The Mixed-Up Summer of Lily McLean Read Free Page B

skirting boards. I heard scratching when I was walking through the hall and I thought I should check, just in case.”
    Mum’s look of abject horror makes me wish I’d told her I’dsimply gone mad instead. “Jenna!” she screeches at the closed bedroom door. “Get those dirty plates out of your room and into the sink! I told you we’d get rats!”
    “I think I must have imagined the scratching,” I break in hastily. “It was probably Bronx or Hudson carrying on in the living room. You know what they’re like.”
    Mum looks uncertain. She clearly wants to believe that there are no rodents in the house, but needs a bit more persuasion. Then I have a brainwave.
    “Mac and Quipp would have caught any rats or mice as soon as they dared show their little whiskery faces. You can tell Quipp’s a great mouser just by watching him stalk spiders,” I say firmly.
    I see Mum visibly relax, and decide that distraction would be an excellent tactic at this point. Maybe I should be a lawyer, after all?
    “So Mum, what’s all the fuss about Millport?” I ask casually. “Jenna doesn’t seem too thrilled,” I add, with spectacular understatement.
    “I knew Jenna wouldn’t be keen to stay with Gran in a caravan this year. I did suggest Bronx and Hudson go instead of her, but Gran was having none of that. Mean old so and so.”
    I can see both sides of this story. I have a lot of sympathy with Gran, as a holiday in a caravan with Hudson and Bronx would be no holiday at all. And Gran loves her holidays in Millport. But for Mum, it would be an answer to a prayer. She would have a whole week without the gruesome twosome’s constant squabbling.
    “That’s a shame,” I say, although I don’t sound terribly convincing. From a purely selfish point of view, I am completely on Gran’s side on this one. I share a room with Bronx and Hudson all year. I would like some peace and privacy on my summer holiday too.
    “So I was trying to persuade Jenna to go,” says Mum with an exasperated sigh. “But she is dead against it. I’m not going to force her.”
    I wouldn’t fancy Mum’s chances of success, but if by some miracle she did manage to convince Jenna to go, it would be Gran and me who would suffer. It’d be the holiday from hell. She would make every minute miserable, with her sulks, tantrums and complaints. Now that I think about it, perhaps I’d rather have Bronx and Hudson. At least they would enjoy themselves.
    “Gran will be disappointed if Jenna doesn’t come,” I say carefully.
    I think I’m on safe ground here.
    My gran dotes on Jenna and me, despite Jenna’s recent transformation. She is not nearly so fond of the other three, which is sad for them, and sometimes a bit uncomfortable for us, particularly at Christmas and birthdays, when Gran’s favouritism really shows (much to my mum’s fury). The fact is, she’s mine and Jenna’s gran by blood, but not theirs – and while she looks out for all of us, I guess she can’t hide her affection for her own son’s daughters. Gran would be mortified if we said anything though.
    Despite her love for Jenna, Gran isn’t afraid to muscle in with the discipline. She says she needs a good smack. Mind you, Gran says that a lot, mostly in a big loud voice when she sees a kid misbehaving in the street or in a shop. It’s mega-embarrassing.
    “Listen to that cheeky wee so and so!” she bawled last weekend, when she and I were out getting her shopping. (She needs me to be her bag-carrier.) “If I’d spoken to my mother like that, she’d have boxed my ears!”
    The child’s mother whirled round and swore at my gran, who now felt completely justified.
    “That explains everything,” Gran said loudly as she flounced out, while I trailed behind, scarlet-faced and laden with plastic carrier bags. “Poor wee wean, having a mother so foul mouthed.”
    It was unimaginable humiliation. No wonder Jenna refuses to help Gran with the shopping.
    So I am her favourite