Stealing Stacey Read online

  For Diane McCudden, who was the

  inspiration for this book and the greatest

  help in getting it right, and for Sarah,

  who gave me the Wonngai stories.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Also by the Author

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Chapter One

  Of course it would have to be the day the truant-cop brought me home, that this unbelievable woman turned up who was going to change my life.

  Me and Loretta’d decided to bunk off after lunch. We had a great time… up to the point we were caught. First thing I wanted to do was change out of my rotten uniform. I’d brought a crop-top and we went to a café. Loretta marched straight through to the toilet with her head in the air, as if we were their best customers, and I changed. I had to keep my school skirt on, but I rolled the waistband down as far as I dared and stuffed my blazer and shirt into my school bag. Loretta didn’t change. I guessed why. She gave my bare middle a pat and said, “Let’s go.”

  So then we went and had our nails done – her sister’s a manicurist and she gave us two for the price of one when her manageress wasn’t looking. Loretta paid. She’s always got plenty of dosh. I had mine painted half white and half magenta, with squared-off points. Loretta had hers blue with silver stars stuck on each fingernail and moons on the thumbs. She bites hers so she couldn’t do much about the sticking-out part – cos mine were longer she was really jealous.

  Then we went to the covered market. There’s a stall there that only sells lacy underwear. The woman who keeps the stall had nipped off to the loo and while she was gone Loretta nicked some pants and a matching bra. That was just for starters.

  I didn’t nick anything. From this point in time, a year later, I’m glad I didn’t, but at the time – I have to tell the truth – it wasn’t because I was dead honest, it was because I bottled it. I didn’t know how she did it, she was so quick you couldn’t even see her hands move. For the undies, she suddenly said, “Oh, look!” She pointed at something, and I looked where she pointed, and by the time I looked back she was moving away and the bra and pants were already stuffed up her school shirt, under her arm. (That was why she hadn’t changed. You can’t stuff much up a crop-top.) I didn’t even know it till we got away from the stall and she showed me a tiny corner of the pants, yellowy-green and lacy. She was giggling like crazy. She showed them to me properly when we went back into the café. She got all her loot out of various hiding places, and laid it out on her knee under the table.

  “Wicked,” I said. But then I saw the pants were a size sixteen. “What d’you nick those for? You won’t fit them.”

  “I’m not fussy,” she said. “Turns me on, nicking things. I’ll give ’em to my mum.”

  “Won’t she ask where you got them?”

  “Not her. Why should she? Pennies from heaven. I mean pants.”

  “Does she know you go on the rob?”

  She shrugged. She’d got this round face, and while I’d been changing she’d been putting on lots of make-up. She pulled funny faces all the time, too, and now she crossed her eyes and wobbled her head. Loretta thought everything was one big joke, but when I asked if she wasn’t scared of getting caught she looked at me as if I was nuts, as if bad things could never happen to her.

  Well, a bad thing happened to both of us that day, because we were just coming out of the café when the truant wagon draws up and a truant-cop gets out right in front of us.

  “Afternoon, young ladies,” he says, all polite, but stern with it. “Shouldn’t you two be in school?”

  I’m half up the nearest wall, straight off, don’t know what to say, but Loretta’s dead cool. She tosses her head and goes, “We had exams today and we finished early so we were allowed to go.”

  “Exams at the beginning of November? I don’t think so!”

  “They’re special ones for high achievers,” she says. “Extra.” Honest, she’s incredible.

  “High achievers, eh?” he says. “Well, it’s always nice to meet clever girls. We’ll just make sure, shall we?” He looks at her blazer and straight off knows what school we’re from by the badge, gets out his mobile and just clicks one button. He must have all the local school numbers in its memory. Of course I know right off the game’s up, and so does Loretta, but while I’m stood there nearly wetting myself in panic she’s leaning against a shop front, looking at her new silver-star nails. You’d’ve never thought she had all that nicked gear in her school bag.

