An Island of Our Own

  Jonathan is in charge of the details. He goes round and wipes the coffee drips off the kitchen cabinets, and dusts the mantelpiece, and windowsills, and cleans the bathroom.

  A review is what you’re supposed to have every six months if you’re in foster care, which Davy and I are technically are, even though we just live with our brother in the same flat we always did. This way Jonathan is technically a foster carer, so he gets money from the government for looking after us. I wasn’t sure I wanted to be in care at first, because I thought it meant that social workers could come and take us away if they thought Jonathan wasn’t doing a good enough job. But it turns out that social workers don’t actually like taking kids away, and we need the money. And also this way we have someone to ring up if we need help.

  Lots of people come to a review. There’s me and Davy and Jonathan, and my and Davy’s social worker, who is called Abigail, and Jonathan’s social worker, who is called Philip, and the person in charge of the review, who is called Sheila.

  We’re also supposed to have someone come from school. This is easy for Davy, who just has his classroom teacher. It’s a bit more complicated for me, now I’m in secondary school. The first review after I started at St Augustine’s, I had my form tutor come. The second time, the time before our story starts, I had my head of year, Mr Matthews. Mr Matthews was all right. I didn’t really know him. He was the person who came out of his office and told us all to shut up when we were messing about at lunchtimes, and who handed out merit certificates when you got ten stickers in your planner, which was even less of a big deal than it sounds. It was seriously weird seeing him there in our living room. I don’t even have my school friends round to our flat, mostly because it’s too embarrassing trying to explain why it’s always a mess.

  Davy had his review first, and I had to wait upstairs while that was happening. Davy’s review would be fine, I knew. Davy is the sort of little kid everyone likes. I was a bit worried about his homework, because we don’t always manage to make sure that gets done. He usually finishes his worksheets and things, because he hates being told off, so he worries until he’s done them, and it’s not like you have to force him to sit down and work or anything. But things like spelling and tables, where you just have to learn things, we often don’t bother with.

  Davy’s review didn’t take that long. I sat upstairs and read my book. I like books a lot. At the moment, I’m mostly reading books about detectives, or about the end of the world. I love Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie, and I don’t even mind that they’re grown-up books. I’m only twelve when this story starts, but I read lots of grown-up books. Most of the grown-up books I read aren’t much more difficult or scary than books for people my age. I mean, even Agatha Christie never kills twenty-two kids in one book, like they do in The Hunger Games.

  After what felt like ages but really wasn’t that long, I heard Davy’s feet tramping up the stairs to my room. Our flat is half of an old Victorian house that once had four storeys. The bottom storey is Ranjit’s fish and chip shop. Then there’s the living room and the kitchen. Then Davy’s room (which he used to share with Jonathan but doesn’t any more because now Jonathan sleeps in my mum’s old room) and the bathroom. Jonathan and I sleep right in the roof, in the rooms that used to belong to servants. My room is little, with a slopey roof and a skylight and a dormer window that sticks out of the roof. When I lie in bed at night, I can hear the rain battering down right above my head, and the goods trains rattling through the night. I love it.

  “Your turn,” said Davy, coming through into my room. He looked very small and sweet.

  “Did it go OK?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “Mrs Henderson brought all my pictures,” he said. “And my topic book, and my maths book. And they asked if I wanted anything to be different, and I said I didn’t.”

  All the grown-ups were sitting in the living room when I went down. Our living room isn’t that big, so they were mostly sitting on kitchen chairs. Mrs Henderson was just leaving. She knows me from picking Davy up from school.

  “Hello, Holly,” she said, smiling at me. “How’s it going?”

  “Good,” I said. “Brilliant, actually. Nothing to worry about.”

  I didn’t say that to the other grown-ups, though. It’s stupid to not have enough money to buy things like new shoes, when the state is supposed to be looking after you. And I was going to tell them so.

  “We need more money,” I said.

  The social workers exchanged glances.

  Jonathan said, “Holly. Don’t be rude.” Like normally he makes me be so polite!

