Mimi (12 page)

It was quite late when Uncle Horace came for Emma and Orla. He said that there was no news of Sally yet, but the police were keeping a lookout and they all had a copy of her photo and that she was sure to turn up soon. Then he shook my hand and nearly broke my fingers and told me to get some sleep and said that everything looks better in the morning.

I was very tired, and I fell asleep the minute Granny left the room, after giving me a special good-night kiss. Grandad had already rubbed noses with me downstairs and said, “Good-night, sleep tight, and don’t let the fleas bite.”

Granny had told me to wake her if I felt upset during the night, and promised that “All’s well that ends well” and that Sally would definitely turn up soon so I wasn’t to worry.

I was too tired to worry anymore. I just fell asleep.

I had a bad dream about Sally. In the dream she was locked outside our house and she could not get in. All the doors were locked, and she kept knocking and knocking at the window. No one could hear her except me, and I was trying to tell Dad. He wouldn’t believe me and just kept on watching TV. The knocking was getting louder and louder, and Sally was pushing her face all squashy against the window and shouting, but only I could hear her and see it. “There’s nobody there,” said Dad, looking right out of the window at her. Then he began to close the curtains, and I tried to stop him. Suddenly Sarah was in my dream, putting on her mocking voice, “There’s nobody there, Crybaby. You’re all alone.” And the knocking was getting louder and louder . . . and it woke me up.

I sat up in bed, breathing very fast, my heart racing.
It was just a dream, Mimi,
I told myself. I wished I had remembered to bring Socky with me.

Then I heard the knocking again. I was awake now, and there it was again. A knock on my window — and then a louder one. I pulled the blanket over my head but the knocking did not go away.
Knock, knock, knock
on my window.

I climbed out of bed, pushed my feet into my slippers, and tiptoed to the window.
Knock
again. I was afraid to open the curtains. I thought about fetching Granny and Grandad, but they were old and they might have heart attacks.
Knock
again. There was nothing for it. I had to pull open those curtains myself.

It could be a hobgoblin. I had been told once about hobgoblins stealing your soul and bashing in your brains. Well, that’s what Conor said, anyway. It was a bright sunny day when he told me that, and I hadn’t believed a word of it, but now it was dark night and there was a knocking on the window and I just knew that there was a hobgoblin outside. Maybe more than one.

I grabbed the curtains in my fists and counted to three, then yanked them open and jumped back — which was a good thing because a stone came right through the window, smashing the glass all over the carpet.

“Oh, God, now I’ve gone and done it!” said a voice from the garden. Sally’s voice!

I ran to the broken window and looked out. There was a big moon shining all silvery over the garden, and I could see Sally looking up at me. “Sal —” I started to say.

She put her finger to her lips and hissed, “Shush! Don’t wake Granny!”

“What are you doing in the garden?” I whispered as loudly as I dared. If the broken window hadn’t woken Granny and Grandad, nothing would.

“Trying to wake you up!” whispered Sally back. “I’ve been throwing pebbles at your window for ages! You’re completely deaf, you know!”

“That wasn’t a pebble — that was a rock!”

“Yeah, well, whatever. At least you’re awake at last. Now sneak downstairs and open the back door,” Sally hissed. “I’m freezing out here!”

My grandparents could sleep through an earthquake. Every step on their stairs squeaked as I sneaked downstairs, but they didn’t stir. The back door had about four locks to pull back, and every one of them squealed.

“Hurry up, Mimi!” Sally whispered loudly, hopping up and down on the step.

When I did pull open the door, she jumped inside and gave me a big hug and I gave her a big hug back, and it was as if she had been gone for years instead of just one night and a half.

Then she went straight to the fridge. “I’m famished,” she said. “I’ve only had a few éclairs to eat since I left.” She found a cooked chicken leg and started munching it like a starving animal.

“Where were you?” I asked. “Everybody has been looking all over for you. Even Sparkler.”

“Sparkler?” Sally had finished the chicken leg and was rooting in the fridge for something else.

“Well, sort of. She found a cat.” I decided not to mention her black top. I didn’t want her to get mad. “Anyway, where were you hiding?”

“In Grandad’s shed!” said Sally, as if it was obvious. She had taken milk out of the fridge and was drinking it straight from the carton.

“Is that so, young lady?” said Grandad’s voice — and the kitchen light flicked on.

I jumped and Sally dropped the carton. Milk ran all over the kitchen floor. Maybe my grandparents wouldn’t sleep through an earthquake after all. At least not Grandad. He was standing in the doorway in his dressing gown, and his white hair was all standing up. He looked very old. Sally had grabbed a dishcloth and was trying to wipe up the spilled milk. She wouldn’t look at him.

“Leave it, Sally,” he said kindly, “and come over here and give your old Grandad a hug. Have you any idea how worried we’ve been about you?”

Sally stood up and handed me the dripping dishcloth. Grandad wrapped her up in his arms like a doll, and Sally just blubbed away on his shoulder as though her heart was broken.

He stroked her hair and said, “Now, now, everything is going to be all right now,” over and over, and then he looked up and smiled at me — and, of course, I started crying too. “Come on, you,” said Grandad, opening one arm for me, “there’s room in these arms for two.”

“Group hug,” sniffled Sally as the three of us stood hugging and rocking in the kitchen.

I didn’t even notice Granny coming in, until she said, “Can I join in?” which made us all laugh.

Sally got a fright when Granny said that even the police were looking for her.

“Are they going to arrest me?” she asked.

