Glitter. Kate Maryon

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       Chapter 6 welcum to the dump…

      My dad stops the car in front of a grey concrete block of flats somewhere in London.

      “We’re here, Liberty,” he says. “I need you to help me with your trunk because it’s not safe to leave it on the roof. It’ll be gone in a flash.”

      “Where are we, Daddy?” I ask. “Who lives here?” “We do,” he says, running his hand through his hair, “for now anyway. I know it’s a mess, Liberty, but this is what it’s come to: a grotty flat in a grotty part of town.”

      “But why here?” I ask. “Why not home?”

      “Because, as Sebastian so delicately put it, we don’t actually have a home any more. He was right, Liberty; we don’t have anything left. The bank has taken everything except a few personal bits. This flat belongs to a friend of mine, he usually rents it out, but it’s free at the moment, so I moved in yesterday and we’re staying here until I get back on my feet. It won’t take long, I promise, I’ve got my finger in a few pies already.”

      I stare up at the ugly grey building.

      “So we don’t have a home?” I whisper.

      Some big kids are click-clacking on skateboards, a few girls are playing hopscotch and there are some really young children squealing and running around playing catch without any grown-ups watching them. The words “Welcum to the dump” are written in red graffiti on the wall near the lift. I’ve seen places like this on TV but I’ve never been to one in real life and I don’t feel very welcome.

      My trunk is heavy and it keeps twisting around and hurting my wrist. I try my hardest to be strong, but it’s just too heavy for me. My dad sighs and ends up dragging it along on his own, while I manage our bags. He’s not talking and when we discover the lift is broken he groans and snaps while he bumps my trunk up the stairs. After we’ve gone up a couple of flights, he starts getting out of breath, so I try to help again. But he shakes me off, like I am an insect trying to bite him.

      Beyond the green front door of our flat I find a few unfamiliar rooms to explore. A tiny kitchen with grey tiles, a sitting room with glass doors leading on to a balcony that has a few dead plants on it, a small bathroom and two bedrooms, one with a double bed and one with a single. I spy a pile of my things already heaped on the single bed and go on in to make myself at home. The room is tiny and has musty damp smells lurking in the corners. Whoever graffitied “Welcum to the dump” was right. It is. I try not to remember my beautiful bedroom in our London house, with my own en suite bathroom and four-poster bed or my room in our French house with its deep blue walls and wooden shutters that overlook the pool. A sick taste rises in my throat, which I swallow down fast.

      I look out of my bedroom window on to the car park below. A sad lonely tree is crying autumn leaves that scatter in the breeze and I wish the wind would blow me back to school where I belong. I kick the stupid bed. It’s small and tatty and old like the rest of this dump and I don’t want to be here. I lie down and stare at the ceiling. It looks like it’s made from a million tiny snowy mountains. I wish I were skiing on them. I close my eyes and imagine that I’m on the Alps, in my skis. But then Sebastian spoils my dream by zooming past me, waving and reminding me that I’m not that good at skiing anyway; just like everything else, I’m actually quite rubbish. But I don’t care because I’m almost certainly never going to go skiing again. Now we’re poor I’m probably doomed never to do anything fun ever again.

      I get bored of ceiling gazing and busy myself unpacking my trunk and arranging my belongings. I’m not sure if we’re allowed to put pictures on the walls, so I leave my posters in my trunk and put it at the end of my bed like a little seat. I make the bed with my duvet and stuff from school then try out the mauve plastic blinds. They don’t work very well so I pull them back up quickly so no one can accuse me of breaking them and sit quietly on my bed, waiting for my new life to begin.

      After about half an hour of waiting nothing in my new life has happened. My dad hasn’t come to find me and I haven’t gone to find him. We’re like hide and seek gone wrong. Everybody’s hiding and no one is seeking. We’re just sitting waiting for something to happen. My tummy’s rumbling. I missed lunch at school and I was too scared to ask my dad to stop for food on the way. I can hear a quiz programme blaring out from the television, filling our quiet flat with other people’s laughter and clapping and cheerful sounds. I should probably go and join him but I’m scared, I don’t want to make him angry again. I pull out my book of 100 favourite poems, flick through it and wish Matron had given me a book on 100 top tips on what to do when the credit crunch has turned your life upside down. It would have been more useful right now than poems.

      After another hour of waiting, I am so bored with looking at poems that even a maths lesson would seem like fun, so I decide to go and explore. I’m nervous and can’t stop scratching the patch of worry eczema that’s popped up on my wrist. I’m really hungry and my dad must be starving as he looks like he hasn’t eaten for days. I can’t remember my dad ever cooking dinner for me. I can remember him flying through the door and bolting his food down before going off for a business meeting or a game of squash at the gym, but cooking isn’t something he’s СКАЧАТЬ