  “What?” I said. “We do. We were all right before,” I explained, looking directly at the two social workers, “because we had Mum’s savings. But we’ve spent them. And now there’s loads of stuff I need. School shoes, and a school bag, and our form’s supposed to be going to Alton Towers at the end of term, and we need money for that.” I gave them a stern look.

  Jonathan’s social worker, Philip-the-dull, said, “Is this true, Jonathan?”

  “Well.” Jonathan looked embarrassed. “Well. Yes. I was going to talk to you about it, actually. There are some things we need, and we don’t really have the money to pay for them.”

  “And foster kids aren’t supposed to be starving, are we?” I burst in. “I mean, not that we’re starving, but, you know. We should have school bags, shouldn’t we?”

  “Yes, you should,” said my social worker, Abigail. She leant forward. “I was going to talk to Jonathan about this, actually. The thing is, Holly, there are two levels of foster-care allowance. Jonathan’s on the lower level, because he’s a family member, you understand? But if you really can’t cope on the lower level, we can see about getting you transferred to the higher level. We talked about it at the last review, didn’t we?”

  “Yes,” said Jonathan. He looked – I’m not sure, exactly. Awkward. Ashamed? “I do try,” he said. “It’s just when… things happen unexpectedly. They tip us up.”

  “That’s life, I’m afraid,” said Philip-the-dull. He made a note in his book. “OK. I’m not promising anything, but I think we can probably swing it. I’m not sure how long it’ll take, though, so don’t buy anything expensive for the next couple of months, OK?”

  “But I’m sure we’ll be able to get some money released for Alton Towers, Holly,” said Abigail, smiling at me.

  “And school shoes,” said Jonathan. “Holly’s got a whacking great hole in the sole, haven’t you, Holl.”

  “Of course,” said Abigail. She made another note. “Shall we talk about your school work now, Holly?”

  I gave an enormous groan. “It’s mostly OK,” I said. By which I meant, the subjects I like are OK. “You know,” I said hopefully, “I read about this scheme where kids got paid money to go to school. We couldn’t do that, could we?”

  “Hmm,” said Abigail. “No. We couldn’t.”

  WEIRD THINGS ABOUT BEING PRETEND GROWN-UPS

  I know really that I’m a kid and Jonathan’s in charge of me, but it’s not that simple because I do just as much washing-up as he does, and also because when there are difficult decisions to be made, I at least get a say in what we do. If Mum was a proper grown-up, and Jonathan is maybe three-quarters grown-up, then I’m at least a quarter grown-up. Maybe even a half.

  Like, take the thing that happened the Friday after the review. Gran rang to say that Mum’s Auntie Irene had had a stroke and was very ill in hospital, and could we go and visit her on Saturday, because Gran didn’t have anyone to leave Grandad with. I wanted to say no, because it’s our Saturday, and we can do what we want with our own Saturday, and isn’t that the best part about not having our lives run by grown-ups? And also because I like Auntie Irene, and I don’t like hospitals, and I didn’t really want to have to go and see what Auntie Irene looked like in one if I didn’t have to. I like happy things, not sad ones.

&
nbsp; “Let’s not,” I said to Jonathan. “It’ll just be weird, and she probably won’t even know we’re there, and… it’s not like we see her that much when she’s well. Why should we suddenly go and see her now?”

  But Jonathan said part of being a pretend grown-up is actually doing the grown-up bits, otherwise we’re just kids, and if we’re just kids then this whole thing falls apart. And also he wanted to see Auntie Irene, because he liked Auntie Irene, and if Mum was here, she’d go. Which is true. She would. Keeping in touch with relations was one of the things Mum was good at and me and Jonathan are bad at. We still get loads of Christmas cards at Christmas, and we never send any back. Well, Davy and I send ones to the kids at school, but that’s it. I feel bad about that, and also like there’s this important part of being a grown-up that we’re missing. So then I decided that Jonathan was right, and going to see Auntie Irene was absolutely what we ought to do.

  Even though I didn’t really want to.

  AUNTIE IRENE’S STORY

  This is who Auntie Irene was.

