Breakfast at Sadie's Page 5

  I threw the towels on the floor. ‘It's not just housework!’ I shouted. ‘Don't you get it? It's Mum's business, and you're ruining it!’

  Aunt Leona's face grew redder and redder, like a ripening tomato. ‘I am not ruining it!’ she yelled. ‘I'm trying my best—’

  ‘You're not! You're not cooking the breakfasts right, and people are having to wait for their rooms, and then the rooms look awful – you're not doing any of it right!’

  Her voice dropped deadly low, trembling. ‘That's it, Sadie. I'm not going to stay here and put up with this abuse when I'm trying my best. You can just do it all. It's yours.’

  She wheeled away from the doorway. A second later I heard her running down the stairs.

  Well, fine. At least with her gone, I could get on with it and finish up the rooms. I jerked at the duvet cover, pulling it taut, and rinsed out the coffee cups in the sink. I was just getting clean towels from the linen cupboard on the landing when the man with the white moustache came upstairs, his brown leather shoes whispering against the carpet.

  ‘Excuse me, is my room made up yet? I'm checking out at five a.m. tomorrow, and I need to pack. The lady who just left said I should ask you.’

  ‘Ask me?’ I repeated stupidly, clutching the towels.

  His moustache came down over his mouth. ‘Well, she said she was in too much of a hurry – that she had a flight to catch.’

  I stared at him, my arms suddenly cold with goosebumps. ‘What . . . ?’

  The man let out a breath and shook his head. Moving past me, he peered into Room Two. ‘Well, good. About time.’ He took the towels from me, and the door closed after him with a click.

  It had hardly shut before I was racing down the stairs.

  Our Dream Day

  I ran through our flat, calling Aunt Leona's name and pounding all the doors open. My voice echoed back to me. In Mum's room, the bed was unmade and a dirty teacup sat on the bedside table.

  Aunt Leona's suitcases were gone. I rushed to the window and shoved the curtains aside, looking out at the car park. Her red Vauxhall had gone, too.

  No! I grabbed for the phone on Mum's bedside table, and dialled her mobile number. A smooth electronic voice cut into the first ring. I am sorry, but the Goldphone user you are dialling is currently unavailable . . .

  The rest of the afternoon passed in a daze. I paced about the empty flat, biting my nails and trying over and over again to ring Aunt Leona. I left four messages for her, which probably all sounded exactly the same – I'm really, really sorry, please come back! I almost started laughing as I was leaving the last one, or crying, or a mix of both. This was just completely mad.

  When it started to get dark, I warmed up some frozen chicken nuggets from the freezer, and ate them in front of the TV. A stupid programme about people buying a hotel in France was on. ‘We just love it here!’ cooed the woman. ‘We're so happy; this is our dream day.’

  The chicken nuggets tasted like cardboard, catching at my throat. Occasionally I heard the front door open, and I'd jerk up and turn the sound down – but it was always just guests coming in, their soft footsteps heading up the stairs.

  After the third time this happened, I sat back tensely on the sofa, chewing my thumbnail as the room pressed around me. Aunt Leona could not have actually flown off to the Canaries!

  Could she?

  Her holiday was for three weeks, she had said so. And meanwhile, I'd . . . I'd what? What would happen if people found out she had left me here? My heart jumped off a cliff, thinking about it.

  No, stop it. I grabbed the remote and turned up the volume for the TV. ‘Ooh, and just look, we can see the vineyards from our balcony,’ the woman gushed. She swept her arm at the view.

  I settled down to watch, and tried to ignore the icicles piercing my stomach. There was no way that Aunt Leona would take off on holiday and leave me here. She'd be back by the time I got up in the morning, just like nothing had happened.

  You're Hired

  Only she wasn't.

  The Goldphone user you are dialling . . .

  I hung up the phone slowly, the electronic voice echoing in my ear as I stood in the empty lounge. She had really left. No, hang on, be sensible – she couldn't have actually gone to the Canaries, so she must just be in London. Maybe just for the day, just to scare me. She'd be back. She would.

  I spun round, shaking, as I heard voices come down the stairs and head into the dining room. It was seven o’clock. People were out there wanting breakfast.

  And I had to cook it for them. There was no one else.

