As soon as we got home Grace started to whine about how she wanted Mum. Sometimes if she’s really upset Mum will have a quick chat with her on the phone in between patients, but neither Bella nor I wanted to ring Mum until we’d had a bit more time to think about what to say. The last thing we wanted was for the truth to come out about Aunt Thecla’s missing money.
‘I don’t think we should distract Mummy at work, Grace,’ I pointed out.
‘She won’t mind,’ Grace said stubbornly.
‘She will if she pulls out the wrong tooth!’ Bella snapped.
Suddenly we heard the front door opening. It was Dad. Bella and I looked at each other in alarm. His meeting must have finished early.
‘Daddy!’ Grace squealed, rushing up to him and flinging herself into his arms. ‘Daddy, Aunt Thecla was really mean to me!’ And she burst into tears.
Unfortunately Dad always responds well to a show of fierce clinging and shirt-dampening tears from Grace. ‘Why? What did she do?’ he asked at once.
Grace’s crying was preventing her from answering straight away, but Bella and I both knew we only had a few minutes before she told him everything.
‘Let’s get her a drink of water, Libby,’ Bella said, quickly pulling me after her into the kitchen and shutting the door behind us.
It was time to decide what our story was going to be.
‘We’ve only got two options,’ I whispered. ‘You either confess you took the money, or we pretend we know nothing about it. If you confess, Mum and Dad are going to be furious and they’ll want to know why. But if we keep quiet then Grace will still be a suspect, which isn’t really fair.’
‘It can’t only be Grace who’s had the opportunity to take it,’ Bella said with a cross frown. ‘Hasn’t Aunt Thecla got a cleaning lady or somebody like that?’
‘Bella, it’s lucky she doesn’t!’ I snapped. ‘Can you imagine if her cleaning lady got fired because of us? We’d have to own up then!’
‘Not necessarily,’ she said stubbornly. ‘After all, it’s not our fault if Aunt Thecla goes around accusing innocent people instead of finding out the truth first.’
I glared at her. Sometimes I just can’t believe how pig-headed my sister can be. Or how selfish. ‘Bella, Aunt Thecla’s just given us that really expensive jewellery, and she’s paying for our new school and … and … you stole from her! How can you blame her for any of this?’
She was looking a bit taken aback by my sharp words, then Dad shouted to us from the other room. ‘Bella! Libby! Come in here!’
‘I think we should tell the truth,’ I said. ‘Just that you borrowed the money. Not about Sam!’
‘No,’ Bella said in a panicky voice. ‘They’ll want to know why I took it. They might even guess it’s to do with Sam. Libby, we can’t tell them.’ She gave me her most desperate pleading look.
‘GIRLS!’ Dad sounded impatient and his voice was nearer.
‘OK!’ I caved, just as he flung open the kitchen door to glare at us.
But it wasn’t us that Dad was really angry with. It was Aunt Thecla. After we confirmed Grace’s version of what happened at our aunt’s house, he snarled, ‘That’s it! I’m not having her accuse Grace like that! From now on, you three don’t go near your aunt without me or Mum with you! Do you understand? Libby and Bella, stay here with your sister until I get back.’
‘Where are you going?’ I called after him as he headed for the door.
But he didn’t reply.
‘So what do we do now?’ I asked miserably as the front door slammed behind him and Grace burst into tears again.
‘You stay here and babysit,’ Bella grunted. ‘I’m going out.’
‘Wait … we’ll come with you …’
‘No. I don’t want you two tagging along.’ And two seconds later she was gone.
I guessed she must be going to see Sam. Since he’d started working at the local garage she’d been popping in to see him on his lunch breaks. I didn’t want to be stuck inside on my own with Grace so I offered to take her to the park on her scooter. ‘Let’s have a look at Dad and Aunt Thecla’s old house on the way there. Tansy lives right next to it, so we can see if she wants to come to the park too. I’ll just send her a text to tell her we’re on our way.’
* * *
Ten minutes later I was shouting for Grace to slow down as she scooted along on the pavement ahead of me. ‘This is the street,’ I yelled out. ‘Start looking for the right number.’
Each house stood on its own, set back from the road along a short drive. Most of them had large front gardens with high gates at the entrance. We’d driven past Dad’s old house a couple of times before but he’d never wanted to stop and have a proper look.
‘This is it,’ I told Grace as we reached a grey sandstone house set in a large garden, which we couldn’t see properly because it was surrounded by a high brick wall.
‘I wonder which bedroom was Daddy’s,’ Grace said, looking in through the impressive black wrought-iron gates that guarded the entrance.
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘You should ask him.’
We stood at the gates for a while staring in at the house where Dad had spent his childhood. Somehow it was really hard to imagine him ever belonging here.
‘Let’s see if Tansy’s in,’ I said, turning my attention to the house next door. Tansy hadn’t answered my text message but that didn’t mean we couldn’t call on her.
‘Look, it’s for sale,’ Grace pointed out excitedly. ‘Maybe we can buy it!’
Sure enough, there was an estate agent’s board nailed to the gatepost of the neighbouring house.
‘Somehow I don’t think Mum and Dad could afford any of the houses in this road,’ I murmured as I stared at the house through its open gates.
That’s when we saw Tansy waving to us from one of the downstairs bay windows.
‘Let’s go and see her!’ Grace said.
‘Wait for me,’ I called, but she was already bolting ahead of me up the gravel drive towards the house.