The Changeover by Margaret Mahy Read Free Book Online Page A

and her face lit up. Laura's heart warmed at the pleasure in her smile, but as it turned out Kate was pleased to see Laura for purposes of her own, with which Laura found it hard to sympathize.
    "Lolly!" she exclaimed her blue eyes shining with pleasure. "Lolly, would you mind if I went out tonight?"
    "You've had your hair done!" Laura cried, outraged. "I thought we were broke this week."
    "I've booked it up against next week," Kate replied. She looked less like a mother in real life, and more like a mother on television, keeping herself nice for husband and family, thrilled to death with her new soap powder. "I've fixed it up with Sally's mother to keep an eye on you."
    Kate was not to know how Laura had looked forward to arriving at the bookshop and giving part of the responsibility for Jacko over to someone else, and how dismayed she was to find Kate's concentration focused elsewhere.
    "I suppose it's that American," she growled.
    "It is Chris Holly — yes," Kate said. "He's asked me to go out with him." She spoke humbly as if Laura were bullying her. "Don't be sour at me, Laura. I haven't been out for ages and I'd love to go to a nice concert and just get lost in lovely music."
    "But look at Jacko!" Laura pushed him forward, disconcerted to detect a certain triumph in her voice, pleased to use Jacko's despair as a move in a complicated private game where the rules were barely understood. Now Kate did look at Jacko.
    "Oh dear!" she said. "What can be wrong?"
    She looked at her watch, a birthday present from Laura's father, still going, though the marriage had stopped ticking three years earlier. "I can't talk now. Take him to the tea shop down the Mall and buy him an apple-juice. Get him a cake, too, if there are any left at this time in the afternoon. They dust them and pack them away at four o'clock."
    "You're flinging money about," Laura grumbled bitterly. "It's funny the way it stretches when it has to take in a bit of classical music, isn't it?"
    She was not intending to be sympathetic, but Kate smiled warmly as if they were sharing a joke, hearing the words and ignoring the tone.
    "Bless you, Laura, isn't it just!" she said. "It's not long to closing time, thank goodness."
    Jacko really enjoyed his apple-juice, so Laura bought him some more with her own money and ate his cake herself thinking how awkwardly time was arranged so that there was either not enough of it or else great clots of useless minutes and seconds which it was impossible to use properly, and which had to be wasted.
    Kate called for them where they sat in the tea-room, the only customers left among a forest of chair legs, for Jill, the waitress, put the chairs upside down on the tables as she swept up before going home. In the car, Kate dithered wildly. She wanted to go to the concert — she wanted to take Jacko to the doctor, she wanted to stay at home and look after him, but then she had promised Chris Holly she would go out with him, even though they had already had lunch together. Discussing this, backwards and forwards, Laura and Kate wound up visiting the Gardendale Health Centre and were actually able to see a doctor — not their usual doctor but another man who began by being impatient with them because they had come in at the last moment
    just as he was thinking seriously about dinner.
    However, he became increasingly thoughtful as he examined Jacko, first frowning and then saying in a very puzzled voice, "Well, there's certainly something wrong with him but it's not anything I can put a name to. Has he had any bad falls? Has he been shocked or depressed lately?"
    "He's been fine," Kate said, "but yesterday someone played a trick on him that upset him. He had a bad night— a lot of bad dreams. Is it anything urgent? I might have to leave him for a little tonight — but his sister will be with him."
    "I don't think it's anything to be seriously worried about," the doctor said. "A good night's sleep might make a big difference. His