  By the time he’d found out that his suspicions were right – our school’d just put in the new computer program for spotting bunkers – it was too late to take us back to school, so he bundled us into his van (Loretta actually demanded to see his ID!) and took us home. When she got out of the van first, she gave me one of her funny looks and at the last moment, do you know what she did, she dumped her school bag on my lap and said, “Can you take this to your place? I’ll come round and revise with you after I have my piano lesson.” Piano lesson my bum – she just didn’t want to risk being caught with the loot.

  She nearly landed me in it as well, because the truant-cop soon spotted that I lived too far away for her to “come round” easily. He made some suspicious remark, gave me a funny look and then he looked at the school bag. I thought he was going to reach for it and I was terrified, but something distracted him and next thing I remember we were climbing the stone steps to Mum’s and my flat.

  “You don’t have to come up with me,” I muttered, but he came anyway of course. He would. He hadn’t gone to Loretta’s door, only mine. Story of my life with Loretta. She did all the villainy and I was the one who copped it.

  “I need to have a word with your mum,” he said.

  Well, I wasn’t too worried because I thought she’d probably be at work. She often does the afternoon shift at Safeways. I got my key out, but before I could open the door it was flung open from inside and there she was. She looked as if someone had given her an E or something, her eyes were bulging and her voice was all shrill.

  “You’ll never guess who’s here!” she said loudly. “Not in a million years!” She was making her eye signals. When Mum gets going with her eye signals you’d think she was going to have a fit.

  Then she saw the truant-cop behind me and stopped dead.

  “Who are you?” she asked.

  “I’m the truant officer, madam,” he said. “We found your daughter outside the market when she should have been at school. I don’t know if this is the first time she’s truanted, but I’m sure you understand that if she does it too often you may be held responsible.”

  Mum looked gobsmacked. She pulled me in through the door by the arm.

  “She won’t do it again,” she said. “I’ll see to that.” But she said it very faintly, almost whispering. “Thank you.” And she closed the door on him.

  “You don’t have to thank him, Mum,” I said. “Big buttin! We only took the afternoon off.”

  She put her finger to her lips – shhhh. Then I remembered what she’d said, before.

  “What did you mean about someone being here?”

  “I don’t want you playing truant, Stace,” she said in that same whisper. “Did you know mothers can go to pri
son if they let their kids bunk off?”

  “Not the first time, Mum, only if you never make me go to school. So who’s here?”

  She was still whispering, her eyes rolling like some loony. “Someone I don’t want you to shame me in front of,” she said. “Your other nan.”

  I gawped at her. “What you mean, other nan?” I said like an idiot.

  “Your other grandma.”

  My other grandma? Well, nobody has more than two. The nan I knew about was my mum’s mum, so this one must be—

  But that was impossible.

  Now Mum was squeezing my arm tight and kind of wheeling me up to the mirror that hangs in our little lobby where we hang our coats. She was eye-signalling more madly than ever. I tried to read the signals. I’m quite good at it – I should be, after fourteen years’ practice. It was something like, I hadn’t a clue she was coming… she’s in the living room… I nearly died… the place is such a tip… so are you… for God’s sake do something about it before you go in there!

  No, I’m not pretending to be that good. Her hands were signalling, too. They were fussing about all over me. Trying to pull my top down to cover my middle. Unrolling my skirt and pulling it up (and down). Reaching into her handbag, fetching out a grotty little comb and thrusting it at me, talking in that loud voice all the time.

  “Think of it, Stacey, all the way from Australia! Of course she wrote to warn us but she forgot to put enough stamps on it – it must still be on a boat somewhere! Never MIND, it’s just so great to see her, aren’t you excited that she’s come to see us, I am!” I know, I know – it’s terrible – but PLEASE remember your manners! signalled her eyes. They were now crossing and rolling so much I was afraid they’d fall out.

