Slated by Teri Terry Read Free Book Online Page B

bothered to leave him; she and Mum practically flew out of here.’
‘Yeah. Mum finds him hard to be around.’
I’d noticed this, too, and somehow it wasn’t just the obvious things, like the fact that the baby screamed, and needed a clean nappy before they left. Mum seemed to want to have space between them as fast as possible; she was the one who suggested they go off to the pub, leaving us three behind.
‘Why?’
‘I’m not sure I should say.’
‘What? Tell me.’
Amy stares back, eventually nods. ‘Okay, but this is family secrets. You can’t tell anyone you know.’
I nod. ‘All right.’
‘Aunt Stacey told me last spring when I was babysitting; Mum doesn’t know I know everything. But before Mum and Dad got together, Mum was with somebody else, and they had a baby, named Robert. They split up when he was little. Stacey was friends with Mum back then; that is how she met Dad. After they got married, Robert died. And Stacey named her baby Robert after him. She meant well, but I think whenever Mum sees him, she thinks about her son who died.’
‘How awful!’ My throat constricts. First her parents when she was fifteen; then, years later, her son died, too. No wonder she is such a Dragon .
‘I know Mum can be difficult, but there are reasons,’ Amy says.
‘She never talks about her Robert?’
‘Never. Not to me, anyhow.’
I stare back at Amy, confused. Mum is a contradiction. Everything about her is on the surface, yet she hides all this, inside.
‘I don’t understand her,’ I say, finally.
‘Look at it this way: you’ll get on with her better if you speak your mind like she does. It is how she gets by.’
Soon we hear voices and footsteps out front.
Amy holds a finger to her lips, and I nod.
The front door opens, and moments later Mum and Aunt Stacey walk into the kitchen.
‘There’s my boy,’ Aunt Stacey says, and she does look like she missed him. She eases him out of Amy’s arms and soon says her goodbyes.
‘Where’s Dad?’ Amy asks.
Mum rolls her eyes. ‘He got a call: some emergency at work. He took off half-way through lunch.’
Mum starts sweeping Robert’s cookie crumbs off the floor; Sebastian reappears through the cat flap and rubs around her ankles. ‘Dinner time for Sebastian?’ she says, and reaches for a tin in the cupboard. That is when she focuses on the remains of our lunch and tea things on the worktop.
‘Really. It wouldn’t have killed you to wash up, would it?’ Mum snaps.
I flinch and just stop myself from jumping up, starting them straight away. She’ll stand and watch and tell me what I’m doing wrong. But then some voice inside me says tell her what you think.
‘We’ve been too busy looking after Robert to do the dishes,’ I say.
Mum turns to me, eyes surprised. Then nods.
‘Fair enough, what a handful. Glad you didn’t come in nappies,’ she says, and laughs. And I laugh with her. Amy winks her approval when Mum isn’t looking. We all make dinner, together, and for the first time I almost feel relaxed in her presence.

Later Amy and I have said goodnight and are heading for the stairs, when Amy turns back.
‘I almost forgot to ask. Mum, can we go to the Thame Show tomorrow?’
The show: isn’t that what Ben suggested? That I go to with him and Tori. I spin around.
Mum puts down her book. ‘Who with?’
‘Everyone is going, Mum. You know: Debs, Chloe, Jazz; everyone.’
Her eyes narrow. ‘Well, so long as it is everyone . I can’t see why not. But I’ll take you.’
‘Thanks,’ Amy says, but her face says something else.
She shuts the door when we get upstairs. Rolls her eyes. ‘I can’t believe she still insists on taking us. Like we’re twelve .’
‘She looked suspicious.’
‘What of?’ Amy says, and laughs. ‘If you mean me and Jazz, that is only half of it.’
‘What do you mean?’
She throws a pillow at my head. ‘Why Ben , of course.’
‘What?’
‘He asked me in school yesterday. If you could get out tomorrow, to go to