Peppermint Kiss by Kelly McKain Page A

anything, but apparently Liam is on his own too now, because someone he called The Egotistical Brazilian Ballroom Dancer dumped him a few weeks ago for The Arrogant Scottish Skiing Instructor. The last thing I saw was Mum leaning right over the table, trying to tell him that the two of them both sounded utterly horrible and deserved each other, but not being able to pronounce the name of either. I decided it was time to go to bed then.

Tuesday was pretty awful. Mum woke up with a banging headache, Saff said she felt too depressed to even get dressed, let alone go out to ask about work, and Grace just looked like she was going to burst into tears at any moment. The gloom cloud hanging over us was so big now, it was going to take more than a jar of perfume or a shower with some almond shell body scrub to cut through it. I hardly saw the point of going to school, what with our landlord’s deadline looming, but I did anyway, because it was better than hanging round the flat being miserable all day.
    Summer kept giving me tragic looks in our lessons, and at break she asked me about ten times if I wanted to talk about things. I really didn’t but she wouldn’t get the hint, so at lunchtime I made an excuse to stay in and skulked round the library instead of hanging out with her and the boys. I grabbed my stuff and hurried straight off after school too, and for once I didn’t even think about whether Marco might ask me for coffee ever again or not. I had way bigger things to worry about.
    Mr. Vulmer would be back for the rent tomorrow, and we just didn’t have it. I walked home with Grace trailing along silently beside me, and when we got back into the flat, none of us even talked about jobs turning up or benefits arriving in the nick of time. We were beaten – and we knew it. This time tomorrow night we’d probably be in emergency housing – a B&B somewhere, or worse, a homeless shelter. Summer’s yurt was beginning to seem quite appealing. Liam had offered for us to stay at his, but he only had one bedroom, so we’d all be in the lounge (although he’d probably insist on sleeping on the sofa and giving us his room). I wondered if we’d have to split up – me and Grace at Summer’s and Mum and Saff at Liam’s. I decided that would be worse than all being together in a horrible B&B somewhere. Our family had been fractured enough already.
    In the end, I had a bath to try and escape the gloom cloud in the kitchen. I lit a yummy-scented candle, filled the tub with hot water and lashings of my warm spicy orange, cinnamon and geranium bath foam and smoothed an avocado face pack onto my skin. I got in, laid back, closed my eyes and tried to pretend I was still in our posh bathroom in Ealing. Then my mind began to drift and I started thinking about how much Summer had loved the solid perfume I made her, and how excited the girls at school and Mrs. Lurman had been over my creams and lotions, and about Mum giving Liam that massage and us all making those essential oil blends together on Sunday…
    I opened my eyes a little and gazed at my home-made lotions, foams, oils, creams, scrubs, gels and butters, all lined up along the side of the bath. They each had their own properties, like magic potions – the power to make you feel relaxed or revived or uplifted, some pizzazz to wake you up in the morning or little bit of heaven at the end of a long day…and not forgetting a cool, fresh peppermint lip balm – for perfectly kissable lips…
    Suddenly everything came together in my head. And in that second, I had it – the solution to all our problems.
    By the time I was dry and rubbing the last of my avocado body butter into my legs, I’d worked the whole thing out. I strode out of the bathroom in a cloud of steam and delicious smells, straight into the kitchen. Everyone was sitting at the table – Grace just staring at her maths workbook without seeing