Page 27 of Tricky Girls

It’s about forty minutes to reach the mainland, by which time I’m chilled to the bone. Then it’s a bus, a train and another bus to the small town I’ve called home since forever.

It’s late afternoon by the time I turn into the alley between two terrace houses. The garden gate is jammed as usual. I shoulder it open, dragging my suitcase over the cracked paving stones overgrown with weeds. It’s not a bad garden, just neglected. I should have done more with it over summer.

Mindful of my sick siblings, I don’t holler for them as I usually do. Only the animals greet me when I enter the kitchen, two dogs and three cats weaving between my legs.

‘Hi, babies,’ I whisper, giving each of them a perfunctory stroke.

See, even they’re too much. The chihuahua doesn’t need much walking, but Beau, a large staffie cross, needs multiple a day. Doubt they’ve been out all week with everything that’s gone on.

I find Grandad in the bathroom, pulling Maisie’s hair back as she hacks over the toilet bowl.

‘Oh, mate.’ I give her back a rub, noticing how matted her hair is. As neglected as the garden. ‘Not having a good time, huh?’

My question brings on the water works. Flashing me a grim smile, Grandad flushes the toilet as I take Maisie into my arms.

‘Hey, it’s okay. I’m home now.’

She’s shivering badly in her thin pyjamas, so I lead her back downstairs where there’s a bundle of blankets and pillows on the sofa, her favourite teddy peeking out between them.

‘Let’s get you tucked in.’

I feel her forehead; it’s cool but there’s a bottle of Calpol on the table telling me she probably has a temperature.

‘I’m just gonna pop in and see the other sickbags. Hang tight for me?’

Maisie nods, eyes already drooping as she stares glassily at the TV.

I hate seeing them laid out like this. They’re usually feral, so loud and hyperactive they get more neighbourly complaints than the dogs’ constant barking.

I pop my head into the girls’ room, seeing Taylor asleep on the bed, my old laptop playing something quietly on the desk. Daniel’s in the room next door, crossed legged on his bed playing something on his Xbox.

‘Hey.’

He barely spares me a glance. ‘I wouldn’t, we’re all diseased here.’

‘Not you, though.’

He shrugs. ‘Must be a girl disease.’

‘Lucky you.’

‘Nan’s in hospital.’

‘I heard.’

‘Mum, too.’ He tuts when his avatar’s shot dead. ‘Well, that weird house place.’

Meadow Hill. A crisis house. She’s there every two months on average, despite saying she’s never going back upon every discharge.

‘Well, I’ll be here until Monday. Hopefully the girls will have stopped chucking up by then.’

I close his door, meeting Grandad on the landing.

‘Thanks for coming home, Ells.’

I give a weak smile. ‘No worries. How are they?’

He raises his arms in a shrug. ‘At the toilet every few minutes. Taylor’s over the worst of it, I think. But little Maisie—’ He shakes his head.

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