Lottie Project Read online

  ‘Oh!’ said a little voice.

  We looked up and there was Robin at the bathroom door, his mouth open in astonishment. ‘Sorry, Robin!’ said Jo, grabbing the towel back and wrapping it round herself.

  ‘Are you fighting?’ Robin enquired timidly.

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘No, of course we’re not,’ said Jo. ‘Take no notice of Charlie, Robin. She’s a wild child, totally out of my control.’

  ‘Grrrrrr!’ I said, baring my teeth dramatically.

  ‘Will she fight me?’ Robin asked.

  ‘No, of course she won’t, she’s only teasing,’ said Jo.

  ‘Yes, I will,’ I said, and I swooped on him and picked him up under his armpits and swung him round wildly so that his spindly legs kicked in the air.

  He squealed noisily but he seemed to be enjoying it.

  ‘Stop being so rough with him,’ Jo called, pulling on her clothes in the bedroom.

  ‘Is he lean and lost like his daddy then?’ I said, setting Robin back on his feet. His face was flushed robin red, his eyes dark with excitement. He took a step and staggered. I caught hold of him.

  ‘It’s OK, you’re just giddy,’ I said as he clung to me. His hands were like little monkey paws. I wondered if he’d ever clung to his mum the way he was clinging to me.

  ‘Giddy,’ Robin repeated. This was obviously a new experience for him. He moved tentatively.

  ‘There, it’s getting better, isn’t it? Hey, did you put all the tops back on my felt tip pens, yeah?’

  ‘Oh yes. Honest,’ said Robin.

  ‘Did you do a drawing?’

  ‘I started.’

  ‘Let’s see then.’ I walked him over to the kitchen table. He’d drawn a very big Birdie as I’d suggested, with a tiny Robin clinging to his back. They were just landing in the Magic Land, Birdie’s wings outstretched.

  I touched the strip of green below Birdie’s claws. ‘Is this the Magic Land then?’ I asked.

  Robin nodded. ‘Yes! Shall I draw it for you, Charlie?’

  ‘OK. Go on then. What’s in your Magic Land, eh? Pink candy-floss trees and rivers with tame dolphins and unicorns you can ride and it’s never ever bedtime?’ I suggested, trying to conjure up a dinky little Magic Land that might take his fancy.

  Jo and I elaborated endlessly on our own Magic Lands. It was one of our favourite games. Jo’s current Magic Land was a huge turquoise swimming pool and she’d float endlessly on a white lilo sipping champagne and eating white cream chocolates all day long. My special Magic Land was an immense jungle and I’d hack my way through, not the ‘slightest bit scared even when huge pythons wound themselves round my waist or tigers roared at me or elephants suddenly charged. I’d whistle a magic tune so that the python swayed in a hypnotic trance, I’d roar right back at the tiger, and I’d catch hold of the elephant’s trunk and get him to lift me up on his head between his mighty ears and we’d thunder across the land together.

  I started drawing my own Magic Land, concentrating on the immensely tall trees, home of great gorillas and hairy orang-utans and tribes of funny furry monkeys, and I was Queen of all the Apes and swung through the trees faster than any of them.

  ‘Look, this is my Magic Land. See the monkeys?’ I said, showing Robin.

  He was kneeling up on his chair, drawing intently, his tongue sticking out he was concentrating so hard. I peered at his picture.

  ‘That’s not a Magic Land!’ I said. ‘You’re just drawing your mum and your dad again.’

  ‘Yes, they’re in my Magic Land, and we all live there and it’s magic,’ said Robin. He bent his head very near his drawing, as if he was trying to step inside it.

  ‘It’s nearly time we were off, Robin. We’ll show Daddy your lovely picture, yes?’ said Jo.

  That wasn’t all they were going to show off to Daddy. Jo was wearing her shortest skirt and her little angora wool jumper. I usually call her Fluffy Bunny when she wears it. I didn’t at all feel like flattering her with babyish nicknames now. What was she doing, getting all dolled up to deliver little Robin back home? She was supposed to do some housework when she was there too, so why dress up like she was going dating, not dusting?

  ‘What?’ said Jo, all wide-eyed, as I glared at her.

  ‘You know what,’ I said.

  She was hours getting back home too. Well, an hour late. Just over half an hour. But she was still late.

  ‘What are you playing at, eh?’ I said furiously.

  Jo burst out laughing.

  ‘It’s not funny!’ I exploded.

  ‘Yes it is. Talk about role reversal. Watch it, Charlie. You’re starting to sound just like Grandma. “Why are you so late back, Josephine? This simply isn’t good enough. And wipe that smirk off your face, it’s not funny.”’

  ‘Well, maybe if you’d listened to Grandma instead of thinking you knew best then you wouldn’t have ended up as a single parent having to go out cleaning for other people to keep a roof over our heads,’ I said.

  There was a sudden silence. We were both shocked. Jo’s never minded if I shout back at her but I’ve never tried to hurt her like that before. I put my hand over my lips to try to get them under control.

  Jo was struggling too, no longer laughing. ‘OK. Maybe that’s a good point – if a cheap one. Though I’m glad I made that major mistake because I got you out of it. And you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me, even if you’re acting like a right old ratbag at this present moment in time,’ said Jo. ‘I’m sorry if you were worried I was late. I didn’t realize. Mark and I just got talking and—’

  ‘So it’s Mark, is it?’

  ‘Oh come off it, Charlie. He’s not the sort of man you call Mr Reed.’

  ‘No, he’s the little-boy-lost type, yeah?’

  ‘I don’t know why you’re being so stupid,’ said Jo. ‘You’re acting like I’m going out with him or something.’

  ‘Well – don’t you want to?’

  ‘Of course not. He’s my employer. He’s a nice quiet friendly man who adores his son and he’s still hurting after the break up of his marriage and he’s lonely and he just likes to talk a bit, that’s all. And – and – I like to talk to him too.’

  ‘Why? You’re not lonely. You’ve got me.’

  Jo looked as if she might giggle again. ‘You’re sounding like my husband now!’

  ‘Well, why do you have to get all prettied up in your best clothes just to talk to this Mark?’

  ‘Definitely like a husband. Oh, Charlie!’ Jo put her arms round me, her angora tickling my cheeks.

  ‘Get off. You’re getting fluff all over me,’ I said, sneezing.

  ‘Well, stop being such a prize berk, eh? Look, if it keeps you happy I’ll tell Mark tomorrow that I’m not allowed to say another word to him because it annoys my fierce bossy man-hating daughter.’

  ‘Right, you do that,’ I said.

  I knew I was being ridiculous. But I couldn’t help it.

  I was fed up at school too. Angela and Lisa were being stupid stupid stupid. Angela had joined this dippy fan club and had a special magazine and a signed photo of her new favourites and a T-shirt with all their heads on which she wore every day under her school shirt. She endlessly read aloud the most amazingly trivial facts about her new darlings, like one had a thing about red-and-white striped toothpaste and another had a wacky Scottish auntie and another fell about laughing every time he saw Bugs Bunny. Well, so what??? But Angela kept giving great excited whoops and yelling, ‘Listen to this, listen to this!’

  Lisa was getting pretty cheesed off with this too, but she was just as bad over Dave Wood. Worse even. She went bright red whenever he came remotely near her, and when one day in singing the music teacher had her standing right next to Dave, Lisa was so overcome she couldn’t sing a note, she just opened and shut her mouth like a goldfish.

  ‘I was so embarrassed,’ she kept saying afterwards. ‘I mean, we were practically touching.’

  ‘Yuck! I