The Mum Mystery

The next day was Saturday. Lizzie had gone out, and Dad and I were in the middle of eating breakfast in the kitchen when there was a loud ringing on our doorbell. Dad went to answer it and I followed him.

‘Red paw prints painted all across my bonnet. And I know who’s responsible!’

‘I’m talking about your son! My wife saw him and that friend of his hanging around in the street yesterday evening. That spray-paint doesn’t come off, you know. Now my bonnet’s ruined and I want to know what you’re going to do about it!’

Dad looked astounded. ‘Did your wife actually see my son spray-painting your car?’

‘Because I find that very hard to believe. He’s not a vandal. Look, I’ll speak to him and see if he knows anything, but I suggest you make an official complaint down at the police station.’

As Dad closed the front door I looked up the stairs and saw Matthew standing at the top in his pyjama bottoms. He had a surprised sort of expression on his face as if he couldn’t believe that Dad had just stood up for him like that.

Dad told him to get dressed and come downstairs. I thought it was a bit strange that Dad wasn’t launching into an interrogation straight away, until I realized that he wanted some time to question me first.

‘Esmie, how long was Jake here yesterday evening?’ he asked when we were back in the kitchen with our breakfasts in front of us again.

I nodded. ‘But only for a short time.’ Not that you needed a long time to spray-paint some paw prints on a car, I thought. I remembered how Matty and Jake had seemed in really high spirits when they’d come back inside again. And there was the even more incriminating fact that they had spray-painted the school sign only a couple of days before, using the same colour paint. But of course, Dad didn’t know anything about that.

Matty came downstairs twenty minutes later and stood at the sink munching toast while Dad asked him about Mr Stevens’s allegation. He had stopped limping now, but he was still avoiding sitting down whenever possible.

‘We did go out the front for a little while last night, but so what?’ Matthew said defensively, avoiding meeting Dad’s gaze.

‘Just having a private chat without big-ears listening in,’ Matthew answered, looking sideways at me. (And I may as well admit now that that has got to be the most plausible excuse my brother has ever come up with.)

Dad sighed. ‘Well, that much I can believe.’ He paused. ‘So while you were out there, did you see anyone else hanging around?’

‘Only Hercule. He had a paintbrush in one paw and a pot of paint hooked over the other. I didn’t think anything of it at the time but –’ My brother started to giggle.

‘Matthew, this isn’t funny,’ Dad began, although he had the trace of a smile on his face too. ‘Look, if you saw anything—’

As soon as he left the kitchen, I homed in on my brother. ‘It was you, wasn’t it? It’s just like what you did to the school sign!’

Matthew gave an irritating little smirk. ‘You can’t prove anything, Esmie – and neither can Dad.’

I immediately thought it must be Holly coming to make up with me, and I hurried to the front door.

I led her up to my room, where I quickly straightened my duvet and pulled back the curtains. ‘Your uncle just came over here about his car,’ I said.

Nevada nodded. ‘He’s really furious about it. He’s phoned the garage and he has to report it to the police or he won’t be able to claim on his insurance. He wanted to give them Matthew’s name, but Aunt Ruth’s made him promise not to. She didn’t actually see Matthew do it, and she doesn’t want to fall out with your dad as well as with Mrs Lewis.’ She paused. ‘The thing is, even if your brother did do it, Carys isn’t going to hold it against him. She really wants to go out with him on a date. That’s what I came to tell you.’

‘Well, you’d better hurry up. I’ll give you her mobile number, and if he wants to meet her, tell him to text her. He can’t call at the house or Uncle Frank will have a fit.’

As Nevada was leaving my room she noticed the photograph that always stands on my dressing table.

I nodded, starting to feel the back of my neck go tingly as she picked up the photograph and ran her finger gently across the glass covering my mother’s face.

I nodded again and watched her carefully pick that up too, lifting the lid to reveal the inside, which was still totally empty. Somehow I hadn’t been able to bring myself to fill it with my own jewellery yet.

‘It’s just that I’ve been getting some other names in my head,’ she said softly. ‘I’m not sure if they were friends of your mum or something. The names are Rusty . . . Kirsten . . . and Amanda . . .’

I frowned. We were still in touch with quite a few of my mother’s friends and none of them were called that. ‘I don’t think so,’ I said.

‘Well, those are the names I’m getting. They must have been her friends when she was younger or something. You said this was her jewellery box when she was your age, didn’t you?’

‘Yes, but . . .’ I trailed off. To be honest I was starting to feel a bit sceptical about Nevada’s psychic skills. After all, it was easy enough to pluck three names out of the air and tell me they must have been my mother’s friends when she was a girl. I mean, how could I ever prove or disprove that?

Nevada seemed to sense how I was feeling. ‘If you don’t believe me, you should ask someone who knew your mum as a child,’ she said. ‘Has she got any brothers or sisters?’

‘My grandma in America would be the best person,’ I said. ‘She’d know the names of the friends my mum had when she was my age.’

‘And don’t forget to ask Matthew about Carys. She’s not doing anything tonight if he wants to take her out.’

‘It’s Saturday. Isn’t that when you said Jennifer works at Burger King?’

‘Hey, do you want to come and have a look at my uncle’s car?’ she added as an afterthought.

So I went outside with her and had a look. On the car’s shiny white bonnet, two sets of paw prints had been sprayed, not very neatly, in bright red paint.

‘It isn’t that funny, is it?’ she said. ‘Especially since it won’t wash off.’

‘It’s not funny at all,’ I agreed. And suddenly I felt really ashamed of my brother.

When I got back to our house I went straight up to Matty’s room. ‘You’ve made a real mess of Mr Stevens’s car, Matthew,’ I told him. ‘Now he’s got to take it to the garage and get the bonnet totally resprayed, and it’s going to cost loads of money.’

