Breakfast at Sadie's Read online

  But the main thing I see in Mum's room is her eyes. They are milk-chocolate brown with soft hazel flecks that catch the light, which I never noticed before she came into hospital and we spent so much time looking at each other.

  I'm very glad that I've seen my mother's eyes now, and know exactly what they look like, so that I can shut my own eyes and see them whenever I want to.

  I stopped, and looked at her from under my hair. ‘That's um . . . that's all. She gave me a B on it; she said she had to take something off for my spelling.’

  Mum swallowed. ‘Oh, Sadie . . .’ She reached for my hand, gripped it as hard as she could. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered.

  It's Also on Powerpoint

  I hummed to myself as I rearranged the photos on the end tables, adjusting them so that they made perfect angles. Dad smiled at me from one of them, holding up his paintbrush like a salute – that was the day he and Mum had got into a paint fight as he was doing up one of the rooms. I smiled back, remembering, and then turned away and dusted the table until it gleamed. There was no reason to, really – Aunt Leona and I had cleaned everything the day before, before she went back to London – but I liked seeing the wood shine.

  Mum sat at the dining table, going through the mountain of post that had piled up over the summer. Her hands still shook slightly as she slit the envelopes open, but Dr Sarjeem had said that would fade away over the next few weeks.

  ‘And then you'll be back to your old self again,’ he had said, smiling at her. Mum had winked at me when he said it. ‘Well, maybe not quite,’ she said.

  Suddenly she jerked up straight in her chair, as though cement had been poured down her spine. ‘Why – what on earth—?’

  I looked up. ‘What?’

  Her brown hair had grown longer in hospital, and it fluffed about her face, making her cheekbones look softer. She shook her head, staring at a sheet of paper. ‘There's been some mistake, there must have been! This can't be my bank balance!’

  I put my cloth down and went over and looked. The list of deposits marched down the sheet, regular as breakfast. The total was . . . a lot, actually. My eyes widened as I stared at it.

  Mum twisted in her chair to look up at me. ‘Sadie, is this right? How much has Leona been putting in, do you know?’

  ‘Um . . .’ I looked down at the sheet, trying to work out all the figures. ‘We were really busy all summer; we made deposits a few times a week. I never really checked how much was in there . . .’ I trailed off.

  Mum flipped through the sheets. ‘Four hundred and seven pounds deposited on September thirtieth . . . three hundred and sixty pounds on the twenty-seventh . . . usually I don't have anything left after the direct debits for the bills have gone out!’

  ‘Those sound right,’ I said faintly. Had they really added up to that much?

  Both of us jumped as the back door opened and closed. A second later Marcus came into the room, holding a blue plastic folder. A lock of his brown hair stuck up in the back like he had gelled it, only being Marcus, he probably didn't even know that gel existed.

  ‘Hi, Mrs Pollock. My mum told me you were home from hospital,’ he said cheerfully.

  ‘Oh, hello, Marcus.’ Mum frowned back down at the statement, running a finger down the rows of figures.

  He wiped his glasses on the front of his white shirt, and shot me a look. ‘See, Sadie? I told you that statistically, the odds were in her favour. Appliance of science. You should be more logical, instead of getting all upset.’

  My face burned with irritation. ‘I didn't hear you knock, Marcus.’

  He squinted at me, and hooked his glasses back on. ‘Why would I knock? Anyway, it's your mum I've come to see. I thought she'd like to see my business analysis of Grace's.’ He held up the folder.

  ‘A— your what?’ Mum blinked, looking up.

  ‘I've also got it on Powerpoint, if you'd like a presentation.’ He pulled a CD out of the folder. It glinted like liquid silver.

  Dad Would Approve

  A few minutes later the three of us were clustered around the computer as Marcus flipped through multi-coloured slides. ‘OK, this picture of the sad, skinny house represents the year before you went into hospital. Look at the graph – do you see how business is so sporadic here? Your bank balance stays reasonably constant, but after your outgoings, you—’

  ‘ Hang on,’ interrupted Mum, looking stunned. ‘How did you get my bank balance?’

  ‘I looked in your accounts folder on the PC, of course.’ Marcus clicked the mouse, and the picture changed. ‘Right, so here the house is looking more cheerful. This is the two-week period just after you went into hospital, when it was just Sadie and me on our own. We implemented several changes immediately, starting with—’

  ‘What?’ Mum's eyes bulged.

