Stealing Stacey

“It’s really bad not to like school, sweetie,” she said. (By now I’d lost count of all her pet names for me.) “You have to get your priorities right. School’s a top priority at your age.”

“It’s so boring.”

“It’s up to teachers to make learning fun.”

“Tell that to ours,” I said.

“Kids have to make an effort too,” she said. She fixed me with her eyes. She wasn’t reproaching me exactly, more sort of measuring me. “Isn’t there any lesson you like?”

I didn’t answer at once. I didn’t want to tell her I quite liked English, for some reason. I fancied myself as an anti-school rebel, like Loretta. But she kept her eyes fixed on me, so in the end I muttered that computer studies weren’t bad.

Gran brightened up. “Oh, good that you like computers! I’m surprised you don’t have one at home.”

I gave Mum a look. I’d begged, just about on my knees, for a home computer. I’d told her, like one million times, that my teacher said that was one reason why I wasn’t keeping up, cos I didn’t have a PC. I was pretty well the only one in my class that didn’t. (Well, that was what I told Mum anyway.)

“Now don’t start, Stace, you don’t need a computer!” Mum snapped at me. “It’s up to the school to make you keep up, without telling me I ought to spend hundreds of pounds we haven’t got.”

“Of course she needs one,” said Gran. “A good one, with a colour printer and a scanner and all the bits. Christmas is coming, isn’t that right, cherry pie?” and she winked at me.

“Glendine! Don’t even think about it, please!” said Mum. “I couldn’t accept it.”

“Rubbish! Why not?”

“Because… I don’t know why not. I just feel I couldn’t.” Typical Mum. Gran just smiled her big white smile. (Her teeth weren’t false. I knew because Nan’s were and I could tell the difference, close to.) I felt my heart sort of bob up and down. I knew I’d get a computer for Christmas and there wasn’t a thing Mum could do about it.

I had it all worked out by the beginning of December. Where I’d set it up would be in the living room. I’d surf the net and send e-mails and join chat rooms and play computer games. I might even use it for a bit of schoolwork.

But then in the end I didn’t get a computer at all. Because Gran got a better idea.

She told me it was a secret.

“Not a word to Mum yet! I’m going to kidnap you.”

“Go on, Gran. You’re just having me on, right?”

“I’m serious. I couldn’t be more serious if I tried.”

I couldn’t take it in at first. It was too amazing. She wanted to take me to Australia for the Christmas holiday!

I was, like, ecstatic. The more she told me about Australia, the more I wanted to see it. She made it sound so exciting. She had a wonderful book with coloured photos in. Everything looked so different from boring old England.

It seemed like the sun shone all the time, there was tons of swimming and sports, and lots of wildlife. I’m really into wildlife, on the telly, that is. There’s not much of it in south London – unless you count birds. And I saw an urban fox once. But foxes and pigeons don’t stack up against dingoes and koalas and wallabies and wombats and duck-billed platypuses. That’s aside from kangaroos, which have been my favourite animal since I had a Kanga and Roo toy when I was little. The snakes put me off a bit, but I tried not to think about them. Or the crocodiles. We’ve got no dangerous animals at all in Britain, unless you count the Loch Ness Monster and the Beast of Bodmin Moor, which nobody really believes in. About our most dangerous thing apart from Rottweilers is mosquitoes. (OK, adders. But in London? Get real.)

But what I wanted to see most was the outback, because I’d seen videos of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and CrocodileDundee. But it was because of Gran’s things, too, what she called her Aboriginal artefacts. I wanted to meet some of those people.

“There are big mobs of Wonngais where I come from,” she said carelessly. “I’ll introduce you.”

I was just so scared Mum wouldn’t let me go.

“Don’t you worry about that! You leave your mum to me.”

But before she could tackle Mum, something really radical happened.

When I think back to it now, I remember what a good day we’d had, the day before. First off, we’d had a row, because I’d been to Loretta’s, supposedly just for a sleepover, and of course we weren’t supposed to go anywhere, but we did. We sneaked out to a party and danced and, yes, we did drink a few alcopops, actually more than a few, but it wouldn’t have mattered – I mean we didn’t get legless or anything, we were just enjoying ourselves. But by the lousiest luck on earth, the son of a friend of Mum’s was there (the others were mostly older than us) and he must’ve ratted on me. When I got home the next morning, which was Saturday and Mum’s day off from the checkout, Mum was waiting for me. She was practically jumping up and down. It was just lucky for me Gran was there or I would’ve really copped it. Even as it was, Mum dragged me off to our room and had a hissy-fit and I had one back, but even the hissing was kind of muffled because we knew Gran was listening.

