Alice Next Door (6 page)

Chapter eleven

I
couldn’t relax properly that night until Mum had been in for the tucking-in
scenario
she loved so much. Actually, I usually loved it too – it made me feel all cosy and safe, like when I was a little girl. But this night was different. I just wanted it over and done with so Al and I could relax and settle down for our first night together.

Alice lay on the floor next to my bed, and we conversed in whispers until, finally, there was a light tap on the door. Alice rolled expertly under
the bed, taking her sleeping bag with her.

‘Come in,’ I said, feeling a bit like one of the three little pigs inviting the big bad wolf into his house.

Mum opened the door and came in. She sat on the edge of my bed. A bad sign. This wasn’t going to be a quick kiss and a pat on the head. This was going to be serious.

She put her hand lightly on my shoulder. ‘
Feeling
a bit better now?’

‘Mmmm.’

‘It’s hard, Alice being gone, isn’t it? You must miss her an awful lot.’

‘Mmmmm.’ I couldn’t think of anything else to say. Whatever would my mum have said if she knew that Alice was lying only a few inches away from her, inhaling the dust from under my bed, and listening to every word Mum said?

Mum kind of rustled her behind, as if she was settling in.

‘You know, Megan, something a bit like this
happened me when I was your age.’

I tried not to look bored. Either my mum was a dreadful liar, or everything that ever happened to me seemed to have happened to her at some stage too.

Mum put on her dreamy kind of voice. ‘And guess what?’

I spoke in a sing-song voice. ‘I bet it all turned out for the best in the end.’

Mum looked a bit hurt, so I had to add, ‘I know, Mum. Thanks for trying to help.’

She smiled and patted my shoulder. ‘That’s OK. You know we can always talk, don’t you?’

She got up to go. At the same awful moment, our eyes fell on a red sweatshirt that was neatly folded on the end of my bed. Mum picked it up, and shook it out.

‘What’s this? Isn’t this Alice’s?’

I tried to sound casual. ‘Oh yes. We swapped. I gave her my….’ I racked my brains trying to think of a jumper that wasn’t in the ironing
basket, or in the dirty washing pile. Mum always knew where everything was, and I didn’t want to be caught out. ‘… my…. I gave her my blue and white striped one. Just for a loan. Until she comes down again. You don’t mind, do you?’

Mum shook her head. ‘No, darling, I don’t mind. Not if it makes you feel better. Goodnight, darling.’

‘Night, Mum.’

I thought she’d go then, but she didn’t. She came and sat down on the bed again. ‘Remember when you were very small?’

I didn’t remember much about when I was very small, but sometimes it seemed like Mum remembered every tiny detail. And she loved to talk about it. At length.

She continued. ‘Remember how you used to make me check under your bed every night, in case there was a monster under there?’

Oh no! Why had she suddenly brought that up? Surely she didn’t suspect something? And
Mum was big on nostalgia. Was she suddenly going to try to relive old times by checking under the bed? Was this the end of everything?

I put on the most bored voice I could manage. ‘That was really stupid, wasn’t it?’

She smiled. ‘Well, it wasn’t so stupid back then. But you’re a big girl now, aren’t you?’

I smiled back. ‘Yes, Mum. Much too big for monsters under the bed.’

She patted my shoulder. ‘You’re sure you don’t want me to check? Just in case?’

I nodded. ‘Yes, Mum. I’m quite sure.’

She sat there for a moment longer, and then to my huge relief, she stood up and walked towards the door.

I turned over, and snuggled down under the covers. Mum switched off the light and went out.

After a few seconds, Alice rolled out from under the bed. She put on a spooky voice. ‘
I am your worst nightmare. I am the monster from under your bed
.’

I giggled. In the dim light, I could see that she
was holding a pair of my dirty socks. ‘Yuck, Meg,’ she said. ‘These stink. How long have they been under the bed?’

I pretended to think. ‘Em.. Let me see. Oh yes, they’re my communion socks. That’ll be nearly four years, then.’

Alice gave a quiet little squeal. I heard the socks hitting the wall over my bed. ‘Double yuck. My mum would ground me if I left my dirty washing under my bed. Still though, your mum’s nice. She sounded like she really felt sorry for you.’

I sighed. ‘Yeah, I know. As mums go, I
suppose
she’s not the worst. She can be a lot of fun. And sometimes she lets us do really crazy things. Do you remember the time she let us make
popcorn
without putting a lid on the saucepan?’

Alice laughed. ‘Oh yeah. Wasn’t that mad?’

I got a sudden fit of the giggles. ‘Remember how the popcorn flew everywhere, and we raced around, grabbing it, and screaming all the time?’