  The ocean roared through my head, knocking me off my feet. My hands clenched as I stared at Marcus's moronic picture of the happier house. I couldn't look at Mum.

  ‘We implemented—’

  ‘What do you mean, just Sadie and you on your own? Where was Leona?’

  ‘Well, she'd left—’ Marcus stopped, his face ripening. ‘Um . . .’

  Mum whipped about in her seat and stared at me. ‘ Sadie? Where was Leona? What does he mean, she left?’

  My throat had gravel in it. ‘She . . . she went to the Canaries,’ I whispered.

  Mum slumped back in her chair. No one said anything for a moment. The computer hummed to itself.

  ‘I knew it,’ said Mum finally. ‘I didn't want to know it, but I knew it anyway . . .’

  Marcus cleared his throat. ‘OK, um, moving on . . . now we have a picture of a fat, happy house. This is after the website went live, once—’

  Mum pushed her chair back and stood up. ‘Marcus,’ she said gently. ‘Go home. Come back in an hour or so. We'll look at your presentation then.’

  ‘Oh. OK.’ Marcus saved the presentation and logged off, moving the mouse about the mat. ‘It's not completely finished anyway. I must be overlooking something in the figures – your business has got loads better, but I know it can't all be down to the website, because only around fifteen per cent of bookings come from that. I'm still trying to figure it out.’ His glasses furrowed onto his nose as he frowned.

  ‘See you soon, Marcus,’ prompted Mum.

  ‘Bye, Mrs Pollock. Bye, Sadie.’ He hopped off the chair, picking up his folder.

  Mum looked at me after the door closed, her expression flat. ‘What happened, then?’

  So I told her.

  It took ages, and at the end I sat in my chair, frozen, waiting for the explosion. But she just stood there looking dazed, her face a complete blank. I cleared my throat. ‘Mum, we didn't tell you because you were so ill – we didn't want you to worry—’

  ‘I just can't believe that Leona did that,’ whispered Mum. ‘She left you, all on your own—’

  ‘Oh, it was OK,’ I said awkwardly. ‘I mean, it was sort of hard to keep everything going and not get caught, but—’

  I broke off as she pulled me up into a bone-breaking hug. ‘Oh, Sadie, don't say a word. Just—I'm so proud of you, you know that?’ Suddenly her voice sounded scratchy again, like the first day without her tube.

  Tears filled my eyes. I hugged her back, not saying anything. Through the open window, I could hear seagulls, and the faint murmur of the bay. I held onto Mum tightly as the soft scent of her apple shampoo wrapped around me.

  Finally we let each other go. Both of our faces were damp, and we burst out laughing as we looked at each other.

  ‘What a pair, eh,’ Mum blew her nose.

  I wiped my eyes and nodded. ‘Pathetic. Like a pair of leaky taps.’ She dabbed at her nose again. ‘You know what?’ she said. ‘I've been thinking that Marcus might need to do a bit more work on that brilliant website of his.’

  I blinked, wondering what Marcus's website had to do with anything. ‘But – he says he's got it all fixed.’

  Mum put on a musing e
xpression, resting a finger on her chin and looking around the room. ‘Yes, I know, but I was thinking that it might be about time for a change. I mean, Grace's Place . . . it's sort of an old-fashioned name, don't you think?’

  I clutched her arm. ‘ Mum! You can't change the name! It's what Dad named it—’

  ‘Oh, I think he'd approve of this, actually.’ Mum smiled at me, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. ‘I think it would be nice to call it Sadie's Place.’

  Also by Lee Weatherly:

  CHILD X

  MISSING ABBY

  Published by Laurel-Leaf

  an imprint of Random House Children's Books

  a division of Random House, Inc.

  New York

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2005 by Lee Weatherly

  Illustration copyright © 2005 by Tracey Hurst

  and Jerry Paris

  All rights reserved.

  Originally published in hardcover in Great Britain by David Fickling Books in 2005. This edition published by arrangement with David Fickling Books.

  Laurel-Leaf and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

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  RL: 7.0

  eISBN: 978-0-375-84659-5

  v3.0