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Sammy shook her head.

      “She was only a baby,” I said. “But now she’s big – she’s nearly six! She can be trusted to keep a secret. Can’t you?”

      Sammy said, “What secret?”

      “About Mum not being here. We don’t want people knowing, cos if they know they’ll put us in a home, they’ll say we can’t take care of ourselves. But we can,” I said, “can’t we?”

      Sammy sucked on her thumb. She seemed uncertain.

      “Of course we can!” I said. “We’re not stupid. Just think how proud Mum will be when she gets back and we tell her all the things we’ve done!”

      “Such as what?” said Tizz. “Eating toast and marge and Rice Krispies with marmalade?”

      I scowled at her, over Sammy’s head.

      “I only asked,” said Tizz.

      I said, “Well, don’t! Have a bit of imagination.”

      Tizz hunched a shoulder.

      “Can we stay up late?” said Sammy. “And watch whatever we like on TV?”

      “You’ve got it,” said Tizz.

      She really wasn’t helping. I said, “Maybe just now and again. Not all the time, though, cos that wouldn’t be right. Mum wouldn’t like it if we did that.”

      “Will she be here for my birthday?”

      “She might,” I said. “But if not, we’ll have a big bash when she gets back.”

      “Seems to me,” said Tizz, “before we start thinking about birthdays we ought to find out if there’s any money anywhere.”

      I knew that she was right. If we didn’t have any money, I couldn’t think what we would do.

      First off, we looked in the saucer on the kitchen windowsill where Mum sometimes kept bits and pieces of change. There was a little bit in there. We set Sammy to counting it. Proudly she announced that it came to “£3 and 20p.” Meanwhile, I had £2 in my purse, and Tizz produced a fiver. I said, “Wow!”

      “I was saving it,” said Tizz.

      “That’s all right,” I said. “Mum’ll give it back.”

      Tizz said, “You reckon?”

      I think it must be dreadful to be so untrusting. But Tizz is one of those people, she has a very dim view of human nature. Even though she knows Mum can’t help being sick, she gets impatient.

      “Let’s go through pockets,” I said.

      We went through all of Mum’s pockets, and all of our own, but all we came up with was a 5p piece.

      Tizz said, “Try down the side of the sofa. That’s what they do in books. They always manage to find something.”

      We didn’t find anything at all. Not unless you count an old button, plus a needle that stuck in my finger and made me yelp.

      “Is that blood?” quavered Sammy.

      Tizz said, “Yes, but it’s not yours, so you don’t have to start freaking out! Let’s go and see if there’s anything in Mum’s secret stash.”

      She meant the old Smarties tube where Mum sometimes hoarded 20p pieces. We raced through to Mum’s bedroom and sure enough, in the top drawer of her dressing table, there was the Smarties tube and oh! Hooray! It had something in it.

      We carried it through to the kitchen and upended it. 20p pieces rolled about the table. Greedily, we counted them off into piles.

      “That’s £4.60,” said Tizz.

      It did seem wrong to be taking Mum’s money, especially when I had this unhappy feeling she’d probably been keeping it to buy something for Sammy’s birthday, but it couldn’t be helped.

      “So how much have we got altogether?” I said. I waited for Tizz to add things up, cos she is good at arithmetic. She did some sums on a bit of paper.

      “£14.75.”

      Sammy’s face lit up. “That’s a lot,” she said.

      It sounded like a lot. But was it? I wasn’t sure. I realised that I simply didn’t know. I had no idea what anything cost! When Mum sent us up the road it was usually just for bread, or milk, or maybe a tin of something. She’d give us a couple of pounds, and we’d hand it over and come back with the change, but I’d never properly bothered to count how much change. I’d always just accepted whatever Mrs Petrides gave us. It had never occurred to me to check prices. If Mum said buy a large loaf, I bought a large loaf. I picked it off the shelf and took it to the checkout and that was that.

      I wished, now, that I’d paid a bit more attention.

      Tizz was busy on another load of sums. She looked up and glared, fiercely, across the table.

      “I don’t think,” she said, “that a person can live on 49p a day.”

      I said, “What are you talking about?”

      “49p,” said Tizz. “That’s how much we’ll each have to live on if Mum is away for ten days.”

      I looked at her, doubtfully. I wasn’t sure what you could actually buy for 49p. Just bars of chocolate, maybe, or packets of crisps. But they weren’t healthy! Even I knew that.

      “We’ve got all this stuff,” I said, pointing at the tins we’d taken out of the cupboard.

      “Yeah.” Tizz barely glanced at them. “That’ll go a long way.”

      I did wish she would stop being so negative all the time. It really didn’t help. I pointed out that people had been known to survive on nothing but bread and water for days on end.

      “Just so long as you have enough to drink,” I said. “That’s the main thing.”

      “We’ll starve,” said Tizz.

      “We won’t starve!” Didn’t she listen to a word I said? “Watch my lips: we are not going to starve. I won’t let us!”

      “Dunno what you think you’re gonna do about it,” said Tizz. She scrunched up the paper she’d been doing her sums on and hurled it savagely across the room. “Mum might at least have left us some money!”

      I said, “She didn’t know.” It wasn’t like Mum planned these things. She just got overwhelmed. “Anyway,” I said, “after yesterday she probably doesn’t have any money.”

      Yesterday had been such a good day. Mum’s friend Nikki had come round with her boyfriend and we’d all gone off to the Carnival on the Common. It’s held every year, but this was the first time we’d ever been. There were all kinds of stalls, where you could play Guess the Weight or have a lucky dip or throw hoop-las, and lots of different rides, some of them quite scary. Well, I found them scary! I am a bit of a cowardy custard like that. Tizz was eager to try everything, and Mum let her. Like she let Sammy have three goes at the lucky dip, until she managed to pick something she really wanted.

      We were so busy enjoying ourselves we didn’t ever stop to wonder where the money was coming from. Mum just kept laughing, and spending, and Nikki and her boyfriend kept saying, “Go for it!” Like egging her on. Encouraging her. Mum doesn’t need encouragement! Not when she’s all hyper. She needs someone to take charge and be responsible.

      I should have taken charge. I should have been responsible. I knew Mum couldn’t afford to pay for all those rides, and all those goes on the lucky dip. Plus we all had vegeburgers, and doughnuts, and fizzy drinks. And Mum paid for Nikki and her boyfriend. And they let her. Just taking advantage of Mum’s good nature. They know when she’s on a high she loses all control.

      She’d gone off again, that evening, to meet them. She’d been in a mad whirl, all laughing

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