  I scraped the comb over my hair, just to shut her up (I’d done my hair that morning with Just Out Of Bed: Keep That Messed-up Look All Day wax) and went into the living room. I admit I was curious. Who wouldn’t be? Because this was my dad’s mum. Why would she come to see us from Australia, when Dad never did from Greville Drive, two miles away? Didn’t she know he’d scarpered?

  In the doorway, I stopped dead. A kind of vision was sitting there on our sofa.

  She had short curly hair, very blue-rinsed and just-been-done, and a two-piece suit with a short skirt and high-heeled shoes to match. Underneath her jacket she wore a fancy spotted blouse with ruffles and a bow at the neck. All of it was in shades of mauve and purple. And lots and lots of make-up. The eye make-up was purple, too. And she was smiling a big smile with bright white (false?) teeth.

  “Blossom, come to Grandma!” she said in an Aussie accent that’d put Neighbours to shame, and reached for me.

  Mum gave me a push from behind. I sort of fell forward into this stranger’s arms. She smelt as if she’d emptied a bottle of Eau de Pong over herself. That, and spearmint, from the gum she was chewing. The gum-chewing didn’t go with any other thing about her.

  After she’d hugged and kissed me she pulled me down on the sofa beside her.

  “You ravishing little angel!” she cried. “Aren’t you pretty, you little wavy blondie, you! With those blue eyes! You get those from me!” She batted her mascaraed eyelashes. She had blue eyes, just like my dad. “And I love your nails! If only mine were long, I’d have ’em done just like yours! Oh, why did I wait this long to meet you? You and me are just going to be the pals of the millennium!” She had one arm round my neck and she was holding my head on her shoulder. I thought my head would come off, but I managed to straighten up before it did.

  “You two have just the cosiest little nest here!” the vision was saying, looking round our hovel. I saw her glancing at some of the photos. There were still ones of Dad and of him and Mum together on their wedding day, and of the three of us, all of which I’d have chucked in the bin the day he bombed off. In fact I did, but Mum fished them out, and she was crying so much I hadn’t the heart to chuck them again. “Little nest” was about right. With three of us in the living room, it felt like three cuckoos were squashed into a sparrow’s nest.

  Mum looks a bit like a sparrow. I read that sparrows, which used to be the British birds we had the most of, are dying out for some reason, pollution maybe, and no wonder – you can hardly breathe where we live. Now Mum looked as if she might be the last of them. She has these round bright eyes, and she’s soft and small with little pecky movements. She wasn’t actually fluttering and twittering, but I knew she was, inside.

  “D’you want a cup of tea, Mrs, er—” She stopped. Her face turned red. I heard myself say, a bit impatiently I admit, “Denton, Mum, it must be.” Of course this nan must have the same name as us, my dad’s name.

  But she said, “Oh, call me Glendine, lovies, everyone does! We can’t have two Mrs Dentons, can we? Too confusing! Besides,” she added, “I don’t suppose you want to be reminded of a certain Mr Run-Rabbit-Run.”

  I couldn’t believe it. Dad was this woman’s son. I kept staring at her, trying to connect her to Dad. Apart from the eyes, she didn’t look anything like him. And she was slagging him off. It was weird.

  Grandma said, “Did I hear the word ‘tea’? Because I’d kill for some.” And she got up off the sofa. God, she was tall! That was like Dad. Her blue rinse nearly bumped the ceiling. Then she said, “But first I need a sweet pea.” I must’ve looked blank because she laughed. “Point me at the dunny, darling, I’m busting.” When I still looked blank, she said, “The la. The loo. The potty-house. The toilet!” I don’t know why I was so embarrassed. Everyone has to go. It was just that my other nan would never mention toilets or anything else she calls “vulgar”. When she has to go, she says, “I’m off to the excuse-me.”

  It turned out the vision preferred the kitchen, where we normally eat, to the living room. But she looked all wrong in there. Like a tropical bush in a window box.

  She sat perched on a high stool at the counter, with her legs crossed. She had nice legs for an old woman, I’ll say that, and she liked showing them off and all.

