Something Secret Page 9

  I had to wait a long time before she started to speak and all that time my heart was pounding as I watched her face. She moved to sit on the empty seat between us so that she was sitting right beside me again. ‘Laura, I’m so sorry’ She put her arm round me, holding me so tightly that I couldn’t escape, couldn’t separate from her. ‘It’s true, I was very jealous of Kathleen when I was a little girl. I always felt she was my parents’ favourite and when she came to Guides and she was put in my patrol . . .’ She grimaced. ‘I felt as though she’d stolen the one thing I had that was all mine, especially when my mother stopped asking me about what we did at Guides and started asking Kathleen instead.’

  She paused, staring down at the diary. ‘I wanted her to stop coming to Guides – that’s what I meant by “get rid” of her – because having her there spoilt it for me.’ Mum paused again. She had been speaking calmly, but now her eyes were glistening like she was holding back tears.

  ‘So what happened?’ I whispered.

  ‘It was an accident, Laura. We were about to line up for inspection that day and I was feeling jealous of how pretty Kathleen looked, so I pulled her ribbon out of her hair and a few of us started tossing it about between us while she tried to get it back.’ Mum swallowed. ‘And of course she started crying and saying that she’d tell our mum, so I told her not to be such a crybaby, and some of my friends joined in. They started chanting, “Crybaby, crybaby,” and she ran out of the hall. I felt guilty then and I ran out after her, but when I got outside I heard this terrible screeching of brakes and someone was sounding their horn and Kathleen was running across the road and a car was coming and . . .’ Mum’s voice went hoarse.

  I stared at her, completely stunned. Inside my head I was hearing Mum calling Kathleen a crybaby and I was seeing Kathleen, who looked so sweet and pretty in all her photos, being hit by a car and never coming back to life again. I felt a bit sick.

  ‘It was an accident but it was my fault,’ Mum finished shakily. That’s why I couldn’t bear to see you in a Girl Guide uniform. That’s why I was so angry when you ran out in front of Mr Bishop’s car that day. It brought it all back, you see . . .’

  And I did see. I saw that Mum wasn’t a murderer – of course she wasn’t! But she still felt responsible for her sister’s death. And that was why she had been acting so strangely.

  ‘Sylvie, the flight’s boarding.’ Suddenly Marla was standing beside us, looking anxious. Are you two all right?’

  I wasn’t all right, and I didn’t think Mum was either.

  When neither of us spoke, Marla said urgently, ‘You’ll have to go now if you’re going to make the flight, Sylvie.’

  ‘You know what?’ Mum said in a trembly voice. ‘I really don’t think I should go away this weekend. Not after what I’ve just told Laura. I can’t just leave her after burdening her with all this.’

  ‘You haven’t burdened me,’ I murmured. I wasn’t sure how to explain it to her, but if anything she had taken a burden away. Suddenly I thought of something. ‘Remember how you used to say that children should always be told the truth because otherwise they’ll imagine something far worse?’ I reminded her.

  Mum looked at me as if she was dimly remembering a time when she used to make such confident statements. ‘Did I say that?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Sylvie,’ Marla said firmly, ‘I think you really need this holiday. Don’t you agree, Laura?’ She looked at me then, with an expression that was urging me to say the right thing.

  I was tempted to say that I needed Mum at home with me this weekend but when I saw how utterly exhausted Mum looked my insides gave a sort of pang. I didn’t want her to be like that. Maybe if she went away this weekend with Hamish, then he could help her feel better again.

  Slowly I nodded. ‘Yes.’ I still had a lot more questions I wanted to ask about Kathleen, but I knew they could wait.

  Simultaneously Mum and I looked across to where Hamish was waiting patiently at the check-in desk. I don’t know what was going through her mind right then, but I couldn’t help thinking that if Dad were here, he’d be shouting his head off at Mum right now, for taking so long.

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ I said, feeling more grown up than I’d ever felt in my life before. ‘Go on, Mum. It’s OK.’

  After they’d gone, Marla took me to buy some chocolate from the airport shop (because she says that chocolate nearly always makes you feel better in times of stress).

  ‘Are you all right now, Laura?’ she asked as we headed outside together, munching our chocolate raisins.

  I nodded, yawning. I suddenly felt really tired, as if all I wanted was a very long sleep.

  Aargh!’ Marla burst out as we approached her car.

  I stared at it in awe. ‘I’ve never been with anyone who’s had their car wheel-clamped before!’ I exclaimed excitedly.

  And all I can say about the look Marla gave me then, is that if looks could kill, I certainly wouldn’t be sitting here now, telling you this story.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I didn’t do very well in the Highland Dancing competition, though Marla and my dance teacher said I deserved a medal just for keeping going in the Sword Dance after I accidentally hit one of the swords with my toe and sent it skating right across the stage.

  Mum and Hamish didn’t fall out of any gondolas in Venice, but arrived home safe and sound just as they’d promised. Of course I asked Hamish straight away where my ice cream was, and he promptly produced a strawberry Cornetto (my favourite kind), which he tried to say had come all the way from Italy even though I knew it had come straight from the freezer at the corner shop.

