Twenty minutes later, Mum was up in the attic humming ancient songs as she rummaged through boxes of old junk. Before long, she called me,
‘Come, on up, Megan. You can help me. This is so much fun.’
I thought doing really hard maths homework would be more fun than helping Mum, but I decided not to say this.
‘Sorry, Mum,’ I called. ‘I’d love to, but I promised Alice I’d call for her.’
Mum didn’t even answer, so I took the opportunity to escape.
I ran over to Alice’s place. Alice laughed when I told her the good news that Mum and Dad were going away.
‘You lucky thing,’ she said. ‘A whole weekend without your mum and dad bossing you around. I’m jealous already.’
Then she thought for a minute.
‘Who’s going to mind you though? Who does your mother trust to fill you up with organic porridge, and to keep you away from evil things like television and mobile phones?’
I laughed.
‘That’s the really great news. My Aunt Linda is coming to mind us. She’s really cool – well, I suppose not really, really cool, but she’s a lot cooler than Mum, that’s for sure. She’ll promise Mum loads of stuff, but as soon as we’re on our own, she’ll act like a normal person. It’s going to be so—’
Alice put up a hand to stop me. She had that funny look on her face again.
‘I think I remember your Aunt Linda from when she visited before.’
I nodded.
‘Yeah. She comes down about once a year. She never stays long though. After a day or two she starts to get restless and wants to go home. She—’
Alice stopped me again.
‘She’s kind of pretty, isn’t she?’
Linda’s my aunt. I’d never really thought about whether she was pretty before.
‘I don’t really know,’ I said. ‘She doesn’t look much like my mum, and that’s a good thing, I suppose. She has nice, shiny, black, curly hair. And she wears cool clothes. Well, cool for an aunt anyway.’
Why was Alice grinning so much?
And why was she suddenly so interested in my Aunt Linda?
By now Alice was looking like she’d just won the lottery.
‘Linda never got married, did she?’ she asked.
Suddenly everything became clear.
‘No way!’ I said. ‘No way are you going to involve my aunt in one of your crazy plans.’
Alice ignored me.
‘She’s not married though, is she?’
I shook my head.
‘Not last time I asked.’
‘And does she have a boyfriend?’
I was fairly certain that Linda didn’t have a boyfriend. I’d heard Mum and Dad talking about that very subject just a few weeks earlier. This was crazy though. Alice was getting carried away as usual.
Alice shook my shoulder.
‘Come on, Meg. Tell me. Does Linda have a boyfriend?’
‘Not that I know of,’ I said quietly.
Alice gave a big happy shout.
‘That’s settled then. We’ll arrange a little romance between Dad and Linda, make sure Mum gets to hear of it, and before we know it, Mum will be begging Dad to let her move back in. Simple.’
I walked away from her and looked out the window. Alice’s old swings were swaying in the breeze. We used to spend hours on those swings, chatting about stupid things. I thought about how easy things were when her parents were together, and all Alice and I had to do all day long was hang out, and do fun stuff.
At Easter, when Alice and her mum moved back to Limerick, I thought everything was going to be OK again.
Suddenly I felt really selfish – I had got what I wanted. My best friend was back, and I never really stopped to think that she was still upset that her parents didn’t live together any more. I thought that since they lived near to each other, everything was fine. How totally stupid was that?
Alice came over and stood next to me. She spoke quietly.
‘Linda will only be here for a few days. It’s a perfect opportunity, and we can’t let it pass us by. Please help me, Meg. Just this one more time.’
I put my head down. As far as I could see I had two choices – I could agree to help Alice right now, or I could let her spend the next week persuading me, and then agree. Whatever happened, I knew I’d end up in the middle of another crazy Alice plan, sooner or later.
Suddenly I felt tired of it all. I was in sixth class. This was supposed to be a fun year, the best year of primary school, maybe the best of my whole life – and I’d already spent half of it running around helping Alice with stupid plans that never worked properly anyway.
Alice left my side and went to sit on her bed. After a minute, I turned around to look at her. Her face was so sad, it made me want to cry. What kind of a friend was I if I only liked her when she was happy?
I went and stood beside her.
‘No crazy stuff this time, OK?’
She jumped up and hugged me.
‘I promise,’ she said. ‘No crazy stuff at all. It’ll be a crazy-free zone. Thanks, Meg. You’re the best friend I could ever have.’
I tried to smile, but I couldn’t.
* * *
The rest of that week was very strange. Mum kept arriving down from the attic carrying bundles of revolting brightly-coloured clothes. She’d toss them onto the kitchen table with big happy sighs.
‘Aaaaah,’ she’d say. ‘Everything was so simple and bright and happy in those days.’
Mostly I ignored her, or sometimes when it got too much I pretended to vomit. Mum never seemed to mind. It was as if she’d already vanished from us and gone back to her past, where I didn’t even exist yet.
One day, when Dad got home from work Mum waved a big heap of denim in front of his face. He took it from her, and held it up. I giggled. It was the old denim dungarees he’d had on in the photograph.
‘Look, Donal,’ Mum said. ‘Remember these? You can wear them to the festival at the weekend.’
Dad went pale.
‘I don’t think so, Sheila. They’re … well, they’re ancient history aren’t they? I like to think I’ve moved on a bit since then.’
Mum hugged him.
‘Go on. Try them on, please, for me.’
Dad looked very uncomfortable as he went out in to the hall. Seconds later he shuffled back into the room. Even Mum had to laugh. Dad looked so pathetic it was hard to believe. He looked like someone in a very, very bad fancy dress outfit. Rosie even looked a bit scared. She went over and half-hid behind Mum’s legs.
‘Daddy’s a loser,’ she said.
Dad made a face at Mum.
‘Happy?’ he said. ‘Even my own daughter thinks I look ridiculous.’
Mum put her hand over her mouth and tried to stop laughing.
‘OK, so maybe you shouldn’t wear these. I’ll look in the attic for something else.’
Dad shook his head.
‘Actually, Sheila, you won’t. I’m wearing my normal jeans or I’m not going. OK?’
Mum was quiet for a minute, and then she nodded.
‘I suppose so. Now I wonder if I can find your old sandals?’
‘Sheila.’
Now Dad sounded really cross.
Mum backed down.
‘OK, no more old stuff I promise. Now get changed again. The lentil stew is almost ready.’
After dinner Mum put away all the crazy clothes, and went back to work on ‘The List’.
This was her list of instructions for Linda. All stupid stuff like:
Dad leaned over her shoulder and started to read.
‘Linda’s your sister.’ he said. ‘Don’t you trust her to mind the girls properly?’
Mum looked all stressed.
‘I do trust her – sort of. I’d just like to think that she’s doing things my way, that’s all.’
Dad went back to his paper.
‘Whatever,’ he said.
I smiled to myself. Poor Mum. Linda had only minded Rosie and me once before, for an afternoon, and in that time she managed to break almost every one of Mum’s stupid rules. Mum could write all the lists she liked, I knew Linda would ignore every single word. We were going to have so much fun – I knew it already.
Now all I had to worry about was Alice and her crazy plan.