Eva's Journey (12 page)

Chapter Twenty

S
oon it was Saturday again, and I took my place beside Ruby at the fruit and vegetable stall. I was starting to get to know the customers now, and some of them greeted me like I was one of their oldest friends. Even Mamie sort of smiled at me sometimes. I think she was glad that at last someone was tough enough to stand up to her.

The morning went really quickly, and soon I found myself standing outside the locked-up shed, holding my usual bag of food.

Once again, Ruby looked embarrassed.

‘Want to come to my place for a while?' she asked.

I was so surprised I didn't know what to say. I looked carefully at her, and got the horrible feeling
that she was really, really hoping that I was going to say no.

‘Er … I'm not sure,' I said, stalling for time. ‘My mum and dad will be expecting me home.'

‘Can't you text them and tell them you're going to be a bit late?' now she sounded desperate.

What was going on?

Did this girl want me to go to her place or not?

And if she didn't, why was she asking me in the first place?

‘My mum said I should ask you,' said Ruby in the end. ‘I told her how you've been helping me on the stall, and she said that the least we could do is invite you over for some lunch.'

Suddenly I felt even more sorry for Ruby than usual. I had a funny feeling that she didn't often ask friends to her place.

I had a funny feeling that she didn't have any friends.

Did she think I was her friend?

And what would her mother say to her if she arrived home without me?

So I smiled at her.

‘Sure,' I said. ‘I'd love to come over to your place for a while.' Then I sent a quick text to my mum, and followed Ruby down the street.

Neither of us said much as we walked along. I didn't mind. I was getting used to Ruby's long silences – and sometimes it's kind of relaxing not to have to talk.

‘Nearly there,' said Ruby at last, as we turned a corner.

‘Hey, I know this road,' I said. ‘I've been here before. Madam Margarita lives here, doesn't she?'

Ruby glared at me.

‘What do you know about Madam Margarita?'

Her fierce look made me think that this wasn't a time for telling the truth.

‘Oh, I just heard someone talking about her once,' I said.

Ruby still looked fierce, but she didn't ask any more questions.

‘Here we are,' she said a moment later. ‘Home
sweet home.'

I gulped.

The sign was gone, but that didn't matter. I'd recognise the front door with its flaky blue paint anywhere.

There were hundreds of streets, and thousands and thousands of houses in our town.

So, of all the houses in all the streets, why was Ruby leading me towards Madam Margarita's one?

I thought about running away, but before I could move, Ruby had flung open the front door.

‘Mum, I'm home,' she called. ‘And I've brought my friend, Eva.'

I gulped again.

What on earth had I left myself in for?

In a daze, I followed Ruby in the front door and through the hallway. Nothing had changed since my last visit. Everything still looked dark and dull and dreary, making me wonder if maybe my new home wasn't as bad as I thought.

I followed Ruby in to the kitchen. I stood there
with my mouth open and watched as Madam Margarita's mouth opened equally wide.

‘It's the Princess,' said Madam Margarita. ‘Ruby, you've brought the Princess.'

‘It's Madam Margarita,' I said. ‘Ruby, you've brought me to see Madam Margarita.'

Ruby looked at us like we were both totally crazy.

‘I didn't know you were a princess,' she snapped at me. ‘You've managed not to mention that before. And that's certainly not Madam Margarita. That's my mum and her name is Maggie.' Ruby stopped speaking and for a second I felt that I could hear the cogs in her brain revolving as she tried to figure out what was going on.

‘I get it,' she said in the end. ‘Eva is the one.'

‘What one?' I asked.

‘The one who came to see Madam Margarita. The only customer Madam Margarita, or should I say Maggie, ever had.'

‘So you're not a real fortune-teller?' I said.

Maggie shook her head. ‘Well, no, not exactly.'

Now I felt really angry. I was cross with Maggie, but mostly I was cross with myself for believing all the rubbish she had told me.

