Free Fruit and Nutcase by Jean Ure Page A

I was crying.

    But I don’t cry! Not
ever.
I didn’t even cry when the kitchen cabinet fell on me and cut my head open. Not even when I had to have stitches. Not even when Tracey Bigg makes up her horrid rhymes about me.
    Crying is a sign of weakness. I didn’t want tocry! Nan said, “Come on, then, child. Let’s get going,” and I raced over to Mum and threw my arms around her and whispered, “I’ll be back, Mum! Don’t forget to make out shopping lists.” If Mum doesn’t make out shopping lists, she can’t remember what she needs to buy. “And give Dad proper meals, Mum! ‘Cos he needs them.”
    And then I raced over to Dad and hugged
him,
and begged him to be kind to Mum and not fly off the handle.
    “Please, Dad! Don’t get cross with Mum. I hate it when you do that!”
    Next thing I know I’m being pushed down the stairs in front of Nan, and old Misery’s there spying as usual, but for once she doesn’t say anything, and we’re out on the pavement and the front door’s shut behind us and all I can think of is Mum sobbing and Dad going round bashing things.
    Nan said, “It’s the only way. They’ve got to learn. It’s high time they grew up and started to behave like responsible adults.”
    But I loved my mum and dad just the way they were! I didn’t want them to be any different. I hated Nan for taking me away from them. I felt that it was my fault. I felt like I’d let them down.If only I’d tidied up the place before Nan had come! I could have made it look ever so nice. Really spick and span. Then maybe she wouldn’t have got so mad. And I could have told her I wasn’t really on my own, I could have told her old Misery was keeping an eye on me, or that I’d been over to Deirdre’s, or just
anything.
Anything that would have stopped her having a go at Mum.
    That first night when I said my special prayer, I added a bit at the end. After “For ever and ever” ten times, but before “Amen”, I added, “And please let me go back to them soon. PLEASE!”
    I just couldn’t see how they were going to manage without me to keep an eye on them. I kept having these nightmares that Mum would do something daft and ruin Dad’s tea and Dad would rise up in a rage and say that that was it, he’d had enough. And then he’d walk out and Mum would be on her own and she wouldn’t know what to do, and she’d be so lonely, poor Mum! ‘Cos we’re the only people she’s got in the whole world, me and Dad. And Dad would jump on a ship and go to Australia, which was what he was always threatening to do, and Iwouldn’t ever see him again.
    I wasn’t going to see them again for ages and ages, anyway. Nan had said she wanted them both to stay away until they had got themselves sorted. She said, “I want this girl given a fair chance. I don’t want you coming round and upsetting her.”
    And Mum and Dad were ever so meek. They just did whatever Nan told them. She’d gone and scared them by saying how old Misery could go to the Social Services. Even Dad’s scared of the Social Services, even if he does call them snooping do-gooders.
    That first week at Nan’s I said my prayer over and over, not just when I went to bed but when I woke up in the morning and lots of times in the day, as well. Once I was doing it, with my eyes screwed tight shut, when Nan started to say something to me. But I still went on doing it! Nan got angry and said why didn’t I listen when she spoke to me? She said, “Are you sulking about something?”
    I said, “No. I was thinking.” Nan said, “Well, you just stop thinking and pay a bit of attention! It’s very rude to go on thinking when someone’s talking to you.”
    I could have told her it was rude to interrupt a person when they had their eyes closed, but you can’t argue with Nan. She always likes to have the last word.
    Grandy isn’t so bad, but he is what Mum calls “under Nan’s thumb”.

    He just likes to come home at tea-time and light his pipe and