Forever Rose Read online

  ‘Of course we are taking him home,’ said Mummy, turning the car heating up full and huffing on her fingers.

  WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY?

  Then, while we waited for Indigo and David, Mummy and I had a great big argument about whether it would be unforgivable not to take David home. It made Mummy cough a lot so I gave in.

  ‘He can have Saffron’s room while she is at Sarah’s,’ said Mummy. ‘It will only be for a little while.’

  But she did not mean that. I know, because one minute later when David was in the car saying, ‘I shouldn’t come. I’m doing fine. I’ll be all right. You don’t want me,’ etc etc she said, ‘Of course you should come. We want you very much. You are very very welcome to stay with us for as long as you like!’

  ‘Isn’t he, Rose?’ she added.

  ‘Oh yes,’ I said.

  After Indigo had poked me twice.

  So now we have swopped Saffron for David, and I do not see how we will ever manage to get them swopped back, and that seems all wrong to me because (although I have finished with Saffron for good) after all, she is the one who lives here.

  And so she should be here.

  And David doesn’t.

  And so he shouldn’t.

  And now it is Sunday afternoon.

  Daddy is in London, which has lost all its magic and where he personally is Burned Out.

  Caddy is miles away, choosing names for guinea pigs.

  Michael is dodging us.

  Mummy is resting on her bed, and do you know what she said before she went up? She said, ‘I’m sorry you’ve quarrelled with Darling Saffy, Rose.’

  Darling Saffy!

  Indigo and David are cooking in the kitchen.

  Darling Saffy is at Sarah’s house. Good riddance too. I am never going to speak to her again and I will not listen to anything she says.

  She lost her bag when she was in town yesterday morning.

  Can’t say I’m interested.

  She panicked. And went back to everywhere she had been. In a flap.

  Who cares?

  And she didn’t notice the time going by until LONG after two o’clock.

  I did.

  And then it was much too late.

  Dear, dear.

  Because it was baby-sitting time.

  Huh.

  She did try to explain, when she telephoned, but I would not listen.

  OH WELL HOW SURPRISING IS THAT?

  I never have liked Sunday afternoons. There is something about them. They are colder and emptier than other times, and even if you are doing something nice you cannot help knowing that it will soon all end and the next thing is Monday morning. But this particular Sunday afternoon was the worst I had ever had. I was very unhappy. What I felt like doing was yelling very nastily and crossly at someone, and when Daddy telephoned I had the chance to do this, and I made the most of it.

  I shouted about Christmas trees and drum kits and bronchitis and Scrubbable Magnolia and Sarah’s big posh house and kind funny father who was always there and not sitting next to Kiran and horrible Mr Spencer and attics and sheds and hamsters and long-life muffins.

  I could have gone on for hours, and I would have done except the handset of the telephone suddenly fell in half and I was afraid of getting an electric shock from the wires. But even the amount of shouting I had managed to complete did me good. I felt very brave after it all and I remembered that even if my family were useless I still had my lovely friends.

  Molly and Kiran.

  I thought of Molly sticking up for me to horrible Mr Spencer, and Kiran walking backwards in the rain, and laughing and saying, ‘We want you! Dope!’

  ‘You’ve cheered up!’ said Indigo, some time after supper (curried meatballs with apples in the curry sauce. Surprisingly edible, invented by David who was now – having begged for the privilege – washing up in the kitchen). ‘Whatever are you stuffing into that bag? Have you seen my mobile and was it you who broke the receiver on the telephone? Where are you taking that torch? It’s the only one that works!’

  I did not have to reply to any of these questions. Indigo was messing about with his guitar and concentrating on it much more than on me. Anyway, I knew he did not really want any answers. It was just what Kiran calls Routine Interrogation of the Youngest Person Present and happens in all families. So I carried on with my packing until Mummy drifted in and started an antibiotic hunt.

  (Owing to the David crisis she has forgotten to take her last three doses.)

  (So we will all know whose fault it is if she drops down dead.)

