Big Day Out

WHERE DO YOU
go for your summer holidays? Girls in my class camp in the Lake District or stay on farms in Devon or rent holiday cottages in Cornwall. Some of them go to Spain and come back celebrity brown, with their hair in little beaded braids. Several fly all the way to Florida and boast about braving Space Mountain and have autograph books with Mickey Mouse and Pluto signatures.

We don’t ever go on summer holidays. We haven’t got any money. There’s just Mum and me and the three little ones. Bliss and Baxter are five and little Pixie is two. Pixie has
big
blue eyes and golden curls and everyone goes ‘Aaaah!’ when they catch sight of her. Bliss is quite pretty too, though she’s so shy she always hangs her head so you can’t see her face properly. Baxter looks fierce because of his crew cut but he is kind of cute. People always fuss over them because they’re twins. No one ever fusses over me or goes ‘Aaaah!’ I’m ten, and I’m pale and skinny and I’ve got a frowny face because I worry a lot.

I was getting especially worried about Mum during the summer holidays because she was so fed up. She just lay on our battered sofa watching the television, not bothering to go out, even when it was sunny. Every time the kids yelled she’d wince and say they were doing her head in. I tried to keep them quiet. I read them stories and we all did drawing together with my felt tips. That wasn’t such a good idea, because Baxter drew a frieze of green monster men all round the kitchen wall, and Pixie decided to scribble with Mum’s lipstick instead of a felt pen.

We played pretending games too. Don’t laugh – I know I’m way too old for that sort of thing, but it was just to keep the kids happy. We played we were going to the seaside. I let the kids strip down to their pants and splash about in the bath for ages. They really liked that, but maybe it wasn’t such a good idea either, because they splashed a bit too much, and the water seeped through the floorboards and dripped through the ceiling of the flat downstairs, and the woman from number six came up and had a shouting match with Mum.

‘I’m sorry, Mum,’ I said miserably. ‘We were just pretending we were at the seaside.’

‘Oh, never mind, Lily. She’s a right moany old bag, that one. I know you didn’t mean any harm. I wish I could
take
you all to the seaside. I’m going crazy stuck here day after day. It’s not doing you lot any good either, cooped up in this little flat.’

We all went out to the launderette together. I helped out doing the washing, Baxter ran around with a plastic basket on his head being a Washing Monster, Bliss looked anxiously at her newly washed teddy spinning round and round in the dryer, and Pixie perched on an old lady’s lap and chatted away to her.

‘What a little darling!’ said the old lady, whose name was Joan. ‘But she’s so pale. She needs to get some roses in her cheeks.’

‘You’re telling me,’ said Mum. ‘But I can’t afford to take them anywhere.’

‘My church is organizing some free day trips to the seaside – one for mums and kiddies, and the other for all us pensioners. The coaches are leaving from the bus station next Saturday. I think the kiddie special
goes
at eight o’clock, and I’m sure they’ve got a few seats left. Your kids could paddle in the sea, build a few sandcastles, and have fish and chips and ice cream.’

‘Oh, wow, Mum!’ I said. ‘Please say yes. I’d love to paddle in the sea.’

‘Fish and chips,’ said Baxter, rubbing his tummy.

‘Ice cream, ice cream, ice cream!’ said Pixie.

‘But we don’t go to your church, Joan,’ said Mum.

‘Never mind. I’m on the committee, so I get to say who goes. And I say you lot go, OK?’

‘Brilliant,’ said Mum.

But it wasn’t brilliant at all on Saturday morning. We’re not very good at getting up early, especially in the school holidays. Mum set her alarm for seven, but then she slept right through it. I woke up at half past and shot out of bed.

‘Oh no, we’ve slept in. We’ll miss the eight o’clock coach!’ I said.

‘Oh, Lily, shut it. We’ll get there in time, you’ll see,’ said Mum, staggering out of bed.

She got herself and Pixie dressed, while I chivvied Baxter and Bliss into T-shirts and shorts and got dressed myself. There wasn’t time for breakfast. Mum gave us a piece of bread and jam to eat on the way, and Pixie sucked at her bottle in the buggy. We ran nearly all the way to the bus station – but it was nearly ten past eight now. We saw the coach disappearing in the distance without us!

‘Just my rotten luck!’ said Mum, and she looked like she was going to burst into tears.

‘Where were you lot then?’ said Joan, coming up to us. She was wearing a pink sunhat and a pink flowery dress to match. ‘Oh dear, oh dear, don’t look so downhearted.’

‘But we’ve missed our chance of a free day at the seaside,’ I wailed.

‘No you haven’t, dearie!’ said Joan. ‘You lot will simply have to tag along with us old dears instead. Our coach leaves at half past eight. I’m sure there’ll be room for you. I can always have little Pixie on my lap.’

So we had our free day out after all! Everybody else on the coach was over seventy. There was one little old man who was ninety-two and in a wheelchair, but Mum and the coach driver, Darren, helped haul him up into the coach. Darren wasn’t over seventy – he was about Mum’s age, very smiley and jokey, and he got all the old folks singing songs on the journey.

There were plenty of spare seats but Pixie sat on Joan’s lap anyway, though she started fidgeting ominously when we were halfway there.

‘I think Pixie needs to do a wee!’ I said to Mum. ‘Can you ask Darren to stop the coach?’

It was absolutely fine, because half the pensioners needed a bathroom break too, so we stopped at this roadside café. Then we were off again, and it wasn’t long before we had our first glimpse of the sea. I’d seen it before, of course, but Baxter and Bliss were really thrilled, and Pixie kept yelling, ‘Big bath! Big big big bath!’ which made everyone laugh.

Darren parked the coach on the promenade and helped everyone down onto the sands. He took off his shirt because it was really warm and sunny. All the old ladies gave him funny wolf-whistles. Darren went as pink as Joan’s hat and Mum giggled at him.

I helped Bliss make a great big sandcastle. We decorated it with seaweed and pebbles, and one of the old ladies gave us coloured toffee papers to make stained-glass windows. Baxter kept threatening to jump on it so I made him a separate big castle to demolish. Then he chummed up with an old man and they played football on the beach together. Pixie ran around all the old ladies wearing Joan’s sunhat, and they all chuckled and called her a proper caution.

We all went into the sea together for a paddle. Even Darren rolled up his jeans and joined in. The dear old ninety-two-year-old couldn’t go in the sea, so Baxter filled two buckets with seawater and he splashed his feet in them instead.

We had fish and chips for lunch, with ice cream for pudding. Pixie’s cone fell in the sand, but nearly all the old ladies offered her theirs instead, so she ended up with an
enormous
amount of ice cream for one very small girl. I was in charge of Pixie while Mum went for a stroll on the pier with Darren. I kept a careful eye on her in case she was sick, but she didn’t disgrace us.