I frown and continue past Audrey down the stairs.
‘I don’t think we’re meant to go in there,’ she calls after me.
I throw her a look over my shoulder (so?) and open the door.
Out in the garden, lunch is laid out on the patio table, untouched and attracting flies. Everyone is inside, sitting at the kitchen table. Dad’s mouth is set in a straight line, while Mum’s eyes are glossy with tears. On the other side of the table with their backs to me are Grace and Sam. They’re holding hands.
‘Mia,’ Dad says, noticing me in the doorway. His voice is flat and he looks like he’s aged about five years since I saw him this morning.
In unison, Grace and Sam twist round in their seats. It’s strange seeing Grace’s face after so many months. She’s cut her hair into a bob and her skin is noticeably darker.
‘Hey, Mia,’ she says.
‘Hey,’ I reply, shrugging.
She removes Sam’s hand from hers and uses the table to push herself up, before turning to face me head-on.
I blink.
OK, I’m seeing things. I have to be seeing things.
Because Grace, my perfect sister, has either got a beach ball shoved up her top or is 100 per cent pregnant.
I look over at Mum and Dad. Mum is staring at the ceiling. Dad is staring into the depths of his mug.
Back to Grace. Her hands are resting on her swollen tummy. She does this little nod, as if to say ‘yes, it’s true’, her eyes wide and doe-like.
That’s when I start to laugh.
4
I can’t believe I’m being thrown out of my own house.
Mum denies this of course. She says I’m being ‘melodramatic’. At least Audrey is being shipped off too, to her friend Lara’s place, which at least hints at some effort to be fair. We’re both practically shooed down the path as we’re given strict instructions to stay away until further notice.
My laughter probably didn’t help our cause. Not that I could have stopped even if I’d wanted to. It was like that time I got the giggles during the two-minute silence for Remembrance Day back in Year 9, only about ten times worse. Anyway, Mum and Dad weren’t terribly impressed, which is totally unfair because Grace is the one they should be angry with, not me.
At Stella’s, Stu answers the door. He’s wearing a ratty dressing gown and holding a massive bowl of Coco Pops and a soup spoon.
‘Didn’t you just leave?’ he asks.
‘Change of plan.’
‘How’s Grace?’
Stu and Grace were in the same year at Queen Mary’s. I reckon he has a bit of a thing for her because he’s always asking how she is.
‘Pregnant,’ I say.
Stu’s eyes almost pop out of his head. ‘What?’
‘Exactly.’
I push past him and bound upstairs to Stella’s room, throwing open her door. The three of them are sitting on Stella’s bed, surrounded by pizza boxes and watching Orange Is the New Black on her laptop.
‘What are you doing back?’ Stella asks, pressing pause and scooting over to make space for me on the mattress. ‘I thought you had family shit to do.’
I climb on the bed and start opening the pizza boxes, searching for leftovers. I score on the final box, folding the last slice of Hawaiian in half and taking a massive bite.
‘You’re never going to guess in a trillion years,’ I say once I’ve swallowed it, licking grease off my fingers.
‘In that case, you may as well just hurry up and tell us,’ Stella says.
I leave a suitably dramatic pause.
‘Grace is pregnant.’
They gasp in satisfying unison.
‘But how? Grace has always been so good,’ Kimmie cries.
‘Not any more,’ I singsong, tracing my finger along the seam of Stella’s duvet cover.
Because Grace the great and powerful has finally messed up. Not only that, she’s messed up in the most spectacular way imaginable.
‘Is she keeping it?’ Stella asks.
‘She must be. She’s massive.’
‘Who’s the father?’
‘This bloke she met in Greece.’
‘Is he Greek?’ Kimmie asks, her eyes wide.
‘I don’t think so, he’s ginger.’
‘What’s his name again?’
‘Sam. He’s in our kitchen right this second.’
‘What’s he look like?’ Mikey asks. ‘Is he fit?’
I try and fail to get a picture of Sam in my mind. I seem to remember him being tall and having reddish hair but that’s about it.
‘He’s OK,’ I say. ‘Like I said, gingery.’
‘OMG, ginger babies!’ Stella shrieks.
