LITMIR.BIZ

      “Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents,” sighed Jasmine, stretched out on the rug.

      “What?” Laurel’s head shot up from the magazine she was looking at. “What are you talking about?”

      “Christmas,” said Jazz. “Without any presents.” She sighed again, rather more dramatically this time.

      “N-no presents?” Daisy’s lip quivered. “No presents at all?”

      Solemnly, Jazz shook her head.

      “Who said?” demanded Laurel.

      “Nobody said.” That was Rose, just a tiny bit scornful. How easily people allowed themselves to be taken in! “She’s winding you up.”

      “You mean we will have presents?” said Daisy, hopefully.

      “’Course we will!” Jazz rocked herself into a sitting position. “Got you going, didn’t I?”

      Daisy was still looking bewildered.

      “Oh!” Laurel’s face cleared. “It’s from Mum’s play!”

      “Opening line! Little Women … ‘Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents’. I thought everybody knew that,” said Jazz. But she and Rose were the only two who really read books, and Rose’s were usually big fat learned volumes all about history. Rose was what Jazz privately thought of as “eleven-going-on-a-hundred". Took life just so-o-o-o seriously. Thought novels were a frivolous waste of time.

      Laurel was the opposite. She only read film and fashion mags. As for Daisy – well! A smile curved Jazz’s lips. It would be kindest to say that Daisy struggled. Tries hard was what the teachers always wrote on Daisy’s school reports.

      “You are all so ignorant,” said Jazz.

      “I knew it was the opening line,” said Laurel. “I remembered it from the film.”

      “You ought to read the book. The book is far better.”

      Laurel pulled a face. “The book’s old-fashioned.”

      “So?”

      “So I like things that are new!”

      “No soul,” grumbled Jazz. “I suppose you’ll say Mum’s play isn’t as good as the film.”

      “No, I won’t, ’cos Mum’s in it and it wouldn’t be kind.”

      Mum was playing the part of Marmee. She had been rehearsing all through December, ready for opening on Boxing Day. Of course they were all going to see it, even though it was “way out in the sticks", as Jazz called anywhere that wasn’t London.

      “If it had been in the West End,” mourned Laurel, “she’d be making a fortune.”

      “Not a fortune,” said Jazz. “You never get a fortune, working in theatre. You have to do films and telly for that.”

      Their mum had been on telly, once. She had been in a soap called Icing on the Cake, all about a woman who ran a business making wedding cakes. Mum hadn’t been the actual woman, but she’d been the woman’s best friend. It had run for four years and Mum had been famous. Well, quite famous. Famous enough to be recognised in the street and for people to come clamouring for her autograph.

      For the first time that any of them could remember there had been money in the Jones household. No more scraping and pinching and worrying about how to pay the bills. No more searching for clothes in the local Oxfam shops. No more hand-me-downs or cast-offs. Instead, it had been meals out and shopping in Marks & Spencer and FUN. They had even moved from their dark dingy flat in Dartford (out in the sticks) to a real house in London. It was admittedly only just in London. South London. But it was on the tube, said Jazz, and so it counted.

      Icing on the Cake had been axed at Easter and now the money was starting to run out.

      “We’re going to be poor again,” wailed Laurel, who was the eldest and could remember very clearly what it had been like before Mum was on the telly. Laurel really hated being poor. Jazz declared bravely that there were other things in life besides money, and Daisy was an undemanding little creature. So long as she had her cats, she was happy. Rose just muttered about the evils of isms – sexism, racism, classism – and made everybody groan. They always groaned when Rose started on what Jazz called her spouting.

      “I hate it when you can’t have the things you want,” said Laurel. She meant clothes. Laurel loved to look smart and wear the latest gear. “If only Mum could get on telly again!”

      Little Women was the first real job that Mum had had since Icing. They had held a conference, the five of them, to discuss whether she should accept it.

      “It’ll mean me being out in the evenings,” warned Mum. “But we do need the money and Marmee is a good part.”

      “When I was little,” said Jazz, “I used to wonder what Marmee meant!” She giggled.

      “What does it mean?” said Daisy.

      Laurel said kindly, “It’s the American way of saying Mummy.”

      “They say mommy” explained Jazz. “Only it comes out” – she adopted an exaggerated American drawl – “as marmee.”

      Daisy nodded and went back to grooming Tinkerbell, their white cat. Tink was big and fluffy and Daisy spent many contented hours combing out the knots with his special cat comb. None of the others had the patience.

      “I need a whole new wardrobe,” said Laurel. “I wouldn’t be seen dead in half the stuff I’ve got!”

      “Yes, and I want acting classes and Daisy wants another kitten and Rose

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