t was getting close to the Easter holidays by now, and I had only just been able to at last move into my new room. It had certainly been a huge PALAVER, but it had been good as it had been distractivating for Mum as well as me (mainly because she spent a lot of time and energy going to the paint shop for me to change paints when I didn’t like them). Cheese and Toast had been very unimpressed by the whole upheaval and had gone into major sulk mode (which is not that different from their usual mode of being, if I’m totally honest). Life had been full and busy and totally hectic.

However, now the holidays were nearly upon us (which does not mean they were about to come crashing down around our ears, but that it was nearly Easter time) I was beginning to worry that without all the distractivating and decluttervating, Mum might go back to thinking about her nest being empty.

I wondered if I should talk to Molly about this one day after school while we were walking our pooches together in the park.

I should break off from the NARRATIVE (in other words story) at this point to explain that there was a time when it would have been impossible to even think of saying that last sentence. Molly’s mum had always very definitely been what you might call Not That Keen on Dogs, and would say things like, ‘If you think you’re getting a puppy just because your best friend has one, you have got another think coming, Miss Molly.’ I used to wonder how on earth Mrs Cook would know that Molly had Other Thinks Coming. Was she perhaps one of those types of people who could read your very mind? But I soon realized that this was not what Mrs Cook meant. What she meant was what my mum says whenever I ask her if Honey can have another litter: ‘Over My Dead Body!’ In other words, NO.

So Molly was not the only one to be totally flabbergasted and bewildified when her mum came and saw Honey’s puppies, took one look at Titch (who obviously was the smallest – with a name like that it is not really ) and went all melty and gooey and speechless for words.

Titch had settled into the Cook family right away (well, once he had learned all the Dos and Don’ts about where he could sit and couldn’t sit and where he was allowed to breathe in public . . .) and Molly was actually doing quite a good job of training him. So we had got to the stage where we could go for a walk in the park without anything too disastrous happening.

And so that is what we were doing that afternoon, to get back to the story, I mean NARRATIVE . . .

I had been thinking about puppies and the fun we had used to have when April was there and the fact that the puppies had all gone to new homes, rather like April had, and I had just got to the point of sadly wondering if the puppies missed each other at all, when I heard Molly’s voice go Up a Notch and sound a bit alarmingly nagging in tone. I quickly tuned back in.

‘What is the matter with you, Summer?’ she snapped. ‘You have not been listening to one single word that I have been saying to you.’

‘Er – sorry?’ I said, shaking my head blearily and coming out of my weirdly sad mood.

Molly tutted noisily. ‘Honestly, Summer Holly Love, you are being extremely strange these days. If I did not know you better I would say that you are actually being quite Depressive about something. But I know that cannot be true as you are not a Depressive sort of a person. So I can only think that you are just not listening to me because you have got something else more important to think about, in which case perhaps I should just go home on my own and—’

‘Actually,’ I broke into Molly’s TIRADE of nonsense rambling and said in a quiet but firm voice. ‘I have realized that I am quite a little bit Depressive some of the time these days.’

Molly’s expression on her face changed from outraged to perplexed in one split of a moment. ‘Oh?’ was all she could manage in response.

‘Yes,’ I said, blinking a bit, as my eyes were feeling hot and prickly. ‘I am a bit sad.’

Molly at once flung an arm around me and said, ‘But this is terrible! You must tell me all about it at once and right this minute.’ And she pushed me down on to a park bench that luckily happened to be close by, otherwise I might have ended up falling on my bottom.

We let the dogs off the lead and sat watching them romp around.

Then Molly coughed loudly and said, ‘So?’

I took a very deep breath, so deep that I managed to inhale a passing fly, which was not a good start, as I had to get over a bit of a choking and spitting fit, but it did at least mean that I did not actually cry. At last I squeaked: ‘It’s just that I didn’t realize I would feel this way, and I almost think it’s a bit silly of me, but – I miss April.’

Molly gasped. Her mouth was hanging open so wide I said, ‘You’ll swallow a fly too if you’re not careful.’

