The Yoghurt Plot (8 page)

It must be the day before yesterday. It's six o'clock, as it always is. Mum's on the phone to her sister; Dad's in the garden; the telly's on next door.

‘Is this today? Or yesterday?' asks Dilan.

‘The day before that, I think.'

‘Shouldn't we jump forward?' he says.

I shake my head. ‘We can't be sure we'd get back to the right time. We might miss them. I have a feeling the fridge wants us to try to stay hidden until we reach the point where they disappear.'

Dilan looks worried. ‘How do I avoid myself? What would I have been doing?'

‘Skateboard?'

‘So where shall I hide?'

‘Upstairs? Airing cupboard?'

He nods and shuffles upstairs. Outside I hear the other Dilan scrape the wheels of a skateboard on the tarmac.

What was I doing?

I try to think back. I wasn't hanging out with friends – I don't really bother with them. Reading? No, I don't think so. I only read in bed, to stop myself being scared of the things underneath it. So what was I doing? I sit under the table and examine the backs of my hands. There are hairs. Maybe I'm turning into a werewolf. I shake my head; I'm not turning into a werewolf. I've already been to the future. I'm not a werewolf there, so I can't possibly be one here.

At that moment I realise what I was doing the day before yesterday, because I'm doing it again now. Nothing. Nothing at all, just worrying about things. That's how I fill my time. I'm both reassured and disappointed. Do I really fill hours and hours with stupid worries? Is that really what I was doing the day before yesterday?

I really can't think of anything else. I don't watch TV because of Granddad. He's in front of it most of the time, and anyway, Mum says I shouldn't watch anything too grown-up, or anything sci-fi or anything really because all I do is agonise all night about aliens climbing the stairs. I actually don't think what I watch makes any difference. It's being the youngest – it's a lonely place. I'd always be the first one any marauding creature would choose to pick off, the least likely to be able to defend myself.

I sit and imagine life with a younger brother or sister. Would it be better or worse? Less Mum and Dad to go round, more people to talk to. I might start to worry about them. I might feel I had to protect them.

‘Bugg, do you want to come for a walk?' It's Mum.

I'm about to answer that I don't want to when I hear myself say, ‘No, thanks, Mum.'

I sit under the table until Mum goes and other Bugg goes, and then run upstairs to join Dilan in the airing cupboard.

Sleeping's weird. Apart from anything else, the airing cupboard is small, and Dilan snores. I don't know if I sleep, or just go into a form of paralysis. I'm paralysed by the idea that the fridge is actually a real being that's trying to control us. After all, it decides when and where we go, by only offering a tiny choice of yoghurts.

I don't think I want to be controlled by a fridge.

I'm also wondering quite how we're going to get through the whole of tomorrow without being spotted. We can't actually spend all day at home. Someone's bound to find us, but then I can't see how we're going to get out either.

In the morning, I hear Mum kissing me and sending me off to school.

‘Here's your packed lunch,' she says, stuffing a sandwich bag at the other me. ‘And don't forget to walk to the end of the road after school. I'll be able to give you a lift home.'

I gaze at her through the keyhole. I don't think I've ever noticed how nice and kind Mum's face is, sort of squashy and warm. I'd like to give her a hug, but the other me just ducks away from her kiss and runs down the stairs. Mum opens the airing-cupboard door and we shrink into the darkness while she fiddles with a towel before shutting the door again.

I wish I'd thought about this a bit more. Stuck in here, all I can think about is all the fantastic things I could be telling people at school. I could tell them that there will be beef stew on the menu.

I could tell them that Mr Priest, our teacher, will be ill, so we'll have the supply teacher with the big ears.

I could tell them that Dilan will go flying as he steps in through the school gates, that Becky Wen's lunch box will empty across the bus, that Jordan Keating will be sick over Mr Symes, that Mr Todd will be lurking behind the wall ready to bark at anyone with the wrong shoes.

I could tell them all these fantastic things that only someone who has visited the future could know, but no one would ever believe me. They think I'm weird enough as it is. They'd put it down to coincidence and lucky guesses.

And they'd be more interested in why there were two of me.

‘I'm hungry,' says Dilan eventually. ‘We need to get out of here.' He pushes open the door and pauses on the landing.

‘We can't eat anything,' I say. ‘It'll affect time.'

Dilan glares at me, slips down the stairs and stops outside the kitchen to listen. Granddad's telly covers the noise of our footsteps, but I can still hear Mum whistling in the kitchen.

‘We'll have to go out,' I say, tiptoeing in the direction of the front door.

