Free The Tulip Girl by Margaret Dickinson Page B

lovely shampoo instead of that awful carbolic, Jen.’
    The younger girl’s eyes were envious as her glance roamed over Maddie’s hair. ‘I wonder if mine would shine like that?’ she murmured.
    The young waitress was standing at the end of their table, notepad in hand. Michael ordered for them all and as the waitress left them again, Jenny stared at Michael and Nick, glancing from one
to the other. ‘Are you brothers? You don’t look much alike.’
    ‘No, we’re not related but Nick and his mother have lived with us since we were both babies. We’re like brothers, though, aren’t we, mate?’
    Suddenly, Nick grinned and Maddie marvelled once more at how different he looked. Gone in an instant was the sulky mouth, the resentful look in his eyes. ‘Yeah,’ he agreed, ‘we
even fall out like brothers.’
    Michael laughed. ‘That’s very true.’
    Maddie opened her mouth to ask what had happened to Michael’s mother and to Nick’s father but before she could speak, Jenny leant against Maddie’s shoulder and said, ‘Me
and Maddie always say we’re sisters. Don’t we?’
    Feeling guilty now about her earlier feelings of jealousy, Maddie nodded.
    ‘Of course, we’re not,’ Jenny went on. ‘We know we’re not, but we like to think we are. Maddie always stuck up for me. The others tease me, you know. Me being
small.’
    ‘I know what that’s like,’ Nick said suddenly, but Maddie noticed that he glanced swiftly towards his mother before he spoke and he kept his voice low. ‘The kids at the
village school used to tease me and Mam sent me to another school. I had to travel miles on a bus all on my own to get there.’ He paused as the remembered pain flitted across his eyes.
‘I didn’t like it there much either.’
    ‘So that’s why you never came to our school,’ Maddie said. ‘I wondered why I couldn’t remember either of you. Did you go to the same school as Nick,
Michael?’
    ‘Part of the time.’
    ‘He went to the Grammar School here in town. He’s clever, is our Michael.’ Once more, there was a tiny hint of resentment in Nick’s tone, but Michael laughed it off
easily. ‘Oh, an absolute genius, that’s me. I must say I use a lot of French on my milk round.’
    ‘Did you learn French?’ Jenny was round-eyed with admiration.
    ‘Well, they tried to teach me it,’ Michael said, ‘but I don’t think I learnt a lot.’
    ‘He could have gone to university if he’d worked harder and stayed on,’ Nick contradicted.
    Michael pulled a face as if in embarrassment but, at that moment, their meals arrived and the subject was dropped as the hungry foursome picked up their knives and forks.
    ‘Oh I couldn’t eat another thing.’ Jenny leant back in her seat and placed her hand over her stomach. ‘I’m full right up to busting.’
    ‘Me too,’ Maddie said.
    ‘Yes, not bad. Not bad at all,’ Michael remarked and, raising his voice, he called across to his father and Harriet. ‘Not up to your mark, Mrs T, but not bad at all.’
    ‘Oh, go on with you, Mr Michael,’ but Maddie could see that the housekeeper, flushed with the drink that Frank had bought for her, was flattered by Michael’s remark.
    As they stood up to leave, Maddie noticed that as Frank went to pay the bill, Harriet, with head lowered, scuttled towards the door and out into the street. As they followed her, Maddie
whispered to Nick, ‘Doesn’t your mother like crowds?’
    ‘Eh?’ His grey eyes were owlish behind the lenses of his spectacles. ‘Oh – er – no. She doesn’t really like coming into town. Likes to keep herself to
herself. Says the townsfolk are a lot of nosey parkers.’
    ‘And do you?’
    ‘Do I what?’
    ‘Like to keep yourself to yourself?’
    He shrugged and for the first time she heard the bitterness in his tone that this time was most definitely directed at his mother. ‘I ain’t had much choice one way or the
other.’ There was a significant pause before he added,