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      “I HAVE SPENT sixteen years of my life,” said Mum, “coping with your dad. Sixteen years of clearing up his messes, getting us out of the trouble that he’s got us into. If it weren’t for me, God alone knows where this family would be! Out on the streets, with a begging bowl. Well, I’ve had it, do you hear? I have had it. I cannot take any more! Do I make myself plain?”

      Me and the Afterthought, shocked into silence, just stared woodenly.

      “Do I make myself plain?” bellowed Mum.

      “Y-yes!” I snapped to attention. “Absolutely!”

      “Good. Then you will understand why it is that I am relinquishing all responsibility. Because if I am asked to cope just one minute longer — ” Mum’s voice rose to a piercing shriek “ — with your tempers and your tantrums and your utter – your utter —”

      We waited.

      “Your utter selfishness,” screamed Mum, “I shall end up in a lunatic asylum! Have you got that?”

      I nodded.

      “I said, have you got that?” bawled Mum.

      “Got it,” I said.

      “Got it,” muttered the Afterthought.

      “Right! Just so long as you have. I want there to be no misunderstandings. Now, get off to bed, the pair of you!”

      Me and the Afterthought both scuttled into our bedrooms and stayed there. I wondered gloomily if Mum was having a nervous breakdown, and if so, whether it was my fault. All I’d done was just go to a party! I lay awake the rest of the night thinking that if Mum ended up in a lunatic asylum, I would be the one that put her there, but when I told Vix about it next day Vix said that me going to the party was probably just the last straw. She said that her mum had said that my mum had been under pressure for far too long.

      “She’s probably cracking up,” said Vix.

      Honestly! Vix may be my best and oldest friend, but I can’t help feeling she doesn’t always stop and think before she opens her mouth. Cracking up. What a thing to say! It worried me almost sick. I crept round Mum like a little mouse, hardly daring even to breathe for fear of upsetting her. I had these visions of her suddenly tearing off all her clothes and running naked into the street and having to be locked up. The Afterthought, being almost totally insensitive where other people’s feelings are concerned, just carried on the same as usual, except that she didn’t actually whinge quite as much. Instead of whining about cornflakes for breakfast instead of sugar puffs, for instance, she simply rolled her eyes and made huffing sounds; instead of screaming that “Dad would let me!” when Mum refused to let her sit up till midnight watching telly, she just did this angry scoffing thing, like “Khuurgh!” and walloped out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

      I, in the meantime, was on eggshells, waiting for Mum to tear her clothes off. In fact she didn’t. After her one manic outburst, she became deadly cool and calm, which was quite frightening in itself as I felt that underneath things were bubbling. Like it would take just one little incident and that would be it: clothes off, running naked. Or, alternatively, tearing out her hair in great chunks, which is what I’d read somewhere that people did when they were having breakdowns.

      I told the Afterthought to stop being so horrible. “You don’t want Mum to end up in a lunatic asylum, do you?” The Afterthought just tossed her head and said she couldn’t care less.

      “I hate her! I’ll always hate her! She sent my dad away!”

      “Your dad? He’s my dad, too!” I said.

      “I’m the one that loves him best! You can have her” said the Afterthought. “She’s your favourite!”

      One week later, term came to an end. The very next day, Mum got rid of us. Well, that was what it seemed like. Like she just couldn’t wait to be free. She’d made us pack all our stuff the night before, but she couldn’t actually ship us off until after lunch as Dad said he had to work. Mum said, “On a Saturday?” She was fuming! Now she’d made up her mind to dump us, she wanted us to go now, at once, immediately. The Afterthought would have liked to go now, at once, immediately, too. She was jigging with impatience the whole morning. I sort of wanted to go – I mean, I was really looking forward to seeing Dad again – but I still couldn’t quite believe that Mum was doing this to us.

      As we piled into the car with all our gear, I said, “It’s just for the summer holidays, right?”

      Well, it had to be! I mean, what about clothes? What about school?

      “I wouldn’t want to miss any school,” I said.

      “Really?” said Mum. “I never heard that one before!”

      OK, I knew she was still mad at us, but I didn’t see there was any need for sarcasm. I said, “Well, but anyway, you’ll be back long before then!”

      Mum had announced that she was flying off to Spain to stay with an old school friend who owned a nightclub. She’d said she was going to “live it up” It worried me because I didn’t think of Mum as a living-it-up kind of person. I couldn’t imagine her drinking and dancing and lying about on the beach.

      How would she cope? It just wasn’t Mum.

      “You’ll have to be back,” I said. ‘Will I?” said Mum. “Why?”

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