With a longing look towards the kitchen, Dilan follows and we run into the lane until we're well out of sight.

We spend hours sitting in the churchyard feeling hungry and not touching anything.

We're still wearing our school uniforms, which means that if we get spotted, someone will ask questions. But possibly not as many questions as they would if we weren't.

‘I've had enough,' says Dilan. ‘If I don't eat something, I'll die.'

‘Have you got any money?' I ask, deciding that the least dreadful thing to do would be to buy something, although if we buy something, that's going to mean that someone else doesn't buy it, or that it doesn't get thrown away, can't rot on a rubbish heap, can't feed some beetles that might possibly feed a bird, that might not be caught by a cat that might belong to someone that couldn't afford to keep it, which would mean that the cat would die, and the person would be sad – and then Dilan says:

‘No.'

‘So where are you going to get food?'

‘From school.'

‘School? But
we're
at school.'

‘Yes – but we know where we are, so we can avoid ourselves.'

‘Dilan, you're mad,' I say.

‘I'm not; you'll see.'

I argue with him the whole way, but soon we arrive at the gates and let ourselves in. It's lunchtime, and I know that all through lunch that day I was sitting in the classroom worrying about the edge of the universe. If it has an edge, what's beyond it? We'd been doing the cosmos, and the cosmos always makes me feel anxious – it's just so big.

‘Hello, Bugg, dear,' says Miss Golightly, catching me sneaking a sandwich from the dining room. ‘How's Arnold?'

She wriggles her tongue around her teeth as if to clear the last shards of peanut brittle from her mouth. This time I notice her smile, her perfect lipstick, the graceful way she lays her hand against her throat.

She's the girl from 1969. I'm sure of it.

So I ask her. ‘Miss Golightly, when the pier burned down – what exactly happened?'

A tiny frown crosses Miss Golightly's eyebrows. The corner of her mouth flicks down and then back up into her warm smile. She glances at her watch. ‘Goodness, that's a long way back. 1974. Before I started here.' She addresses the playground. ‘I was his partner, of course, Arnold, your Granddad.' She swivels to face me. ‘Did you know that?'

‘Yes – no – I don't know,' I say.

‘It was the evening that it happened. We were getting ready to dance. The girls' dressing room was a cloud of hairspray and talcum powder.' Like Granddad, I can see that she's replaying the whole thing.

‘And?'

‘The first couple would have gone out to dance, and I don't think we knew anything was wrong until we smelled the smoke. The fire alarms didn't work – I don't think they'd been serviced – and the sprinkler system only came on in the foyer. Shirley Sunshine – oh, she wasn't really called that. She was Janet Nobbs. Still is, I expect – she ran in and shouted, “Fire!” We ran. The audience ran too; it was pandemonium.' Miss Golightly lets out a sigh and wipes a tiny tear from her powdered cheek. ‘There were an awful lot of people in there that night. It took the firemen an age to arrive, and when they did they had to get us all out before they could even start to put the fire out. It's a miracle no one was killed.'

‘Do you remember seeing anyone who shouldn't have been there?' I ask, just as the bell rings for the end of lunch.

‘No – well, not really.' She stares into space, remembering. ‘There were so many people that night, the promenade was heaving.' She taps me on the arm. ‘Run, or you'll be late.'

Getting into our school was quite easy; getting out is not. We're just swinging through the gate when Mr Todd spots us.

‘Dilan, Bugg – into class now.'

‘But, Sir,' says Dilan, ‘we've got a dentist appointment. It's really important.'

‘It is,' I say, putting on my most anxious face.

Mr Todd falters.

Mr Todd is like the school Rottweiler: he never falters.

He checks his watch and scratches his chest. ‘It's only one thirty. You'll come back afterwards.'

‘We'll come back,' I say. ‘You'll hardly notice we've gone.'

Mr Todd obviously doesn't believe me, but he opens the gate and waves us away and we run from the school as hard as we can.

‘Now what?' asks Dilan when we've meandered home. ‘It's only four o'clock. What are we going to do all evening? I'm not sure I can stand any longer in the airing cupboard.'

He's right; there's hours to go and at the moment we're hiding in the garden hedge, which is fine, but limiting in terms of entertainment. I spent nearly an hour watching a butterfly laying eggs on Dad's newly planted cabbage plants.

‘We could try the shed.'

But the shed's full of Dad's cycling gear and we don't fit, so we go back to the hedge and crouch in the privet studying the game options on Dilan's phone.

At about four thirty Mum's car screeches into the driveway and we watch ourselves rush into the house. At four forty Mum goes back out with a huge pile of shopping bags, and the other Dilan comes out with his skateboard and messes about in the road.

