Don't Even Think About It by Roisin Meaney Page B

from home as a translator. She speaks Spanish too, but she likes French better. I almost told her that French is one of my worst subjects in school, next to history, but I stopped myself just in time. She might have offered to give me a grind, which of course Dad would have jumped at.
    But even though she’s a lot nicer than I thought, I still don’t want Dad to get too friendly with her. We don’t need anyone getting too close – we’re managing fine onour own, Dad and me.
    Anyway, we stayed until about nine o’clock, when Luke and Sarah were put to bed in Marjorie’s smallest bedroom. Then Dad and I walked back across the road, and when we got inside, Dad said, ‘Will we sit in the garden for a little while?’
    We used to do that all the time when I was small, me and Mam and Dad, just wrap ourselves up in rugs or blankets and sit outside at night, after the dinner stuff was cleared away. I’d be tucked in between them, leaning against Dad’s shoulder or pressed up to Mam’s arm, sniffing her almondy smell.
    They’d usually do most of the talking, grown-up stuff that would float away into the dark, and sometimes one of them would laugh, and I’d tilt my head up and try to count the stars, and it would feel so safe and cosy.
    I can’t remember when we stopped doing that.
    The weather was nice last night – cold, but very starry and still. So we took two blankets out of the airing cupboard and we went to sit out on the garden seat to look at the stars, which were all out by then.
    We could see our breath in front of us. It looked like we were smoking. I thought about saying that to Dad, but then decided not to. (And just in case you’re wondering, I only had a few puffs once, and it made me feel like throwing up – yeuk. Smoking’s for idiots.)
    So there the two of us were, wrapped in our blankets looking up at the zillions of stars, and remembering when it used to be three of us. At least, I was remembering, and Dad probably was too.
    And because it was dark all around, I asked Dad if hemissed Mam at all. I didn’t look at his face, just up at the sky. And I had time to count seven stars before he said yes, sometimes.
    And then, maybe because it was dark all around, Dad asked me if I was OK about it being just the two of us now, and it took me a lot longer than seven stars before I said that sometimes I was still lonely, but mostly I was OK.
    It was sad, on the garden seat. I told him about Bumble and Catherine, and he teased me about always wanting to be the one to open the door when Henry the pizza delivery boy came, and I said that we must try and make Marjorie’s chestnut stuffing some time, and we found the Plough and the North Star in the sky.
    But it was still sad.
    After a while we went in, and I said goodnight to Dad. And as I was undressing, my new phone started to beep, and I opened my very first text message, which was from San Francisco and which said:
    Happy Christmas my darling girl xxx.
    I didn’t answer it.
    Now it’s the day after Christmas, and I’ve just got back from Chloe’s house. Her Dad made the curry, and they had all the proper Indian stuff like poppadums and naan and everything. Her little brother was a bit of a nuisance, though. He’s seven, and a real baby. He kept banging on Chloe’s bedroom door when we were trying to listen to her new Norah Jones CD after dinner.
    Maybe it’s just as well I don’t have a little brother or sister.

Five past ten, Friday, 31st December, the worst day in the world.
    I did a terrible thing today.
    You remember Ruth Wallace, my neighbour in the wheelchair? You know how nasty she is to me, and how I try to ignore her when she says or does all those mean things?
    Well, today I failed. Today I finally lost my temper with her, and I think I may be in very big trouble now, even bigger than the shoplifting.
    Here’s what happened. When I got up this