Fizzypop (9 page)

Some people might think
yuck
on hearing that a baby has thrown up over someone, but it doesn't strike me that way. It's like when Rags throws up. He is only a dog: a baby is only a baby. They don't know any better.

I asked Auntie Cath if I could come round with Jem and Skye after school next day, “cos they really, really want to see Henry.” Auntie Cath is so sweet! She said she would love it if we went round.

I rang Jem to tell her, and we had a bit of a chat about Mia, with Jem wanting to know whether I really thought she could be her birth mum, and whether I really thought they looked alike.

“You're not just
saying
it?”

I assured her that I wasn't. Jem would have liked to carry on talking, but I told her I had to go.

“I just remembered… I'm supposed to be putting something in the oven!”

I went back to the kitchen and found to my surprise that the rissoles had disappeared. So had the baking tray. Mum must have come back and seen them there and put them in the oven herself. Well, that was all right. I'd made them into interesting shapes and brushed them with egg yolk, and Rags hadn't got the mixing bowl. Mum could hardly complain!

I went upstairs, feeling virtuous, to make a start on my homework. Some time later I heard the door of the front room open and Mum call out.

“Frankie? Angel? Anyone there? Tom? Oh, Angel! Just go and take the rissoles out of the oven, would you?”

“I'll do it!” I yelled. They were my rissoles. I'd made them into shapes! I wasn't having Angel take the credit.

I raced into the kitchen to find that she had got there first.

“Where have they gone?” she said. She'd opened the door of the oven and was peering inside. “They're not here!”

“They've got to be,” I said.

“Well, they're not! And what's
that
?” She sprang back, with a shriek.
“That!
Down there!”

I followed the direction of her quivering finger. Dog sick. Yuck! A great big gooey pile of it.

“Where are the rissoles?” said Angel.

We both turned to look at Rags, wagging guiltily in the doorway.

“He must have taken them out of the oven!”

“What, you think he's some kind of canine genius? You think he's learnt how to open the door?”

“Maybe it… came open.”

“You mean, maybe you didn't close it properly!”

“No! I didn't do it. It wasn't me!”

“So who put them in there?”

I said, “Mum!”

Well, I thought she had. Suddenly, I was beginning to have doubts.

“Where's the tray?” said Angel. “He can't have eaten the tray!”

We found the tray under the fridge. Two of the rissoles were still there; a square one, and a sausage-shaped one.

It was a nasty moment.

Chapter Nine

Everyone seemed to think it was my fault Rags had eaten the rissoles.

“What I can't understand,” said Skye, as we went off after school the next day to visit Auntie Cath, “is why you were stupid enough to leave him alone with them in the first place. You know he eats things!”

“He ate those eggs that time,” said Jem.

I shouldn't ever have told her about the eggs. A dozen of them, all smashed.

“He licked them off the floor,” I said.

“Yes, but only after he'd knocked them there.”

“Well,
that
wasn't my fault!”

Skye was still wittering on. “I can't understand why you had to go into the garden, anyway, just to answer the phone.”

“He was barking,” I said. “I couldn't hear.”

“So why not put
him
in the garden?”

“Cos I didn't think!” My voice came out in a bit of a bellow. I will put up with A LOT, but Skye was really starting to get on my nerves. “If you want to know,” I said, “I was too busy arranging for us to go and see the baby. I was thinking about Jem!”

“We're not
just
going to see the baby, though. Are we?” Jem looked at me, anxiously. “We are going to ask about Mia?”

“Yes, but we've got to see the baby first. He's very sweet,” I said. “He's really cuddly. I wouldn't mind having a baby like him. I reckon I'm going to have lots and lots of babies! Probably about… ooh, I don't know! Ten, maybe?”

“That would just be, like, totally gross,” said Skye.

“Well, all right then! Five.”

“That would still be gross. There's not going to be enough food to feed people as it is,” said Skye. “Not when we have global warming.”

She did have a point. “OK,” I said, “I'll just have two. I suppose I'm allowed to have two? 'Specially if people like you aren't going to have any at all.”

“I never said I wasn't going to have any at all! I j—”

“I wish you'd stop talking about babies and work out what we're going to say to your auntie,” wailed Jem.

I told her that I knew what we were going to say. “We're going to say we're interested in Mia cos of her being a celeb and being at our school.”

“And you'd better let me and Frankie do the talking,” said Skye. “We all know what'll happen if you start up.”

She meant that Jem would give the game away. We'd already decided that we couldn't tell Auntie Cath the real reason we were interested in Mia. Apart from anything else she might go and mention it to Mum and then I'd be in
big
trouble. Even bigger than the trouble I was already in for letting Rags eat the rissoles. Mum had been pretty unpleasant about that.