  Auntie Irene was little and fierce, like my mum. She was also really, really smart. When they were kids, Grandad went to the school at the end of the road and left at fourteen. But Auntie Irene won a scholarship to grammar school. And then she went to university, and studied Further Advanced Engineering For Really Brainy People. Or something like that, anyway.

  And then… well, I’m not exactly sure what happened next, but it ended up with her getting a job designing machines in a big designing-machines factory. (Probably. That’s totally a thing, right?) And then she left the designing-machines place and set up her own company as an inventor. I know! A real, genuine inventor! I’ve seen photographs, and basically it was a big laboratory thing, where Auntie Irene and lots of her engineer buddies sat around with drawing boards and machines and invented stuff.

  Auntie Irene said it wasn’t really like that. She said mostly they worked to commission – people would call them up and say, “Can you design us a super-fast bicycle to send to the Olympics?” Or a new type of safety belt. Or whatever. And then they’d do it. She said sometimes it was a lot of fun, and sometimes it was boring, but what it usually was was “profitable”.

  Auntie Irene had lots of money. I’m not sure how much, because I never asked, but lots. She had a lovely big house in the country with a swimming pool, and an orchard with lots of apple trees, and she used to have a yacht when she was young, but she sold it when she got old.

  “Never get old, kiddos,” she used to say to us. “Getting old is the pits.”

  Auntie Irene liked us, I think. She liked my mum, anyway. She used to do things with my mum when she came to London, which was quite a lot. When I was little, she did things with me and Jonathan too. She took us to see The Phantom of the Opera when I was six, and she used to sit and have long, tech-y conversations with Jonathan about telescopes, and electrons, and computers. She was my favourite relation after Gran and Grandad.

  Mostly, Auntie Irene was cool, but not everyone thought so. Grandad thought she was difficult and shouty. If she ever disagreed with you about anything, she’d spend ages and ages telling you why you were wrong, even if you were six, and what you were saying was “Ariel is cooler than Mulan.” Also, she used to sweep in and be wonderful for an evening, and then disappear for months and months and never answer her phone and just forget to come to people’s weddings.

  She and her husband had one daughter, whose name is Jo, but they didn’t get on. I can sort of see why. Auntie Irene was pretty controlling, and she was apparently always nagging Jo and saying she wasn’t doing enough with her life or working hard enough at whatever she was doing. And whatever Jo did, Auntie Irene always wanted her to do it better. I like Jo, though. I’d like to see more of her, but she’s always pretty busy. She lives on the other side of London, and she runs a catering company with her husband, and she has two little boys, who are called Noah and Alfie and are very cute. She used to keep sending us birthday and Christmas cards that said things like We MUST meet up soon, but we never did.

  Auntie Irene was married to Uncle Evan. No one likes Uncle Evan. I mean, no one. Uncle Evan is horrible. Even when we did see Auntie Irene, I hardly ever saw Uncle Evan – because Auntie Irene used to come to London on her own – but whenever I did, he used to just sit there and grump and complain.

  “Why do you put up with him, Irene?” Gran said to her once. That was pretty brave of Gran. Mostly, people didn’t argue with Auntie Irene.

  But Auntie Irene just scrunched her mouth up. “Oh, well…” she said. “There aren’t many people can put up with me. It’s nice not to be the bad guy all the time.”

  I know Auntie Irene didn’t trust him, though. Auntie Irene didn’t trust anyone, ever. She was the most paranoid person I ever met.

  It drove Jo crazy. “I can’t get anything from her!” she told my mum once. “I don’t mean money – Lord knows, I don’t want money. But my birth certificate! Family photographs! The bank account that I know for a fact was set up for me when I was six months old. She hides everything. I don’t think even she knows where half of it is. I think the old cow just enjoys knowing Dad and I will never get our hands on it.”

  “Hides how?” Mum said. “You mean in a bank or something?”

  “Ha!” Jo said. “If only. No, safety-deposit boxes, secret locations, the whole works. We found one buried in the wall when we were building the extension. Actually cemented into the brickwork. Mum was furious. I think she’d forgotten she’d even put it there. She tried to pretend she didn’t know anything about it, but honestly! She designed that house.”