‘Hang on, Ed Sheeran ginger or Eddie Redmayne ginger?’ Mikey demands. ‘You need to be way more specific with the hue, Mia.’
‘I dunno. I was too busy gaping at Grace’s massive pregnant belly to pay all that much attention.’
‘Prince Harry ginger?’ Kimmie suggests, her eyes shining hopefully (Kimmie is obsessed with the royal family).
‘Are they gonna get married?’ Stella asks.
‘God, I don’t know.’
‘I bet he asks her,’ Kimmie pipes up.
‘Yeah, shotgun wedding,’ Stella chimes in. ‘Old school.’
If that happens before the year is out, Grace will be nineteen and married with a baby. An actual baby.
I don’t like them one bit. Babies, I mean. I once helped look after my cousin Poppy while Auntie Ali had her hair done. It was only for an hour, but it was enough. Pops screamed literally the entire time, and for the few minutes she wasn’t screaming she kept trying to use my fingers as a teething ring, which was beyond disgusting. God, is Grace going to expect me to babysit? I bet she is. And probably for free too.
‘How far gone is she, do you reckon?’ Stella asks.
‘Far,’ I say. ‘Like out here.’
I hold my hands out about ten centimetres in front of me, cupping them around an imaginary baby bump.
‘Wow,’ Stella says. ‘That’s far then. How many months, do you know?’
I shake my head. Just thinking about it creeps me out. I mean, my sister is growing a baby inside her – an actual human being, with fingers and toes and stuff.
‘I bet she looks well nice pregnant,’ Kimmie says. ‘I bet her bump is really cute.’
God, Kimmie is soppy sometimes. I roll my eyes at the others.
‘Yeah, not like my mum’s,’ Mikey says, his voice dripping with disgust. ‘When she was preggers with The Accident, she was massive. Even her fingers got fat.’
The Accident is Connor, Mikey’s five-year-old brother.
‘Are your parents totally flipping out?’ he asks.
‘God, mine would be,’ Stella says.
‘Mine too,’ Kimmie agrees, nodding solemnly. ‘They’d probably lock me up until I was twenty-seven or something.’
I picture Mum and Dad’s faces when I barged into the kitchen earlier. ‘They looked so upset they could hardly speak,’ I say.
‘Poor Grace,’ Kimmie murmurs. ‘Your mum and dad can be proper scary when they want to be, especially your mum.’
Mum doesn’t lose it often, but when she does it’s terrifying. I’ve never seen her lose it with Grace though.
‘They’ve told me not to come home until they say so, so she must be getting a proper bollocking,’ I say.
‘Shit, do you think your dad might beat him up?’ Kimmie asks, her eyes bulging. ‘Her boyfriend, I mean.’
‘I don’t think so.’
Dad is a big guy but a complete softie. His nickname down at the ambulance station is the ‘Gentle Giant’. No, he wouldn’t hurt a fly.
Would he?
A vision of Sam pinned up against the kitchen wall, Dad’s hands around his throat, pops into my head.
‘Hang on a second, are you smiling?’ Stella asks.
‘No.’
She gasps. ‘Oh my God, you totally are! Look, guys, she’s smilin
g!’
‘No, I’m not!’ I say, desperately trying to stop my lips from curling upwards. It’s impossible though, my grin is inevitable.
‘You shady bitch!’ Mikey says, laughing.
‘Oh, give me a break,’ I reply, swatting him away. ‘It’s about time Grace got in some trouble for once.’
Because it is. It so, so is.
5
The following morning, I leave a dozing Stella in bed and walk to work.
The Rushton farmers’ market takes place every Sunday morning in the playground of my old primary school. I work on the ‘Brilliant Bangers’ stall, flogging packs of fancy sausages at four pounds a pop to people who have more money than sense.
When I arrive, my co-worker Jeremy is already there. He’s a politics student at the local uni and totally up himself.
‘Afternoon, Mia,’ he says, wearing this trademark smirk. ‘Nice of you to join me.’
‘Oh, shove off, Jezza,’ I mutter, tying on my apron. ‘I’m only a few minutes late.’ I turn my back on him and pounce on a middle-aged couple hovering by the stall. ‘They’re four pounds a pack,’ I say. ‘A bargain.’
