Sarah Lean - 3 Book Collection. Sarah Lean

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      The tramp was on his knees, collecting the coins off the pavement. The baker-lady from Crumbs came up to me, holding a paper bag stuffed with steaming pies.

      “There’s a good girl,” she said, her voice as soft as dough. “Jed’s shy and he wouldn’t say boo to a goose. Came into town a while ago now, looking for somebody I think.” She smiled like she had the tramp in her heart, then sighed. “Poor man. All he seems to have found is a lot of bother with those troublesome boys.”

      She shook her head and handed me the bag. “Go on,” she said, “you give them to Jed. I’d better be getting back to the counter.”

      I had to crouch down to get Jed’s attention because he was busy packing all his things into carrier bags. Then he did that thing when you look away and then look back again quickly, like you didn’t realise who it was or what was happening first of all. I heard him take a sharp breath.

      I had my pocket money in my hand and held it out for Jed to see. I opened the hat and dropped the coins in, but he didn’t look at them. I could tell he was really glad because he stared right into my eyes and smiled. His eyes were lovely, silver-warm and sparkling. A rush of air came from his mouth because he had been holding his breath, and now he was so relieved and happy to have his money back.

      Then Luke was there, pulling at my arm and saying, “What’re you doing, Cally? Come on, you know what Dad thinks!”

      Dad said tramps had a choice just like everyone else. We weren’t allowed to give them money. They chose to live on the streets. They’d made their own problems and had to sort them out themselves.

      “You didn’t buy him food as well, did you?” Luke whispered through his teeth. “Dad’ll go mad!”

      Jed didn’t say anything; he just stood there and kept smiling. He had surprisingly white teeth. So I smiled back. It was kind of like talking but not talking. I didn’t know what we were saying, but it was something nice. Then, just like that, he handed me his HUNGRY sign. His loose sole scuffed along the pavement as he walked away.

      “What’s the matter with you?” said Luke, dragging me away. “Dad’s coming!”

      I followed his eyes, saw Dad coming down the steps of the bank, leafing through a pile of papers.

      “All right, kids?” he said. “What you been up to?”

      Luke frowned and took a deep breath. “Nothing much,” he said slowly, narrowing his eyes.

      “What’s that you got there?” Dad said to me, rolling his papers into a tube. I held the tramp’s sign up to show him.

      “Just what I was thinking. How about pizza then?” he said, looking over his shoulder at Pizza Palace.

      But it wasn’t the red tablecloths and drippy candles in the window of Pizza Palace that caught my eye. It was a red raincoat. Mum was standing by The Music Shop on the other side of Pizza Palace. She put her face close to the window and looked inside. And then, just when the tramp came past her, she joined him, walked alongside him. They turned into the alleyway, side by side.

      11.

      DAD STILL HADN’T NOTICED I WASN’T TALKING, didn’t say anything when I pointed at the picture of the ham and mushroom pizza on the menu.

      “Why did you bring us here?” said Luke, chomping tomato mush.

      “You like pizza, don’t you?” said Dad, not looking up.

      “Yeah, but I mean we don’t normally go out for pizza.”

      Dad wiped his mouth and hands with his napkin, took ages to answer. Eventually he said, “Just thought you needed a treat, that’s all.”

      “Why, what’s happened?”

      “Can’t I just take you out?” Dad snapped.

      “I’m just saying!” moaned Luke. “Unlike some people.”

      He swung his leg under the table until it nudged my shin. I swung my foot back. I dodged him and screwed my mouth tight. We scuffled under the table, kicking each other.

      “Hey! What’s with you two?” Dad snapped as I hit his leg by mistake.

      “It’s her,” said Luke. “She’s being weird!”

      “Pack it in, the pair of you!”

      I didn’t finish my pizza. I slid the last quarter under the table, wrapped it in my napkin and squashed it into my jeans pocket. Just in case I saw Jed again.

      The waitress arrived with the bill. Dad pinned on a smile for her. His flat smile. The one that said, I’m trying to be cheerful.

      “Dad?” Luke said as Dad took his wallet out. “You know we’re not supposed to give money to tramps?”

      I leaned back, folded my arms, silently dared him to tell.

      “Well, what if you give food to a tramp, like a pie or a pizza, does that count?” Luke said the words pie and pizza loudly and spat wet crumbs across the table. He can be so disgusting.

      “First we’ve got to make sure we’ve got enough,” Dad said, pulling out his wallet.

      It was bulging with money. Both of us noticed. His wallet had never, ever looked like that before. I thought he’d won the lottery, but he couldn’t have. We’d be buying the biggest flat-screen HD TV you’ve ever seen, and every episode of Inspector Morse on DVD.

      “But is it all right?” Luke pressed, still staring at the cash.

      Dad wasn’t looking at him. “No, it’s not all right,” he snapped. “I don’t want you giving them money, food or anything.”

      Luke swung his leg at me again.

      Dad carried on. “There are some people in this world who don’t have much, but they still manage to feed their kids and put a roof over their heads. Even if it’s a small roof.”

      He stood up, looked us both in the eye.

      “Come on,” he said, “we’re going to the park.”

      We’d sort of grown out of going to the park and if you haven’t been for a long time, you feel like it doesn’t belong to you any more. You let other people have a turn on the swings even though they’re not bigger than you and they’ve only been leaning on the bars for a minute.

      I went over to the garden area where adults usually go to sit away from the noisy kids. Luke climbed a tree. Dad sat on a bench by the tree, leaning on his knees, unrolling and rolling his papers. Sometimes you can be a family and not all want to sit together.

      And I was just thinking about things, like how come Mum was with Jed the tramp, and did he see her too, when I heard some rustling in the bushes behind me.

      The huge silver-grey dog came bounding out, the same one I saw with Mum on the school playing fields.

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