Dilan watches himself, wincing at his own technique. He even has to cover his face with his hands at one point.

Finally Mum comes back with the shopping and crashes in through the kitchen door with the first carrier bags.

I catch a glimpse of myself standing by the fridge.

‘We're about to try the yoghurts.' I say.

‘Ooh, let's have a look,' says Dilan, leaning towards me and nearly tipping us both out of the hedge.

‘Hey,' I shout at him, and I'm sure I see myself look up, just as I see myself fade out of the kitchen.

‘How long have we got?' says Dilan.

‘I don't know,' I say. ‘Seconds, I should imagine.'

We charge through the kitchen. I can't help taking a look at the fridge as we go past and I notice that the one thing that hasn't gone back to yesterday are the letters on the door.

They're in a jumble, except for the word time.

‘Time,' I say. ‘It says time.'

‘What says time?' hisses Dilan, diving into the airing cupboard.

‘The fridge. I mean, I think it's got a soul. It's an entity – it can think – it can leave messages in the letters.'

Dilan widens his eyes and shakes his head, squeezing himself into the space at the back of the airing cupboard. ‘It's just a fridge, with magic yoghurt in it. You know, happens all the time. I expect Mum made the word.'

I shut up and worry while Dilan sends himself texts.

Hours later, we hear ourselves go to bed. There are lots of tap noises and flushing noises, and giggling on the landing.

The smell of stew drifts up the stairs. ‘I'm really hungry,' says Dilan.

‘So am I,' I say, thinking about Dad's stew.

There are clanking noises in the kitchen, shuffling from Granddad, and then he turns the telly up really loud so that we can hear the laughter from the dance show that he's watching.

‘Now what?' hisses Dilan.

‘We wait for Mum to come back.'

‘Uh? We won't have time to stop them.'

‘Her dirty plate was on the side – she must have eaten supper before the yoghurt.'

The car scrunches over the gravel in the drive. The door slams, and Mum's key rattles in the lock.

‘Now?' asks Dilan.

‘Yes – now.'

‘Stop!' hisses Dilan. ‘We're still in school uniform. They'll know something's up.'

We rummage in the shelves above our heads for pyjamas. I have to wear a pair of Mum's pyjama bottoms and I just hope she doesn't notice. Dilan opts for pants.

We crawl to the top of the stairs. It's hard to make out what's going on because of Granddad's music which I can feel through my toes.

‘Go on,' says Dilan. ‘Or we'll miss them.'

I take a deep breath, straighten up and tiptoe down the steps. From the hall I can see into the kitchen, and Mum and Dad are sitting on either side of the table. They've got a glass of wine each, and two unopened yoghurts sitting on the table between them.

Behind them, the fridge is humming. Mum reaches out for one of the pots.

‘No!' I say.

But Mum's peeling off the lid.

‘No! Don't eat it!' I yell, staggering forward, clutching my stomach with one hand, my mouth with the other. ‘There's something  … ' I rush to the sink and make exaggerated vomiting sounds, turning the tap on with such force it soaks my pyjama top but blending my pretend, invisible vomit into a mix of washing-up residue. ‘Aaaaaaarghghghghgh.'

‘Bugg!' Mum throws the yoghurt to one side. ‘You poor darling. Dilan, quick, get a towel!'

Dilan appears in the kitchen doorway, trying really hard not to laugh. ‘Sure,' he mutters, and belts up the stairs.

I sink theatrically to a chair and groan while Mum stands behind me, stroking my shoulders. Dad peers in the sink and frowns. ‘Not much came up then?' he says.

‘It was all milky – it's the yoghurt,' I say, slipping one of Granddad's packet soups under my top and running for the downstairs loo. I chuck it down the loo, which smells of Granddad's wee, and nearly vomit for real. After flushing, only the squares of carrot float to the surface. It looks quite convincing. ‘Ugh!' Sagging to the floor in the hall, I stuff the empty packet into the pyjama bottoms so that Mum can't see it and roll from side to side.

‘Mum – who lived here before us?' I ask.

‘What a funny question when you're in the middle of being sick,' says Dad. ‘Old Margaret, she'd lived here for years – since the Fifties, I think – all my life anyway.'

‘Did you ever come in the house, Dad?'

‘Oh, do stop talking about that now. Bedtime,' says Mum, ‘with a bucket, and no school for you tomorrow.'

‘Oh!' I say, wondering how I'm going to explain this to the sleeping Bugg. ‘Really?'

‘Really.'