Jean Ure - Lemonade Sky

In the end, we made two lists. The first was things we had to have:

Bread

Milk

Marge

Cheese

Eggs

Cereal

Mostly chosen by me.

The second was things we’d like to have:

Pizza

Fish Fingers

Chocolate Biscuits

Orange Squash

Sugar

Jam

Meatballs

All of them chosen by Tizz and Sammy.

“We’ll have to go to Tesco,” I said. “You can get stuff cheaper there.”

Tizz didn’t like that idea. She complained that it was a long way to walk and we’d have to carry heavy bags back with us. I told her that couldn’t be helped.

“We’ve got to go where it’s cheapest.”

Tizz said, “That’s not fair on Mr Petrides. He’s a small shopkeeper. He has to be saved! It’s people like you,” said Tizz, “that put people like him out of business.”

I did feel a slight twinge of guilt, cos in the past Mr and Mrs Petrides had been really good to us. Sometimes when Mum ran out of money they’d actually let us take stuff and pay for it later. You couldn’t do that at Tesco. But I hardened my heart. I had to! It was a question of survival.

“I bet if we asked him,” said Tizz, “he’d let us have things on tick.”

On tick was what Mum called it when she couldn’t afford to pay. I think maybe it meant that Mr Petrides put a tick by the side of her name in his account book.

“We’ll only do that if we get desperate,” I said. “Otherwise he might ask questions, like where’s your mum or why hasn’t she been in?”

“Mm… I s’ppose.” Tizz said it reluctantly, but at least it stopped her arguing. The one thing we were terrified of was people asking questions. We’d be safe in Tesco cos nobody knew us.

I put all the money in my purse except for five £1 coins and five 20p pieces. Tizz watched, suspiciously.

“What are you doing with that lot?”

I said, “Saving it. I’m going to put this –” I scooped up the 20p pieces – “in here.” I dropped them into the saucer that Mum kept on the windowsill. “They’re in case we need a bit extra. And this –” the five pound coins – “is our emergency fund. I’m going to leave it indoors so we can’t spend it. I’m going to hide it somewhere. Somewhere safe. Like…” I roamed about the kitchen, looking for a hiding place. “In with the flour!”

There was a half packet of flour in the cupboard, with an elastic band wrapped round it. I pushed the coins in there and put the flour back on the shelf.

Tizz said, “I bet that’s the first place a burglar would think of looking.”

I told her that I wasn’t scared of burglars. “I’m scared of it getting lost.”

“Like it absolutely would,” said Tizz, “if it wasn’t hidden in a bag of flour. I mean, if it was just put in an ordinary purse like any normal person would put it.”

“I just don’t want us being tempted into spending it,” I said. “We’ve got to have something to fall back on.”

Tizz said, “Yeah, like living on bread and marge. Yuck!”

Sammy said, “Ugh! Yuck! Bluurgh.”

They both bent over and pretended to be sick.

“We want chips,” said Tizz. “We want pizza! We want—”

“Fishy fingers!”

“Yay!”

Tizz and Sammy smacked their hands together in a triumphant high five. I was glad that Sammy had cheered up, but I did hope we weren’t going to have scenes in Tesco. I wasn’t sure I could cope with that. It would be just so embarrassing! Everyone would look at us, especially if Sammy worked herself up into one of her states. Just now and again, if she can’t get what she wants, she’ll throw herself on the ground and drum her heels and refuse to get up. Mum is the only one who knows how to deal with her.

“I think,” said Tizz, “if you want my opinion, we ought to be allowed to have whatever we want to have. Without you dictating to us!”

“Just buy nice things,” said Sammy.

“Yeah! Right. ‘Stead of all that boring muck!” Tizz waved a hand at my list of things we had to have.

I felt quite cross with her. She wasn’t being at all helpful.

“Let’s put down some other stuff.” Tizz snatched up the second list and added CRISPS in big capital letters at the bottom of it.

“Sweeties!” shouted Sammy.

“SWEETIES,” wrote Tizz.

She was being deliberately provoking. I almost felt like throwing my purse at her and telling her to get on with it. Let her take the responsibility. But of course she wouldn’t; not when it came to it. She just wanted to challenge my authority. It is very difficult, sometimes, being the oldest, especially when you have a sister who refuses to do what she’s told. And keeps getting the littlest one all worked up. I could see that Sammy was well on the way to having one of her screaming fits.

“Listen,” I said. I squatted down beside her. Even a five-year-old can be made to see reason. “We’ll try to buy some nice things, I promise you! But nice things are expensive and we can’t afford too many of them, so—”

That was as far as I got because at that point someone hammered on the front door and we all froze. Well, me and Tizz froze. Sammy hesitated for just a second, then with a joyous cry of, “Mum!” went galloping off.

It wasn’t Mum. It was Her Upstairs. Mrs Bagley. Mum calls her ‘that woman’. We call her Her Upstairs. We don’t like her.

She came pounding into the room with a scared-looking Sammy trailing behind her. She is such a huge great woman that the floor trembles as she walks.

“Where is your mother?” she said, in this big booming voice that practically made the walls shake.

I was about to say in quavering tones that Mum wasn’t here when Tizz jumped in ahead of me.

“She’s out,” she said.

It is just as well that Tizz is so quick. The way she said it – “She’s OUT” – was like, what’s it to do with you? If I’d told her that Mum wasn’t home, you can just bet she’d have demanded to know where she was, and then I wouldn’t have known what to say. I don’t think as fast as Tizz. She can always be relied on to come up with a smart answer.

Her Upstairs did this huffing thing. Sort of ‘Pouf!’ With her lips billowing out and her nostrils flaring, like she suspected Tizz of being impertinent. Tizz faced up to her, boldly.

“Can we give her a message?”

“You can indeed.” Her Upstairs has these big bosoms. I mean, like, really really big. Like massive. Mum says you could lay a dinner table on them. When she gets indignant, which is what she was now, she kind of inflates them. I watched them heave and wondered what we’d done to upset her this time.

“You can tell your mother,” she said, “that I have called for my flour.”

I said, “F-flour?”

Even Tizz looked a bit taken aback. At any rate, she didn’t say anything.

“My flour. My self-raising! I should like to have it back. If, of course –” her lip curled – “there is anything left to have back. Shall we go into the kitchen and see?”

She set off across the room. Thud, bang, stamp, across the floor. Tizz sprang into action.

“It’s all right! Ruby’ll get it for you.”

“I will,” I said. “I’ll get it for you!”

I rushed into the kitchen, grabbed the bag of flour and scrabbled frantically in search of our pound coins. I had to plunge my hand in so deep that great white clouds came puffing out all over me. And then, in my panic, I went and dropped the bag and loads of flour went and spilt over the floor.

But at least I had the coins! All five of them. I stuffed them into the back pocket of my jeans and wiped my top with the dish rag. Unfortunately, by now, there didn’t seem to be very much flour left in the bag. Hardly any, in fact. Most of it was on the kitchen floor.