Free The Forget-Me-Not Summer by Katie Flynn

unfortunate that as Beth’s health improved her temper worsened and she became demanding, fractious and quite spiteful. She had always told tales but now she twisted her remarks to put her cousin in an even worse light, until Miranda was forced to bargain with her. She would refuse to read to Beth or help her with a jigsaw or play draughts unless her cousin would agree to her playing out for at least an hour each day. Beth was well enough to play out herself had she wanted to do so, but on this point at least the cousins were totally different. Miranda thought she would die cooped up in the house, Beth thought she would die if she were forced to breathe fresh air, so arguments were frequent and tempers frayed and grew shorter than ever.
    The day came at last, however, when the nurse from Brougham Terrace pronounced Steve free from infection and the next morning the two met outside the front door of Number Six, to gloat over their newly won freedom. ‘Mam’s give me a few coppers so we won’t have to skip a lecky; we can ride like Christians and go all the way out to Seaforth Sands, like we did before I caught the perishin’ plague,’ Steve said. ‘Gawd, I hope I never getthe measles again, I’m tellin’ you. I scratched, of course – who wouldn’t – and when Mam saw me at it, what did she do but trot down to the chemist shop on Great Homer and buy a bottle of pink yuck what the pharmacist telled her was good for spots . . .’
    Miranda giggled. ‘Calamine lotion,’ she supplied. ‘It’s awful, isn’t it? When I was six and lived in the Avenue I got chickenpox and my mother dabbed the stuff all over me. It was all right while it was wet – quite cooling, in fact – but when it dried it was awful. Aunt Vi sent me to the chemist to buy a bottle for Beth but I told her how it would be, so we emptied it down the sink and put a tiddy bit of plate powder in the bottle with water and shook it up. Then Beth pretended we’d used it and said it wasn’t any good, and when Aunt Vi got a plug of cotton wool and tried to dab it on the spots Beth grabbed the bottle and threw it out of the window. Good thing it was open, because she threw it pretty damn hard, I’m telling you.’
    Steve laughed. His skin seemed oddly pale after being shut up indoors for three weeks but otherwise, Miranda considered, he was beginning to look like himself once more. But she vetoed his suggestion that they should go to Seaforth Sands. ‘No, I don’t want to do that,’ she said firmly. ‘Before you were taken ill you promised you’d show me the place where you hide your gelt, so I could add mine to it. And you sort of hinted that I’d be surprised when I saw the other side of that great wall at the end of Jamaica Close. I’ve waited three weeks and never nagged you, but I’m going to nag you now. I want to see the other side of that wall and I want to know where you hide your gelt and where I shall hide minein future. Why, Steve, if you were to be run over tomorrow I wouldn’t be able to inherit your wealth, because I don’t know where you keep it.’
    Steve laughed. ‘I don’t mean to get run over tomorrow, nor the next day neither,’ he said cheerfully. ‘But I know what you mean and I reckon you’re right. We’ll save Seaforth Sands for another day, and as soon as you’ve had your breakfast we’ll set off for the other side of the wall.’
    They agreed to meet outside Number Two in half an hour, and Miranda trotted down the jigger, crossed the courtyard of Number Six and entered the kitchen, where she found Aunt Vi eating porridge whilst Beth sat on a low stool, clutching a fork upon whose prongs was spiked a round of bread. She looked up as Miranda entered the room, and frowned. ‘I don’t fancy porridge, norreven with brown sugar or golden syrup,’ she said crossly.