  (Although they will probably find a way of blaming me.)

  I was remarking about this very quietly to myself when Indigo woke up to the world.

  ‘What are you muttering about, Rose?’ he asked (Routine Interrogation again).‘I don’t suppose you’ve said thank you to poor old David yet? And anyway, shouldn’t you be in bed?’

  Charming.

  Not that I care. What a rubbish family. Thank goodness for my friends.

  However, bed is a wonderful idea. I should be making the most of it, while I have a chance. Me and The Once and Future King, The Hobbit and The Blue Fairy Book. I have been going through the bookcase in Saffy’s room. The top shelves are full of intellectual and gloomy paperbacks belonging to Saffron, but the bottom shelves are stuffed with books that used to belong to Caddy. I have started several of them already. I have learned to read, but nobody has noticed.

  Monday 18th December

  I Never Knew a Day Could Be So Long

  Just before I slammed out of the house this morning I yelled to David (who was making tea for Mummy and clearing up the toast crumbs from Indigo’s early breakfast and generally acting like he had lived with us for ever),‘And by the way you’d better tell my rotten family I won’t be here tonight.’

  ‘Where will you be then, Rose?’ asked David.

  ‘With Kiran.’

  ‘Kiran?’ repeated David (now tenderly bandaging the telephone with insulating tape).

  ‘She’s a girl in my class. Molly will be there too, she’s another girl in my class.’

  ‘So you’re stopping the night at a girl called Kiran’s house and so is another girl called Molly and I’m to tell your mum?’ said David. ‘I think you should.’

  Then he went very bright red and said, ‘I know what you’re thinking.’

  What?

  ‘That I’m a good one to talk.’

  No, actually I wasn’t (although it is true).

  ‘That’s a very big bag you are taking to school today,’ continued David (after an embarrassed pause). ‘I s’pose it’s your night things. I did think when you brought it down that it must be for something special.’

  I really do think David would have been quite all right if we had left him in that attic. He has a suspicious mind! I have noticed it before. It is the result of his guilty past – he has done it all himself and so he recognises the clues.

  So although I was still not really speaking to him (and certainly not ready to thank him for the hideous destruction of my bedroom) I tried to encourage him not to think any more by saying very calmly and slowly, ‘Oh, I suppose it is a bit special because today is our class trip to the Zoo,’ and then I went quickly out of the door and along the street and I didn’t look back and didn’t look back and didn’t look back until almost the last moment.

  And then I did and David was waving.

  Poor old David.

  It might be the last time I see him.

  If a lion escapes and eats me, for instance.

  It is very hard to be nasty all the time, nonstop without a tiny little break. I don’t know how Mr Spencer keeps it up.

  So I turned round and ran back to the house, with my bag bumping like agony on my back, bump, bump, bump, opened the back door and yelled into the kitchen.

  ‘Thank you, David, for decorating my bedroom!’

  And ran away again.

  And didn’t look back and didn’t lo
ok back and didn’t look back.

  Until almost the last moment.

  And there was David, smiling.

  In the school entrance hall Mr Spencer was being effortlessly nasty to a group of six-year-olds who looked too happy. I slipped past him and into our classroom.

  ‘You’re here, you’re here, you’re here!’ exclaimed Molly jumping round me and hugging my arms. ‘Look, Kiran, she’s come!’

  Kiran slightly raised one eyebrow to show how pleased she was. She could not do more than this because movement wastes oxygen and she was passing the time until the coaches arrived by seeing how long she could go without breathing.

  ‘One minute twenty-three,’ she said, a minute later, giving Molly and me a wrist each so that we could take her pulse. ‘It is all a matter of concentration. Have I managed to slow my heart rate yet? They do it all the time in Tibet.’

  ‘You are dead,’ I told her. ‘No pulse at all on my side. What about you, Mollipop?’

  Molly the Brownie was silently moving her lips as she counted, her eyes on the clock.

  ‘Seventy-two,’ she announced.

