Forever Rose Read online

  Yes I am.

  I had only just got rid of the glitter when Mrs Shah came to count us one last time, and to send us home. All day long we had not seen or heard Mr Spencer once. Not a snigger. Not a whisker. Not a sweaty footprint.

  So.

  I had a surprise when I got out of school. Saffron and Sarah were waiting there to take me into town. I was a bit worried about this because Daddy (over my morning porridge) told me that after school I was to come straight home, no chatting, lingering, playing silly games or tiger hunting on the way, and if I didn’t, tomorrow he would come and meet me at the gate.

  No, no, no! Anything but Daddy waiting at the gate, chatting up the Infants’ mums.

  ‘He knows we are meeting you,’ said Saffy. ‘We phoned him. We are going to buy the Christmas tree, so hurry up! And I think you should stop sulking at me, Rose! Do you really think I would have let you down on Saturday on purpose? I couldn’t help it. I was having a terrible time! I lost all my Christmas Shopping!’

  Oh, poor Saffy! That is too horrible. I could not bear it if I lost all my Christmas shopping. It is my most precious stuff and I will share it all with Saffron if she likes.

  ‘I am sorry, I am sorry, I am sorry!’ I said. ‘What will you do?’

  ‘Improvise,’ said Saffy, airily.

  I always knew Saffron was brave.

  All the same, I was careful to choose a rather small tree so that Saffy should not be too worried about what could fill the space underneath. We put it on to Sarah’s lap to get it home. Sarah balanced it, while Saffy and I pushed. On the way back we talked so much about Daddy arriving home, and the porridge he insists on making, and where everyone could possibly sleep, that Sarah said we sounded like the three bears.

  ‘The three bears got off easily compared to us,’ said Saffron. ‘At least Goldilocks’ mother did not bunk off to Spain. And Goldilocks didn’t turn up with a drum kit either, and none of the bears were scarred for life. What do you want for Christmas, Rose? Since I am starting all over again.’

  I said the nicest thing would be her back home.

  ‘That is asking a bit much,’ said Saffron gloomily. ‘I’ll do anything for you within reason, Rose, but I’m blowed if I’m sleeping with Goldilocks.’

  Our house was very quiet. David and Indigo were out doing Indigo’s papers. Mummy was upstairs, with a big notice on her door saying, ‘Do Not Disturb’ in Daddy’s writing. And Daddy

  was

    in

     the

        shed

         !!!!!!!!

  I went to see him. He was just finishing his fourth St Matthew’s of the day, jade-green coloured sky (with white lace cloud formations), misty gravestones, the lot.

  ‘It was the only way I could think of to keep your mother in bed,’ he said, stretching his arms and cramping and uncramping his fingers. ‘Six more to go, I’ll knock ’em off in the morning. You can’t call it forgery; they are not exactly Art.’

  Daddy has more things bad about him, and more things good about him, than anybody else I know.

  Then there was supper to be eaten (‘I have made a casserole,’ said Daddy very smugly) and the tree to be decorated with David and Indigo to tell me where things looked right and Saffron and Sarah to say when things looked wrong and then we had to decide whether or not we should put our presents underneath. Indigo and I thought we should (I cannot wait to see what my presents look like all piled up there) but Saffy said it wasn’t fair because all hers were lost, and David looked so uncomfortable I was sorry for him. It was even worse when Sarah’s mother came round to pick up Saffron and Sarah and invited us all for Christmas dinner. He looked absolutely miserable, even when she said very kindly, ‘And David too of course, if he is still here. The more the merrier!’

  David did not say anything at all but Daddy put his arm round his shoulders and said, ‘Of course he will still be here!’

  ‘Of course he will,’ agreed Mummy, who had come down to see the tree. ‘What ever would we do without him?’

  (All very nice polite grown-up stuff.)

  Whatever will we do with him though?

  David takes up a lot of space.

  And so does his drum kit.

  Also he is not happy. I ought to worry about him, but I haven’t got time, because all day long, whatever I have been doing, the same thought has been going round and round in my head.

  What about Caddy and Buttercup?

