Alice in the Middle Read online

  Alice in the Middle

  Judi Curtin

  Illustrations: Woody Fox

  For Mary, Declan, Caroline and Kieran.

  Thanks to all my family and friends for their ongoing support and encouragement.

  Thanks also to everyone at The O’Brien Press, especially my editor, Helen.

  Thanks to all the great bookshops and libraries who organised readings and signings, and to all the readers who have written me such wonderful letters about Alice and Megan.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  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

  Chapter sixteen

  Chapter seventeen

  Chapter eighteen

  Chapter nineteen

  Chapter twenty

  Chapter twenty-one

  Chapter twenty-two

  Chapter twenty-three

  Chapter twenty-four

  Chapter twenty-five

  Chapter twenty-six

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Other Books

  Chapter one

  I woke up and noticed that I was smiling, the way you do when you’ve been having a really fantastic dream. Then I realised that I hadn’t been dreaming, and I smiled even more. I stretched my arms over my head, banging my knuckles hard on the wall behind my bed. That should have hurt, but I didn’t feel any pain. I jumped out of bed, pulled back my curtains and looked outside. The sky was a dull grey, like the colour of Mum’s favourite porridge pot. Rain was beating hard against my bedroom window, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered today, I thought. This was going to be the most wonderful day of my whole life.

  I went in to the kitchen, where Mum was stirring a pot of porridge.

  ‘Excited?’ she said.

  I nodded, almost afraid to speak. Then I sat down at the table, in my usual place.

  ‘We’re going to miss you,’ she said.

  Suddenly the excitement got too much for me. I jumped up, raced over to Mum and hugged her hard. Then all the words I’d been afraid to say tumbled out of my mouth.

  ‘Mum, I’m so, so, so excited. I’m going to summer camp and Alice is coming too and it’s going to be so, so, so, so great and we’re going to do fun stuff every day and, and, and–’

  ‘–and you’re going to miss us too?’ asked Mum, wriggling free of my hug.

  I shook my head, and then noticed how sad Mum looked.

  ‘Well,’ I said quickly, ‘I suppose I will miss you a bit at first.’

  Mum smiled.

  ‘But not so much that you’ll be phoning for Dad and me to come and take you home?’

  I shook my head again.

  ‘No way.’

  Mum smiled again, but somehow managed to look sad while she was smiling.

  ‘My little girl,’ she said. ‘All grown up and off to summer camp. Now sit down and eat your porridge, or you’re not going anywhere.’

  I was too happy to argue with her. I sat down again, and Mum put a huge bowl of porridge in front of me. I ate quickly, trying not to grin as I thought of the twenty-one wonderful porridge-free days that stretched ahead of me.

  As soon as breakfast was over, I went back into my bedroom and finished off my packing. By eleven o’clock I was all ready to go. I zipped up my rucksack and carried it into the hall where Mum was waiting for me wearing the same smiling-but-sad face.

  ‘I’m ready,’ I said. (Just in case she hadn’t noticed.)

  Mum took a deep breath and started on her list.

  ‘Have you packed your toothbrush and toothpaste?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Have you got enough clean underwear?’

  I nodded again. Was this conversation really necessary?

  ‘And the new top Auntie Mona sent you?’

  I nodded again, though this was a lying nod. The top Auntie Mona had sent me was totally hideous – orange and pink with big scratchy frills. It looked like a cheerleader’s pom-pom gone wrong. When Mum wasn’t looking I’d hidden it under my mattress.

  ‘And plenty of warm jumpers?’

  ‘And a good book?’

  ‘And sunscreen?’

  And a big sack of sweets and chocolate?

  Mum didn’t say the last one of course. Only my dream-Mum, the normal one, would ever say something like that.

  And on and on she went.

  ‘A sun hat?’

  ‘A raincoat?’

  I looked at my watch impatiently. If Mum didn’t hurry up, I’d miss the bus, and then it wouldn’t matter whether the five thousand things she’d mentioned were in my bag or not.

  Just then the doorbell rang. Through the glass door, I could see the outline of a figure. I breathed a big sigh of relief when I realised that it was an Alice-shaped outline. Was I ever glad to see her!

  I opened the door and my best friend stepped into the hallway.

  ‘All set?’ she asked. ‘Have you everything packed?’

  ‘Shhh,’ I whispered, ‘or you’ll start Mum off again.’

  Then in a louder voice I said, ‘Can we go now?’

  Mum nodded, with a worried look on her face. ‘I suppose so. If you’re sure you have everything?’

  I pulled her by the arm.

  ‘I have, I promise. Now let’s go before we miss the bus.’

  Dad and my little sister Rosie came downstairs, and we all climbed into our battered old car. Alice’s dad stood on their front doorstep and waved goodbye.

  Why couldn’t I get a sensible send-off like that?

  Why did my whole family have to come to see me off?

  Why did I always have to look like an escapee from a travelling circus?

  I made a face at Alice, and she made one back at me. But then I smiled. I was going to summer camp for three whole weeks, and nothing else mattered – not even the fact that my parents are the least cool people in the history of the universe.

