Read Lemonade Sky for Free Online

the flat. I caught the tail end of her whizzing into Mum’s bedroom. I supposed it was just possible Mum had come home and gone straight to bed. Sometimes, when she’s been on a high, she can suddenly fall back into a depression, and when she’s depressed she can sleep through anything. A herd of elephants wouldn’t wake her up.
    Tizz came trailing back into the sitting room. “She’s not here.”
    “No! Well.” I did my best to make it sound like it was no big deal. “She’s only just gone away. It was ten days last time. Could be ten days this time. That’s why we’ve gone and got all this stuff! Keep us going. So when Mum does get back she won’t feel guilty.”
    Last time, she’d felt guilty for months afterwards. We’d gone to visit her in the hospital and she’d rocked to and fro on her chair saying, “How could I leave you? How could I do it to you? I’m a terrible mother! I don’t deserve to have children!”
    I’d kept begging her to stop blaming herself. I’d told her, over and over, that it wasn’t her fault. “You can’t help being ill!”
    Just cos it’s not the sort of illness you can see, like when people have flu or something, doesn’t mean it’s not real.
    “Let’s go and get something to eat,” I said. “We’ve got to eat properly! For Mum’s sake. Let’s d—” I broke off, as Tizz suddenly launched herself across the room. “What are you doing?”
    “I want to hear Mum’s message again!”
    Tizz pressed the button on the phone and Mum’s voice filled the room. Light, and bright, almost dizzy with excitement.
    “Darlings, darlings! Love you, darlings!”
    I couldn’t bear to listen. It simply wasn’t Mum. That is, it was Mum, but it was Mum teetering on the edge. I felt like any minute she was going to lose her balance and go plunging into a big black hole.
    Determinedly, I went through to the kitchen and began unpacking the bags. I prepared what I thought was a really good meal. I mean, considering.
    I opened a tin of meatballs, put out a loaf of bread with the marge and the jam, plus three glasses of orange squash. Absolutely nothing to complain about. But they were both of them just totally ungrateful.
    “Is this all we get?” said Tizz.
    “For the moment,” I said.
    “What’s it supposed to be? Dinner ?”
    “Sunday lunch,” I said.
    “Tastes like sick ,” said Tizz.
    “Sick!” Sammy banged her fork down on top of her meatballs and sent one of them flying across the table. I caught it, and put it back on her plate. “Don’t want it!” she shrieked. She banged again with her fork. “I want lemonade pie!”
    “Sky,” snapped Tizz.
    I said, “Just shut up, the pair of you, and get on with it!”
    Sammy stabbed at a meatball and missed. Tizz said, “You chose this muck! Not me.”
    She had been so good in Tesco! I might have known it wouldn’t last. Tizz is one of those people, she has these mood swings. A bit like Mum, I suppose. She doesn’t look like Mum, apart from the red hair and the freckles. But Mum’s hair is golden red; Tizz’s hair is more like carrots. And Mum is pretty. Tizz is very small and spiky with little sharp features.
    I am just the opposite. Not that I am large , but I am not small, either. And not ‘specially slim. Just ordinary, really. I don’t look a bit like Mum! I wish I did.
    Sammy is the only one that looks like her. She doesn’t have Mum’s red hair – Sammy’s hair is coal-black, very sleek and shiny. But she has Mum’s blue eyes and heart-shaped face. Quite different from me and Tizz, just like me and Tizz are different from each other. Nobody would ever guess that we are sisters.
    I suppose the reason we are different is that we all have different dads. I don’t remember my dad cos he left when I was a baby. Just walked out, Mum says. She says that he was never really there in the first place, but he obviously must have been there some of the time or what about me? Where did I come from? When I ask her