The Honeymoon Sisters (3 page)

‘That’s disgusting!’ Katy exclaimed. ‘Is that really true?’

‘Google it if you don’t believe me.’

Katy nodded at the tray of beef lasagne next to the macaroni cheese. It had a layer of cooked cheese on top. ‘So has that got calf enzymes in it too, then?’

‘Of course! It’s basically a chopped-up cow topped with the contents of a little calf’s stomach.’

‘Yuck!’ several people exclaimed at once, and suddenly Mrs Doyle, our head dinner lady, came to the hatch to see what was happening. She found she had a mutiny on her hands, as loads of people started complaining loudly about her food and refusing to eat it.

‘I’m not eating that macaroni cheese until I check the packaging,’ Sadie said firmly.

‘Neither am I,’ Katy agreed loudly, and lots of people shouted out their support.

‘I’m not eating anything that’s been inside a calf’s stomach!’ someone called out from behind me. Even further back in the queue there was a lot of chatter going on about how a calf’s stomach had somehow got into today’s vegetarian option.

Sadie was looking triumphant.

Mrs Doyle stood with her arms crossed in front of her and beads of sweat on her forehead. ‘Well, you’ll all just have to go hungry then, because I haven’t got any packaging to show you.’

Miss Benkowski and Mr Christie, who were on dinner duty, came over to try and sort things out while Mrs Doyle got increasingly cross that nobody was getting fed. Another dinner lady joined her at the hatch, saying
she
couldn’t be expected to know what went into the food, as her job was just to serve it – which seemed to make Mrs Doyle even crosser.

Hardly anyone chose the macaroni cheese or the lasagne that day, including me. (Thankfully I managed to get to the hatch before the baked potatoes ran out but I know a lot of people went hungry.)

A few days later we all got a letter to take home from school. It basically went on about the high quality of our school dinners and guaranteed the vegetarian-ness of the vegetarian meals, the halal-ness of the halal meals, the allergen-free-ness of the non-allergenic meals and so on and so on. (And apparently the vegetarian meals
do
contain vegetarian cheese, which Mum says most normal people would just take for granted in any case.)

Dad of course was thoroughly amused by the whole story. Unlike Mum, he never worries about offending people by questioning things. He said Sadie had every right to ask questions about the cheese, though she should have chosen a more appropriate way of doing so.

The thing about Sadie is she never worries about how whatever she does affects anyone else. If she suddenly feels the urge to do something or say something then she just does it. If she wants to complain about something in class, she’ll never just have a quiet word with our teacher. She always tries to kick up as much of a stink in front of as many people as possible. And sometimes it’s as if she
seeks
out ways to annoy people – especially people who never get into trouble at school, like Anne-Marie and me.

It was only about a week ago – after the school dinner incident – when Sadie very nearly got herself suspended. In our school if anyone is caught hitting anyone else they usually get suspended even if they weren’t the one who started the fight.

On this particular day Anne-Marie and I had ambled out into the playground at breaktime, heading for our normal bit of wall to perch on, when we saw Sadie already there, lying along the wall with her head on her rolled-up cardigan as if she was sunbathing.

‘What’s she doing? She
knows
that’s our spot,’ Anne-Marie grumbled under her breath.

As we stopped to stare at her she must have seen us out of the corner of her eye because she suddenly swung her feet off the wall and sat up. ‘What are you two gawping at?’ she snapped.

‘Nothing,’ I said quickly. I could tell she wanted to pick a fight. ‘Come on, Anne-Marie. Let’s go.’

‘You’re a bit of a scaredy-cat, aren’t you, Poppy?’ Sadie said with a sly grin.

I didn’t reply but I found myself feeling glad Anne-Marie was with me – right up until the second she opened her mouth, that is.

‘Well, you
are
famous, you know!’ Anne-Marie babbled. ‘So of course other kids in school are gonna stare!’

‘What are you talking about?’ Sadie snarled.

‘Come away, Anne-Marie!’ I repeated more urgently. But she ignored me and carried on standing there like some suicidal idiot.

Sadie sprang to her feet to stand right in front of us. She seemed taller and more menacing all of a sudden. ‘I said,
what do you mean?
’

‘Oh, well, if the rumours are true …’ Anne-Marie
mumbled in a half-teasing, half-thinking-better-of-it sort of voice.