  * * *

  Half an hour later, the bus pulled away from the bus station. Dad and Rosie waved madly. Mum waved too, but I could see that she was crying. I felt kind of embarrassed, and sorry for her at the same time. Then I thought about the great time Alice and I were going to have, and I didn’t think about how Mum felt any more.

  I still couldn’t understand how Mum had allowed me to go to camp. One afternoon, I’d just said, ‘Mum, can I go to summer camp in Cork with Alice?’ I tried to say it all casual-like – as if I hadn’t been working up to it for days. As if I didn’t expect her to list a hundred reasons why summer camp would be bad for me. And then Mum totally surprised me by saying, ‘Of course you can, love.’

  Maybe she was thinking about a crazy new plan for the vegetable garden. Or maybe her mind was gone fuzzy from eating too many sunflower seeds or something. I didn’t care though – she had said ‘yes’ and that was all that mattered.

  Anyway, that was all weeks ago. Now I was safely on the bus to camp. Mum and Dad and Rosie were getting further away every second. At last I was free.

  For the first time that morning I allowed myself to relax. It was going to be a fantastic three weeks – I just knew it. Alice and I had read the camp website about a million times, and we knew everything there was to know. There were going to be all kinds of games and sports, and treasure trails and cook-outs and on the second last night,
a huge disco. That was the thing I was looking forward to the most – I’d never been to a disco before. Even thinking about the disco made me feel all excited and jittery.

  Alice and I settled into our seats on the bus. I pulled the camp brochure from my bag, and read it for the thousandth time.

  ‘Are we definitely going to do basketball as our main sport?’ I asked.

  (The camp offered four sports – basketball, tennis, hockey and soccer. Whichever one you picked was your ‘main sport’ and you spent three hours at it each morning.)

  Alice nodded.

  ‘Definitely,’ she said. ‘We agreed that ages ago. We both like it, and we’ll be doing it in September at our new school, so it will be nice to have had some extra coaching. You haven’t changed your mind, have you?’

  ‘No way,’ I said quickly. I’ve never played soccer or hockey, and I’m really bad at tennis, so I was glad that Alice wanted to do basketball too.

  We read the brochure for a while, and then Alice said,

  ‘Pity Grace and Louise weren’t able to come in the end.’

  I nodded, but I didn’t really agree with her. I was kind of glad that by the time Grace and Louise decided that they wanted to come with us, there were no places left in the camp. Grace and Louise are both really nice, and they were very kind to me earlier in the year when Alice was still living in Dublin, but in a way I was looking forward to having Alice all to myself for three whole weeks. I felt like we deserved it.

  We’d both had a rough year. First Alice’s parents split up, and she had to move to Dublin for a while with her mother and her little brother Jamie. Then Alice lost it a bit, and came up with all these mad plans to get her parents back together. Anyway, that crazy stuff was all over now. Alice was back living in Limerick and the two of us were off to camp for three whole weeks of fun.

  * * *

  The journey to Cork took almost two hours, but it felt like about two minutes because Alice and I were chatting so much.

  When we got off the bus, we were met by a man in a mini-bus, who drove us the last few miles to the camp, which was in a boarding school in a village a few miles outside the city. I wondered why Alice and I were the only ones on the bus, but was too shy to ask the driver.

  We drove for about twenty minutes. Alice and I didn’t talk – we were much too excited by now. At last we turned a corner, and I saw a set of huge iron gates, and a sign – Newpark College. We drove up the gravel drive, and little flutters of excitement started deep down in my tummy. I pressed my nose up against the window, and watched as we approached the huge old, ivy-covered building. I felt like a girl in a book, or a film. I felt like Harry Potter on his first day at Hogwarts, or Darrell on her first day at Malory Towers.

  I felt as if my real life was beginning at last.

  Chapter two

  The minibus stopped a t the front door. Alice and I climbed out, and took our rucksacks from the driver. There was no-one else around. The driver jumped back in to the bus, and was about to drive off, when Alice shouted to him.

  ‘Hey, what are we supposed to do? Where are we supposed to go?’ He shrugged.

  ‘I don’t know, do I? I’m only the driver.’

  ‘But where is everyone? There’s supposed to be a camp on here.’

  The bus driver shrugged again.

  ‘Looks like you’re the first ones here. Now I’ve got to go. I’ve got to pick up another lot at the railway station. I’ve got six more runs to do, and I really don’t have time for hanging around chatting to you. Try finding Mrs Duggan, the camp leader. Follow the signs saying office.’

  ‘OK, thanks,’ called Alice, as he drove off with a big spray of gravel.

  Alice picked up her rucksack and led the way in through the huge doors. I followed her. I was glad she was there. If I’d been on my own I’d probably have stood outside on my own like a big eejit, waiting for someone to come along and find me and tell me what to do.

  We quickly found the office. Alice knocked loudly on the door.

  ‘Come.’ It was a deep, cross-sounding voice.

  Alice and I looked at each other. That wasn’t the kind of voice that camp leaders on the television had.

  This was all wrong.

  Where were the happy, bouncy women in track-suits and the jolly men with silly voices?

  Alice made a face at me, and then she opened the door and went inside. I followed her because I couldn’t think of anything else to do.