  Wednesday 20th December

  Darling Michael

  followed by:

  Kiran

  and then:

  The Hero and the Stony Tower, Dungeon, Cell, Shed

  Darling Michael

  All yesterday I worried about Caddy and Buttercup. What can I do? I need to talk to Michael, but I do not know how. I do not know where he lives any more, and there are no Michael Cadogens in the telephone book.

  ‘It’s easy,’ said Kiran. ‘Ring the driving school he works for. Their number is painted on all their cars.’

  I tried last night, but it did not work. That number is for booking lessons, the office hours are between eight and five, if you would like us to get back to you please leave a message after the tone. Said a very bossy voice indeed.

  Oh.

  Well then.

  ‘Well, I know what I would do,’ said Kiran when I told her at school. ‘Wouldn’t you, Mollipop?’

  ‘Yes, I would!’ said Molly at once. ‘I definitely would!’

  ‘What?’ I asked. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Which would you like, Rose?’ asked Kiran suddenly. ‘To know what we’re talking about or a lovely surprise?’

  A lovely surprise.

  So Kiran and Molly went into a happy huddle together, during which something exchanged hands, and then Kiran disappeared behind the Portakabin and Molly kept me out of the way.

  Molly is very pleased with herself at the moment on account of her correct identification of the new zoo tiger by its roars in the dark, a very kind letter indeed from the Zoo inviting our whole class for a sleepover and night-time expedition as soon as the weather gets warmer, and the continued unexplained absence of Mr Spencer. We had Mrs Shah again today who gave us home-made sums of the reindeer and carrot variety.

  ‘If a reindeer receives 3 carrots at 2000 homes and each carrot weighs 10g and he uses up 20g of carrot energy travelling between each home and 20,000g on the journey back to the North Pole (although none on the journey out because it is all down hill) how much more will he weigh on Christmas morning?’ said Mrs Shah. ‘Put your hand down, Kiran dear, and see what you can make of this A-level Maths paper while the others work it out. Rose, if you would like to just draw the reindeer that will be quite all right since it is very nearly Christmas.’

  But I said I would have a go and I did although for the first hour or two of my attempt it seemed as if the only way possible would be to draw not only the reindeer but also the two thousand houses and then count out the three carrots at each one on my fingers. Which I was prepared to do and was doing until at house number two hundred and forty-something my brain took a great leap forward like all Santa’s reindeer starting off at once and I UNDERSTOOD. A revelation so complete and astonishing I had to go to the bathroom to see if my face had changed to something more like Kiran’s (to whom this sort of thing has happened several times a day all her life). But it hadn’t. (30g.)

  Obvious.

  Later we were divided into groups where we made pink, white, and green peppermint creams and decorated boxes to put them in. Each group made a different colour and there were enough for us to have nine each to take home and one to try in class.

  Mrs Shah is brilliant. At lunchtime Molly collected money to buy her a Christmas present from our class and we got enough for a mug saying WORLD’S BEST EVER TEACHER and a chocolate orange and musical card that plays ‘Silent Night’ very fast.

  Kiran and Molly and I bought them on the way home and the
n I went off

  For

  My

  Initial Free Driving Lesson.

  With Mr Cadogen.

  Pick up at number 27 Magnolia Road.

  (Which happens to be Sarah’s house.)

  My lovely surprise, booked by Kiran this morning using Molly’s mobile phone and Kiran’s most grown-up voice.

  And I thought,

  It won’t work

   It won’t work

    It won’t work

     GOOD GRIEF!

  So I grab open the passenger door, chuck in my school bag and fling myself into the seat before Michael can say, ‘Yes right, and what do you think you’re playing at, Rose?’

  (‘Keep calm,’ Kiran had advised, ‘and be very tactful.’)

  ‘Oh Michael!’ I said. ‘Oh Michael, I haven’t seen you for ages.’

  ‘I knew there was something fishy about that booking,’ said Michael. ‘Out you get!’

  ‘I’ve bought you a Christmas present,’ I said. ‘It’s the same as Caddy’s only a different picture so you can think of her when you look at it, and she’ll be the same, thinking of you.’

  ‘I’m taking you home,’ said Michael. ‘Put your seat belt on.’