Alice suddenly stopped laughing. ‘Yeah. Fat chance of my mum doing that. If one scrap of food touches the floor she panics, as if it was a major health alert. Your mum’s great. You’re lucky.’

‘Mmmm ...’ I said.

Alice laughed. ‘Remember the time, during the World Cup, when your mum used food colouring, and served up green, white and orange mashed potatoes for your dinner?’

I gave a wry smile. ‘Hello? Did you just mention my mum, and food colouring in the same sentence? I think not.’

‘But I remember it really well. She had the potatoes arranged on the plate in a perfect
rectangle
, and she had a stick of liquorice or
something
as a flag-pole.’

This time I had to laugh. ‘Oh, yes, I remember all right. But Mum would sooner die than use food colouring. She probably used spinach for the green, and carrot or tomato or something to make the potatoes orange. And if I remember
correctly, the flag-pole was made out of a stick of celery. It was all probably a trick to get me to eat even more vegetables.’

Alice didn’t care about the details. ‘Whatever. All I know is she went to loads of trouble to make dinner fun for you and Rosie.’

Suddenly I started to feel guilty for having a nicer mum than Alice. I tried to think of
something
not so nice about my mum. It didn’t take long. I knew I was being disloyal to my mum, but it was all in a good cause.

‘Hey, she’s not exactly perfect, my mum. She dresses like she’s trapped in the seventies.
Sometimes
I’m sure she thinks she’s the mum in the
Alfie and Annie Rose
books.’

Alice gave a small giggle. ‘Hey, now that you mention it…’

I laughed too. ‘She has exactly the same hairstyle, and she’s been wearing the same roundy glasses ever since I can remember. She always looks like she’s just going out to dig the garden. Your mum
dresses so nicely. She always looks lovely.’

Alice sighed. ‘Yeah, you’re right. But she’s lovely in an untouchable kind of way. Jamie showed her a painting he did last week, and she kind of backed away from him, making these horrible, panicky squeals in case he’d get paint on her new white jacket. And the other day when I felt really sad about Dad, she kept going on about how she broke one of her new nails. That’s not how a mum should behave. She should understand how I feel. That’s her job.’

Oh dear. This wasn’t working out like I planned. I decided to try again.

‘Still though, whenever my mum starts to try to be all buddy-buddy, I feel really, really,
embarrassed
, and can’t wait for her to stop. At her age she should understand the difference between being a mum and being a friend, and concentrate on the things she’s good at, like turning our dinner into the Ireland flag. Don’t you think so?’

Alice’s voice was very quiet, and kind of sad.

‘Yes, you’re right. But what do you do if your mum’s only good at non-mum kinds of things, like bridge, and golf, and putting on make-up?’

She gave a small sob. ‘I don’t think my mum even likes being a mum. Sometimes I think she’s sorry she had me and Jamie. I feel like we’re kind of in the way. Like we’re spoiling her life.’

I didn’t know what to say. Alice had never spoken like that about her mum before. She looked tearful. I leaned over and rubbed her arm. It probably didn’t help very much. Alice wiped her eyes, and suddenly she spoke brightly.

‘Still. We have to make our plan work. I have to get Mum back to Limerick, and then we’ll all live happily ever after. Or something like that.’

I spoke fiercely. ‘Our plan will work. It has to.’

Alice nodded and smiled back at me.

After that we talked about Melissa again. We talked about how vain she was, and the irritating way she was always flicking her hair, and
generally
swanning around the school as if she owned
the place. As usual, saying bad things about her and telling each other how much she got on our nerves made us feel much better.

Then we fell asleep.

Day one was over.

Chapter twelve

D
ay two.

I felt kind of strange when I woke up. A bit sad. A bit happy. A bit excited. And quite a bit afraid.

Alice and I chatted quietly for a while, and then we got dressed. After that we went through the climbing in and out of the window stuff, so Alice could go to the toilet. She laughed when she got back. ‘Whew, that was fun. Maybe we could invent a new sport. We could call it “bathroom
mountaineering.” What do you think?’

I laughed too. ‘Yeah. Sounds great. We could make videos and everything. We could be rich.’

‘And we could be the first world champions. We could represent Ireland in the Olympics. We…’

Just then there was a shout from the hallway. ‘Megan Sheehan, are you getting up at all today? And do you want any breakfast?’

Alice scrambled under the bed, dragging her sleeping bag after her. I called out, ‘Yeah, Mum. I’m on my way.’ Then I heard her going back into the kitchen. Alice rolled out from under the bed, with a big grin on her face. She loved danger, and I knew she was really having fun. I often wished I could be as daring as she was.