  Mum told me she’d done a lot of thinking while she was away and she’d decided I could join the Guides after all, and go to the sausage sizzle. I couldn’t believe it. I ran straight across to Janice’s house to tell her. Of course Janice wanted to know all about Mum and Kathleen and everything. That was difficult, because I felt like I ought to tell her a bit of the truth, which is quite a tricky thing to do really, much trickier than just lying. In the end, I told her that Kathleen had been knocked down by a car while she was on her way home from Guides and that was why Mum got so upset at the thought of me in a Guide uniform.

  ‘How come she doesn’t mind any more then?’ Janice demanded after I’d actually started going to Guides with her.

  I looked away. ‘I’m not sure,’ I mumbled.

  I wasn’t going to explain to Janice about the difference Mum says talking it over with Hamish, and with the counsellor she’s started seeing up at the hospital, has made to the way she feels. The fact is, Mum can now look at me in my Guide uniform without wincing – which is more than I can say for myself!

  The other thing that’s happened recently is that Dad phoned to invite me to go and stay with him for four whole weeks this summer. Mum and Hamish are coming to Australia too – though they’re going to travel round on their own while I stay with Dad. I can’t wait! I’ll be meeting my new baby sister for the first time then too. I’m quite nervous about that, as well as excited. Mum says I’ve not to worry if I feel a bit jealous of the baby, because jealousy is a natural feeling. She says I can phone her on her mobile any time I want to talk about it.

  Maybe I’ll feel jealous of Daisy (that’s my little sister’s name, by the way), or maybe I won’t – I guess that will depend a lot on Dad. But in any case, I’m going to try my hardest to be nice to her.

  The sausage sizzle was really good fun just as Janice had predicted, even though my sausages kept falling into the fire when I wasn’t looking, and getting burnt. (I think Helen had something to do with that, but I couldn’t prove it.)

  After that though, I sort of went off the idea of being a Guide. ‘It’s not that I hate all of it,’ I tried to explain diplomatically to Janice (because I still wanted her to be my best friend and not Helen’s). ‘It’s just that I don’t feel like a Guide, that’s all. I don’t want to wear the same boring uniform as everybody else. And I hate bein
g bossed about by that stupid patrol leader. It’s worse than school.’

  As I tried to explain to Mum – even more diplomatically since she’d just spent loads of money on my Guide uniform – I felt much more me, doing my Highland Dancing. ‘So, is it OK if I don’t go to Guides any more?’ I begged.

  She stopped struggling to open Rory’s cat-food and pointed the tin-opener at me accusingly. ‘You, young lady, are really pushing your luck.’

  ‘But it’s dead boring. And it’s all girls. I don’t think it’s good for me to go to something that’s all girls. I mean, some of the girls at school have got boyfriends already and they didn’t meet them by going to Guides.’

  Mum’s eyes widened considerably. ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘What are we fighting about now, ladies?’ Hamish came into the kitchen carrying an empty coffee mug and the newspaper. He dropped the mug in the sink and took the tin opener out of Mum’s hand. ‘Here. Let me. It’s impossible to have a really good argument while trying to feed a cat.’

  I giggled and Mum’s face relaxed. All the same, I could almost feel the next battle just around the corner. I won’t ask you to stick around for that, because I’m sure you’ve got plenty of battles of your own to be getting on with. I’m quite glad Hamish is here though. Having him around helps a lot. I’ve got this funny feeling that for the next few years, as far as battles with Mum are concerned, I’m going to need all the help I can get. But so is Mum!

  Gwyneth Rees is half Welsh and half English and grew up in Scotland. She went to Glasgow University and qualified as a doctor in 1990. She is a child and adolescent psychiatrist but has now stopped practising so that she can write full-time. She is the author of The Mum Hunt (winner of the Red House Children’s Book Award for Younger Readers), The Mum Detective, The Mum Mystery, My Mum’s from Planet Pluto and The Making of May, as well as the bestselling Fairies and Cosmo series and Mermaid Magic for younger readers. She lives in London with her partner, Robert, their daughter, Eliza, and their two cats, Hattie and Magnus.

  Visit www.gwynethrees.com

  Also by Gwyneth Rees

  The Mum Hunt

  The Mum Detective

  The Mum Mystery

  My Mum’s from Planet Pluto

  The Making of May

  For younger readers

  Mermaid Magic

  Fairy Dust

  Fairy Treasure

  Fairy Dreams

  Fairy Gold

  Fairy Rescue

  Fairy Secrets

  Cosmo and the Magic Sneeze

  Cosmo and the Great Witch Escape

  Cosmo and the Secret Spell

  First published 1995 by Yearling Books

  This edition published 2009 by Macmillan Children’s Books

  This electronic edition published 2010 by Macmillan Children’s Books

  a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited

  Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR

  Basingstoke and Oxford

  Associated companies throughout the world

  www.panmacmillan.com

  ISBN 978-0-330-50542-0 PDF

  ISBN 978-0-330-50541-3 EPUB

  Copyright © Gwyneth Rees 1995

  The right of Gwyneth Rees to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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