‘Yes it has,’ I replied. ‘I don’t want to watch you turn into a criminal and get sent to prison, OK?’

‘You just broke the law, Matthew!’ I snapped. ‘And if you don’t promise not to do anything like this again, then I’m going to tell Dad. I reckon he’ll know how to make you stop.’

‘OK, OK, I promise. Look, Jake and I got a bit carried away last night, that’s all.’

‘Lizzie’s right,’ I said crossly. ‘You’re not yourself and it’s all because of Jennifer. But that’s no excuse! You’ve got to either get her back or get over her! Here!’ And I thrust the photo of Carys into his hand, telling him that she had already spotted him from across the road, and that she fancied him and wanted to go out on a date with him.

When he had finished gaping at me, he looked at the photo and I could tell he was impressed with Carys’s looks. ‘The thing is, Esmie,’ he said, handing it back to me, ‘I don’t think I can go out with anyone else at the moment.’

‘Listen, Matthew, if you take Carys to Burger King tonight it might make Jennifer jealous enough to want you back.’

He frowned. ‘I couldn’t do that.’ ‘Why not? If you want her back, isn’t it worth trying anything?’

‘I don’t know, Esmie.’ He sniffed. ‘Look, when she broke up with me she said I wasn’t mature enough – that she wanted to go out with somebody older. So that’s Ian – not me.’ ‘Ian’s only a couple of years older than you,’ I said. ‘And anyway, he’s totally gross.’

‘Well, she might after she’s actually gone out with him on a date,’ I said. ‘Look, Matthew it’s up to you . . . but Carys says to text her if you want to take her out tonight. Her number’s on the back of the photo. Oh – and apparently she loves burgers.’

While Dad and I were washing up the breakfast things, I asked him if it was OK for me to phone my grandma in Chicago that afternoon.

He nodded. ‘But for goodness sake don’t wake her up at five in the morning like you did the last time.’ (The UK is six hours ahead of Chicago and I have a bad habit of forgetting that.) ‘I’m going to meet Lizzie in town later,’ he continued. ‘Your brother can stay here with you until I get back.’

He sighed. ‘Sometimes Lizzie and I like to have some time to ourselves, Esmie, that’s all.’

But I was thinking about that article in Holly’s mum’s magazine that had surveyed all the places where different readers’ marriage proposals had occurred. Near the top of the list, just behind romantic weekends away, had been romantic meals in restaurants – especially if the restaurant held some kind of special significance for the couple concerned.

‘I know!’ I told him excitedly. ‘Why don’t you take her to that nice French restaurant – the one where you and Lizzie first met?’

‘You should book a table,’ I told him. And I rushed off to look up the number in the telephone directory before he could change his mind.

I was so desperate to phone my grandmother that when two o’clock came (which meant it would be eight in the morning in Chicago) I couldn’t hold off any longer.

The phone rang out a few times before Grandma answered. She didn’t sound too sleepy so I guessed I probably hadn’t woken her up.

‘Esmie! Ah!’ She sounded pleased, and we chatted for a while about all the usual things, including the fact that she and my step-grandad were coming to stay with us for Christmas. Then I told her I had something to ask her about my mother. ‘Grandma, I was wondering if you could remember the names of any of the friends she had when she was my age.’

‘What a funny question, Esmie. Now let me think . . . Her best friend in primary school was called Heather. Then there was Theresa who lived round the corner from us. There were several others, but—’

‘Oh, well . . . yes . . . Kirsten and Amanda were the girls we knew in Brighton.’

‘How on earth did you find out about them?’ Grandma asked, sounding curious.

I knew I couldn’t tell her the truth, and I also knew I had to come up with some sort of explanation fast. ‘Dad’s been clearing some stuff out of the loft and there were things up there that belonged to my mum, so . . . so we’ve been talking about her. He gave me a jewellery box that belonged to her too.’

‘Really?’ I exclaimed. ‘That’s . . . that’s . . .’ I was speechless because it was all making perfect sense now – well, perfect psychic sense at least. I started to feel a bit trembly, as if I needed to lie down.

‘It’s all a very long time ago, that’s what it is,’ Grandma said, sighing. ‘Still, it’s important to remember the past.’ And without me even asking, she began to tell me about the many summers she and my mother had spent in Brighton. ‘You see, one of my sisters – Esmerelda, who you were named after of course – had a holiday flat there. She used to let us use it whenever we wanted, so I often took your mother there for the whole of the summer holidays. Kirsten and Amanda were a similar age to your mother and they lived in the flat next door – a very nice family. They had a dog too – oh, I believe the dog was called Rusty! Anyway, the girls got along famously. They even invented their own club.’

‘Oh, they called themselves the Adventurous Four or the Famous Four – something like that. It was all very hush-hush. Your mother was very like you in a lot of ways, Esmie. She liked her secrets!’

When I came off the phone, I went and lay down on my bed, thinking about what my grandmother had told me and how, when Holly and I were younger, we had invented our own secret club too. We had turned the empty shed at the bottom of Holly’s garden into our headquarters, and Holly’s mum had made us a yellow curtain to pull across the window whenever we were having one of our secret meetings. We’d even made up our own club song, which we’d sing at the start of every meeting:

We have a club, a very cool club,

And we are the members o-of it,

We’re loyal and true and wise and good,

Just like the members of a club should.

(OK, so it went a bit weird at the end, but we were only eight at the time and we thought the main thing was to make it rhyme.)

I found myself wondering if my mum and her friends had had a club song and, if so, whether it had been nearly as daft as ours. And I smiled, because even though my mother wasn’t around to tell me all the things she’d done as a child, it seemed like I was still managing to follow in her footsteps a little bit.