Secrets (15 page)

I rushed all round my room, gathering bits here, bits there, frantically piling things into a pyramid on my carpet. It looked as if I'd have to rush up and down the attic steps again and again. Then I had a sudden sensible idea – I'd pack everything in my suitcase!

I managed to cram most things in. Then I had another thought. I grabbed my wastepaper bin too.

Treasure burst out laughing when I dragged everything up into the attic after me.

‘You look like you're going on your holidays. Oh, and I've even got something for my rubbish!'

‘Well, I thought you could use the wastepaper bin for . . . you know, when you have to go to the loo. I know it's not very nice, but Anne Frank and her family had to do it sometimes and they managed. I've got some tissues for you too.'

‘Can't I use your toilet?' asked Treasure.

‘Well, you can during the day, if Wanda's not around, or Mrs Winslow our cleaning lady, but you'll have to be very careful. And I've brought you some food, look.' I gave her my entire supply of chocolate and crisps and Coke, even though I was starving hungry after not eating my salad tea.

Treasure lined the chocolate bars up in a row,
touched
the clean nightie and my thick Arran cardigan, looked at my drawing pad and crayons and then picked up the book I'd put there.
The Diary of Anne Frank
.

‘I knew it!' she said, smiling. ‘Well, I'll have to read it now, won't I?'

Thirteen

Treasure

INDIA'S SO
KIND
.
She's the best friend in all the world. I'm sitting here wearing her posh nightie and her cuddly cardi, eating her chocolate, and I've already read fifty pages of her precious Anne Frank. She's in her secret annexe now. And so am I.

It doesn't seem real. India's acting like she's practised for this moment all her life. She's crept back twice this evening just to make sure I'm all right, and each time she's brought me more stuff. She even offered me her teddy bear. ‘Though you probably think I'm an awful baby
having
a teddy bear. I just keep it for old time's sake. I don't
play
with her – it. Still, I thought it might make you feel cosy?'

I said it was very sweet of her but I didn't really
want
her old teddy. I've never had my own teddy bear. I don't quite
get
why kids like them. I did have some Barbie dolls when I was little because they were cool with their pointy breasts and high heels and all their tiny adult outfits. Mum quite liked playing with them too. We'd play fashion models and famous actresses and Mum would give them all different voices and make them lark about.

It was great when I was little and it was just Mum and me.

No it wasn't. She mostly didn't want to play, she just wanted to lie back and smoke her roll-ups and drink and watch telly and if I pestered her she'd yell at me or give me a shove or a smack. She'd really lose it sometimes, telling me it was all my fault, if I hadn't been born she'd be out with her mates having fun instead of stuck at home night after night with a boring little brat like me.

Loretta is even younger than my mum was when I was born and she's stuck with Britney but she doesn't yell at her, she makes a big fuss of her. But Britney is pretty, with big blue eyes and lovely golden hair. She's so cute Nan thinks she should do a spot of modelling for magazines.

I've never been cute. I'm kind of ugly now but I was worse as a baby because one of my eyes was squinty and I had hardly any hair and eczema all over so I was scabby and cried a lot. Maybe it's not surprising my mum never went a bundle on me.

Nan always loved me though. When I was little I
stayed
with Nan lots but then Mum got this boyfriend – not Terry, it was four or five blokes before him – and we moved up North because the houses were cheap but he couldn't get a job so that was a dead loss. All my mum's boyfriends have been awful. Sometimes they had kids but they didn't come and live with us too. It was always just Mum and me and the boyfriend until she took up with Terry. Then I had to get used to having Kyle and Bethany around all the time. Their mum had gone a bit mental on drugs so Terry got custody. If he could kid the court he was a fit father once I bet he could do it again.

He
is
quite a good dad to baby Gary, playing aeroplanes with him, whirling him up and down and making him whoop. He's OK with Kyle and Bethany too. He bought them both bikes and scooters and he acts the fool with them, wrestling with Kyle and tickling Bethany until she squeals. He's tried it with me too but I can't stand him pawing me about. So then he starts getting at me.

My own dad can't have thought much of me either because he pushed off the minute I was born. Well, who cares?
I've
pushed off now. I shall hang out here until . . . I don't know. I can't stay here for ever.

I'm so fussed about Nan. She'll be so worried about me. I'll have to try to let her know I'm OK.

I
am
OK. Though I wish I had my inhaler in case I get wheezy. My chest feels a bit tight. I could do with a drink but that's not a good idea. I'm trying to avoid going to the loo.

It's awful having to use India's wastepaper bin. It's so pretty too, black with pink roses to match her magical bedroom. I waited and waited, fidgeting, legs crossed, but eventually I had to give in and go. It was weirdly hard to get started even though I wanted to go so much, mostly because I couldn't sit properly, I just had to
hang
there. Once I got going I went so much I started to worry I wouldn't be able to stop. What if I carried on until the wee slopped right over the edge of the bin and flooded the floor? But it eased off eventually and the bin didn't get
too
full – though I won't be able to go all that often. And
what
am I going to do about the other thing? I shall die when India has to empty it.

I keep looking longingly at the bottle of Coke. I wish I hadn't eaten all that chocolate. I know it's India's secret supply. Am I going to have to live on chocolate all the time? I'd give anything for one of Nan's fry-ups. No, that's so ungrateful to poor India. I am lucky, lucky, lucky to have such a wonderful friend.

Fate was kind to us, letting India look out of her bedroom window just as I was going by.

That bedroom! I had no idea India's so
rich
. Her dad must earn millions. And her mum. I can't believe that she's really Moya Upton, the designer! I wonder if those are Moya Upton clothes in the corner?

