Free The Suitcase Kid by Jacqueline Wilson

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    Radish wriggled excitedly in my hand. She could hardly wait till I got her boat unpacked from my satchel. She hopped on board and was soon sailing across the lake, expertly skimming her way through the shoals of orange whales. I let her sail under her own steam, squatting down on the muddy shore and watching her, but after a while it got a bit cold and damp so I found a long twiggy stick and started propelling her round the lake in uncharted territory. Together we discovered Step Creek and Lily Land and for a while we were caught up in the foetid swamps of Waterweed Bog but we escaped at last after Radish heroically hacked her way through with her bare paws and my scrabbling fingernails.
    She was a bit tired of sailing after that and we’d both got very wet so we ran round and round the lake to get warm. We were hungry too and looked longingly at the mulberry tree but the berries were long since over. I searched the lining of my satchel and salvaged a fewbiscuit crumbs but they weren’t much of a feast for Radish and they didn’t help my hunger at all.
    I don’t have a watch but I knew it was teatime. I was really really late now. It was starting to get dark. Mum would be back from work and she’d be so cross. She’d tell the baboon and he’d have another go at me. And Katie would give a smug little smile and then whisper about it half the night. I wouldn’t even be able to cry because she’d see.
    I leant against the mulberry tree clutching Radish in my fist and had a bit of a cry there. But then as I moved about to stop my face getting scratched my hand holding Radish suddenly slipped under a branch and went into a little hole.
    â€˜Radish? Come back!’
    But Radish was running about inside the dark little hole, getting excited. It was just like a secret cave. I tried to peer in but it was getting too dark to see properly. Radish insisted that she could see. She loved the little hole. Only it wasn’t a hole to her. She wanted me to help her make it into a proper home. Not a proper permanent home, but a holiday home for her visits to the lake.
    â€˜OK, Radish. We’ll make it really cosy for you. We could get some moss for a soft green carpet. And I could stick some shiny leaves together to make matching curtains. And we’ll have to see about some sort of light because I can’t see in the dark even if you can.’
    And at that moment a light went on. Not inside the hole. Outside. In the big house behind me. It made me jump and my hand jerked and then suddenly Radish wasn’t there.
    â€˜Radish? Radish, where are you? Come back! Come here!’ I said, feeling frantically. And then I felt the drop at the back of the hole. I pushed my arm in as far as it would go. I scrabbled and stretched but it was no use. Radish had fallen out of my reach.
    â€˜Radish!’ I screamed.
    And then the door opened and there was a dark figure in the garden and I had to tear my arm out of the tree and run for it.

‘ WHERE ON EARTH have you
been
?’ Mum shouted.
    I was too choked up to answer properly.
    â€˜I was just . . . playing,’ I mumbled.
    â€˜Playing!’ said Mum, and she smacked me hard across the face.
    We both gasped. She’s never hit me before. Then I burst into tears. And Mum did too.
    â€˜Oh Andy,’ she said, and she was suddenly hugging me tight. ‘I’m sorry. I was just soworried and I’ve been phoning everyone. I phoned Miss Maynard, and I had to phone your father and he blames me for going out to work and yet if he’d pay his share of the bills then I wouldn’t have to and— Oh darling, never mind all that. All that matters is you’re safe.’
    â€˜But Radish isn’t,’ I said, and I started really howling. I’d held it in while waiting for the first bus and then on the journey and then on the second bus and then on the walk back to Mum’s place but now the