‘Come home with me after school,’ said Copper Pie. ‘We’ll see if he’s still there.’
‘No, thanks,’ said Bee. ‘If he doesn’t want to live with us, you can have him.’
Oh dear!
I really wanted to get on with the water bomb discussions. Should I ask Dad to order them? Should I make a sign for the stall? Who was making posters? What should we put the money in? But something told me we were meant to carry on with the sorry-your-Dad’s-gone discussion so I shut up and let Jonno and Fifty try and make things better.
Jonno asked Bee why her dad didn’t want to live with her brothers. She told him about all the things they DIDN’T do: wash up, wash their hands, wash their feet, change their socks, clean their teeth, cook, put the toilet seat back down, change the sheets, go to the supermarket, turn the telly off, clear away after tea.
And then she told him all the things they DID do: eat everything in the fridge even if it says Don’t Eat, watch telly till three o’clock in the morning on loud, bring friends home without asking, borrow Dad’s stuff and lose it, sleep in till lunchtime, borrow money from Mum (Dad won’t lend them any) and never pay it back. Eat even more. Stay in bed even later. Watch more telly.
‘Sorry, Bee, but it sounds to me like your Dad’s right,’ said Fifty. ‘I mean, they are nineteen —’
‘Twenty.’
‘That’s ancient,’ said Fifty. ‘I’m not going to live with my mum when I’m twenty.’
‘I’d rather not live with mine now,’ said Copper Pie.
‘I’m pretty sure she feels the same about you,’ said Bee. She sounded a bit more like herself – insulting – so I thought I’d say what I thought.
‘Maybe the twins should move out?’
She sighed and put her hands on her hips.
‘Of course they should move out, Keener. Everyone knows that . . . well, except Mum. But everyone knows dads aren’t meant to run away from their kids either. It’s kids that are meant to run away, not parents.’
I’d said the wrong thing, clearly.
only eight days left
As we hadn’t had a chance for a proper talk I made a list of everything we had to do for the stall. Some things were quite urgent – like ordering the water bombs. I needed a Tribe decision.
I met Fifty on the corner, as usual, to walk to school. Mum takes Flo in the car but I never have a lift even if it’s raining. Walking’s better.
‘Guess what?’ said Fifty.
Guesswhats are always to do with Probably Rose. I didn’t really want to guess but he gets stressy if you don’t pretend to be as excited as he is about his baby sister.
‘Probably Rose can do a roly-poly?’
‘No. Be serious.’
‘OK. Well, we know she can say “yoghurt”, so my guess is she’s learnt another word.’ If every word Probably Rose said was going to have its own story, conversations with Fifty were going to get very dull.
‘Exactly right, my clever friend. Do you want to know what it is?’
‘Of course,’ I said. Of course not, I thought.
‘Star.’ Fifty looked at me with a beaming smile.
‘Great,’ I said.
‘She looked up at the light and just said it.’ I didn’t bother pointing out that a star is not the same as a light bulb. Copper Pie and Jonno were by the school gate, but no Bee.
‘Is Bee’s dad at yours?’ Fifty asked Copper Pie.
He nodded. ‘I didn’t see him last night but the trainers were there again this morning.’
‘You must know who’s staying with you. Didn’t you eat dinner with him? Didn’t your mum say you had a guest?’ said Jonno, a bit puzzled.
Copper Pie didn’t answer so I helped out. ‘He eats tea with the nursery kids.’
And so did Fifty. ‘And his mum isn’t that chatty. She tends to work on a need-to-know basis.’
‘Not all parents are quite like yours, Jonno,’ I said. I don’t think he realised dinner with place settings and proper food only went on at his.
‘Copper Pie, are you sure they’re Bee’s dad’s trainers?’ I asked. Footwear didn’t seem to be the most reliable way of identifying someone.
‘Good point, Keener,’ Fifty said. ‘Did you look for a name, Copper Pie?’
I laughed and so did Jonno, but Copper Pie didn’t join in.
‘The shoes weren’t named. I looked underneath and inside.’
‘Grown-ups don’t have labels. Divvy!’ said Fifty. ‘Unless . . . does your mum label you, Copper Pie?’
Fifty grabbed C.P.’s arms and turned them over looking for a label. He tried to look down the back of his T-shirt but he wasn’t tall enough to see so I did.
‘There it is,’ I shouted. I pretended to read the label. ‘A ginger nut with fast legs and a permanently empty stomach. Feed several pork pies daily, wash once a month and dry flat.’
Copper Pie pushed me away and ran round to the Tribe patch, also known as the scrubby, damp, dark bit between the netball courts and the tree. We followed, laughing because Fifty’d pretended to spot C.P.’s barcode.
As Bee wasn’t there it seemed a good time to get on with the list. (We didn’t need her anyway because she was swap stall.) I got it out but . . .
‘I rang Bee last night,’ said Fifty. ‘She said her mum says her dad can’t come back ever.’
‘Why not?’ said Jonno.
‘I’m not sure,’ said Fifty. ‘Bee wasn’t making much sense.’
‘Is she coming to school?’ asked Copper Pie.
Fifty nodded. But she didn’t come. So at lunch I finally got to go through the list.
WATER BOMBS STALL
Decide where to order the bombs from – Tribe
Order the water bombs - Keener
Pay for them somehow? – Ask Keener’s dad to use his card
Make a sign for the stall - Tribe
Ask Flo if we can borrow her shop till - Keener
Get something to put the water bombs in?
It all seemed straightforward until Copper Pie said, ‘How are we gonna fill the balloons?’
I looked at Fifty and said, ‘How are we going to fill the balloons?’
Fifty looked at Jonno. ‘How —?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Jonno.
Copper Pie made a smug face. Fair enough. It’s not often he spots something we’ve all missed.
If you’ve never filled a water bomb, you’ve obviously been living in Darkest Peru like that marmalade bear, but I’ll tell you anyway. It’s not that easy. You have to stretch