  Mrs Duggan sat behind a huge wooden desk. (We knew she was Mrs Duggan because she was wearing a big shiny badge with her name on it.) She was writing long lists of numbers into a huge book. She didn’t look up.

  Suddenly I felt a bit afraid, and a bit stupid.

  Maybe Alice and I were meant to be somewhere else.

  Maybe we were never meant to approach Mrs Duggan at all.

  Maybe she was the kind of person you only got to see if you were in really, really bad trouble.

  Was it too late to turn around and run out the door, and pretend that we had never been there at all?

  Alice gave a small cough. Mrs Duggan didn’t even look up. She just kept concentrating on her book. I was beginning to wonder if she’d forgotten all about us, when she finally put down her pen, took off her glasses and looked at us fiercely.

  ‘Well?’

  I didn’t say anything. I didn’t have to, because I knew Alice would crack first. Sometimes it’s nice being the quiet one in a friendship.

  After a few seconds, Alice spoke softly.

  ‘We’re here for the summer camp.’

  Mrs Duggan made a sudden snorting noise.

  ‘Well, I hardly thought you were here to repair the roof.’

  There was another long silence. Finally brave Alice spoke again.

  ‘Where should we go? What should we do?’

  Mrs Duggan gave a big long sigh, like we were really annoying her just by existing.

  ‘You’re early. No one’s meant to be here for another hour.’

  ‘We got the bus.’ Alice said this confidently, as if it explained everything.

  Mrs Duggan sighed again.

  ‘Names?’

  ‘Alice O’Rourke and Megan Sheehan.’ This was Alice again. I felt like my tongue had gone on strike.

  Mrs Duggan picked up a sheet of paper and looked at it for a long time. Then she said in a cold voice.

  ‘You’re in room 28. Second floor. Your group leader will come and get you at tea-time. Now run along and don’t bother me again.’

  We left the room, and closed the door carefully behind us.

  Alice giggled.

  ‘I soooo do not want to meet her again. I’m going to be on my very, very best behaviour.’

  I grinned.

  ‘Me too.’

  We both meant what we said, but I wasn’t sure how things would turn out. Alice hadn’t mentioned secret plans yet, but trouble seemed to have a funny way of following her around, whether she liked it or not.

  It took us ages to find room 28. It was a bit creepy, wandering around the deserted school. If we spoke in anything louder than a whisper, our voices echoed loudly, like they were the first sounds heard in the building for hundreds of years.

  As usual, Alice was much braver than me, opening doors, peeping into rooms, and racing around corridors. She even slid down a big curvy banister.

  She laughed out loud as she got to the bottom, and then covered her mouth as her echoed laugh bounced madly around the huge space.

  ‘That was soooooooooooooo much fun,’ she whispered. ‘Come on, Meg. You do it. I’ll stand here and catch you if you go too fast.’

  I shook my head. I was never as brave as Alice. And I really didn’t want to find myself back in front of Mrs Duggan’s desk again so soon.

  ‘No thanks,’ I said. ‘We have to find our room. And I need to find a toilet.’

  I didn’t really need the toilet. I just said it to get Alice away from the banisters – otherwise she’d have slid down over an
d over again, until she was caught.

  Alice muttered a bit, but she followed me as we continued our search. At last we found room 28. The door opened with a loud creak. There were three beds, with a name tag on each: Alice, Megan and Hazel.

  Alice picked up Hazel’s name tag, and twirled it around in her fingers.

  ‘Hazel’s a nice name, isn’t it? I wonder what she’ll be like? It’ll be fun sharing with someone new, won’t it?’

  I kind of half-nodded. I wasn’t really looking forward to meeting this Hazel person. I’d have liked it better if it had been just Alice and me together. I couldn’t say that though.

  We started to unpack. I had brought all my best stuff, but when it was laid out on the bed, it looked a bit old and faded. My mum believes that a girl only needs three or four outfits, and that each one should last for about a hundred years.

  I looked across at Alice’s bed. Her stuff looked so much newer and brighter than mine – like it had all come out of a real expensive clothes shop about five minutes earlier.

  She saw me looking.

  ‘Hey,’ she said. ‘It’s the broken home thing again.’

  She was kind of right. She’d always had more clothes than me, but since her parents split up, she had more than ever. Her mum and dad seemed to be having a competition to see who could buy her the most things. Alice had a huge wardrobe in each parent’s house, and both were stuffed full of really cool clothes.

  Alice came over and dumped all her tops on to my bed.

  ‘For these two weeks, let’s not have “your stuff” and “my stuff”. Let’s just share everything.’

  I smiled at her.

  ‘Thanks, Al.’ I said. I knew that given the choice, I wouldn’t end up wearing any of my own stuff, but that didn’t matter. Alice had more than enough for both of us.

  I picked up a gorgeous turquoise top.

  ‘This is sooo nice,’ I said. ‘Where did you get it?’

  ‘Dad brought it back from Spain last month. Do you want a loan of it?’

  I didn’t answer. I was too busy feeling the soft fabric, and looking at the tiny green and yellow stripes, and the weenchy flowers embroidered on the sleeves. It was the most beautiful top I had ever seen.