Read The Exiles for Free Online Page B

shouted:
    ‘Hurry up and have breakfast ready for when I come back! You’ll find everything you need! Two eggs for me!’
    Then she tooted her beastly horn and drove off with their mother. They didn’t even have time to wave goodbye.
    They were left alone.
    ‘She’s gone!’ Phoebe said. Until that moment she had never really believed her mother would leave them there. Suddenly she started running after the car. She ran and ran, but already the car was out of sight. Giving up, she stood deserted in the middle of the empty road. Ruth and Naomi came puffing to meet her.
    ‘Don’t start crying for goodness sake!’ implored Ruth. ‘You’ll only set Rachel off !’
    ‘I’m not,’ said Phoebe indignantly. ‘I wanted to catch Mum. She forgot to give me my Christmas List Money.’
    Naomi abandoned self-control and grabbed her deluded little sister by the shoulders.
    ‘Look at me!’
    Phoebe stared disinterestedly at Naomi’s flat chest.
    ‘At my face!’
    Phoebe gazed upwards.
    ‘Now listen. You are not getting ANY money! Do you understand?’
    Phoebe privately decided that Naomi was mad, but nevertheless nodded appeasingly.
    ‘Say “Yes”,’ commanded Naomi.
    ‘Yes,’ agreed Phoebe casually, and then as Naomi released her grip she added cheerfully, ‘I’ll get it when we go home then.’
    Rachel was standing on the front steps looking very miserable. ‘What about breakfast?’ she called as they frogmarched Phoebe up to her. ‘She said she wanted two eggs.’
    ‘I don’t know. We didn’t have any yesterday, getting up so late. How are we to know where she keeps everything?’
    ‘Big Grandma had breakfast yesterday,’ Phoebe remarked. ‘She had bacon and stuff like that. I smelt it cooking.’
    ‘Well, we’d better do something,’ Ruth said, heading back through the house to the kitchen. ‘She’ll be here soon, and she’ll only start gloating and swaggering if we don’t.’
    ‘And calling us incapable,’ agreed Naomi. ‘Come on then.’
    Tentatively they started opening cupboard doors and exploring the contents. They found a lot of home-made jam in one, and another full of herbs and spices.
    ‘Look at all this curry powder,’ said Ruth. ‘Whatever does she want that amount for?’
    ‘She probably cleans her teeth with it,’ Naomi replied. ‘Here’s eggs, ordinary ones, and horrible looking ones. I suppose we ought to give her the ordinaries.’
    ‘I want Frosties,’ Phoebe announced.
    ‘Look what I’ve found,’ called Rachel. ‘Dog food! I didn’t know Big Grandma had a dog!’
    ‘There aren’t any Frosties,’ said Ruth. ‘I can’t even find cornflakes. What’s that you’ve got, Rachel?’
    ‘Tins of dog food. D’you think she’s got a dog?’
    ‘We’d have seen it yesterday.’ A nasty thought struck Ruth and she hastened to share it. ‘Perhaps she eats it herself.’
    ‘Probably it’s for when she turns into a werewolf,’ Naomi suggested, ‘and hasn’t any grandchildren to chew on.’
    ‘Shut up,’ said Ruth. ‘Help me set the table so it looks like we’ve done something.’
    She fetched five plates and set them round the table. Rachel found bread in a bin marked ‘Rubbish’ in which she had been searching for empty dog food tins. Naomi put five knives beside the plates and the loaf of bread in the middle of the table with the breadknife beside it.
    ‘She’ll have to have boiled eggs,’ said Ruth, ‘I don’t think I can do any other sort.’ Then Naomi discovered an egg cup and put one of the eggs in it. She put the other in a saucepan of cold water and stood it on the stove.
    ‘It’s no good cooking it until she comes in.’
    They stood back to have a look at the table. It seemed a bit bare. Phoebe fetched salt and pepper and vinegar all together in a silver stand and placed it carefully in the middle, just as they heard the front door open.
    Ruth noticed the butter on the sideboard and plonked it hurriedly beside the bread. That was all they