Free Sugar and Spice by Jean Ure

there. That was what Shay had said.
    “No one’s allowed to talk, so you can just get on with things.”
    “Well, suit yourself,” said Dad. “I don’t know what your mum’s going to say.”
    We had maths and French to do that night. I was quite nervous about going to the library. I kept asking Shay what you had to do. She said, “You don’t have to do anything! Just go in and sit down.”
    She could obviously see that I was anxious, and maybe she thought that left to myself I mightn’t ever get there, so in the end she said that she’d come with me.
    “Just this one time.”
    I was humbly grateful as I knew that Shay lived way over the other side of town and it would take her for ever to get home.
    “You’ll be really late getting back,” I said.
    “So who cares?” said Shay.
    “Well…your mum?” I said. “Won’t your mum be worried?”
    Shay tossed her head. “My mum never worries. She’s not there, anyway.”
    “What, you mean…when you get back the flat is empty?”
    “House. Yeah. ’s empty.”
    I couldn’t imagine getting back to an empty house. Well, I couldn’t imagine getting back to a house, cos I’ve always lived in a flat. And there’s always beensomeone there. When I was little it was Mum and now, of course, there’s Dad. I asked Shay if she minded and she said no, why should she? She sounded a bit aggressive, like she thought I was being nosy, or criticising the way she lived, so after that I didn’t say any more. I’d learnt that if Shay wanted me to know things, she’d tell me. If she didn’t, there was no point in asking. She wasn’t exactly secretive. Just, like, what she did was her business and no one else’s, not even mine. She was looking out for me, but we still weren’t proper friends. Not like I’d been with Millie and Mariam, when we’d all exchanged confidences and knew everything there was to know about each other.
    Anyway, I was really glad that Shay had come with me as the library is this huge, important-looking building with great wide steps going up to it and a big green dome on top, so that if I’d been on my own I’d probably just have turned round and run away.

    But Shay marched in there asbold as could be, with me creeping behind her, and nobody stopped us or asked us what we thought we were doing. Shay consulted a board which said Ground Floor, 1 st Floor, 2 nd Floor, etc.
    “Children’s,” she said. “You don’t want that! It’ll be full of kids. We’ll go up to the Adults.”
    I wasn’t sure that I wanted to go up to the Adults, but she didn’t give me any choice, just dragged me on to the escalator.

    The first floor was full of tables and chairs, and racks of magazines and newspapers. Grown-ups were sitting all around, reading or writing and looking solemn.
    “This’ll do.” said Shay. She very firmly led me over to an empty table and sat me down. “There! Now you can get on with things.”
    I squeaked, “You’re not going?”
    “Gotta get back,” said Shay. “You’ll be all right here.”

    And she waltzed off to the escalator, leaving me on my own. It was a really bad moment. I was still expecting someone to come over and tell me that I wasn’t allowed in the library all by myself, without a grown-up, and that I must go away immediately, but nobody did. Nobody took any notice of me at all. After a while I started to relax and concentrate on my homework, and oh, it was so lovely sitting there! I’d never been anywhere without noise or bustle Without music or the telly, or Mum nagging at me to do things, or Sammy and the Terrible Two roaring in and out. I mean, just at first it was, like, a bit weird; I kept listening to the silence and wondering what was wrong, but once I’d got used to it I thought that this was howI’d like to live. I’d have one room all of my own, with a table and chair and lots of bookshelves, where no one could come in without being invited, or at any rate asking permission. In other words, it