Jean Ure - Lemonade Sky

It was Tizz, with her sharp eyes, who noticed the red light blinking on the telephone.

“There’s a message!”

She swooped on it. Immediately, Mum’s voice came swirling into the room.

“Darlings, darlings! Love you, darlings! Thinking of you! Always thinking of you! Don’t worry, my darlings! We’ll have lemonade sky! Lemonade sky! I promise you, poppets! That’s what we’ll have! Lemonade sky! Oh, darlings, such fun! Such fun it will be! Kissy kissy, mwah, mwah! Love you, darlings! Love you to bits! Always, always! Take care, my precious angels! Mummy loves you! Lemonade sky, don’t forget!”

My heart sank as I listened. This was how it had been before. Mum talking at a hundred miles an hour, not making any sense. I could remember her taking us to school, pushing Sammy in her buggy, calling after us as we went through the gates, “Love you, darlings! Love you, love you!” All the other kids had turned to look, and me and Tizz had been embarrassed. Then when school let out that afternoon Mum hadn’t been there, and we’d had to make our own way home. We’d found her whirling round the room, with Sammy in her arms, both of them made up with bright red lipstick and green eye shadow. She was whirling so fast that Sammy was growing scared and was starting to cry. We were quite scared, too. We’d begged and begged Mum to stop, but it seemed like she couldn’t. In the end she’d let us take Sammy and we’d shut ourselves in our bedroom, not knowing what to do. Hours later, when we’d crept back out, Mum had disappeared. Now it was happening all over again.

Me and Tizz stood, helplessly, looking at each other.

“Was that Mum talking?” said Sammy.

I said, “Yes, that was Mum.”

“Why’s she sound all funny?”

“She’s just being happy,” said Tizz.

“’bout what?”

“I don’t know! Cos she’s enjoying herself.”

“Sounds like she was in a club,” I said. “All that noise in the background.”

“So when did she ring?”

“Dunno.” I pressed the red button on the phone. We listened again to Mum’s voice, spilling excitedly into the room.

“Take care, my precious angels! Mummy loves you! Lemonade sky, don’t forget!”

“What’s lemonade pie?” said Sammy.

“Sky,” said Tizz. “Just be quiet!”

The mechanical answerphone voice took over to tell us that that was the final message: “Sunday, 2.15 am.”

“Oh,” I said. “I thought I heard the phone ring!”

“So why didn’t you answer it?” screamed Tizz.

“Cos I fell asleep again. Anyway, I thought Mum was here. I thought she’d answer it.”

“Is it something to eat?” said Sammy.

We both turned on her. “Is what something to eat?”

“Lemonade pie.”

“Sky,” said Tizz. “Sky, sky, sky!”

“What’s lemonade sky?”

“How should I know?” Tizz sounded exasperated. “Let’s ring her back!”

We tried, but all we got was voice-mail. Either Mum had switched her phone off, or, most likely, she had run out of credit. She was always forgetting to top up.

“Maybe it’s a treat,” said Sammy. She looked at us, hopefully. “Mum’s gone out to buy us a treat! For my birthday,” she added. “It could be my birthday present!”

I said, “Maybe. Who knows?”

“Cos next week,” said Sammy, “I’m going to be six.”

“You are,” I said. “It’s a big age.”

“When will she come back with it?”

“Soon,” I said. It had been ten days, last time. Mum had been away for ten whole days! But she had come back. That was what we had to hold on to. Plus she had rung and left a message. She hadn’t done that last time.

I said this to Tizz.

“But it’s just babble,” said Tizz. “It doesn’t make any sense!”

“That’s cos she’s confused.” It was what had happened before. Mum had become so hyper that her brain had run out of control. She’d told us, later, that she couldn’t remember anything about where she’d been or what she’d done.

“I was just buzzing with all this energy, you know? Like my head was full of bees.”

“At least this time,” I said, “we know she’s thinking about us.”

Tizz said, “Huh!”

She didn’t say it in her usual scoffing Tizz-like fashion. I had this feeling she was desperately trying not to show that she was every bit as scared as Sammy. I was scared, too, and I was desperately trying not to show it. With Tizz it was a matter of pride. Nothing frightens Tizz! With me it was more like one of us had to stay on top of things, and as I was the oldest, I didn’t really have much choice.

“We should have known,” said Tizz.

She meant we should have known that Mum was in danger of going over the edge. She’d been wound up, tight as a coiled spring, for days. She’s OK if she takes her meds, but sometimes she forgets. Or sometimes she doesn’t take them cos she reckons she can do without. It’s up to us to keep an eye on her. She’s our mum, we’re supposed to look after her.

I said, “Omigod!”

I raced through to the bathroom and flung open the door of the bathroom cabinet. There, on the shelf, were Mum’s pills. My heart went into overdrive, thumping and banging in my chest.

“What is it?” Tizz and Sammy had followed me in. Tizz peered over my shoulder.

“Mum’s pills.” I held up the bottle. “She’s gone off without them!”

“Gimme!” Tizz wrenched the bottle away and wrestled with the top. I watched her with growing impatience.

“Here!” I snatched it back. “Let me.” It was supposed to be child proof, but I knew how to open it. Tizz was too impatient. I got the top off and stared in dismay. The bottle was full! I held it out to show Tizz. Her little pinched face turned pale beneath its freckles. We both knew that Mum had got a new prescription from the doctor over a month ago.

“She hasn’t been taking them,” I whispered.

There was a long silence, broken only by a plaintive wail from Sammy, “I want my breakfast! I’m hungry!”

“Oh, will you just SHUT UP!” screeched Tizz. “Don’t be so selfish all the time!”

Sammy’s face crumpled. Tears welled into her eyes. I screwed the cap back on Mum’s pills and shut the bottle away again in the cabinet. Then I sat on the edge of the bath and pulled Sammy into my arms.

“Don’t cry,” I said. “It’ll be OK. I’ll take care of us!”

“It’s all very well saying that,” said Tizz. “We don’t even know if—”

“Stop it!” I begged. “Please!” I took a breath, trying to make myself be calm. “Mum will come back. She came back last time, she’ll come back this time. But one thing we’ve not got to do, and that’s fight!” I wiped Sammy’s eyes with the edge of my T-shirt. “We’ll be all right,” I said, “so long as we look out for each other.”

“What’s important,” I said, “is keeping things normal.”

“Normal?” Tizz gave me this look, like, are you out of your mind? “How can things be normal, without Mum?”

“Normal as possible,” I said. “For Sammy.”

I’d sent her off to watch telly while I rooted about in the kitchen to see what I could find for breakfast. There had to be something! But there wasn’t.

“I don’t believe this,” I said.

Tizz said, “What?” in this rather grumpy tone.

“There’s nothing in the fridge!”

Grudgingly, she came over to look.

“What’s that?” She pointed to a carton of milk. I picked it up and shook it.

“It’s empty, practically. And there’s only a tiny bit of butter, and the bread’s almost gone.”

Tizz marched across to a cupboard and yanked it open.

“Cereal.” She banged the packet down on the table. “Marmalade.”