  ‘Maybe she’s only half dead,’ suggested Kai, who had been watching Molly very admiringly. ‘Alive on Molly’s side, but dead on Rose’s. Come on, Rose, now you’re here you can guard the door! I’ve got to talk to everyone about Strategy and Tactics.’

  Kai’s lifelong membership of Gold Team (now renamed, see Wednesday 29th November) and his inability to tell left from right (hence peripatetic nature of shoes) might lead you to think he was daft. Not so. Kai stood on Mr Spencer’s desk and addressed Class 6 like a master criminal ordering his gang.

  ‘You All Know Why I’m Here,’ he began (and for one moment it sounded like a repeat of his Assembly speech on Why Not to Ring the Emergency Services on Your Mother’s 40th Birthday). ‘It is because of a very special plan inspired by the famous naturalist and broadcaster Mr David Attenborough…’ (Molly clapped) ‘…and the famous school secretary Mrs Shah and also Molly who will be famous some day I am sure and her friends Kiran and Rose who I don’t know about. Maybe, maybe not.’ (Pause, during which everyone looked at Kiran and me and shook their heads.) ‘For this plan to work,’ continued Kai, ‘it is really important that we should prevent Mr Spencer ever being able to get us properly counted. That is the key to our success. So, right from the beginning of the day he should be made to realise that it is impossible. The sooner he gives up trying the better and I think he will give up pretty quick because let’s face it, he’s not that bothered. This is how we’re going to do it: keeping swopping jackets and hats…’ (Kai flourished his hat so beautifully Molly sighed) ‘…and weave! Everyone has got to weave…’ (Kai wove a bit on the table) ‘…Dodge about and never stand still. Move between groups all the time. If you find you are being stared at…’ (Pause for ferocious staring) ‘…pick your nose. It makes them glance away. The student teacher who is coming with us is really small so tallest people squash up around her whenever possible. Also, never answer any question in your natural voice, don’t call anyone you’re talking to by name and in moments of crisis Go For the Ball!’

  Kai whisked from a bag a bright orange basketball and held it triumphantly high. We all cheered like mad, Kai leaped down from the table, I forgot I was on guard, and then suddenly the ball went flying and there was a new voice in the room.

  ‘WHO threw that ball?’ roared Mr Spencer. They were his last indignant words before he (and the student teacher who had followed him) were submerged in a scrum of weaving criminals, all swopping hats, picking their noses and calling in strange high voices. By the time they reappeared the ball was gone, the student teacher was flattened against the whiteboard and Kai was leading the race for the coaches and the car park.

  ‘He is a genius,’ said Kiran to Molly as we squashed on to the coach, and Molly went pink.

  It was one of those days that pass like a dream. Here are the things I remember most:

  1. The murmur of gratitude that went all around the bus when Mr Spencer handed the register to the student teacher who passed it to Molly who gave it to Kai.

  2. The chimpanzees dressed, watching telly and eating nuts on a red plastic sofa.

  3. The enormous number of enclosures that appeared to be empty but, after prolonged and chilly scrutiny, turned out to be anything but.

  4. How Mr Spencer and the student teacher gave up all pretence of supervision, slunk into the Smoking Permitted section of the Zoo Restaurant and stayed there all day drinking scummy cappuccino. We took it in turns to monitor them. The restaurant was decorated to look like a jungle, and Mr Spencer (who had shamed us all by turning up in an army surplus camouflage jacket) blended into the plastic foliage very well indeed.

  But the thing I remember most was the quietness.

  All that day we in Class 6 had the Zoo more or less to ourselves. It is a big place, and we split up into little groups, and sometimes it was so quiet that you could imagine your little group was the only one there.

  And then you would go round a corner and find that it wasn’t, and that was a nice friendly feeling.

  Molly and Kiran and I were a group, of course, and Kai was with some boys in another, but we met up quite often, and when the afternoon was nearly over and a misty purple greyness was making it harder and harder to see, Kai said to Molly, ‘I’m on to it, Moll!’ and the next time we went round a corner and felt like we were the only people in the whole place it was true and we were.