‘But that's not fair,' I said. ‘You're an imposter. You took ten euro from me under false pretences. There are laws against that kind of thing. I should go straight to the police and report you.'

‘I'm ……' began Maggie but I interrupted her. I wasn't angry anymore – I just felt sad and stupid.

‘You tricked me,' I said. ‘You made me believe what you said was true, and that so isn't fair.'

Maggie spoke softly.

‘I didn't mean any harm. And I did read two books about fortune-telling. And I was going to read another few, but they didn't have any more in the library.'

Was this woman for real?

Did she expect me to be impressed because she'd read a few books on fortune-telling?

I read a book about space exploration once – did that mean I could sign up for the next rocket to the moon?

Ruby didn't look very happy either.

‘What did you tell Eva, Mum?' she asked in a cold voice. ‘Did you tell her that there was going to be a tall handsome stranger in her life? I suppose you'd have been half right. Mr Gowing is tall, and he certainly is strange. He's not handsome though. But still, two out of three's not bad – for someone who has read two whole books in the library!'

Now I felt angry again.

Was Ruby mocking me?

How dare she?

How would she feel if I told her what Maggie had really told me?

How would she feel if she knew that I only helped her because of what her mother had said?

How would she feel if ……?

I looked at Ruby, standing against the counter, looking like she'd happily kill her mother or me, or both of us.

I looked at Maggie next to her, looking nervous and guilty.

They were both staring at me with identical, huge brown eyes.

How had I managed not to notice the resemblance before?

Suddenly I couldn't concentrate any more – I was too busy laughing.

This whole thing was really very funny.

Madam Margarita asked me to do something, and doing it led me right back to her doorstep.

How weird was that?

After a second, Maggie and Ruby started to laugh too. The three of us laughed until there were tears streaming from our eyes. I stopped when the pain in my side became too much. I wiped my eyes and looked at the others. Ruby was leaning on Maggie's wheelchair, and Maggie had her arm around her daughter's waist. Maggie looked young and pretty, and for the first time since I'd met her, Ruby looked like a normal girl, having fun.

At last Maggie stopped laughing too.

‘Thanks for coming, Eva,' she said. ‘I've made some chicken wraps. Would you like one?'

I giggled.

‘You're the fortune-teller. Why don't you tell me?' I said, and then we all laughed some more, before sitting down for our lunch.

After we had eaten, I helped Ruby to clear the table, and then I said that I'd better go.

‘It's starting to rain,' said Maggie as we got to the door. ‘Ruby, why don't you run upstairs and get Eva a jacket to wear home?'

Ruby ran upstairs, and Maggie wheeled herself closer to me.

‘Thank you so much for helping Ruby out these last few weeks. It means a lot to her, and to me.'

‘That's OK,' I said, feeling embarrassed.

‘Ruby isn't very good at making friends,' she continued.

Ha! That was an understatement. Ruby was a total disaster at making friends.

Before either of us could say any more, Ruby was back, holding the ugliest jacket I'd ever seen.

‘Oh look,' I said brightly. ‘The rain has stopped.
Bye now, and thanks for everything.'

Then I skipped out the door, before anyone could point out that there were torrents of water pouring from the sky.

Chapter Twenty-One

T
hat night, I told Mum and Dad about Maggie and Ruby. I left out the Madam Margarita part, as I figured the story was complicated enough without dragging that into the middle of it.

‘So that's what happened,' I said, as I came to the end of the story. ‘One day, everything was fine – well sort of fine anyway. Maggie was running the stall, and Ruby got to be a normal kid. Then, when Maggie fell off her bike and hurt her back, everything changed in an instant.'

‘And it's just the two of them in the family?' asked Dad.

I shook my head.

‘No. Ruby has a big sister called Jenny. She's training to be a hairdresser. She works really long hours, but gets paid hardly anything. So the whole family has to survive on what they can earn at the market.'

‘That's a really sad story,' said Mum.