They are
soooo
cool, the most wondrous clothes ever. India is MAD not to like them. I've just sorted all through them. I've tried heaps of them on. I hope India's mother won't mind. That is the most stupid
thing
I've ever written. She'd mind me hiding in her attic far more!

I particularly like some black trousers and a black top with a sequin rose. They fit me, even though I'm so small and skinny! I wish I had a mirror. Maybe I'll wear them tomorrow if India doesn't mind. I'm back in the nightie now. I should try to go to sleep. I don't feel tired though. I don't even want to sit for long. I feel like I want to keep running. I keep thinking about Terry.

I'll have to go back
some
time. And then he'll get me. It's like he's all Anne Frank's Gestapo rolled up into one monstrous man.

India's right about
The Diary of Anne Frank
. It's a great book. It starts off just like it's any girl's diary. She writes about her birthday presents and all the girls in her class, having a moan about most of them. Then she goes on about her boyfriends. That bit's irritating. But then suddenly she has to go into hiding and the whole story changes dramatically. Well, it isn't a story, it was her real life. I've looked at the last page. It has the worst possible end.

It's weird to think Anne Frank would be an old lady now if she'd managed to stay in hiding those few extra months until the end of the war. They stayed in the secret annexe more than two years.

I don't know how I'm going to manage two days. I'm so lonely. I wish India would come back. But this Wanda has come home now. I heard India say loudly, ‘Oh
Wanda
, you're back already' – obviously
hoping
I'd hear and realize I had to keep quiet now.

It is
soooo
quiet here. At least Anne had her sister and her parents and Peter and his family. I wouldn't even mind the grumpy old dentist. I just want someone to talk to. Anyone.

OK. I'll make someone.

There! I've used some of the Moya Upton clothes, stuffing T-shirts into a sweater and a pair of jeans so that they plump out as if someone is wearing them. I've rolled a T-shirt into a ball and stuck it on top of the sweater with a funny woolly hat on top. I've made a Clothes Person. I could call her Kitty, just like Anne Frank's imaginary friend.

Kitty is lucky. She doesn't need to go to the loo. I do.

She hasn't got any ears so she doesn't keep hearing footsteps.

She hasn't got a nose so she can't smell the waste bin.

She hasn't got any eyes so she can't see this spooky old attic. At least there is a light. I'm going to keep it on all the time, even when I'm asleep.

Only I
can't
sleep. I don't have a watch but I think it must be the middle of the night. I heard two people go to the bathroom one after the other, India and Wanda. The water tank gurgled and splashed later on. I think her parents used their bathroom on the first floor. No-one's moved around for ages now. I've read another hundred pages of Anne Frank. I've drawn a special thank-you card for India, with a picture of the two of
us,
hugging. I had to have several attempts. The first time I drew India too big and I was worried it would upset her. The second time I coloured my scar in too vigorously so it looked like Terry had hacked my head in two. So it was third time lucky, and when I'd coloured us in more carefully this time, I enclosed us in a red heart and drew multi-coloured daisies to fill up the rest of the page. Then in my very best nearly-italic writing I wrote:
To India, the Best Friend in all the World
.

She will like it a lot, I know. I felt good all the time I was drawing my picture. Not quite so lonely. But now I feel bad again. And maybe it's silly to say India is my best friend because I've only known her a little while. I don't know much about her. I still feel a bit shy with her sometimes, not cosy like I do with Patsy.

I wish I could cuddle up with Patsy now.

No, I wish I could cuddle up with Nan.

Oh, Nan.

Oh, Nan.

Oh, Nan.

I don't think I went to sleep until it was nearly morning. I woke with a terrible start when the trapdoor opened. I didn't know where I was. I covered my head in case it was Terry coming to get me. But of course it was India, carefully balancing a proper breakfast tray one-handed.

I feel so mean moaning that I might have to live on chocolate. This is what she brought me for breakfast:
a
bowl of cornflakes with brown sugar and sliced bananas and milk, two slices of toast, one with honey, one with apricot jam, a saucer of strawberries, a glass of fresh orange juice, and a cup of tea.

‘I've spilt half the tea,' she said sadly.

‘It's perfect! Wonderful. Thanks ever so much, India.'

I looked at the big silver shiny thing she'd tucked under one arm. ‘Is that a
saucepan
lid?'

India went pink. ‘It's Mum's biggest wok lid. I was thinking about the bin, you see.' She went over to the waste bin in the corner, delicately averting her eyes, and dropped the lid on top. It fitted snugly.

‘There! I just thought it would be nicer and easier when I empty it. Which I'll do now, while everyone's still asleep.'

So I sat back like Little Lady Muck and ate my beautiful breakfast while poor India trundled off with the sloppety bin. Goodness knows how she got it down those steps without dropping it. She brought it back all fresh and smelling of Toilet Duck.

She stayed for a long time too, both of us in our nightclothes. We were suddenly just like two girls having a sleepover party. We mucked about and got the giggles (stifled) and played silly paper games like noughts and crosses and hangman and battleships. I've always been heaps better than anyone else at paper games (there's no point playing Patsy because I
always
win) but India is a challenge.

I did beat her twice though – and she didn't guess my hangman word though I was sure she would:
SECRET
ANNEXE. Then she wanted to challenge me to an Anne Frank quiz but it was obvious who would win. We both drew her instead. We chose our favourite photo from the diary and copied it. India's was neater, with a border of little checked diaries and pens, and she managed a better likeness too. India politely said my drawing was much better than hers, but we both knew she was fibbing.