  And they had really truly gone without us. So.

  I admit I was a big coward when it came to climbing into the arctic foxes’ enclosure. I let Kiran and Molly go first. I was afraid that, in spite of the long dead grasses and the overgrown bushes and the general look of uninhabitedness, it would turn out, like so many of the other enclosures, to be Anything But.

  But it was OK.

  Arctic foxes live on the arctic tundra in the wild, but in this country they live in large wooden sheds with bark floors. The sheds have doors with locks on but when the foxes are going to be away for a long time (hopefully) they do not bother to lock the doors.

  So that was OK too.

  And there we were, inside the arctic foxes’ shed.

  Anybody who wants to camp in an arctic foxes’ shed on a cold December night should take with them, as their most important bit of equipment, an uncomplaining and fully loaded Brownie.

  Molly unpacked:

  One plastic ground sheet

  One tartan picnic rug

  Three space blankets

  Three blow-up pillows

  One first aid kit

  One halogen torch (with lifetime guarantee)

  Planet Earth: The Book of the Series (by Guess Who)

  Digestive biscuits, cheese pre-cut into wedges, cereal bars, ham slices, two cucumbers, snap cards, three sealed magic beakers that would turn into hot chocolate when shaken and a Hallowe’en Mask of a rubbery skull face with red eye sockets given to her at the last moment by Kai. To be used should things get boring to liven up Kiran and me.

  Kiran (who is not a Brownie but a part-time vegetarian) unpacked:

  One fleecy blanket

  One box of French Fondant Fancies

  One six-pack of Coca Cola

  Twelve peppermint candy canes

  Six Luxury Iced Mince Pies

  One chocolate orange

  One tub of Pringles

  (Life is difficult, says Kiran, for vegetarians who are not keen on vegetables. Particularly if they don’t much like nuts or cheese. In fact it is one long sugar rush. That is why she breaks down now and then and eats bacon sandwiches and chicken curry and sausages and steak.)

  Kiran also brought three books:

  The first was all about Man-Eating Tigers.

  The second was a book of True Ghost Stories.

  The third was an account of a plane crash in South America where half the passengers died and the other half (oh dear oh dear the poor vegetarians who survived but there was
no other food so what could they do?).

  Ate them.

  Kiran chose these books because she had not been able to find anything in the library about identifying animals by their roars.

  Pity.

  I unpacked:

  Mummy’s torch

  Indigo’s mobile

  My dressing gown

  My pyjamas

  My slippers

  My spongebag

  Saffy’s Mango and Orange Blossom shower gel

  The Blue Fairy Book and my Christmas card from Michael

  I may become a Brownie.

  Molly and Kiran laughed until they were nearly sick when they saw my packing. Kiran said I should go and hang my spongebag in the bathroom and when I got up to do this they absolutely howled.

  (Later on Kiran did not think it half so funny that the arctic foxes had not got a bathroom.)

  After we had unpacked we had a huge feast by torchlight. We had to do this because the food was taking up so much space on the ground sheet that we had hardly anywhere to sit. Anyway, we were very hungry, having only had Zoo Restaurant Jungle Fun Lunchboxes for lunch. So we ate as much as possible of everything, including both the cucumbers so that we did not get scurvy or any of the things Indigo’s friend Jamie Oliver says non-vegetable eaters get wrong with them. Also we had a Coke each, except for Kiran, who had two.

  It was very strange, but while we were eating I think we almost forgot where we were. And afterwards, while we were blowing up our pillows and arranging our bed (with the ground sheet and picnic rug underneath and a space blanket each and the fleecy blanket on top) we hardly remembered either. It was only when we lay down with our books and torches that we properly realised.

  ‘It must be nearly midnight,’ whispered Molly. ‘Midnight at the Zoo!’

  Then she looked at her watch and it was a quarter to six.

  Life is very complicated in an arctic foxes’ shed. There are some details I would rather not remember. They took ages and absorbed all our thoughts. Molly managed the best. But she only drank half her Coke.