“Don’t be a nincompoop,” said Grandad. “They were just out looking for you like everyone else. Nobody is going to be arrested!”

Sally looked at me then with a question in her eyes.

“I told them what you wrote in your diary about the police,” I blurted out in a rush, “but Uncle Horace had already called them. It wasn’t my fault!”

“I knew it was you — spy,” said Sally, but she was smiling when she said it.

All the same, I could feel myself going red under my skin.

“Now we’d better call your dad,” said Grandad. “The poor man is sick with worry.”

“It’s four in the morning,” said Sally. “Let him sleep. We’ll call him when he wakes up.”

“I very much doubt if he’s asleep,” replied Grandad. “I’m calling him now.”

Grandad was right. He had to call Dad on his mobile because he was out driving around the streets with Conor, looking for Sally. I think Sally was shocked when she heard that. Dad was at the house in less than ten minutes, and when Granny opened the door he just rushed past her and grabbed Sally into his arms and squeezed her tight. He looked like a wild man; his eyes were all black and his hair was a mess and Sally was blubbing again.

Conor just stood there looking at his feet. He doesn’t like hugs and that kind of thing. I don’t think he knew where to look. “Hi,” he said to Sally when Dad let her go, but he looked cross.

“Hi, brother,” said Sally, and gave him a quick hug too. It looked funny with Conor’s arms straight by his sides and his face red.

Granny made a big pot of tea, and everyone sat around the kitchen table. “I don’t think there’s going to be a lot more sleep done around here tonight.” She smiled as she poured the tea.

Then Conor just blurted out in a really angry voice, “How could you steal from Mrs. Lemon?”

Sally looked up and her face kind of crumpled and tears started running down her cheeks. Granny stopped pouring tea in midair, and Dad put his arm around Sally and gave Conor a look. “Now’s not the time, Conor,” he said.

But Sally just looked straight at him and said so quietly that it was hard to hear her, “Because I’m a bad person, Conor.”

Conor didn’t say anything then. Nobody did for a few seconds. Then Granny said, “That’s nonsense.”

And Daddy said, “Don’t be silly.”

And Grandad said, “Why do you think that, Sally?”

Granny wasn’t happy about that. She put down the teapot with a bang and frowned at Grandad.

But Sally was looking straight at Grandad and everyone was just waiting, frozen like in a photo, and the room was so quiet that the hum of the fridge seemed loud. Then Sally did a big sniff and whispered in a hoarse kind of voice, “I was the last person to see Mammy before she died.”

“We know that, love,” said Dad in a gentle voice.

On that Saturday I was playing in the tree house, and I don’t know where everyone else was when Mammy left on the bike.

“We were having a fight,” continued Sally. Tears were spilling silently down her face. “Well, I was fighting with Mammy. She wasn’t taking it very seriously.”

“What about?” asked Grandad, and put his hand on top of Sally’s hand.

“I wanted a stud in my nose and Mammy wouldn’t let me,” Sally said in a half laugh, and wiped the back of her other hand across her snotty nose.

“And rightly so!” said Granny. “Disgusting things, those nose studs.”

“Anyway, I got mad and — and —” And now Sally got really upset and she pulled her hand back from Grandad’s and covered her face, and her voice got loud and all cracked, and I started crying a bit too, and then she said that she had shouted at Mammy that she hated her, and that was the last thing she said to Mammy before she left the house and got run over. And now did Conor see what a bad person she was? Then Sally threw her head down on her arms and cried and cried.

For a long time there was silence around the table, just Sally weeping and Daddy rubbing her back in circles, and then after a long time Grandad said, “And what was the last thing your mammy said to you?”

I wished he’d just be quiet and stop asking these terrible questions, and I think I wasn’t the only one because even Daddy looked funnily at him — but Sally lifted her head and, in the saddest voice, said, “Well, you know Mum.” She sniffled in a bit of a funny way and she wasn’t crying so hard now. “Mammy just laughed and shouted back at me, ‘And I love you too, daughter!’ and then she blew me a kiss and went. That made me even madder,” said Sally with a sort of half laugh and half cry.

“She had already forgiven you,” said Grandad in a soft voice, and smiled. “Now blow your nose, child.”

Granny pulled a tissue out of her sleeve and handed it to Sally, and she blew her nose like a trumpet.

“So, spy,” Sally turned to me, “now you know all my ‘dark secrets.’”

Everyone looked at me then, as if it was my turn to say something.

“Nose studs get all snotty,” I said. “I’m glad you didn’t get one.”

And then everyone laughed, even Sally. . . . Even Conor.

“You said what you said with your head, love, not with your heart — so it doesn’t count,” said Dad. And Conor told Sally that she wasn’t bad, just bad-tempered, and Granny made a fresh pot of tea because nobody had drunk theirs, and she managed to find some éclairs from somewhere that Sally hadn’t eaten, and Grandad joked that the woman was impossible and she was obviously stashing away cakes now and no wonder she was so fat! And even Granny laughed.

The next day in school I was very tired. Dad had said that I could stay in bed because of the long night, but I went to school anyway. By recess I felt so sleepy that I just wanted to fall into a bed.

I get cranky when I’m tired. Maybe if Sarah had known that she would have left me alone, but she just could not keep away.

“Here they come,” sighed Orla as the big bully and her lapdogs walked across the yard toward us.

“Hi, Specs. Hi, Crybaby,” she called before she even reached us.

I looked at the ground. Orla, of course, looked Sarah straight in the eye. I wished I was as brave as her.