Cressida Cowell

Dizzy

'You've got chocolate on your nose,' Sasha tells me later, as we mooch along the street. We've linked arms and the four of us fill the pavement, high on fudge cake and the luxury of having a whole Coke each.
  'I love my bracelet,' I tell her with feeling, jangling my wrist while she dabs my nose with a tissue. 'And the CD, and the posters.' I beam at Sara and Jade.
  At the traffic lights, Sara and I wave goodbye to the others and cross over, taking a short cut through the park.
  'Any postcards?' she asks quietly as we pick our way across the grass. 'Anything from...'
  'Mum? No, not yet.'
  'Well, that one from Morocco that time, you said that was late.'
  'Three weeks,' I told her. 'I was only eight. I watched for the postman every morning.'
  'I know,' Sara sighs.
  I also cried myself to sleep every night, stopped eating, stopped talking. Then the postcard came and everything was OK again. Dad said the postal service in North Africa was probably a bit dodgy. It definitely wasn't Mum's fault. Not like she'd forgotten, or anything.
  'Anyway,' I said brightly, 'Dad's ordering in a pizza. Three cheese and mushroom. And I can have MTV on all night if I like.'
  We leave the park, cross the road. Sara lives in a red-brick semi halfway along the street. The garden's stuffed with violently coloured flowers and the grass is so short it looks like it's been ironed.
  'Coming in for a bit?' she asks.
  'Nah. Pizza's calling. Thanks for the posters, Sara, I love them. See you tomorrow.'
  'See ya.'
  I turn away. My chirpy mood has disappeared along with Sara. There's a heavy feeling inside my chest, like I just swallowed a small iceberg and not a vast slab of hot chocolate-fudge cake. Suddenly I feel a whole lot older than twelve.
  Our flat is right down at the end of the road, a tall town house divided into three apartments. We're in the ground-floor one, so we get to use the workshop (which was once a garage) for Dad's studio. I turn into the drive and see a big, grubby van skewed across the flagstones, one front wheel squashing a straggly patch of lupins. Mr Desai from upstairs will have a fit.
  It could be someone delivering sacks of clay for Dad, although there's no courier logo on the side. The van is mostly red with one blue wing and one grey one. One of the back doors is purple, and someone's scrawled 'wash me' in the thick grime of its window. Lovely.
  I let myself into the flat. Dad's left a pile of cards from the second post on the hall table for me, and I take a deep breath before scanning it quickly.
  Nothing in her handwriting.
  I open the cards, trying not to feel bad. Twenty quid from Auntie Mel, a card with kittens on it from Mr Desai, a book token from Mrs Coulter, my old childminder. If they can remember, why can't she?
  I can hear Dad talking to someone in the living room. I hope it's not Lucy, his girlfriend. She's OK, and I'm getting used to her, but I don't really want to share my birthday with her. Birthday's are for me and Dad.
  'Home, Dad,' I shout, scooping up my post and pushing open the bedroom door. My new guitar sits proudly on the duvet. Next to it is a little blue camera from Lucy. She let me open it last night, showed me how to load the film, how to work the flash and the little zoom lens. Cool.
  I dump my backpack and pull a T-shirt and jeans from the drawer.
  'Dizzy?' Dad shouts back. 'Can you come through here a minute?'
  I drag off my tie and wander through. It's not Lucy. Lucy's young and smiley with fair wavy hair. She wears wafty, trendy tops with fluted sleeves and hipsters with embroidery on them. She wears toffee-coloured lipstick and smudgy eye shadow and she smells of lime-flavoured shower gel.
  This woman is older, small and tanned with smiley wrinkles and hennaed hair so short it's practically shaven. She has about a million earrings all in the same ear, as well as a stud through her right eyebrow. She's wearing weird stripy trousers that are baggy at the top and tight around the ankles, and a faded vest top with no bra underneath. Yeuchhh.
  I can tell without asking she's the owner of the patchwork van, but I can't work out why she's staring so hard at me.
  'Dizzy, hi,' she says, and when she grins her teeth look kind of yellow.
  'Hi,' I mutter, looking at Dad for clues.
  He just stares back, looking shocked and scared and flustered. He's still in his studio clothes, his jeans all streaked with clay, his hands and arms still stained reddish-brown.
  'Happy birthday,' she says.
  I still don't get it.
  'I can't believe how much you've grown,' she says. 'How beautiful you are. I can't believe this is really happening...'
  My mouth feels suddenly dry, the floor seems to shift under my feet. I look at the tanned, smiley face with the shiny blue eyes and the glint of gold studs. I take a deep breath in, frowning.
  'Hello, Mum,' I say.

Dizzy © Cressida Cowell 2004. Published by the Penguin Group.