometimes be perfectly ordinary, just splashing and telling silly jokes. In a way that made it worse, never quite knowing when she was going to turn.

  But then I turned.

  11

  I TRIED TO kill Pearl.

  No I didn’t.

  I don’t know. I don’t know what’s real any more. I just remember what they all said. Everybody asked me how it happened and I had to tell it again and again. They kept telling me to relax and take my time but I was so tense I was like a little iron kid. It would have taken a crowbar to unclench me.

  I suppose I looked as guilty as hell. They all thought I’d pushed her deliberately. Maybe I did.

  Pearl flew through the air, arms waving, legs kicking, mouth screaming, showing every single one of her pearly teeth. I thought she might land on her feet and come running straight up the stairs to get me. But she landed on her back with a thump, one of her legs sticking out sideways. I waited for her to start crying. She didn’t make a sound.

  I teetered at the top of the stairs, peering down at her. Big Mo and Little Pete and Esme and all the boys came running. They made a lot of noise on Pearl’s behalf. Little Pete ran to call an ambulance while Big Mo crouched beside Pearl, holding her hand, talking to her. Pearl didn’t reply. Her eyes were half open but she didn’t seem to be looking at anyone.

  ‘She’s dead!’ said one of the boys.

  ‘No, she’s not,’ said Big Mo, but she didn’t sound sure. ‘What happened? Did Pearl slip?’

  They all looked up the stairs at me.

  ‘April pushed her!’

  ‘Of course she didn’t push her. Did you, April?’

  I didn’t say a word. I didn’t dare. I was frightened Pearl was dead too – but that would mean she couldn’t tell on me.

  The ambulance came at last and Pearl was tied onto a stretcher and taken off in a big white van. Big Mo went with her. She didn’t return all night. When she eventually came back after breakfast she was on her own.

  ‘Pearl is dead!’ said one of the boys.

  They all stared at me in awe. My breakfast cornflakes hurtled upwards and made my mouth taste of sick.

  ‘April’s a murderer!’

  They all hissed it, even Esme, though I don’t think she knew what it meant.

  ‘Stop that silly nonsense!’ Big Mo snapped. She had dark circles under her eyes and her hair hung lankly. ‘Pearl isn’t dead, but she’s a very poorly little girl. She’s got a broken hip, a fractured leg, cracked ribs, sprained wrists. The poor little pet will be in hospital for weeks.’

  I let out a squeak of relief.

  ‘April, I need to talk to you,’ said Big Mo, her voice very solemn. She took hold of me by the wrist – as if she couldn’t quite bring herself to hold my hand – and dragged me off to her private sitting room.

  We kids weren’t usually allowed even a peep inside there. There were rumours that Big Mo and Little Pete had a television the size of a cinema screen and vast leather sofas and white fur rugs. The only television was smaller than our set in the children’s room, the sofa was a sagging chintz similar to Big Mo’s frocks and there were no rugs at all, just dull porridge-colour carpet. I stared at it all the time Big Mo was talking to me. She talked and talked and talked.

  ‘Pearl told me everything, April,’ she said.

  I hung my head.

  ‘Yes, well may you look guilty!’ said Big Mo. ‘You did push her, didn’t you?’

  I nodded forlornly.

  ‘On purpose!’ Big Mo persisted.

  I had to agree.

  ‘You could easily have killed her,’ said Big Mo. ‘The boys were right, you could have ended up a murderer. I should tell the police what really happened, April.’

  I waited, my heart thudding.

  ‘But we can’t have a scandal here. I’ve fostered kiddies more than twenty years with never a moment’s bother. I’ve looked after the naughtiest boys and no child’s ever been hurt, not seriously – a few lumps and bumps, a black eye after a fist fight, but never anything like this. Pearl says you flew at her for no reason!’

  I had my reasons. Pearl had been the murderer, four times over. She’d torn Bluebell, Daffodil, Violet and Rose into tiny shreds.

  I’d tried to be so careful, never letting her see them. I’d played with them secretly inside my head whenever Pearl was around, making sure my lips didn’t move, but I wasn’t mad enough to hold the real paper girls anywhere near her. I kept changing their hiding place just in case. They lived in my shoebox and then they moved to my damp sponge bag and then they squashed up together inside the pages of Where the Wild Things Are.

  They would have been safe – but Esme betrayed me. I’d let her play paper girls in that long-ago pre-Pearl time and she’d never forgotten it.

  Esme and Pearl and I were in the children’s room. Esme was flicking through one of Big Mo’s magazines, licking her finger and turning each page so violently that they crackled.

  ‘Quit that, Esme! You’re getting on my nerves. What are you doing with it anyway? You can’t even read.’

  ‘I can read. I can read lots. I can read, can’t I, April?’ Esme protested.

  ‘Yes, you can read great, Esme,’ I said.

  ‘Rubbish. She’s useless at reading. She’s totally thick,’ said Pearl.

  ‘I’m not thick, I’m thin, thin as a pin,’ said Esme, sucking in her big tummy and preening in a parody of a fashion model.

  Pearl mocked her but Esme didn’t mind.

  ‘Like these ladies,’ said Esme, stabbing at the magazine photographs. Then she paused. ‘Daffodil!’ she said. ‘Look, April, it’s Daffodil!’

  She was right. It was the same model, though her hair was different and she was wearing beach clothes. It was very clever of Esme to spot her.

  ‘Daffodil?’ said Pearl. ‘What are you two nutcases on about?’

  ‘Daffodil one of April’s special little paper ladies,’ said Esme. ‘She got one, two, three, four pretty paper ladies.’

  ‘Shut up, Esme.’

  But I was too late. Pearl knew now. It took her a while to find them. I started to