We didn't spend very long looking at the baby. We all had a cuddle and made lots of cooey-gurgly noises, but Skye really isn't into babies, whatever she says, and Jem was practically dancing a jig with impatience. In fact she was jigging about so much that Auntie Cath asked her if she needed the loo. Really embarrassing! Well, it was for Jem. I just giggled.

We all went to sit in the kitchen and drink Coke and eat cookies. Jem kicked at me under the table: I kicked her back. She mouthed at me, furiously. OK, OK! Time to ask the big question.

“When you were at school,” I said to Auntie Cath, “did you ever know Mia Jelena?”

“Oh, Mia!” Auntie Cath laughed. We all held our breath. “Yes, I think everyone at school knew her. She was always a bit of a – well! A bit of a tearaway. Had quite a reputation. I remember when I was in Year 12 and we sometimes had to do cloakroom duty – do you still have that? Year 12s acting like a sort of police force?”

We nodded, solemnly.

“Well, I just dreaded it if Mia was around. She used to play us up something rotten! Not that she was malicious, or anything. Just totally hyper. Couldn't keep still, couldn't keep quiet—”

“Always fizzing and bubbling,” said Jem.

Me and Skye glared at her across the table.

“Yes! That's exactly the way to describe it. It was like she might go pop at any minute. One of my friends had a sister in the same class? She used to hang out with Mia. I remember her mum was always worried in case Mia led her into trouble.”

“What sort of trouble?” Jem said it eagerly. “Boys?”

“She certainly liked the boys.”

“Did she ev—”

I interrupted, hastily. “We're only asking,” I said, “cos of her being at Hillcrest and being so famous.”

“It's like she's a sort of role model,” said Skye.

“She's done really well for herself, hasn't she?” nodded Auntie Cath.

“Did you ever think she would?” said Jem.

“I suppose, looking back… I'm not totally surprised. She was the sort of person whose life could have gone either way. Up or down. Nothing in between. She was never going to just muddle along in the middle like the rest of us. She was a real live wire.”

“It said in this article,” said Skye, “she ran away from home when she was only sixteen?”

“Yes, I saw that. In the local paper, wasn't it? I vaguely remember it happening. I'd left school by then, but I remember my friend Anna saying how the police had gone round to talk to her sister—”

Jem leant forward. “The one that hung out with Mia?”

“Yes. They wanted to know if she had any idea where she might have gone.”

“Did she?”

“She said not. I'm not sure they altogether believed her.”

“You don't think she was having a baby, do you?”

O-mi-god.
Would nothing shut her up? I tried frantically to think of something to say, but nothing came.

“I mean,” mumbled Jem, “it's just an idea.”

“She can't help it.” Skye turned apologetically to Auntie Cath. “She has this thing about babies.”

“She's been nagging at us for days,” I said. “
When can I see your auntie's new baby?
”

Jem's face was growing slowly crimson.

“She actually told us,” said Skye, “she wants to have
ten.
”

“I did not!” Jem's voice was an indignant squawk. “That was Frankie!”

I said, “
Me?
”

“You know it was!” spluttered Jem.

“Whoever it was,” said Auntie Cath, “I wouldn't advise it. One is enough to scramble your brain. Ten would just about turn it to mush!”

“Besides being just, like, totally
irresponsible
,” I said.

For a minute, I thought Jem was going to burst a blood vessel. But it was her own fault! We'd
told
her to leave all the talking to me and Skye. She hunched herself up so that she was facing Auntie Cath. All we could see was her back, still quivering with rage.

“In the article she said that something happened.”

“Yes, that's right. She did, didn't she?”

“So I was just trying to imagine what it could be,” said Jem.

“Well, it was certainly one of the rumours, that she'd got herself pregnant. But there were so many rumours! She'd had a row with her foster parents, she'd gone off with her boyfriend, she'd met someone on the internet. If she
had
got herself pregnant, I doubt she'd have told her foster parents. Apparently they were very strict.”

Jem flashed a triumphant glance at me and Skye. “Told you so!” she said, as we walked back home afterwards.

“Told us
what
, exactly?” said Skye.

“That I was the reason she left home! And you heard what your auntie said… about her being a live wire? I'm a live wire!” said Jem. “I'm an up and down sort of person. I bubble and fizz!”

It was true; we couldn't deny it.

“But if she left home cos she was having a baby—” I said.

“You mean, having
me
,” said Jem.

“Well… maybe.”

“What d'you mean,
maybe
?” Jem practically screamed it at me. Since speaking to Auntie Cath, she'd got herself all worked up.
Very
fizzy and bubbly. “How much more proof do you need? She
said
. She
told
us. Sh—”

“Look, just shut up for a minute and let Frankie talk,” said Skye.