  ‘No, not yet. I’ve got to tell you something.’

  ‘Leave it please, Rose,’ said Michael, reaching over for my seat belt, strapping me in, starting the engine and pulling away from the kerb. ‘There’s nothing left to say.’

  ‘Just let me tell you about Buttercup!’

  Michael yawned.

  ‘Because she’s at the Zoo and I think you ought to know.’

  ‘Poor old Buttercup,’ said Michael. ‘I am absolutely not getting involved.’

  It is a three-minute walk from Sarah’s house to ours. That makes it about a one-minute drive. One minute is not long enough to change three futures and any moment I was going to be decanted on to the pavement.

  ‘Now, what’s the matter with you?’ asked Michael, a bit crossly.

  ‘Oh Michael,’ I wailed, abandoning tact and calm which had not been the slightest use anyway. ‘What if you’ve got another girlfriend or something or even got married to someone oh what will happen to Buttercup and Caddy then would you tell me if you had?’

  Michael got out, walked round the car, opened my door and said, ‘Yes, Rose. I would tell you if I had.’

  And he looked like darling Michael again when he said it. So I jumped out and hugged him very hard and I said, ‘She said not to tell you. Oh Michael, I wish Caddy had married you instead of not marrying that prat she didn’t.’

  ‘So do I,’ said Michael, and then he got back into his car and drove away.

  But at least now he knows everything.

  Or does he?

  Kiran

  Kiran, calling in to admire our Christmas tree and dragging from me word by word exactly what I had said, was of the opinion that Michael can know nothing at all. Unless he has something called ESP which is hereditary in her family but they do not talk about it because it frightens the non-related (but doomed).

  ‘Is that me?’

  ‘Just don’t ask, Rose,’ said Kiran and changed the subject by admiring our tree which she thought was easily as good as their Six-Foot Deluxe Fibre-Optic Norwegian Fir.

  ‘Does it pack flat?’ she enquired.

  ‘NO!’ I yelled at my mathematical-genius-ESP-wielding friend. ‘It does not pack flat! It is a tree!’

  Crikey!

  The Hero and the Stony Tower, Dungeon, Cell, Shed

  Daddy has been very useful today. He finished the last six St Matthew’s and then rushed all ten of them into town to the picture framer. While the framer was busy Daddy wandered around the marketplace, buying vegetables and organic porridge and Having a Think. And then he took the pictures home again, and after supper he presented them to Mummy in a complete and complacent pile, with a red rose on top.

  Mummy, who has been recovering like mad ever since he got home, hugged him.

  ‘I think those pictures were making me ill,’ she said. ‘And that shed had turned into a dungeon, a hermit’s cell, a stony tower. I can’t believe I haven’t got to go back in there till after Christmas.’

  ‘If I had my way you would never go back in there again,’ said Daddy, smugly admiring his perfect perspectives (Daddy has never lost a vanishing point in his life).‘Why don’t I chuck the place in town (I miss you all so much and it is not paying for itself as it should) and move Back Up Here?’

  What an astonishing idea!

  ‘Back Up Here?’ we all repeated, and Indigo added, ‘But you hate Up Here! This is the North, remember? Where they sit around on doorsteps and can’t say grass?’

  For this was the description of our home given by Daddy to a fellow artist some years ago, and Indigo had overheard and passed it on. And also, it seemed, kept it in mind ever since.

  David’s lips moved, silently mouthing ‘Grass. Grass,’ until he had reassured himself that he could do it, and Daddy looked very surprised.

  ‘Did I say that?’ he asked. ‘I apologise. I am ashamed of myself.’

  But he recovered from his shame very quickly (as usual) and continued with his astonishing idea.