‘Rumours? What rumours?’

‘About your dad! I mean, is it true –’

But before she could continue, Sadie’s eyes flashed and she lunged forward as if she was about to hit Anne-Marie.

‘
SADIE
!’ a voice shouted from across the playground, and thankfully she turned for a second, giving Anne-Marie the chance to duck away.

The yell had come from our headmaster, who was now heading towards us looking grim as he waved Sadie over to speak to him.

‘You shut up about my dad!’ Sadie hissed at Anne-Marie. Her body was shaking and her face had turned bright red. ‘And as for you …’ She shot us both a look of utter hatred before turning on her heels and storming off towards Mr Jamieson.

As we waited nervously to see if we would be summoned as well, Anne-Marie whispered, ‘So do you think her dad really
is
a hitman?’

‘Don’t be daft!’

‘If he isn’t, why did she freak out like that?’

I frowned. It was true that Sadie had reacted like she had
something
to hide.

Chapter Four

Anyway, here I was arriving home on Friday afternoon (after Josh and I had seen Sadie go off in that car) to find Mum unpacking shopping bags in the kitchen.

It felt weird to not have Amy hurling herself at me the second I walked through the door. Amy had been really quiet and withdrawn when she’d first come to live with us, but that had gradually changed and she’d turned into quite an energetic chatterbox by the end.

‘So how did it go with Amy this morning?’ I asked, carefully watching Mum’s face.

‘It was
OK
,’ Mum assured me. ‘No tears. They brought the puppy with them. She was so excited to see it again, bless her!’

Mum had the radio blaring out in the kitchen. The first few days after a foster-kid leaves us the house always
feels way too quiet, and I know that’s one of the most difficult parts for Mum.

I eyed the shopping bag nearest to me, seeing major evidence of comfort food. There were chocolate brownies, doughnuts, and was that a giant Toblerone? Mum had to be feeling bad because she was meant to be on a diet.

‘Did they say if they’d decided about letting us keep in touch?’ I asked.

‘No, but our visit is all set up for two weeks tomorrow. They’ve invited us to their house for lunch.’

‘Right.’ I tried not to sound churlish as I asked, ‘So did she really not cry
at all
when they took her?’

Mum put her arm around me. ‘No, darling. But she
did
cry a little after you left for school. I had to remind her that she’d see you again in two weeks and that you’d want to hear all about what she’d been doing …’

I swallowed over the lump in my throat. I knew it was much better for Amy to be adopted instead of staying in foster care. Plus we’d done plenty of preparation work, including meeting her new parents and sister, who were really lovely. I knew Amy had a sweet little bedroom in her new house, all decorated and waiting for her, and a big garden to play in.

The trouble was I still found it hard to imagine life in
our
house without her.

‘So how was school today?’ Mum asked, not fooling me for a moment with her bright voice.

‘Same as usual,’ I told her as I helped myself to a brownie. ‘Except for science … something went wrong with Mr Gillespie’s experiment and all this green liquid bubbled up and spilt over on to the workbench. It was
so
Harry Potter!’

Mum smiled at that. ‘Sounds it. Listen, your father phoned this morning. He asked if he could pick you up on his way home this evening instead of tomorrow because his car has to go to the garage tonight. I asked him to bring you back tomorrow evening instead of Sunday though. That way it’s just the one night. That’s
OK
, isn’t it?’

I nodded, not liking to tell her that it no longer bothered me spending two nights at Dad’s like it had when I was younger. And that I actually wouldn’t have minded spending Sunday with him as well. ‘Am I still meeting
her
?’ I asked.

‘Oh yes … it’s scheduled for tomorrow, apparently.’ She pulled a sympathetic face. ‘I’m sorry, darling, but you’d better go upstairs now and pack a bag.
He’ll be here soon and I don’t want to have to invite him in.’

I nearly rolled my eyes at that. Who was she kidding? I couldn’t even remember the last time she’d invited Dad inside our house. She gets into a major flap just interacting with him on the doorstep.

Mum and Dad split up when I was six and I can’t ever remember being in the same room as the two of them without there being an argument. I can still remember the tense feeling I’d get if they started to argue while we were at the table eating dinner. Sometimes I couldn’t swallow my food and Mum would start fussing about it and Dad would tell her to calm down and then their arguing would get even worse.