‘Oh, we’re just browsing,’ the woman says, taking a step away.
‘No probs. Browse away, absolutely no pressure to buy. It’s just probably worth mentioning you’re not going to get this kind of quality at such a low price anywhere else.’ I turn to the bloke. ‘Here’s a guessing game for you, sir. How much meat do you think is in our sausages? Say, as a percentage.’
He glances at his wife.
‘Tell you what,’ I continue. ‘If you get it right, I’ll give you a pack on the house, any flavour you like.’
Another glance at his wife. She shrugs as if to say ‘why not’.
‘Er, ninety per cent?’ he suggests.
‘Commiserations! Close, but not close enough. It’s one hundred per cent, sir, one hundred per cent pure meat in all our sausages. I don’t blame you for not guessing correctly though, sir, not one bit. You’re not alone. Very few sausages can live up to the quality and taste of Brilliant Bangers – brilliant by name and by nature. Now, you may not have won a free pack, but what I can offer instead is an exclusive deal – three packs for a tenner. That’s a massive saving of over two pounds.’
Behind me I hear Jeremy snort.
‘We don’t really eat all that many sausages,’ the woman says apologetically.
‘Not to worry, just stick them in the freezer. They freeze brilliantly.’
She fingers the clumsily painted pasta necklace hanging round her neck.
‘Let me guess. Grandkids?’ I ask.
‘Yes. Five.’
‘They’d love our chipolatas,’ I say. ‘Seriously, they go down a storm, even with the pickiest of eaters.’
‘Really?’
‘Yep. Clean plates all round every time. So, what do you say to a couple of packs of those and some classic Cumberland for yourselves? Or perhaps you’d like be a bit more daring and try my personal favourite, the sweet-chilli variety? Anything you fancy.’
By the time I’ve finished with them, I know the names of all five of their grandchildren and they’ve bought twelve packs of sausages.
‘I can’t believe that spiel actually works on people,’ Jeremy says as I shut the cashbox and flash him a triumphant smile.
‘What spiel? I was just chatting.’
‘Whatever. It’s like watching an episode of The Apprentice. And I don’t mean that as a compliment. All that exclusive-deal nonsense. It’s three packs for a tenner as standard.’
‘So? They don’t need to know that, do they? It’s simple business, Jezza.’
‘It’s Jeremy,’ he growls.
‘Do you want a bonus today or not?’
That shuts him up. Our boss, Steve, often slips us an extra twenty if he arrives at the end of our shift to discover we’ve sold all the stock. If that happens today, I’ll be able to pay off Newquay before the end of the month.
At the beginning of August, me, Stella, Mikey and Kimmie are going to Newquay in Cornwall for a week. Apart from school trips it’s the first time the four of us have been away together with no parents or anything. Not that it was easy to persuade them. It took a full week of pestering and promises to get my mum and dad to agree to it; and another two for Kimmie’s parents to get on board. Stella’s mum offered to book the accommodation and flights on her credit card, providing we paid her back in instalments. We’re going to be staying in a caravan right near the beach and I can hardly wait. No parents, no school, no overachieving sisters making me look bad – just me and my three best mates and an entire week of sweet, sweet freedom. Best of all, though, I’ll turn seventeen while we’re there.
It’s almost two thirty by the time I get home. I unlock the front door and drop my backpack on the hallway floor. The house is calm and still. I can see through to the kitchen and garden where yesterday’s lunch has been cleared away. Voices drift from the living room on my left. I follow them, discovering Mum and Grace sitting on the sofa, their backs to me, looking at something on Mum’s laptop.
‘Oh, hi, Mia,’ Mum says, glancing over her shoulder. ‘Did you have fun with Stella?’
I don’t answer. I’m too busy staring at Grace’s baby bump. She’s ditched the hippy-dippy tunic she was wearing yesterday in favour of a stretchy navy and white striped jersey dress. As Kimmie predicted, her bump is OK magazine spread-worthy – so perfectly round it looks almost fake.
‘How about that one?’ Mum says, pointing at the screen. ‘The reviews say it’s very lightweight.’
