expire

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

When we eventually reached the grubby block of flats we called 'home', the teenagers had already settled in for the evening. In the lobby, of course, blocking our path to the stairs. Chelsea, the ring leader, you could call her, sat comfortably on the lap of Brandon Mitten, who lounged lazily on the bottom three steps. Three others had left muddy trails leading from the door, across the once-white-but-not-so-any-more carpet, to where they sat astride their dirty BMXs. A couple of others whom I recognised from school leant against the broken radiator, chatting loudly, slotting in a swear word now and then for effect. I sighed, and trudged onwards. I was used to this.

“Hey look! Its Ivy, come to join us,” Chelsea drawled, crossing her pudgy legs one over the other, her face forced into a sarcastic smile. “I'm sure Ben could do with the company,” Ben, a 16 year old smoker who had dropped out of school two years ago, gave me a drunken smile and took a swig of his Foster's. He was a regular at the corner shop. The group laughed, but I rolled my eyes and tried to ignore the way they were ogling me. Stepping over Brandon's gangly legs at the bottom of the stairs, I tapped up the steps, sisters in quick succession. “Awww, come on, im looonelyyy” The smoker yelled up drunkenly, a chorus of cackly laughter echoing up through the hollow building.

“Maybe another time, Ben,” Chelsea sniggered, “I’m sure she'll give in someday,”

Now out of sight, I rolled my eyes in an obvious way, and quickened my pace slightly in case they were on one of their 'stalking expeditions'. That had happened once. And they sure did get a mouthful from my mum. Being woken up at three in the morning was not her cup of tea.

Number 126 loomed ahead of us, and we had eventually reached it, after a tiresome trudge up the gazillion steps that led us there. The elevator had broken years ago (and I bet you can guess who was the cause of that), so we had to resort to the stairs, which were, as mum had pointed out, a 'good form of exercise', apart from the fact that you felt like collapsing after climbing up them. And we weren't even on the top floor! We once asked for a home delivery from Tesco for our food shopping, and we had all watched gleefully from our window at the poor delivery guy stomping up towards us. He really didn't know what he was in for! - (I do recall him collapsing as he left the building...maybe I should have offered him a cup of tea or something..).

After three knocks Mum answered the door, brown hair in a tight ponytail, the smell of stir fry filtering through the gap between the shoddy plasterwork that connected the door to the wall and her perfect pink manicured nails. She was a beautician in training, after all. A nasal Chinese voice drawled on about sieving noodles, so I guessed Mum was going through another Oriental phase. The last time this happened all we ate for two solid weeks was prawn crackers and spring rolls. The second time around, I hoped, would at least be an improvement.

“Hey, you're back early – dinner's not ready yet for at least another...” She checked over her shoulder at the rising steam in the kitchen “...Twenty minutes,”

“Uh, yeah, the parks all wet and muddy, so we decided to head back,” I said, peering over her shoulder. “Chinese again?”

“Mmmmm...” my sisters hummed with deep sarcasm. I elbowed them both, before swivelling my eyes around until they met mum's again. We all knew she couldn't cook, really. She practically lived off cookery programmes and instant stuff. If it was microwaveable, she could cook it. Apart from when she experimented...like tonight.

“Yeah, thought it would be nice,a nice change from all that crappy junk food...and besides, I have a surprise for you!”

“oh, what surpri...” I was distracted by the slight burning smell emanating from the pan. “Do I smell burning?”

In only a matter of seconds, my usually swift, neat and composed mum displayed first surprise, stress and then panic before pivoting on the spot and racing towards the smell. I ushered my siblings through the door before pulling it closed. Maggie slotted the lock through the latch as I ran over to join my mother. Thank goodness Maggie remembered those things. We would have been robbed twice over otherwise.

After fidgeting over the frying pan for another half hour, Mum finally announced that dinner was served, and presented us with a clump of congealed noodles with a few peppers strangled within, and sweet chilli sauce oozing from deep inside. As she set it on the table, she looked so proud, so I kept my lips tightly sealed, motioning for my sisters to do the same. That's when I remembered the surprise.

“So mum, what's the special occasion?”

She looked up from her net of noodles and faced me. “Hmm?”

“You said something about a surprise..” I prompted, stabbing my fork into my own mess of tangles.

“Oh yes! Now I remember!” Mum carefully pushed her 'dinner' aside and clasped her hands together tightly. She, in turn, looked the three of us each in the eye. Then she took a deep breath, and said,

“I received a letter today, from the council...”

Maggie and I exchanged glances. Alice looked expectant.

“...and they said we got the house!”

Slowly, smiles blossomed on both mine and my twins' faces. We had been waiting for this for five whole years.

“No way!”

“Ohmydays...”

“Seriously???!!!”

“Yes! They said we could move out whenever we were ready! Finally we can get away from this dump!”

“Talk about finally...”I agreed, before being dragged into the crushing family hug that had already swallowed both my sisters. Maybe, finally, we would say goodbye to the teenagers forever, and could have the prolonged fresh start we had been waiting for for half a decade. It was all eventually happening. And about time too.