Free The World's Worst Mothers by Sabine Ludwig Page A

table.
    â€˜Could you make a sandwich for Nicholas’s break, Aunt Anna?’
    George usually made a sandwich for Nicholas to take to preschool, but today he’d forgotten.
    â€˜Of course. What would you like? Salami, cheese, jam, butter?’ Aunt Anna took two slices of bread out of the packet.
    â€˜One with cheese and one with salami, as always,’ said Sophie. ‘And with butter, of course.’
    Sophie put her plate into the dishwasher and looked out of the corner of her eye as Aunt Anna put a slice of cheese on the bread, smeared the butter over the cheese, and then put a second slice of bread on top. Usually, people do it the other way around, thought Sophie. Oh, well, what did it matter, it came to the same thing.
    But one thing was clear. Aunt Anna was definitely not a good housekeeper.

    Emily was lying on the sofa on her tummy watching television. There was a report on the North Frisian Islands. She saw the islands of Pellworm, Amrum, Föhr and Sylt. Which of these islands was her mother on right now? Aunt Anna had just said that she was on an island in the North Sea for her health. On the coffee table was the postcard that Emily had got from her mother. There was a seagull on it, but she hadn’t put her address. Hardly surprising, considering how scatterbrained she was.
    The postmark gave nothing away. Emily turned the card this way and that. There was something funny about it. The words?
    Dear Emmykins,
    I’m sure you were surprised that I left so suddenly, but I’m fine and I’m making progress.
    Mum.
    Progress? In what? In relaxation? Hopefully. Maybe everything would be easier if her mother had four weeks with nothing to think about. No interviews, no car threatening to fall to pieces at any moment, no daughter.
    Emily turned up the television.
    Aunt Anna went on hoovering. That was her favourite thing. She was eternally going over the flat with the vacuum cleaner. She even hoovered the tables and shelves. Yesterday Emily had only just rescued a piece of paper out of the machine. Her mother had written important addresses on it – the doctor, the mechanic and so on. Emily had put the paper carefully into her pocket so that it couldn’t disappear into the belly of the vacuum cleaner. She pulled it out now and smoothed it with her hand. And suddenly it came to her what was wrong with the postcard. The handwriting.
    Emily laid the piece of paper with the addresses and the postcard side by side. In the addresses, her mother had made mistakes. She’d scratched things out, scribbled things in between the lines, underlined some things. The handwriting on the postcard was her handwriting, yes. Emily recognised the little circles that her mother made instead of dots over the letter i. But she never wrote as neatly as this. Was that a sign of relaxation? Emily wanted to hear it from the woman herself.
    â€˜Anna!’ she called over the noise of the vacuum cleaner. ‘Aunt Anna!’
    Aunt Anna did not react. Emily stood up from the sofa and went out into the hallway. She pulled out the plug.
    â€˜The hoover is broken,’ said Aunt Anna, looking down the tube.
    â€˜I pulled out the plug,’ Emily explained. ‘Could you please give me Mum’s telephone number? I’d like to phone her.’
    Aunt Anna smiled. ‘She has no signal.’
    â€˜Of course not,’ said Emily. ‘She hasn’t even got her mobile with her.’
    When Emily had phoned her mother’s number, it had rung in the cutlery drawer.
    â€˜She has no signal,’ repeated Aunt Anna.
    â€˜But there must be a landline where she is.’
    â€˜She can’t be disturbed. Under no circumstances may she be disturbed. She’s very well,’ said Aunt Anna. ‘She’s very, very well.’

Chapter 10
    Kruschke rubbed his eyes. He’d spent half the night looking at the screens in the cellar, checking the pictures that his Annas sent to him. He