Ice Lolly

“Temeeka.” We didn’t really hang out. We just used to play together when we were little.

“Was she an immigrant?” says Holly.

I frown and say, “Why?”

“It’s a funny name.”

“So what?”

Holly tosses another book on to the pile of rejects. “Mum says there’s lots of them where you were. She says it made her feel like a stranger in her own land.”

I point out that Auntie Ellen is Welsh, which means it’s not her land anyway. Not if you’re going to think like that. I don’t, and neither did Mum, but I know that Auntie Ellen does. Was it rude of me to say about her being Welsh? Well, it doesn’t matter; Holly doesn’t get it. She’s still going on about Temeeka and her funny name and whether she was an immigrant. She says, “Was she?”

I play for time, trying to make up my mind. I say, “Was she what?”

“Was she an immigrant!”

OK. I take a deep breath and say, “Yes, since you ask.” It’s a whopping great lie. I only said it to show that I wouldn’t have given a rap even if she was. Holly rubs me up the wrong way, same as Auntie Ellen used to rub Mum. She’s nodding now, looking smug and satisfied, like she’s scored some sort of point. She picks up yet more books and lobs them on to the bed. In this really condescending voice she says that it must have been hard to make friends “living where you lived.”

It wasn’t anything to do with where we lived; it was cos of Mum not being well. At the end of school each day I used to rush home fast as I could, cos of knowing Mum would be there waiting for me. I’d call her when I was on my way, to see if we needed anything, then I’d stop off at the shop on the corner. Weekends I stayed in so we could be together. Even if I was invited to parties, though that didn’t happen very often, I used to make excuses and say I couldn’t go. I didn’t tell Mum; I wouldn’t have wanted her thinking she was holding me back. Cos she wasn’t! It was my choice. I enjoyed being with Mum more than with anybody. If the weather was good we’d go up the park. I’d push Mum in her wheelchair and we’d go all the way round. Mum used to worry in case it was too much for me, but my arms are really strong. I could even push her uphill. There was that one time, though, when the chair tipped over going up a kerb and Mum nearly fell out. I was so ashamed! I feel ashamed even now, just thinking about it. How could I have let such a thing happen? To my own mum? Mum just giggled. She said, “You have to see the funny side of things!”

Mum always saw the funny side. It is what I try to do. It is just people like Holly and Auntie Ellen who make it so difficult.

Holly’s still throwing books on to the bed. “Don’t want that! Don’t want that! This one’s too big. Don’t want big ones! Don’t want—”

Quickly I say, “I want that one!”

“This one?” She looks at it, scornfully. “Winnie-the-Pooh? You can’t still be reading Winnie-the-Pooh! I grew out of that years ago.”

I tell her that you can’t grow out of Winnie-the-Pooh. Mum and me used to read it every Christmas. It was one of our traditions. “Anyway,” I say, “it was a present.”

“Who from?” She’s peering inside, to see what’s written there. “To Lollipop, from Mum.” Plus a row of kisses, but she doesn’t read that bit. “Was that what she called you?”

“When I was little.”

“Lollipop.” Holly giggles. “D’you know what I call you? The girl that laughed at the Queen!”

Mum and me apologised for that. And I wasn’t laughing at the Queen, I was laughing at Mum pretending to be the Queen.

“My husband and I…” The words come shooting out of my mouth before I can stop them.

“You’re doing it again!” Holly glares at me, accusingly. “You are such a rude person!”

I say that I’m sorry. I don’t quite see what’s rude about it, just standing here in the bedroom, but I’m sure Mum would say I shouldn’t have done it.

Holly slams Winnie-the-Pooh on to the shelf and dives back into the box. By the time she gets started on the last one I’ve managed to rescue thirty-five books, including Little Women, Jane Eyre, David Copperfield, I Capture the Castle, Just William and all of Jane Austen, cos she was Mum’s favourite. Holly objects to David Copperfield on the grounds that he’s the wrong size and looks untidy.

“He’s too short and fat!”

For one wicked moment I’m almost tempted to say, “So are you!” But that would be really rude. And she isn’t exactly fat, just plumped up like a pillow cos of Auntie Ellen letting her eat junk food all the time. I suppose, actually, she’s quite pretty. She has this little round face with freckles, and her hair’s bright red and curly. She gets her hair from Auntie Ellen. And the freckles. Uncle Mark is fair, like me and Mum. I’d rather be fair than ginger, but it would be nice, I think, to be curly instead of dead straight and limp. I toss back my ponytail and wrench David Copperfield away from her.

“He’s staying!”

I put him on the shelf with the others. Holly, with an air of triumph, says that now I’ve only got room for one more. “You could have had two if you got rid of that fat one.”

I say yes, well, I don’t want two. I want David Copperfield.

“There’s not many left anyway,” says Holly. She burrows back into the box. “War and Peace…yuck! Poetry. Double yuck! Diary of a Nobody. Yuck yuck triple yuck! Pil—”

“Excuse me,” I say, “I want that one.”

“Which one?”

“Diary of a Nobody.”

“What for?” She looks at it, suspiciously, like it might be something dirty.

“It’s funny.”

“Doesn’t look funny.”

“Well,” I say, “it is.”

“Why? What’s it about?”

I tell her that it’s about a man called Mr Pooter and his wife Carrie. “They’ve just moved into a new house and Mr Pooter’s keeping a diary, all about the things that are happening to them.”

“Funny things.”

“Yes, and Mr Pooter keeps making these really bad jokes, like when he discovers his cuffs are frayed he says, I’m ’fraid, my love, my cuffs are rather frayed. And Carrie calls him a spooney old thing.”

“You think that’s funny?” says Holly.

I have to admit it doesn’t sound very funny. It did when Mum read it out, doing all the different voices. I try to think of a bit that doesn’t need voices.

“One time he’s doing some decorating and he’s got this red paint left over, so he paints the bath? Then later on when he’s lying there in the water the paint all comes off and he thinks he’s burst an artery!”

Holly doesn’t say anything; she just looks at me, like you are seriously weird. I know people think I’m weird. There was that girl at school, Alice Marshall, that I found crying in the girls’ toilets one day, and when I asked her what the matter was she said nobody liked her and she didn’t have any friends, so I said I’d be friends with her and she said what would be the point of that? “You’re just weird!”

I suppose I must be, if everyone thinks I am. I never used to mind, once upon a time; I was happy just being me. Now I’m not so sure. I begin to have this feeling that it might be easier if I could somehow learn to be a bit more like other people. I really would like to be! But I don’t seem to know how to do it.

I hold out my hand for the book. “Please,” I say. “I have to keep that one.”

Holly shrugs. “That’s it then. The rest’ll have to go. I’ll tell Michael.”

It’s Michael who’s going to take the boxes up to the loft. Into exile. Holly opens the door, then stops as something strikes her. “Is that why he’s called Mr Pooter?” she says.

Mr Pooter twitches an ear at the sound of his name. I say yes, Mum called him that because he has a long beard, like Mr Pooter in the book. Well, long for a cat; cats don’t usually have beards. But Mr Pooter is special. He has this lovely fringe of white fur all round his face.