  There was no problem about keeping the conversation going. She just couldn’t stop gassing. She said the long flight from Australia had nearly killed her.

  “I simply have to stretch out, petals,” she said. “If I can’t stretch my poor old legs, they get cramp.” She stuck them straight out in front of her and nearly fell off the stool. “Ooops! No, but I’m serious. I was in agony! In the night when the crew turned the lights off and went behind their curtains, Glendine went on the prowl. I found a lovely little cave behind the last row of seats. So I went and got my rug and my tiny cushion and I just laid down—”

  “You lay on the floor?” gasped Mum. She was staring at her as if she’d come out of a flying saucer.

  “Why not? It was quite comfy, I got a lovely kip. But of course my feet stuck out, and in the morning, a steward tripped over them! Just about broke me bloody ankle. You’d think he’d apologise, but not a bit of it – he was livid. ‘Madam,’ he said, ‘lying on the floor of the aircraft is strictly against regulations, you will have to return to your seat!’ I sat up and gave him my biggest smile. I said, ‘Of course, pet, no worries.’ And I gave him my hand, to pull me up, very graciously, just like the Queen. I got back to my seat in nice time for brekky. And then, would you believe? They made a special announcement to the whole plane that it was forbidden to lay down on the floor! I think they had to make a new regulation, just for Glendine!”

  Me and Mum laughed. I thought, I bet everywhere you go, they have to make up new regulations just for you. I didn’t know how right I was.

  We were halfway through tea (she still hadn’t stopped talking) when I started thinking about where she was going to stay.

  Surely not with us? We only have two bedrooms. I had another thought. Where was her luggage? Of course! It must be at her hotel. Phew.

  After tea I excused myself and went to my room. When I opened the door, I got a mega shock. I saw where her luggage was, all right.

  I counted the pieces. There were fo
ur and a half. They all matched – bright orange with yellow sunflowers all over them – and went from a small box-thing on a shoulder strap, to a trunk. You certainly couldn’t miss them coming around on the airport carousel. You couldn’t miss them in my room, either. In fact I could hardly get in for them.

  I suddenly felt desperate. Not only was she planning to stay – she must be planning to stay for ever.

  Just then Mum came in behind me. She shut the door. We were squeezed together behind the trunk. She said, in a very soft voice, “Yes. I’m sorry, Stace.”

  I just stared at her. Then I whispered, “How did all this stuff get here?”

  “She came from the airport in two taxis. The taxi-men carried it up. She tipped them a tenner each!”

  “She must be rotten with dosh. Why doesn’t she go to a hotel?”

  “She said she wants to be with us.”

  “Can’t she see we’ve got no room?”

  “I – I’m afraid I said you wouldn’t mind moving in with me.”

  I couldn’t speak for a moment. For horror.

  “But I’ll have to sleep in your bed!” I wailed.

  “Shhh! We must be nice to her.”

  I didn’t feel like shushing. “Why?”

  “I don’t know really,” said Mum. “I just know we must.”

  That was so like Mum. You probably think she was thinking that this person was rich and we ought to suck up to her, maybe, but that wasn’t it. Mum doesn’t know why anything. She just does things. It’s like she acts on instinct. I bet if someone had asked her why she was marrying my dad, she’d have said, in that same helpless voice, “I don’t know exactly. I just know I must.”

  Come to that, I bet Nan did ask her. Nan stayed married to my grandad for forty-two years and she’d be married to him still if he hadn’t gone and died. She’d never have married a no-hoper like Dad. Fancy watching your kid do something that stupid and not be able to talk her out of it. That’s why I’d decided I was never going to get married. Even if I’d liked boys, which naturally, considering what a bunch of duck-brained wussy creeps they are, I did not, I wouldn’t let myself get tied up to someone who might run out on me and leave me penniless and probably up the duff. (Of course Mum’s too old to be up the duff. Which is one good thing at least.)