I knew Mum would be back if I didn’t appear, so after a few minutes, I wandered into the kitchen. Rosie was sitting up at the table in her patched pyjamas, eating a huge bowl of organic porridge. Poor child. She was too young to
understand just how sad her life was.

Since it wasn’t a school day, I was allowed to have Weetabix – supposedly a big treat. I
finished
my breakfast, and then I helped Mum to tidy up for a few minutes. Soon Mum went out to the utility room with some empty milk
cartons
for the recycling bag. Luckily, Rosie toddled after her. As soon as they were gone, I threw two Weetabix into a bowl, grabbed a spoon, and ran to my room with them.

‘It’s OK, it’s only me.’

Alice rolled out from under the bed, and looked at the bowl I was holding towards her. She didn’t seem very impressed.

‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘I’ll get milk too. I just couldn’t do it all together.’

I wandered back into the kitchen, went to the fridge and poured myself a big mug of milk.

Mum was scrubbing the porridge stains from the hob, muttering away as she did so. ‘What is your dad like? At the age of thirty nine, you’d
think that maybe just once he’d be able to cook porridge without letting it boil over. So much for learning through experience.’

I laughed politely, and then said, ‘I’m going to read in my room for a while.’

She looked up. ‘OK. Are you bringing that milk with you?’

I tried to sound casual. ‘Yeah. We were doing nutrition in school last week, and Miss
O’
Herlihy
told us all about osteoporosis. It sounds awful. I don’t want to get that, so I’m going to drink two mugs of milk every day.’

Mum smiled. ‘Well, I’m glad she’s teaching you something useful. You know broccoli has lots of calcium too?’

I made a face. ‘Yeah Mum, but that’s going a bit too far, don’t you think?’

She laughed, and I escaped with the milk.

Alice finished the Weetabix in double-quick time. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. ‘Yum. I was so hungry, that was delicious.
But I don’t think I can survive for the rest of the day on apples and biscuits.’

I sighed. That was going to be a bit of a problem. I’d read loads of stories where kids hide puppies, and hamsters in their bedrooms, and struggle to sneak crumbs and rasher rinds to them. I was discovering that sneaking food to a healthy twelve-year-old with a huge appetite was a bit more difficult. Already I was running out of ideas, and besides, Alice was never going to be happy with scraps.

I tried to sound positive.

‘Well, don’t worry. We can go out for a while this afternoon, and then we can buy you some nice stuff to eat.’

Alice sounded surprised. ‘Out? How will we manage that without being caught?’

I smiled and spoke airily. ‘Oh, don’t worry. I have a plan.’

I felt very pleased with myself. I was getting good at all this secret stuff. Maybe I’d give up on
my plans to become a vet and train to be a private investigator instead.

Al and I spent the next few hours in my room. I told Mum I was doing a big clear-out, so she wouldn’t be too suspicious. I even tidied a few bookshelves, just in case she came in to check. Then Al and I sat on the floor and chatted and laughed as quietly as we could. After a while we ate some of her biscuit stash. Then, at about twelve o’clock, there was a small rattle, and when I looked around, I could see the handle of my bedroom door turning slowly. Alice was
standing
by the window, and had no chance to hide. I held my breath as the door opened very slowly, and……Rosie toddled in. She beamed and held out her arms. ‘Alith,’ she lisped, as Alice and I stood still in panic. How could one small three-year-old spoil our great plan? It just wasn’t fair.

Then I had a brainwave. I shut the bedroom door, grabbed Rosie and pulled her towards my
wardrobe. ‘Look, Rosie, sweeties. Lots of nice sweeties for Rosie,’ I said, as I rummaged frantically for the secret bag of marshmallows I’d hidden there the week before.

Rosie loves marshmallows, so she was completely distracted for the few seconds it took Alice to roll under the bed. When Rosie’s mouth was full, she turned around again. Her mouth opened in surprise, and two marshmallows popped out onto the floor.

‘Alith? Alith gone?’ she lisped.

I bent down and put my face near to hers, like I’d seen Mum do when she had something important to say.

‘Rosie, No Alice. No Alice here. Just me and you. OK?’

She looked a bit puzzled, but happily accepted another marshmallow, and toddled off to look for Mum. I closed the door behind her, and collapsed on to the bed. Then Alice rolled out from underneath and grinned up at me.

At lunch-time, I had another moment of panic when out of the blue Rosie said, nice and clearly: ‘Alith gone.’

Mum looked at her, surprised. ‘Aaah. Even Rosie misses Alice. Isn’t that so sweet? Yes dear, Alice has gone. But I’m sure we’ll see her in a few weeks, won’t we?’

I was really, really glad that Rosie was only three, and far too young to say something awful like, ‘But she was in Megan’s room this morning.’