  ‘I was thinking it all out this morning,’ he said. ‘I could take one of those little shops looking on to the marketplace and Do it Up for Antiques, with a Gallery upstairs, and a Studio at the top. It would be an Enhancement, an Oasis, a place where people come to Refresh a Dream. Before we know it we could be Raking it In. I don’t see why it shouldn’t be an absolute gold mine if we get the pricing right…’

  Poor old Daddy! We shouldn’t have laughed like we did. He had been absolutely heroic since he came back, sleeping on the sofa, and being kind to David, and not unnecessarily ratty about my evening in the arctic foxes’ shed. And he had cooked us supper (risotto with parmesan and toasted almonds) and accomplished ten St Matthew’s in less than twenty-four hours, and spent the whole afternoon shifting furniture. Indigo’s enormous wardrobe was now on the landing, and a proper bed for David had been installed in its place. So now, as soon as the drum kit was relocated, Saffy could have her room again.

  So we shouldn’t have laughed.

  But we did.

  Thursday 21st December

  I woke up very early this morning to finish a book called A Necklace of Raindrops. Since Monday-at-the-Zoo I have also read most of The Blue Fairy Book and The Tailor of Gloucester and I have just started another called The Dream Fighter.

  I read all the time and everywhere; in bed, in the bathroom, cleaning my teeth and eating my breakfast, waiting in the dinner queue at school. I read while David drums and Daddy fills bin bags and Mummy gets better and Saffron shops and Indigo disappears with Sarah. Caddy’s bookshelf is wonderful.

  Kiran says it is full of fairy stories. If it is, then I like fairy stories. Fairy stories are fair. In them wishes are granted, words are enchanted, the honest and brave make it safely through to the last page and the baddies have to either give up their wickedness for ever and ever, no going back, or get ruthlessly written out of the story, which they hardly ever survive. Also in fairy stories there are hardly any of those half-good half-bad people that crop up so constantly in real life and are so difficult to believe in.

  I wonder if Daddy really will stay.

  And I wonder if Mr Spencer will be written out of the story.

  Another school day and no Mr Spencer. Mrs Shah and the Head are sharing us again. When we ask probing questions about the health of Mr S they say it is none of our business. A rumour started going round that he had won the Lottery and left for good. Mrs Shah and the Head smiled enigmatically and refused to confirm or deny it, so we hunted out Miss Farley, our rather grumpy class teacher from two years ago. She was piling lost property under the entrance-hall Christmas tree and looking very unenigmatic indeed.

  ‘Not one of these items is labelled,’ she grumbled. ‘Look at it all! Brand new sweatshirts! Jackets! Shoes! Don’t paren
ts notice when their kids come home with only one shoe? Pencil cases, a bag of mouldy knobbly things…’

  ‘Conkers,’ said Molly, reassuringly.

  ‘…two skateboards, four crutches, a cat basket…What did you say you had lost, Rose?’

  ‘Mr Spencer.’

  ‘Ho!’ said Miss Farley, jabbing the heap under the Christmas tree with a lost shrimping net. ‘Well, he’s not here, I am very sorry to report.’

  ‘Do you think he really has won the Lottery?’ asked Kiran.

  ‘Yes I do!’ said Miss Farley. ‘Yes I certainly do! There is no justice in this world and who handed him the winning ticket? You three!’

  ‘No we didn’t!’

  ‘What were you thinking of?’ continued Miss Farley. ‘Didn’t you realise the consequences to a teacher of losing three pupils on a school trip? And I hear he spent the entire time sitting smoking in the warm and drinking rum and coffee. Not to mention the tiny mistake of handing the register to a minor who got bored with taking care of it and threw it away?’

  ‘Did Kai…?’

  ‘It was bagged up with all the zoo rubbish on Monday night,’ said Miss Farley. ‘And it took half of Tuesday, searching through goodness-knows-what-but-I-don’t-suppose-it-was-very-fragrant to find it again. The wretched man is signed off indefinitely with stress…’

  ‘How long is indefinitely?’

  ‘You may well ask! And on full pay…’

  ‘Full pay!’

  ‘Therefore that being the case the first thing he did was book a flight to the Caribbean…’

  ‘Not truly?’

  ‘He is probably there right now under a palm tree which is a slightly better prospect than anything in sight for me this Christmas.’

  Oh.

  ‘There must be some disadvantages,’ said Kiran, at last.

  ‘Only utter disgrace,’ said Miss Farley, handing us each a chocolate angel and choosing one for herself. ‘And let’s face it, he won’t give a toss.’