After Dad moved out things were better. I still saw him every week, though I didn’t stay the night with him for a few years. I always knew he loved me, but I’ve also always had the feeling that Mum loves me more. But then Mum has always been a lot more openly affectionate than Dad.

Mum began fostering two years after they split up – apparently after I started saying that I wanted a little brother or sister, though I don’t remember that. Mum
says that mostly what we do is provide a sort of practice family for children who’ve been taken into care – a chance to experience a ‘normal’ family life and work on any problems before they go to their new forever homes. An adoption is a second chance to have a family, Mum says, and that’s way too precious to waste by not being ready for it. Of course sometimes we’re just a safe place for a child to live while their own family gets themselves sorted out, which Mum says is a really nice job to have too.

Mum has always fostered preschoolers – usually girls. Most people think my mum does an amazing job, but needless to say Dad is more critical. He says he worries that I don’t get enough of Mum’s attention and he’s asked me a few times how I feel about it. Once, when I was in a bad mood about something one of our foster-kids had done, I complained to him that Mum always took their side rather than mine. I soon wished I hadn’t though, because he kicked up a huge fuss and accused Mum of putting her role as a foster-mum before the needs of her own daughter. After that I vowed I’d never complain to Dad about Mum again.

The truth is that both Mum and I enjoy having a little kid to focus on and I always get loads of praise from Mum
for being such a fantastic big sister. And yes, it’s sad when our foster-kids leave (though if I’m honest in one or two cases it’s been a bit of a relief as well) but overall we both still feel like it’s worth it.

Amy had stayed with us the longest. She’d had a lot of issues which needed to be addressed before she could be put up for adoption and she’d been pretty hard work in the beginning. But after a couple of months she had settled in to her new life with us and I was soon so attached to her that at one point I asked Mum if we could adopt her ourselves. Mum had even given it some thought and discussed it with our social worker. But in the end Mum felt we weren’t the best home for Amy in the long term. Plus I know Mum loves being a foster-parent, and she said she didn’t think she could do it any more if she adopted Amy.

Now, as I started to get my stuff together to take over to Dad’s place, Mum’s phone started ringing.

‘Oh, hi, Lenny …’ Lenny (short for Leonora) has been our social worker since Mum first started fostering. Lenny’s role is to support Mum irrespective of which child we’ve got. In fact, I’ve known Lenny for so long that sometimes she almost feels like an extra auntie or something.

I tried not to get too excited that Lenny was phoning us. She was probably just checking up on Mum because she knows how hard Mum always takes it after a foster-child leaves. She probably didn’t have any news about Amy.

Then Mum blurted out, ‘Oh, Lenny!’ And she sat down heavily on the sofa.

‘What’s wrong, Mum?’ I asked anxiously. ‘Is it Amy? Is everything
OK
?’

Mum quickly told Lenny she would phone her back.

‘Amy is fine. Lenny spoke to her social worker this afternoon,’ she said. Her voice sounded shaky.

‘Then what’s wrong?’ I demanded, because clearly something was.

‘Nothing you need to worry about,’ Mum told me. ‘Now go and get ready – unless you want to go to Dad’s in your school uniform.’

‘But, Mum –’

‘Poppy, you know I can’t always tell you everything straight away. I need to talk more to Lenny first.’

‘But –’

‘Go and get ready – or I’ll pack your bag myself and you’ll just have to take what I choose to put in it.’

She always knows just what to say to motivate me.

*

I’m always especially choosy about my clothes when I’m going to stay with Dad. Unlike Mum, Dad is a really smart dresser and I want him to be proud of me. And the fact that I was about to meet his new – and probably very glamorous – girlfriend meant that I was even keener than usual to look my best.

As I got changed I suddenly remembered that I’d meant to wash my hair this evening so that it would be nice for the weekend. There was no time to do it now. I’d just have to do it at Dad’s place.

Of course Mum had to walk in on me just as I was finishing getting ready. ‘Poppy, what’s taking you so long?’ She frowned as she took in what I was wearing. ‘Those jeans are far too tight across your bottom. Why on earth are you still wearing them when we got you those new ones last week?’