When I can’t yell back at Mum it all sort of turns inwards – I felt all screwed up inside and I just lay on the bed crying and feeling like it was the end of the world. Of course Loretta wasn’t going to cop it, was she. Just me. And Mum’d grounded me for two weeks, just when there were Christmas parties and other things coming up.

Then I heard Gran’s and Mum’s voices and I tried to listen, but all I could tell was that Gran was trying to calm Mum down. After a bit, Mum crept back into our room and sat down on the bed and said, in that little-girl way she has, “Gran’s on your side. She says it was only a bit of fun and I’m too hard on you. She says I should do more things with you and then you wouldn’t want to get away from me all the time and be rebellious.” (Can you imagine? She is so transparent. But it’s sort of sweet in a way, she just can’t play the heavy-mother game for long, it isn’t in her nature.) I sniffed and blew my nose and said, “Like what things?” I mean, what could she possibly have in mind that was interesting? But your parents can surprise you, just sometimes.

“How would you like to get your bellybutton pierced?”

I sat up on the bed and stared at her, eyes boggling.

“What?”

She said it again, and then she said something even more unexpected.

“I’ve always wanted a bellybutton ring. We could do it together.”

Well, of course, that did it. Mother and daughter bellybutton rings. I ask you. Who could hold out against that? Because I knew as sure as eggs is eggs (as Nan says) that having any part of her pierced was the last thing on earth Mum had ever dreamt of, I mean otherwise she wouldn’t still be wearing clip-on earrings and always losing them.

So off we went that same day and had our bellybuttons pierced together at that place on the high street. She went absolutely white as a ghost when it was her turn and I suddenly felt I loved her. You know when you sort of love someone all the time, in the background, with rows and sulks and stuff going on in the foreground, you forget to really feel it, and then unexpectedly you do feel it and it nearly knocks you down. I gave her a big hug and said, “You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to, Mum,” but she said she did want to and in she went to the torture chamber, brave as a lion, and had it done. And now we both had a sort of secret together because she said she’d never show hers, it would just be for me to know about. (She went all quiet for a bit after she said it, and I knew she was thinking “Except Dad if he ever comes back.” But I was pretty sure he never would, and she knew that, so she didn’t say it aloud. She hates me telling her to get real.)

Afterwards she took me out for a pizza and it was a good laugh. We talked, mainly about our sore bellybuttons it’s true, but a bit about other things, and I told her all about the party and I heard myself promise never to go to one again where there was alcohol, until she told me I could. (To be honest, it was a bit scary, practically everyone there was older than us and there were some dodgy types among the boys – I mean apart from that rotten sneak. One of them touched my tummy. I didn’t tell Mum that of course.)

In the afternoon we met Gran and she took us to a movie, her choice. She wanted us to see an Australian film called Rabbit-Proof Fence. It was really wonderful, all about two Aborigine sisters, young kids, who run away from this horrible school and walk hundreds of miles through a desert to get home. It was really sad, especially at the end when you saw these women who were the real girls, grown old. We all cried, even Gran, who’d seen it before.

So that was our good day.

Then it happened.

I heard the phone ringing in the middle of the night, and felt Mum get out of our bed. Then I went back to sleep. In the morning, she was gone. Gone! Just like that! I couldn’t believe it, but I had to after I found the note on my side of the dressing table.

“Stacey, I’m sorry, I have to go. Dad’s in trouble. Gran’ll look after you. I’ll be back soon, I hope. Love, Mum.”

She’d taken some of her things. I rushed into my bedroom that was Gran’s now. I didn’t even knock. I woke her up and showed her the note. I was in a state, all shocked and crying.

Gran sat up in bed. She had a shiny, bare night-face. She read the note. “Oh the precious little idiot,” she said. “Wouldn’t I like to give her curry!”

“Curry!”

“That’s Australian for a hot telling-off.” Then she hugged me tight. “Don’t you cry, sweet-face. Grandma Glendine’s here. She’ll take care of you.”

I pulled away. “But where’s she gone? She couldn’t go to Thailand, she hasn’t got a passport!”

“Let’s try Greville Drive, it’s closer.”

“You mean Dad’s come back?”