Two (Countdown Book 5)

Chapter 14

The next two and a half days were debatably the best of my life. We went out each day, somewhere new every time. In the evening, we'd watch kids shows on TV, until half seven when the kids went to bed and we'd play some board games or card games and have long, interesting talks. I only ever told them anything that wouldn't effect national security, like my friends, films I liked, games I played. 

My mum was especially interested in meeting Mackenzie.

Abi and Izzy were top-and-tailing in Izzy's bed, and Becks was in Abi's bed, meaning that I was in Becks' bed (which was the only one I would fit in). On the last day, my mum and dad both had work, so instead of going to school and nursery, I offered to take the kids out for the day. I took the three of them out shopping and spoilt them rotten.

It started when we got a bus down into town at around ten o'clock. My mum had offered to give us money to spend, but I had money of my own. Although Boston had banned our illegal credit cards, he'd recently agreed to start paying us because we kept complaining that we needed new clothes and stuff. So, now the government put in a thousand pounds a month to bank accounts they'd set up for us.

I really don't know what kind of clothes he thought we brought.  

Anyway, most of the time I didn't spend my money. I didn't have an awful lot to spend it on. So, I told my mum that it was cool. I'd paid for a fair amount of the stuff we'd done over the last few days, just because it was my family, and there was nothing I'd rather spend the money on. 

We stopped off at the town, and I looked up at the shops that I hadn't seen in so long. I was holding Abi's and Izzy's hands, and Becks was holding onto Abi's hand. The first shop I took them in was a toy shop. 

I agreed to let them have one toy each, and of course they all picked the most expensive, loudest thing they could find. I figured my parents wouldn't like the loud part, but that wasn't really my problem. In the end, Abi and Izzy each ended up with a baby doll (the kind that talks and you feed it and stuff) and somehow managed to convince me to get all of the accessories and furniture that went with it as well.

Becks asked for a sports/weapons set. It had a football, a basketball and fold-up hoop, a toy gun, velcro darts and board, a skipping rope and a yo-yo (I didn't honestly think those things were still around). All of that was inside a large rucksack that would probably just about fit over his tiny shoulders. 

After we got outside with it, the girls insisted that we stand in the streat while they dressed the babies and put them in their tiny buggies. I wondered if they realised that they'd picked identical babies, with the exception of clothes and furniture. Probably not. So I somehow ended up walking down the street with the twins just ahead of me, pushing their babies, holding Becks' hand as he walked and holding all of the twins' excess toys. 

Next, I stopped inside a clothes shop. I thought they'd be less eager about this, but I was nicely surprised when I found out that they seemed just as happy to be shopping for clothes. 

We went to the boy's section first, and we all picked out some clothes for Becks together. They all quickly found some clothes for me, too. I would probably never wear any of them, but I didn't mind. They seemed eager to fit me out for new clothes. Then, we moved onto the girl's section. Becks didn't seem awfully interested here, but the girls kept pointing to clothes eagerly and telling me how pretty (which was the only word they seemed to know) they were. 

When we eventually got to the tills, I had an overflowing basket it one hand and the twins' toys in the other. Becks was pushing along another basket which he couldn't carry, his rucksack still on his back. The twins, for their part, were still pushing their dolls through the aisles and towards the tills.