  Forget Aunt Leona, just do it! I rushed into my room to get changed, pulling on jeans and a top. On second thoughts, I swapped the jeans for a pair of black trousers. I scanned myself quickly in the mirror. Thank God I was so tall. Did I look sixteen, though? I grabbed a hair clip and pulled my long blonde hair back in a ponytail, hoping to add a few more years.

  As I went back into the kitchen, I could hear more people coming downstairs. Don't panic, just get to work! I pulled the fridge open. Sausages, eggs, tomatoes—

  I stopped, staring. Where was the bacon? I hunted through the fridge, shoving juice and milk aside. We couldn't have run out of bacon; we never ran out. Or at least we never ran out when Mum was here to do the shopping.

  Never mind, I'd skip the bacon. I grabbed the ingredients we did have, and piled them on the counter. Except – except what would happen if someone complained that the breakfasts had gone downhill, and wanted to speak to an adult?

  I found Mum's diary, and dialled a number.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Marcus, do you still want to help out with our B&B for your report?’

  His voice turned squeaky with excitement. ‘Yes! You know I do!’

  ‘Well, you're hired. Get over here as soon as you can – and bring bacon.’

  ‘What? Um . . . Sadie, where am I supposed to get bacon?’

  ‘I don't care! Just get as much as you can, and hurry.’ I hung up. My hands felt numb as I took the notepad from the counter and went into the dining room.

  Four of the tables were full, with a couple sitting at each. They looked like all the other gazillions of guests I had seen coming and going over the years. Except that this time I had to deal with them.

  Looking down at my notepad, I licked my lips and said, ‘Hi – um, what would you like for breakfast?’

  The couple at Table Four looked tanned and healthy, like sailors or golfers. ‘Two Full English Breakfasts,’ said the man, unfolding his serviette. He wore a gold signet ring on his pinky. ‘And we'd like the Full English this morning, please.’

  ‘Have you any Earl Grey tea?’ asked his wife. She had sleek brown hair, and wore little pearl earrings.

  ‘Um . . . I think so.’ I wrote it down.

  She snapped her menu shut and handed it to me. Her mouth looked pinched. ‘Also, we don't like to complain, but our room wasn't made up yesterday.’

  Heat throbbed at my temples. I had forgotten about finishing up the rooms yesterday after Aunt Leona had left. God, how could I be so stupid?

  ‘Oh, I'm – I'm sorry,’ I stammered. ‘It's just that my mum is ill . . .’

  At the next table, a woman with silvery hair leaned over. ‘Actually, our room wasn't made up either,’ she said apologetically.

  ‘They'll all get done today, I promise,’ I said, clenching the notepad.

  Pushing the rooms out of my head for now, I took the rest of the orders. A few minutes later I headed back into the kitchen, my head spinning with Full English, no hash browns and scrambled eggs, not fried.

  Marcus stood at the back door, peering in through the window. I ran for it, pulling it open. He was clutching two packs of bacon to his chest. ‘I've got some!’ His glasses sat askew on his nose. ‘My mum had a couple of packs—’

  ‘Oh, thank God!’ I grabbed them from him and plunged into cooking, feverishly melting butter and breaking eggs into the frying pan.

  Marcus straightened h
is glasses with a finger. ‘What should I do?’

  ‘Um, you could start making some toast. No, wait—’ I grabbed him as he headed for the bread. ‘Pour some orange juice into the jugs first, they're in that cabinet – and start making the tea and coffee.’

  He tutted. ‘Sadie, this doesn't seem very well organized. Don't you have a plan or something that you follow?’

  ‘No, I don't. Just do it!’

  He pulled a small notebook out of his back pocket and wrote something in it. I grabbed it off him and chucked it onto the counter. ‘Marcus, come on! Juice, coffee!’

  His mouth pursed. ‘All right. You don't have to shout.’

  When we got the first few breakfasts done, I took them to the dining room with my heart jammed in my throat. Please God, let my cooking be OK, even though I'd had to pick bits of shell out of the eggs and the first batch of mushrooms got burned.

  ‘I ordered scrambled eggs,’ said the man at Table Five, frowning down at the plate I had put in front of him.