I was quite flattered when she said that; it's not very often anyone invites me to talk. Jem, needless to say, went off into a sulk.

“All I was wondering,” I said, “was where did she go?”

“I thought London,” said Skye.

“But she left Jem – I mean, the baby – whoever it was, she left it
here.
Why go all the way to London and then come back just to leave a baby in the churchyard?”

Jem made a loud, impatient, trumpeting noise. “She didn't come back! She wasn't
there.
”

“But she said—”

“
In the end
I found my way to London.” Jem obviously knew the article by heart. “Obviously she didn't go there till she'd had me. I reckon what happened, she covered things up as long as she could, like with baggy sweaters and stuff, cos you can do that,” said Jem. “I've heard of people doing that! They suddenly have babies and nobody even knew they were pregnant.”

“Yes, you said that before,” said Skye.

“Well, I'm just telling you… that's what obviously happened. Course, someone must have helped her. A friend, or someone. Maybe the one the police spoke to. Your auntie's friend's sister, who said she didn't know anything. That's cos she'd have been sworn to s— Oh!” Jem suddenly clapped a hand to her mouth. “We should have asked her! Your auntie! We should have asked her where she was.”

“What, her friend's sister?”

“Don't you see?” Jem flung out her arms. “She could be the one who helped her! Why didn't you ask?”

My mouth opened and shut like a goldfish. I glanced at Skye, to see if she had the answer, but it seemed she was just as clueless as I was. Why
hadn't
we asked? It was obvious, now I came to think of it. Mia couldn't have managed by herself; she'd have needed a friend.

“I
knew
I shouldn't have left things to you!” cried Jem. “We'll have to go back.”

“No, we can't,” said Skye. “I promised Mum I'd be home.”

“So me and Frankie'll go back.”

I somehow didn't fancy that. The last thing I wanted was to be a nuisance. “Maybe I could ring her,” I said.

“
Now!
Ring her
now
!”

So that was what I did, standing in the middle of the street, calling Auntie Cath to ask if she knew where we could find her friend's sister. Auntie Cath seemed a bit surprised.

“Why would you want to know that?”

Lamely, I mumbled that I was researching a project for school.

“Sounds to me,” said Auntie Cath, “like you're sticking your nose in where it doesn't belong! All this about Mia running away from home to have a baby… Even if she did – and it's a big if – it doesn't give you the right to go poking about in her private life.”

I protested that I wasn't, but of course I was, so I expect it didn't quite ring true.

“In any case, you're out of luck,” said Auntie Cath. “I lost touch with my friend Anna years ago, I have absolutely no idea where she's living. Or where her sister is. And I'm afraid I wouldn't tell you, even if I had. If you want to do research, I'm sure there's plenty of stuff you can get off the internet.”

I muttered, “OK. Sorry.”

“That's OK, I'm not having a go at you. I think perhaps you just got a bit overenthusiastic.”

“You don't have to tell Mum,” I said, “do you?”

“No, don't worry, I won't tell your mum!”

That was a relief. I didn't want Mum jumping to conclusions and reading me one of her lectures.
How many times have I told you, Frankie, not to interfere?

Jem was disgruntled. She said, “I bet she does know, really!”

“I'm not asking her again,” I said.

“If you'd asked her while we were there she might have said!”

“If you hadn't kept talking all the time when we'd already told you not to,” said Skye, “we might have had a chance. Now she's all suspicious and thinks we're prying.”

“It was you that made her suspicious,” said Jem. “Going on about me wanting ten babies!”

We were bickering now; all accusing one another.

“I blame you,” said Skye as we parted company, Jem going off down Addersley Drive and me and Skye continuing straight on.

“Why me?” I said. “Why do I always get the blame for everything?”

“You were the one that gave her the idea. It hadn't ever occurred to her to go looking for her birth mum till you went and suggested it.”

“Huh!” I brooded for a while, wondering whether to pursue the matter or just let it drop. I decided to let it drop. I am used to people saying things are my fault; it's nothing new. “Do you reckon Mia really could be her mum?” I said.

Skye thought about it. “It all fits. I just don't see how she's ever going to be able to prove it.”

I sighed. I didn't either. We seemed to have explored every possibility. But now she had come this far, she couldn't just stop.

It was what Jem herself said next morning, as we met up for school. “I can't just
stop
!”

“No, you can't,” I said. “There's got to be other things we can do.”

I glared at Skye, daring her to be negative, but she nodded in a brisk and businesslike way and said, “We'll make a list.” Skye is always making lists. She makes lists of everything. Things to Do, Things to Remember, Things to Look Up, Things to Think About. “We'll do it at break,” she said. She looked warningly at me and Jem. “Not during lessons!”

At break we were heading to our usual spot when this big bossy girl from our class, Daisy Hooper, came bounding up.