  “Why doesn’t she want you to have it?” Jonathan said. It didn’t make any sense to me either. Auntie Irene had loads of money.

  “Oh…” Jo shook her head. “She thinks Dad will divorce her and run off with the cash. Which, to be fair, he might. He’s a slimy bastard, Dad.”

  The last time I saw Auntie Irene was at Mum’s funeral. Afterwards she beckoned me over. “I’ve got something for you,” she said. “Don’t tell your brothers or they’ll all want something, and I’m not wasting my money on computer games or plastic tat.”

  She rummaged in her bag and handed me a small velvet box. Inside was a chain with a small silver locket on the end of it.

  “When your mother was a little girl, she used to love playing with my jewellery,” she said. “It used to drive me mad. Anyway… I always wanted her to have some of my jewellery when I died. So I thought perhaps you might like it instead. If you don’t, let me know, and I’ll take it back.”

  But I did like it. I never wore it, because it was about a hundred years old and kind of weird and more the sort of thing Dobby the House Elf would wear than something an actual kid would, but I liked that Auntie Irene had given it to me and not to Jonathan, and I liked that my mum had liked it.

  I liked Auntie Irene too. Even if she was grumpy and a bit mad. Plenty of great people are a bit mad sometimes. Like Gandalf. Or Gonzo. Or Gandhi. I’d rather be fantastic and mad than boring and sane. Any day.

  SAYING GOODBYE

  We went to visit Auntie Irene on Saturday evening after Jonathan finished work. Gran gave us a ginormous spider plant and a chocolate cake to give to Auntie Irene. I took the plant. Jonathan took the cake tin, and Davy took a model of the Millennium Falcon made out of random bits of Lego.

  “Can we eat the cake yet?” said Davy.

  “No,” I said. “It’s a present. You have to give it to Auntie Irene and then look hopeful and then she’ll say, ‘Oh, what a lovely big cake, you must have a slice.’”

  “We could just eat it and not give any to her,” said Davy. But I told him stealing wasn’t allowed.

  We took the bus to the hospital. Auntie Irene had her own little room. It was sort of nice actually, much nicer than I’d expected. There were lots of get-well cards all along the windowsill, and on her table, so she
could see them. It was all very hospital-y – hospital bed, with curtains round it, and a wipe-clean floor for unexpected vomit. But it was small and quiet and peaceful.

  Auntie Irene was lying on her back in bed. She looked much smaller than the last time I’d seen her, shockingly smaller. Her white hair sat flatly against her cheeks, soft and fluffy, making her whole face look unexpectedly small and sad. She looked thinner than the last time I’d seen her too, and weirdly greyer. Like someone had come and sucked out the solid, colourful person she really was and left this snakeskin body in the bed.

  Jo and Uncle Evan were both at the hospital when we got there. They looked a bit surprised to see us, like they were expecting a grown-up to have come with us or something.

  “We’re here because Gran can’t come,” I said, before they could say anything. Jonathan had gone shy. Jonathan is weirdly shy about loads of stuff. “She asked if we could come instead, so we did. And because we wanted to see Auntie Irene, obviously.”

  Auntie Irene didn’t look like she wanted to see us. She looked asleep. Or possibly dead.

  “Oh,” said Jo. “Well. It’s very nice to see you. Isn’t it nice, Dad?” She gave me an encouraging smile.

  Uncle Evan grunted. He didn’t look like he thought it was nice. I started to wish we’d just eaten Gran’s cake and not come.

  “We brought you cake,” said Jonathan. “And a plant.”

  The chocolate cake had slid to one side of the tin, and the icing had got squashed when Jonathan dropped it on the bus. Uncle Evan gave it this horrified look, like, You expect me to eat that?

  Jo said, “Oh, that’s so lovely of you, Jonathan, thank you.”

  “It’s from Gran,” said Jonathan. “I didn’t make it.”

  And then there was an awkward pause.

  Nobody seemed to know what to say next.

  Davy leaned against me and whispered in my ear. “Can we eat the cake now?”