She was only eleven years old at the time, but she could tell something was wrong. ‘What is it?’ she asked, her eyes wide and her lips trembling.
‘It’s your daddy, sweetheart. He’s not well. The ambulance is taking him to hospital now.’
The rest of the day had been a horrible blur. Mr Johnson had taken her in a minicab to the hospital, where her dad was lying in intensive care, an oxygen mask on his face and tubes coming out of his hands. The nurses had been nice to her, bringing her glasses of orange juice and even some chocolate biscuits, but she knew that people were only that nice when something was really wrong. She kept asking what was the matter with her dad, but nobody wanted to tell her. It was only afterwards that she learned that it was a heart attack. At about six o’clock in the evening, the machine to which her unconscious father was wired started to beep alarmingly. Doctors were called and Sadie and her mother were ushered away from his bedside.
Ten minutes later he was dead.
They didn’t want Sadie to see the body, but she had insisted. She was thankful that they had removed the mask and the tubes – it made him seem more human. More like her dad. In fact, he didn’t even look as if he was dead. Just asleep. Sadie stood on a chair so that she could see him more clearly, but she didn’t cry. She just stared at him, drinking in the sight of the face that she knew she would never see again.
Not until she got home, under her duvet, did the tears come. Then she cried until she could cry no more.
That was two years ago, but it felt like yesterday.
Carly was the first of her friends to arrive at the playground this morning, her hair pulled back tightly as it always was and her face made up so that she appeared older than her thirteen years. She was closely followed by Anna, whose black skin and closely plaited hair always seemed somehow exotic to Sadie, even though black faces were as common as white ones on the estate. None of them greeted each other; they just fell into conversation, which was casual at first but soon became excited and loud as they made their way to school. None of them had any money, but they all had an appetite for sweets. And they had a plan.
‘Who’s going to do it?’ Anna asked as they walked to the edge of the estate.
‘It’s your turn,’ Carly told her.
‘No, it’s not.’ Anna’s voice became louder in her own defence.
‘I did it last time,’ Carly insisted.
‘Yeah, but—’
‘It’s all right,’ Sadie interrupted them quietly. ‘Leave it to me.’
In the old days, Sadie had been able to get anything anyone at school wanted. Or to be more accurate, whatever Sadie brought to school everyone wanted. Her dad would indulgently let her take what she asked for from his ever-changing stocks, and she would supply them, mirroring his wheeler-dealer attitude with stardust that fizzed on your tongue and erasers that came in every shape, colour and smell under the sun. Sometimes she would sell them, sometimes she would give them away – making herself the most popular girl in the school. For a while.
Now, though, she had to find other ways of coming by her stash of goodies.
They were outside the newsagent’s by now. It was part of a parade of shops in the main road that led to the estate, between a dry-cleaner’s and an off-licence. Carly and Anna loitered to one side while Sadie marched brazenly in. It wasn’t a big shop, but there were two small aisles selling groceries and a huge counter of sweets, behind which sat the shopkeeper, who eyed Sadie with suspicion. He had dark skin, white hair and a deeply lined face.
‘Got any milk?’ Sadie asked with a smile.
The shopkeeper pointed in the direction of a tall, glass-fronted fridge in the aisle furthest from him. ‘In the fridge,’ he told her.
Sadie nodded and wandered over to where he had indicated. She opened the fridge, and although she saw three cartons of milk on the lower shelf, she made the pretence of scanning up and down as though unable to find them. Then she shut the door and walked back up to the shopkeeper. ‘Couldn’t find it.’
‘It’s in the fridge,’ the shopkeeper repeated with a frown.
Sadie shrugged, and continued to smile at him.
The shopkeeper muttered something beneath his breath; then he stood up from his stool, walked out from behind the counter and made his way over to the fridge. Sadie watched him carefully. As he opened the door and bent down to take out the milk, she quietly snatched two big handfuls from the sweet counter, shoved them into her satchel, grabbed another couple of handfuls and slipped outside again. She had left the shop before the man had straightened up to close the fridge door.
The three girls ran silently round the corner of the parade, stifling their giggles. Then Carly and Anna huddled excitedly around Sadie.
‘What did you get? What did you get?’
‘Did you get any ciggies?’
‘Course not,’ Sadie scoffed, but not unpleasantly. ‘Ciggies are behind the counter. Anyway, you don’t smoke, Carly.’
‘Course I do.’
‘Since when?’
‘Since last week. Tom gave me one of his, didn’t he?’
Sadie and Anna looked at each other with raised eyebrows, and then exploded with laughter.
‘What?’ Carly asked defensively. ‘What?’
‘We knew you were after Tom,’ Anna screeched.
‘I’m not after him. He just gave me a ciggie, that’s all.’
‘Bet that’s not all he gave you,’ Anna laughed.
‘Shut up.’
‘Look,’ Sadie interrupted them, more to defuse the argument than anything else. She opened her palms to display her haul – chocolate bars, gum, sweets. Carly and Anna moved to grab what they could, but suddenly they heard a man’s voice behind them.
‘Oi, you lot!’
As one, they turned their heads to see who was calling them. The newsagent was running towards them. ‘Give me that stuff back. I’ll call the police on you.’
The three girls were like pigeons dispersing at the sound of gunshot. Quick as a light switching on, they ran in three different directions, Anna and Carly disappearing in opposite ways down the street, Sadie speeding down the alleyway that led past the bins and back into the estate.
As she ran, she nervously congratulated herself on not risking their little shoplifting escapade on the estate. Everyone knew her there, even the shopkeepers – it was difficult to get away with anything. She looked back over her shoulder to see the shopkeeper running after her, and felt a little surge of adrenaline in her stomach as she upped her pace. The alleyway turned a corner and then led out on to an area at the foot of a grey concrete tower block where people parked their cars. There were about fifteen vehicles, all fairly old and run-down. Without stopping to think, Sadie hurled herself into the middle of the car park and hid down by the side of a rusty old blue Fiesta. She tried not to breathe too heavily as she crouched, holding her sweets, and she strained her ears to hear the patter of the shopkeeper’s feet as he emerged from the alleyway – only to find that she had disappeared. She heard him swearing to himself in his pronounced Asian accent. ‘Bloody kids. Always the bloody same.’
Suddenly, to her horror, she saw someone approaching. He raised an eyebrow at her just as she heard the shopkeeper calling to him, ‘’Scuse me, my friend. You seen a young girl running through here? About thirteen, maybe a bit older, long brown hair.’
The man paused, and seemed to be wondering if he should reply or not.
‘She just stole something from my shop, you see,’ the man