I nodded.

‘Sad and weird. One day, months and months ago, Maggie closed her bedroom door and came downstairs, and she's never been able to go back up since then. She has to sleep in the living room, and there's not even any room there for her clothes. Ruby has to spend her time going up and down the stairs getting stuff for her.'

Mum patted my arm.

‘Well, all I can say is that Dad and I are very proud of you for the way you've been helping Ruby.'

‘Thanks,' I said. ‘But I wish I could do more to help. Helping out in the market for a few hours doesn't seem like enough. Why can't I do more?'

No one answered.

Mum smiled sympathetically, but Dad just sat
there saying nothing. That started to make me worried. Dad isn't good at silence – he's more the doing type of man.

I wondered what kind of weird scheme was running through his brain.

Dad called me early the next morning.

‘Wake up, Eva,' he said. ‘We need to talk.'

I rubbed my eyes, checked the time on my phone and closed my eyes again.

‘Go away, Dad,' I said. ‘It's still the middle of the night.'

‘But this is important, Eva,' he said.

‘Nothing is important enough to wake a girl up at eight o'clock on a Sunday.'

He didn't move.

My dad is totally stubborn, and I knew he wasn't going to give in any time soon.

I gave a big sigh, and sat up in bed.

Once upon a time I'd have been expecting a big present or a nice surprise at a time like this.

Now, though, I knew for sure that Dad wasn't
going to produce a piece of perfect jewellery from his jacket pocket.

‘This had better be worth it,' I muttered.

Dad sat on the edge of my bed.

‘What are the stairs in your friend Ruby's house like?'

Great. My dad wasn't just poor and unemployed – now he was crazy too.

I pretended to think.

‘Oh yes,' I said in the end. ‘The stairs in Ruby's house start on the ground floor, they go all the way up to the next floor, and they've got lots of steps in between.'

‘Very funny,' said Dad. ‘What I mean is, are they straight or curved?'

I stopped trying to decide if my dad had gone crazy, and instead tried to picture Ruby running up the stairs the day before.

‘Straight,' I said, after a second.

‘
Yesss
!' said Dad like he'd just won the lottery. ‘Now get dressed. We've got a lot to do.'

I decided that I'd indulged him enough. I folded
my arms.

‘Sorry, Dad. I don't do dressed this early on Sundays.'

Dad sighed.

‘Just listen, Eva. I hardly slept last night, because I couldn't stop thinking about your friends. And at some stage in the early hours of the morning, I remembered something that happened a few months ago. A man I used to work with told me about his brother who had bought a house.'

‘Very exciting,' I said. ‘I'm glad you woke me up to tell me that. I hope your friend's brother is very happy in his new home. Now, can I go back to sleep?'

Dad ignored me. ‘And his brother had to do loads of jobs in the house before he could move in. And one of the jobs he had to do was to take out the stair-lift belonging to the man who owned the house before him.'

At last this was starting to make sense.

‘And?'

‘And I phoned my friend this morning and as soon as he got over being cross with me for waking him so early, he told me that the stair-lift was still in his brother's shed, and that we could have it if we wanted.'

‘But––'

‘And also in the shed is the old man's wheelchair. It's a bit of a wreck, but it would do fine for Maggie to keep upstairs so that she could go from room to room when she's up there.'

I was already out of bed.

‘Why are you still here, Dad? Get out. I want to get dressed.'

Dad laughed.

‘We leave in five minutes.'

At first Maggie thought we were messing.

I think part of her still thought we were messing when Dad and I started to unload his tools from the back of Mum's car.

She still didn't look convinced when another friend of Dad's drew up in his van and started to
unload the parts of what was very obviously a stair-lift.

Many, many hours later, when the lift was carrying Maggie up her own stairs for the first time in months, I think she had figured out that this wasn't just some sick practical joke.

But I couldn't say for sure what she was feeling.

The tears streaming down her face were the only clue.