She snapped her jaws firmly shut and crossed her arms tightly in front of her chest and then said, through teeth that were clamped together against MARAUDING insects: ‘I cannot believe you, Summer!’

I frowned and blushed a bit. ‘Why not?’

Molly rolled her eyes as impressively as I have ever seen her do, and flinging her arms up in the air, she cried: ‘One minute you are saying you can’t wait for your, and I quote, “Bossy Boots Big Sister” to leave home and you are doing all that work moving into her room – and saying how you love having the TV and the sofa and your mum to yourself in the evenings – and the next minute you are turning into a Depressive Person and about it.’

‘I am not weeping and wailing!’ I said in a protesting sort of way. ‘And anyway, you have never had a Bossy Boots Big Sister to get annoyed with, or indeed miss, so how in all the earth would you know how I am feeling?’

Molly sighed and glanced at me in a rather CONDESCENDING fashion. Then she spoke in the sort of voice grown-ups use when they are talking to very small children or animals. ‘I am sorry that you feel so sad, Summer. What can we do to help?’

What can WE do to help? What in the highest of all heavens above was she babbling on about? Had she actually become two people or did she have an imaginary friend sitting next to her? Or did she suddenly think she was the Queen (who was the only person I had ever heard of who referred herself as ‘we’ in that especially manner of speaking)?

I was getting really quite moody now. I ignored Molly and stood up and called for Honey to come. She is such a good and obedient poochical these days that she came immediately right away. I wish I could say the same for Titch.

He must have found something truly honksome to roll about in, because as Honey came bounding towards me, I saw him flip over on to his back and have a good old rub and on the grass. He had his eyes closed and his tongue was lolling out of one side of his mouth and he was wagging his tail madly – which is quite impressively difficult, I would imagine, when you are lying on your back and rolling around, but somehow he was managing to do it.

The result was that something pooey and brown was being flicked all around the place and Titch’s beautiful golden coat was getting well and truly trashed. Molly had not noticed, as she was too busy looking at me in a sorrowful way and talking in a PATRONIZING and annoying tone.

‘Well,’ I said as carelessly as I could manage, ‘It’s very lovely of you to be Concerned About my Welfare, Molly, but I have to go now as I have rather a lot more homework to do this evening. I will see you tomorrow. Come on, Honey.’

When I got home, Mum was sitting at the kitchen table with her head propped up by her hands as if it would fall off unless she held it there. Her face was looking what can only be described as Glum and her cup of tea had gone cold and the surface of it had that kind of yucksome grimbleshanks on it which happens when the milk has gone all floaty.

‘Hi, Mum!’ I said, trying to sound cheery. My voice did a funny echoey sound around the walls. Oh my goodness dearie me, the house sounded as empty as I felt.

‘What?’ said Mum. ‘Oh hello, darling. It’s you.’

Yes, it is me. You do have another daughter who still lives at home and who is called Summer, and that is actually me.

‘How was your day?’ Mum asked. But it didn’t sound as though she was particularly interested. I could have said, ‘Great, thanks, Mum. The teacher made us eat slugs for lunch and run ten miles in the pouring rain in PE,’ and she would not have taken any notice. She had not even noticed that Honey had trodden muddy paw prints all over the clean kitchen floor tiles.

I decided to concentrate on sounding extremely chirpy in the hope it would wake Mum up a bit.

‘Oh, my day was super-duper -- marvellous!’ I said. My voice ended in a funny squeak, which made Mum peer at me strangely. I carried on babbling, ‘Yes, I had a lovely, lovely day at school and then I took Honey to the park just now with Molly and Titch, and the pooches ran around and were happy and Molly and I had a jolly good Chin-Wag.’

I paused. And then, totally unexplainably and completely out of nowhere, my bottom lip started to wobble and I plonked myself down in the chair opposite Mum and my shoulders sagged and my head fell on to my chest and my eyes went hot.

