A Dog Called Homeless

I reached over and held Mia’s arm down and shot my hand in the air. I ignored the giggles and whispers, the feet reaching out to nudge each other. I ignored Daniel Bird’s loud “Ha!” and Mia’s gaping mouth.

Jessica and Harry looked at Miss Steadman, pencil poised, not writing my name on their list. Miss Steadman shushed the murmurings and giggling and looked out of the window. Then she looked in the register as if she was checking for something. Her mouth twitched. She took a deep breath and straightened her back.

“What we need is—”

“It’s for an important cause,” I said quickly.

Just then I saw Daisy whispering to Mia. I saw Mia smirk and fold her arms, her eyes going narrow.

I straightened my arm, zipped my lips. Miss Steadman leaned back into her chair. I saw her heart go soft.

“What we need is people like you, Cally, who are willing to take up the challenge. Thank you, you can put your hand down now.”

She nodded to Jessica as if to say why aren’t you writing her name down already?

“Everyone else can be involved by sponsoring our volunteers. You will need to ask your parents. Remember what the money is for.”

She closed the register, kept her eyes on me.

“And our volunteers are going to need your support, not just with sponsorship money. You’re all going to have to encourage them to stay quiet.”

6. (#ulink_0506a67c-64b1-5fc6-a4e5-47c001b977b8)

MRS BROOKS, THE SPECIAL NEEDS LADY, wanted to see me. She deals with all the problems – if you can’t do maths or English, if you’re in a wheelchair, or if you are the problem. She’s a tall lady with plum-coloured hair, orangey lipstick and an orangey tan. She looks like she’s just come out of a hot pan. Her perfume made it difficult to breathe around her.

For a while after Mum died she let me sit with her and draw pictures. She said I could talk about anything I wanted. But mostly she did the talking, mostly in riddles.

“I hear you’ve volunteered for the sponsored silence,” she said.

“Miss Steadman said I could.”

“Yes, she did. And we’ll all support you.”

She ran a finger round the gold chain on her sunglasses which she wore on her head all year, even inside school. She tilted her head and smiled.

“Well, I want you to know if for any reason you don’t feel you can manage a whole day of silence, then Mia Johnson has very kindly volunteered to do the morning.”

She reached out to touch my arm. I hate it when people look sorry for you. I hate it when they look at you like you’re hopeless.

“Perhaps you could each do half the day?” she said.

“I can do it,” I said.

“She’s just being a good friend—”

“I can do it all day!”

She signed my sponsorship form and said if you change your mind … without finishing her sentence.

She leaned back in her chair and held her sunglasses up to the light.

“I remember you in Year Four,” she said, huffing on the lens. “You were a lovely little girl who used to get on with people. You worked really hard to remember all your lines and songs for Charlotte’s Web. And I’m sure you would have been brilliant again last year …”

She poked me with her orange fingernail. “Wouldn’t it be nice to have the old Cally back?”

I told you she talked in riddles. And you can’t go back. There’s no such thing as time machines. Ask Daniel Bird.

“I’ve never been old,” I said.

Not like her. That wouldn’t be for at least another eighty years.

“What I meant was—”

“You mean I used to be good and nice and now I’m not.”

“No, of course not. What I meant was you’ve had some difficult challenges. Things happen in our life that can change us, make us unsettled.”

She sighed. “It was such a shame you had to pull out of the show last year. Such terrible timing.”

And the reason she said that was because I was supposed to be playing Olivia in the musical called Olivia!, which is just like Oliver Twist but with a girl. But because the show was only two days after the accident when Mum died, everyone said I shouldn’t. Daisy had stepped in.

Mrs Brooks put her glasses back on her head and pulled a black file off the shelf. It said Year Six Assessments on the side. She flicked through the file, running her finger along pages to find my name, and tapped the page slowly.

“Perhaps it would be better to think about the future, a fresh start. I hope you’re going to be singing in the farewell concert.”

And on she went.

I hadn’t put my name down for the concert yet. I looked past her, out through the dusty window, across the wide playing field.

And there she was. Mum came through the open gates. She walked across the grass and headed for the lunch benches at the front of the school, like she’d had some good news, but didn’t want to rush to tell anyone. Mum was wearing her red raincoat again and looked like the only red apple in a tree.

I stretched myself as tall as I could to see over Mrs Brooks’s wide shoulders while she jabbered on.

“Sitting up straight is a good place to start,” Mrs Brooks said. “You look more grown-up already.”

I waited until she went back to the file and the jabbering then leaned to the side to see better. I so wanted Mum to see me. And even though there was a playing field and the school walls and window between us, Mum turned her head, as if she knew I was looking, as if I’d called her name. She turned. She waved. Not like she was saying goodbye, but like she was saying Hello, it’s me again.

“Did you want to ask something?” said Mrs Brooks, seeing me with my arm in the air.

“No,” I said. And then, “Can I go to the toilet?”

Mrs Brooks looked out of the window over her shoulder. She didn’t see Mum; she didn’t see anyone there.

“Be quick,” she said.

My heart pounded as I passed the loos. My breathing was so loud and fast I thought that everyone could hear me, but I didn’t even look up to see if anyone in the office saw me go out of the doors at reception.

Mum walked towards me, and now she wasn’t alone. Her eyes followed a huge silver-grey dog playing around her. Its head was as high as her waist and she rested her hand on its silver-grey shoulders.