How It Was by Janet Ellis

Author:Janet Ellis [Ellis, Janet]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781473625198
Publisher: John Murray Press
Published: 2019-08-07T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 45

3 October

I didn’t want Eddie to tell Mum about the car that had nearly hit him. I couldn’t help imagining him all mashed and broken and me not even being allowed to cry about it, because it would have been my fault. I said why don’t we play with the doll’s house together. I moved it into his room ages ago. He said it was a girl’s thing, but I know he likes arranging the rooms and sitting the figures on the little chairs. He didn’t even pretend not to want to, so I sat cross-legged next to him while he made the doll’s house people talk to each other. Sometimes, he just turned round and grinned at me. His two front teeth on the top and bottom are huge next to the baby ones beside them. It makes him look extra happy when he smiles.

I keep thinking about Bobbie walking across the playground towards me last week. I can still see her swinging hair and the way she looked as if someone had just told her a funny story and she was going to burst out laughing. She said it was groovy that her dad came to my house. I wanted to say it was amazing when he said her name. I wanted to tell her that my mother had made me want to blow up at her because of the way she carried on about him after. Bobbie told me that her dad had a habit of collecting people. She said he likes to make connections. She made it sound as if they’d slot together as easily as Lego bricks.

It wasn’t like that. The more they’d stared at each other, the more I could see that they shouldn’t ever be alone. They made each other look jagged and awkward. They were the exact opposite of a perfect fit. But all I could do was open and close my mouth like a fish, while Bobbie went on as if it was normal for our parents to fancy each other.

I wanted to say if he collected anyone, he’d collected me, instead. I’m the one who could stop him getting to my mother. And I will.

Eddie made a terrible smell. He laughed loudly when I scrambled to my feet waving my hands in front of my face. He said he was King Pong and started jumping from his bed to the floor like a monkey, beating his tiny chest.

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