‘Oh, darling!’ Mum cried, suddenly all DISTRAUGHT. ‘What on earth is the matter? You haven’t had another falling out with Molly, have you? It’s not that Rosie Chubb again, is it? I—’

‘NO!’ I shouted. Why do mums always do this? They ask you a question and then they go and try and answer the question themselves before you have had a chance to draw one single breath and speak out loud yourself.

Mum stopped in mid-speech and looked rather a little bit horrified. But at least she did not start talking again.

I sighed very deeply and then said, ‘I am feeling sad. But if I tell you why, I think you might just laugh at me.’

Mum frowned and shook her head ever so slightly. Then she said in a very softly spoken voice, ‘No, Summer. I don’t think I will.’

‘OK,’ I said. Then I paused for dramatical effect (and also to check that Mum really was not going to laugh). ‘I didn’t think this would happen, in fact, I was sure I would feel totally utterly the opposite way about it, but as it has turned out . . . I miss April!’ My voice did the squeaky thing again, and I started sobbing like a loop-the-loop loony. Honey whined and left the room.

Mum pushed her chair back gently and came round to my side of the table and put her arms around me and gave me the sort of calming cuddle that only mums know how to give.

Then she kissed the top of my head and said quietly, ‘I know, I know,’ and waited until my blubbing had settled down a bit. Then she let go of me and drew up a chair next to me and held my hands.

I sniffed and hiccuped and said, ‘It’s completely weird. I was absolutely desperate for April to go and get married and let me have her room and not be here to boss me around all the time, but now that I have finally got what I wanted, nothing feels right.’

Mum nodded. She looked a bit blurry through all the tears that were still spilling over the edge of my eyelids.

‘And I thought it would be so cool to have the sofa to myself and to be able to watch all the telly programmes I wanted to instead of having to creep around the place while April and Nick snogged on the sofa.’ I shuddered a slightly tiny bit when I said that. Even on their wedding day, which is a day when as everyone knows, the couple are allowed to snog in public, it is not something I wanted to have to witness. ‘But actually I think I would prefer April to be here snogging Nick,’ I continued, ‘or even having a tantrum about me using her hairbrush or something, because at least then she would STILL BE HERE.’

I stopped to take a breath and try to stop all the hiccupy sobbing. ‘It is funny, isn’t it?’ murmured Mum. ‘The house just feels too quiet.’ Then she went quiet herself and stared into the distance in a PENSIVE manner.

I was about to go and switch on the telly and try and convince myself that sitting on the sofa on my own was as good as I had hoped it would be, when Mum suddenly said, ‘I know – let’s have a party!’

Now, I can assure you that I like a party as much as anyone in the entire universe likes a party (which is a lot, unless you are the sort of person in the entire universe who does not, in which case you are frankly a bit odd in my opinion), but even I did think that this was strange timing.

‘That is a freaky announcement to make when we are both feeling so Glum and Down in the Dumps,’ I said.

Mum beamed and jumped up and gave me a hug and said, ‘I know!’ in a bit of a loony high-pitched tone of speaking. And then she said, ‘But we could have a party for April!’

Then I felt all as well, and I squeezed Mum hard and said, ‘Yay!’

Mum pulled me back to the kitchen table and made me sit down and then she started talking in a mega-hyper way. ‘It’s her birthday in, what, two weeks?’ she wibbled, counting the days on her fingers. (Why is it OK for grown-ups to do this, but when children do they are told off for cheating and not using their times tables and Mental Maths?) ‘And it’s quite a special one as it’s the first birthday she is going to have as a married woman, and I don’t think she and Nick have got enough room in their flat to have a party, so we can just have it here! And we can do it as a SURPRISE!’

I did actually squeal rather loudly when she said this last bit, as I was finding all her excitement quite a bit infectious and I do love a SURPRISE myself.

‘Yippeeee!’ I said. I leaped out of my chair and did a bit of a victory dance around the table, punching my fist in the air and chanting, ‘We’re going to have a PAR-TEE! It’s going to be a SUR-PRISE!’

Mum laughed and Honey came crashing back and joined in all the hoo-ha with a good session of barking and tail wagging.