Lemonade Sky by Jean Ure Page A

I wasn’t in any mood to put up with her and her selfishness.
    I staggered off to the washing machine only to discover that we were out of washing powder. We were almost out of washing-up liquid, too. We were almost out of everything. It was scary. I squeezed in what little washing-up liquid there was just as Tizz appeared, sullenly dragging her sheet.
    “You might have brought Sammy’s,” I said.
    Tizz said, “Why?”
    “Cos hers needs changing just as much as ours!”
    Tizz turned and yelled. “ SAMMY ! Bring your sheet! Don’t see why I should be expected to do everything,” she said.
    The nerve of it! Like she’d done anything.
    Crossly, I stuffed all three sheets into the machine and slammed the door. When I turned round I found Tizz with a felt tip pen crossing days off on the calendar. She’d marked the following Tuesday with a big red X.
    “What’s that for?” I said.
    “That’s when Mum’s due back.” Tizz looked at me, challengingly. “ Ten days. Right?”
    It was like she was daring me to contradict her.
    I said, “Oh. Right.”
    I wanted to believe it every bit as much as she did. Tuesday was the day when Mum would come back. I reckoned we could just about hold out until then. I wasn’t sure that we’d be able to go on very much longer. If Mum wasn’t back by Tuesday, we’d be forced to give in and tell someone. Probably Her Upstairs. And that would be the end of everything.
    At school Nina wanted to know how the birthday tea had gone.
    “Did Sammy have a good time? Did you put candles on her cake?”
    I said, “No, we put matchsticks,” and Nina giggled, thinking I was being funny. And then she realised that I wasn’t, and she stopped giggling and looked embarrassed, and I wished I hadn’t said it. What did I have to go and tell Nina about the matchsticks for? Now I’d made her feel uncomfortable.
    We didn’t talk about Sammy’s birthday any more after that. Instead we talked about how it was going to be the end of term next week, and I asked Nina if she was going away, cos I knew it was what people did in the summer holidays, but that just made her feel even more uncomfortable. She knew I wouldn’t be going anywhere.
    “I expect we might go somewhere,” she said. “Maybe. I don’t really know.”
    But of course she did. Nina always went away. Last summer she’d gone to Spain for a month. And at Christmas she’d gone skiing. She’d sent me a postcard with a foreign stamp.
    “I suppose we might go camping,” she said. “That’s what we sometimes do. Wouldn’t it be fun if you could come with us?”
    I said that it would, but at that point two other girls from our class came and sat next to us and started talking, and I was quite relieved. I knew there wasn’t any chance I could ever go off camping with Nina. I thought she probably knew it, too.
    When I got home that afternoon I bumped into Her Upstairs angrily stomping up the basement steps.
    “Is your mother deliberately avoiding me?” she said.
    I said, “No! Of course not.”
    “So where is she, then? Why is she never at home?”
    “She’s very busy,” I said. “She’s got this friend that’s in hospital. She has to keep visiting her.”
    “Oh, really? Well, that’s odd! According to your sister – who, incidentally, has a bit of a mouth on her – she’s out looking for jobs.”
    “Yes,” I said, “that as well. She’s visiting her friend in hospital and looking for jobs. That’s why she’s not here.”
    Her Upstairs made a noise like “Hrrmf!” Like she didn’t believe me. “And what’s happened to that girl’s face?” she said. She paused, at the top of the steps, and looked down at me. “Has someone been knocking her about?”
    “She prob’ly fell over,” I said. “She’s always falling over.”
    With that, I scuttled on down the steps as fast as I could and banged at the door. It opened just a crack.
    “Oh, it’s you,” said Tizz. “I thought it was her come back.”
    I took