My Mum's from Planet Pluto by Gwyneth Rees

Author:Gwyneth Rees [Rees, Gwyneth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780330471176
Publisher: Macmillan Children's Books

9

First thing the next morning Dad phoned us. He was phoning from the hospital. Grandma had taken a turn for the worse and had been rushed into hospital a few hours ago. Dad said she wasn’t going to have a blood transfusion this time because there wasn’t any point.

Mum had picked up the phone first and I stood by, listening as he told all of this to her. She kept saying, ‘I’m sorry, darling,’ over and over. She looked a bit dazed and, when she’d finished speaking to him, she put the phone down straight away instead of handing it over to me.

‘I wanted to speak to him,’ I said.

‘Later, Daniel. You can’t just now. Your grandmother sounds like she’s fading fast.’

It wasn’t that I didn’t care about what was happening to my grandmother, but I had other things I needed to ask Mum about since I obviously couldn’t ask Dad now. ‘Mum . . . what you said last night—’ I began, but I had to stop as Martha came running into the room to remind us that if we didn’t hurry up we’d all be late for school.

I waited until we’d dropped Martha off before tackling Mum again. (I was letting her give me a lift to school too today because we were running so late.) ‘Mum, what did you mean last night about that baby not being Martha?’ I asked.

Mum turned to look at me. ‘Listen, Daniel . . .’ She seemed suddenly distracted by my school tie. Her eyes lit up as she started to tell me her latest idea for our new school uniform. She was going to commission the same dressmaker who had made many of Princess Diana’s clothes to design it for her.

‘But, Mum, what about—’

‘Red is a much better colour for a school than grey!’ she interrupted. ‘We’ll change everything grey to red! Pillar-box red or strawberry red? What do you think?’

‘Mum, stop it!’

‘Stop what?’

‘Stop acting like . . . like you did with the book sale! Stop acting like your ideas are more important than everybody else’s!’

She laughed. ‘They are more important! I’m the head!’

‘But, Mum, it’s not like the school belongs to you!’ I protested. ‘I mean, what about all the other teachers? What about what they think?’

‘Daniel,’ she laughed again. ‘You are so serious! So like your dad . . . always worrying!’ And she planted a big kiss on my cheek even though I’d have rather she’d just kept facing straight ahead since she was driving round a roundabout at the time.

We were almost at the school, so I made her stop the car to let me out before anyone saw us together. I would have to wait until this evening to ask her what she’d meant about Martha not being the baby in those photographs. But I was going to ask her just the same.

In assembly, I sat there keeping much more still than I normally do, wishing I could sink through the floor and disappear, because Mum was wearing her most hideous skirt-and-cardigan combination yet.

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