  ‘Oh, I'm sorry, I— I forgot to tell my mum,’ I gasped. ‘I'll take it back and ask her to redo it—’ I reached for the plate.

  He made a face. ‘No, don't bother.’

  ‘I'm really sorry,’ I muttered. I wrote it down, and I still managed to get it wrong! My face burned as I hurried back towards the kitchen. I almost ran into two women who had just come downstairs.

  ‘Oh, sorry! If you'll just sit down, I'll be there in a minute—’

  The older one gave me a stiff smile. ‘Fine. And do you suppose our room might get made up today? We're out of fresh towels.’

  But That's Illegal

  It was like that until almost nine-thirty, with Marcus and me racing about the kitchen, and me taking plate after plate out – and then suddenly I realized that everyone had eaten, and the place was starting to empty. That's what always happened. People didn't hang about at the B&B, they wanted to get out and do things for the day.

  ‘You know, you could actually help with this bit,’ I said to Marcus as I carried in a pile of dishes and teetered them beside the sink. He was leaning against the fridge, writing painstakingly in his notebook.

  The light sparkled off his spectacles as he looked up. ‘You could be bringing in those dishes a lot more efficiently, Sadie.’

  ‘Yes, too right! You could be helping me.’

  The shrill of the phone pierced the air. Aunt Leona! I started to grab it, and then stopped as my fingers touched the receiver. No, hang on – what if it was school, asking where I was?

  Ring-ring! Ring-ring!

  Think! What was Aunt Leona's voice like? Not as low as Mum's, plus she had this stupid, drawling London accent now that she'd lived there for two years.

  I picked up the phone. ‘Hello, Grace's Place.’

  ‘Yes, hello, this is Mrs Clark from Drake Secondary School. Is that Mrs Harris?’

  ‘ Miss Harris, actually,’ I said snootily in my Aunt Leona voice.

  ‘Oh – sorry. I was just ringing to check on Sadie; she wasn't present when we took the register this morning.’

  I twined the cord around my fingers. ‘No, she's ill; I was just going to ring.’

  ‘Oh, dear . . . what's wrong with her?’ Mrs Clark sounded like she was writing something down.

  Marcus stared at me from across the kitchen. I half-turned away. ‘I'm not sure; some sort of bug – she was up all night, being sick. She might be out for a few days, actually.’

  ‘I see. Well, will you be picking up her schoolwork for her, so she can keep up?’

  ‘Oh – well, yes, if I have time. I'm very busy at the moment, running this B&B for my sister—’

  ‘Or we could have one of her friends drop the work by.’

  No way! If Hannah or that lot got wind of what had happened, the whole school would know in an hour.

  ‘No, that's all right, I'll come by. Or – or you never know, she might be better after today.’

  ‘Well, we'll ring again tomorrow if we don't see her, just to check.’

  When I hung up the phone, my palms were wet. I sank against the kitchen counter.

  ‘Sadie, what's going on?’ Marcus's eyes were almost the size of his glasses.

  I bit my lip. ‘Um . . . well, I think I'm in really big trouble.’

  His eyes bulged. ‘What have you done?’

  ‘ I haven't done anything, you berk! It's my aunt, she's left!’ I explained about Mum being in hospital, and what had happened with Aunt Leona, and he gaped at me.

  ‘But that's illegal,’ he said. ‘She can't just leave you.’

  ‘Well, she has done, funnily enough.’

  ‘Well, you should tell her it's illegal, and that she could go to jail.’ He folded his arms over his chest, looking like a midget headmaster.

  I opened my mouth to say something, and then closed it as the phone rang again. I picked up the receiver. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Sadie?’ Aunt Leona's voice sounded scratchy and far away.

  I jerked up straight. ‘Aunt Leona! Where are you?’

  ‘The— the Canaries.’

  A cold chill gripped me. ‘You didn't really go there!’

  ‘Sadie, I'm sorry! I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have come; I've made an awful mistake – I was so angry that I wasn't thinking, and then the plane took off and it was too late—’

  ‘Come back! Can't you come back?’

  Her voice sounded shrill, panicked. ‘I've been trying all morning! But the return flight's already paid for; it costs hundreds of pounds to change it, and I don't have any money! I'm over the limit on all my charge cards—’

  ‘What about Ron?’