Grace clicks to zoom in.
I take a step closer.
They’re on the Mamas and Papas website, happily browsing rows and rows of identical-looking pushchairs, all of which cost at least five hundred quid.
What the—???
My brain spinning, I back out of the living room and straight into Sam, my forehead bashing into his chin.
‘Shit, sorry,’ he says as I stagger backwards, banging into the radiator. ‘You OK?’
‘Fine,’ I murmur, rubbing my head with my palm.
‘We didn’t meet properly yesterday, did we?’ he says.
That’s one way of putting it, I suppose.
‘I’m Sam.’
‘Mia,’ I reply reluctantly.
He’s posh. Like ‘Prince William’ posh. No wonder Grace is all over him. She’s always had a thing for posh blokes. Dougie was posh too and went to this fancy private school (the brother school to Toft Park) right over the other side of Rushton even though he only lives two streets away from Queen Mary’s.
Sam sticks out his hand for me to shake, which only cements his poshness. His handshake is firm and confident; he’s clearly had practice.
There’s an awkward pause.
‘I really like your top,’ he says eventually.
‘Oh, right. Thanks,’ I say, rolling my eyes slightly. I’m still in my ‘It’s All About Mia’ T-shirt from yesterday. It smells of sleep and sausages and the body spray Stella douses herself in.
Another pause, equally awkward.
‘So, is it?’ he asks.
‘Is it what?’
‘All about Mia?’ he says, gesturing at the words on my chest.
‘Oh, right. No. I wish.’
I fold my arms, not enjoying the fact we’re having a conversation about what’s written across my tits, even though Sam’s eye line is at an entirely respectable level.
‘It’s supposed to be ironic,’ I add.
‘Ironic how?’
‘Er, because it’s never about me.’
He tilts his head to one side. ‘It’s not?’
‘Have you met my sisters?’
He smiles. He has good teeth. I bet he had braces when he was younger. They’re those kind of teeth – artificially straight. Up close his hair is more auburn than full-on ginger and his arms and face are covered with a fine sprinkling of light brown freckles that almost look like they’ve been drawn on
individually with an extra-fine felt-tip pen. He’s wearing a pair of black-rimmed glasses, the sort that celebrities stick on to make themselves look more intelligent, only in Sam’s case I suspect he probably has a prescription. His outfit is standard posh-boy summer uniform – polo shirt, chino shorts and Havaianas.
I hear the toilet flush and a few seconds later Dad emerges from the downstairs loo.
‘Hi, sweetheart,’ he says, dropping a kiss on the top of my head. ‘Good time at Stella’s?’
Why is everyone pretending stuff is normal?
Dad turns to Sam. ‘Ready to go?’
Go where?
‘Yep,’ Sam replies. ‘Let me just say goodbye to Grace. Excuse me, Mia.’
He smiles and squeezes past me to go into the living room. God, he even smells clean-cut (signature scent: fresh laundry, peppermint and privilege).
‘Where are you going?’ I ask Dad.
‘Just down to The Bell to watch the match. Don’t worry, we’ll be back in time for Soprano’s.’
‘Soprano’s?’
Soprano’s is a cheap and cheerful Italian restaurant on the high street. It’s where we go for family celebrations – birthdays and anniversaries and exam results.
Before Dad can answer me, Sam returns from the living room. There’s a sticky pink lip-balm stain on his left cheek.
Dad unlocks the door. ‘Bye, sweetheart,’ he says, heading out into the front garden.
‘See you later, Mia,’ Sam adds, following him.
The door falls shut behind them. I can hear Mum and Grace still murmuring together in the living room. I lean against the radiator. What the hell is going on?
I find Audrey in our bedroom, lying on her yoga mat with her eyes closed. I’m about to ask her what’s going on when something fluffy with claws runs over my foot.
I scream and leap onto my bed.
‘Shush!’ Audrey says, opening her eyes. ‘You’ll scare her.’ She rolls onto her stomach. ‘Beyoncé,’ she calls under her bed. ‘It’s OK, baby, come on out. It’s only Mia.’
‘I wish you wouldn’t bring that animal up here,’ I say, climbing down off the bed. ‘She stinks the place out.’