Storm

It was rackety. It was freezing in the winter if we ran out of gas or wood. The roof was always leaking somewhere. And it wasn’t that clean and tidy either. According to Ivy’s parents, Mum and Dad were ‘free spirits’. Now, I don’t know what free spirits do elsewhere, but in my house, they stayed up late listening to terrible folk music, took us camping in woods with no toilets, and were generally allergic to housework.
Those coffee cups dotted on every surface in Mum’s study would sit there for weeks, quietly growing little personalities of their own, until she decided to do something radical about them, like take them to the kitchen. The piles of paperwork on her desk were so layered they could qualify for their own archaeological dig.
Dad wasn’t much better: he wore the same jeans until they fell apart, had permanently grubby fingernails, and trailed a smell of paint, turps and rollie cigarettes wherever he went. And, as you’ve just seen, he had very random ideas about what we should do with our spare time, and it wasn’t eating lunch at the Crab Pot. According to him, if you wanted to do something cool, all you had to do was paint in a storm, give birth somewhere inappropriate or (and this was scraping the barrel) literally look out of a window.
‘Drink in the colours, girls!’ was the rallying cry in our house. ‘Take in those views!’
As you can imagine, this could get annoying. As far as I could tell, the sea came in three different colours: blue, green and grey. It was like being told to constantly admire a bruise.

I RENEWED MY efforts in the Crab Pot Campaign. ‘But I haven’t seen Ivy for ages!’ I said. ‘Not for the entire holidays! Please can we go? Please?’
‘You’ll see her tomorrow,’ said Mum, ‘when the new term starts.’
I glanced around the room in desperation and saw, above the Christmas cards on the mantelpiece, someone equally unimpressed. Me. Glaring back at me from the mirror.
Mum always said I’d grow into my face, but that was easy for her to say. Her jaw and mouth seemed to get on with each other, and even though her hair was also a mass of tight curls, just like mine, hers never went frizzy.
Dad told me to embrace my uniqueness. I was unconvinced. It was all right for him to have thick black eyebrows that almost met in the middle, ruddy cheeks and a strong wide jaw that shoved everything else out of the way so it could bask in the spotlight all by itself. He spent most of his life in his shed in the garden, plus he could grow a beard.
I’d definitely got the dregs of the gene pool, no question. Birdie looked more like Mum, with her hazelnut eyes and silky hair that in no way looked as if it had been accidentally electrocuted.
Dad shuffled the pages of his newspaper. I caught a glimpse of the headline. FREAK EARTHQUAKE ON COA—
Mum sipped from her mug and wiggled her toes. ‘It’s special, the last day of a holiday, isn’t it? All of us, at home, nowhere we have to be.’
‘It’s not that special when you’ve been at home all week,’ I muttered.
Dad shot me a warning, disappointed glance. In our house, you could lose your socks and homework, you could even lose your book bag at least once a week, mentioning no names, but hi, Birdie – but you could never, ever, lose your temper.
‘Shouting creates negative energy and harmful interpersonal toxicity,’ Dad would say. ‘Plus it does our heads in.’
‘Frankie,’ he said now, once.
Birdie’s face creased with worry. She patted the carpet. ‘Do my puzzle with me, Frankie,’ she offered. ‘It’s got sunflowers on. Look.’
She gave me a little smile.
My brain flickered like the lights on the tree.
On.
Off.
On …
Off.
Where it would end up was anyone’s guess.
Perhaps I will sit down. Perhaps I will do that puzzle. Perhaps Mum’s right, and today’s a day for family, and family only.
But then I remembered that easy way Ivy had said, ‘It’s just what we call it. The CP?’
She and Thea were so tight now, they were a ‘we’. She didn’t even have to say her name. Me and Ivy had been like that once. If I missed this lunch, would she ever invite me again? Would Thea Thrubwell speed ahead to the finishing line in our invisible competition for ever?
I rotated my scowl back towards my parents and regarded them with frustration. There was something they weren’t saying. This wasn’t about leftovers. This wasn’t about sacred family time. This was about money. My bones went
And – I’ve had some time to think about this, so am fairly confident with this theory – that’s when things began to go horribly wrong.


DAD’S OUTPUT WASN’T being consumed in line with current market trends, according to his bank manager. Or as Dad put it, pet portraiture was a noble, misunderstood and dying art. Or as Mum put it, we were broke.
Because, for some mystifying reason, not enough people in our village – or any village, actually – were gazing at their pets and thinking: Do you know what I’d love to do, oh sweet guinea pig of mine? Immortalise you in paint, and fiddlesticks to the cost.
Dad blamed the internet. For just £9.99, people could upload a photo of their pet from any battered mobile and a mere two days later receive a tea towel, T-shirt and key ring printed with that pet’s face. Getting all of that for under a tenner seemed, to most of the British public, a better deal than the £275 Dad charged for one painting. Which took him a month to paint, not two days.
And he wouldn’t even change the price to £274.99, for crying out loud.
‘Mum?’ I turned pleading eyes on her. Mum worked in catering recruitment and found work for chefs and waitresses. ‘You had a bumper month