As we tidied up the lunch things, I hid a few slices of bread in the pocket of my hoodie. Not very exciting food, I had to admit, but it was the best I could do under the circumstances. I could hardly bring Alice bowls of soup, or dishes of pasta, could I?

Just as I was leaving the kitchen, Mum turned to me and said, ‘I’ve an idea, Megan. Why don’t I leave Rosie with Kathleen up the road for a while, and you and I can have a nice girlie afternoon? Maybe we could go to town. We could go
for hot chocolates, and than shop for some new school shoes for you. Wouldn’t that be nice?’

Normally, I’d have loved that. But I could hardly skip off to town leaving Alice on her own in my room, could I? It was time for one of my special, reserve ideas. I’d joined the local tennis club a few months earlier, and whenever Mum and Dad couldn’t think of anything else to
complain
about, they’d go on about what a waste of money it had been, since I hardly ever played. It wasn’t my fault though. All the other girls who hung out there had been having private coaching since they were about six months old. They were probably playing tennis while they were still in nappies. Once, before I knew any better, Mum persuaded me to enter a competition. I can remember her encouraging smile. ‘It’ll be an experience, Megan, if nothing else.’

She was right. It
was
an experience. It was the most embarrassing, humiliating experience of my entire life. My opponent, Ciara, had travelled
all the way from Cork for the game. Her mother and father had come with her to encourage her. (My parents hadn’t thought to travel the half a mile from our house to support me. Which was just as well - I didn’t need two more witnesses to my total humiliation.) Ciara had two tennis
racquets
, like someone who was planning to play in Wimbledon. She was dressed in designer gear from her cute white headband, down to her mega-expensive runners. And she never called when a ball went out – she just did this cool flicking thing with her fingers. After a while, when she realised just how bad I was, she started to apologise every time she sent the ball whizzing past my ear. As if apologising made it better. I only scored two points in the entire match, and that was when she double-faulted. The first time that happened, she threw her racquet on the ground in temper. If my parents saw me do that, they’d have dragged me off the court and grounded me for about six months. Ciara’s
mother just cooed softly to her: ‘Now Ciara, don’t forget about your anger management. Breathe deeply and let the tension flow away.’ Sad thing was, Ciara didn’t even look embarrassed.

I was put into the competition for first-time losers, but I pretended to be sick, and went home. Mum and Dad met me in the hallway. ‘Well, are you our little champion?’ asked Dad.

‘Do we need to book tickets for Wimbledon?’ asked Mum.

I shook my head, and smiled as brightly as I could. ‘Oh, it was a good match, but she just about got the better of me in the end.’

I think they knew I was lying, because they didn’t ask me any more.

Anyway, after that, who could blame me for being less than enthusiastic about tennis?

Still, Mum was pleased, that afternoon, when I said, ‘Thanks, Mum. I’d love to spend the
afternoon
with you, but I was thinking of going over
to the tennis club for a while. Some of the girls in my class said they might be there.’

I felt a bit mean when I saw how happy that statement made her. She gave me a big smile.

‘That’s great, Megan. I’m glad you’re getting on with the other girls in your class. Would you like me to drop you over to the club?’

I smiled back. ‘No, Mum. It’s fine thanks. The walk will warm me up for the game.’

I ran to my room to change into my tracksuit and runners, and to tell Alice to get ready. A few minutes later, she climbed out the window, and I locked it behind her. Then I got my racquet from the hall cupboard, and called out, ‘Bye, Mum. I’ll be back in time for tea.’

She came to the door to see me off. ‘Bye,
darling
. Have a good time.’

Luckily I’d told Alice to go out through the gate at the bottom of our back garden. I skipped down the road, and met her at the pre-arranged spot, at the end of the lane.

She stretched her arms high in the air. ‘Mmmmm. It’s so nice to be out. I’m beginning to feel like a prisoner. Do you think I’ll be able to get a loan of a racquet at the club?’

I laughed.

‘We are so not going to the tennis club!’

‘Why?’

‘Too many Melissas there.’ (Melissa was our code word for any girl we didn’t like.)

Alice looked mystified. ‘Where then? Where are we going?’

I smiled.

‘Into town.’

Alice was delighted. ‘Hey. That’s a great idea.’

I was pleased with her reaction. So pleased that I nearly forgot how much trouble I’d be in if Mum discovered I was in town without her knowing. She always said town was full of ‘
undesirables
.’ Still, sneaking Alice around was
serious
enough. If I was caught I was going to be in trouble anyway, and grounded for about a
hundred years. I might as well have some fun and make it worth my while.

We ran to the bus stop, and arrived just as a bus pulled up. I felt very grown up indeed, as I bought two tickets, and we set off on our journey.