  ‘You're joking; he hasn't got any money! I think he took out a loan or something for the holiday.’

  ‘Then use Mum's bank card; can't you do that?’ Mum had given Aunt Leona her bank card at the hospital, to do the shopping with.

  ‘I can't! I checked this morning, and she's only got about forty pounds in the account. Besides, if I did that she'd know I went, and – and I don't want her to know. Don't tell her, OK? Sadie, promise me!’

  Marcus stood in front of me, mouthing, ‘Tell her she could go to jail!’

  I turned away, clenching the phone. ‘Well, what am I supposed to say to her? I think she'll notice that you're not about!’

  ‘I'll ring her. I'll pretend I'm there or something.’

  Sand grated my throat. ‘So you've flown off to the Canaries on holiday and you're not coming back, is that what you're saying?’

  ‘I can't, that's what I'm saying! I'm stuck here for the whole three weeks! Oh, Sadie, I'm sorry; are you going to be OK?’

  ‘No! How could I be? I can't run a B&B on my own! I—’

  ‘Sadie, hang on, you're fading . . . I think my battery's dying . . .’

  A river of static flowed down the phone, prickling my ear. And then Aunt Leona was gone.

  I hung the phone up slowly, shaking.

  ‘You didn't tell her she could be arrested,’ said Marcus sternly.

  ‘Marcus, not now; I have to think!’ I paced about the kitchen, biting my thumb. What was I going to do? I couldn't handle this on my own. I had to tell Mum, no matter what Aunt Leona said.

  But what would happen if I did? I stopped pacing and looked around me at the shiny white cabinets that my dad had painted, imagining Aunt Leona being arrested. Me taken into care. The B&B closed down for months, not making any money, when we hardly had any to start with.

  Mum's frightened voice: I'd have to give refunds to dozens of people, and I just don't have the money . . .

  I scraped both hands through my hair. ‘Marcus, look, I'm – I'm just going to have to run the B&B on my own for a while. Until Aunt Leona's back.’

  His face lit up. ‘Cool! Can I help?’

  ‘Yes, but you can't tell anyone, OK? It's hugely important. No one can know she's not here.’

  ‘I won't tell anybody!’ He was practically quivering with excitement. ‘This is great; we can do loads of stuff on
our own – work out marketing plans, and—’

  ‘I don't care about marketing plans, Marcus! We just can't let anyone know what's going on, that's all – and God, what about school? I can't be ill until the holidays; they'll send someone to check. I have to go back so they won't suspect anything, only I can't be at school and do this, too—’ Panic strangled my voice.

  Marcus opened up his notebook and straightened his glasses. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘This is not a problem. We can figure it out. We just need to decide on a plan of action.’

  Mum's Handbag

  ‘ Lost it?’ Mum struggled to sit up and failed, falling back against her pillow. ‘Is she sure?’

  I nodded, unable to meet her eyes. ‘Yeah, she says she left your bank card at the shops yesterday, but not to worry, ‘cause she rang the bank and cancelled it last night. But she wondered if you had any cash to buy groceries with for a couple of days.’

  ‘Well, my handbag should be in that closet.’ Mum shook her head, frowning. ‘Has she ordered a new card, then?’

  ‘I guess.’ The bit about leaving it at the shops had been Marcus's idea – his mum had done the same thing a few months ago.

  I found Mum's handbag and brought it over to the bed. I felt so awful lying to her, but I didn't know what else to do. I had to buy groceries for tomorrow. And I only had about six pounds.

  Mum shifted. ‘Have a look in my wallet.’

  I snapped open her red leather wallet with the Scotty dog on it. ‘You've got . . . thirty pounds. And some change.’

  ‘Right, well, give her that – it won't last long, though. Tell her to let me know if the new bank card doesn't arrive soon.’ Her dark eyebrows were knitted worriedly together.

  ‘OK.’ I put the money in my pocket, looking down. ‘Um, she said she'd ring you soon. She's just sort of busy with Grace's, that's all.’

  Mum let out a breath. ‘She's annoyed because she has to run it for me, isn't she? That's why she hasn't been to see me again.’

  I licked my lips. ‘Well—’