The Suitcase Kid Read Online Free Page A

tried to get Zen to go to ballet with Crystal but he just mucked about and was silly and the teacher complained. No wonder.
    Anyway
, I have to sleep in Zen and Crystal’s bedroom every other week and it’s a right bore. They’ve got their bunk-beds but otherwise it’s not like a bedroom at all. Carrie lets them get all their toys out at once and they never have to put anything away. They have a tent in there too, and a weird Wendy House made out of the clothes-horse, and heaps of cardboard boxes that are supposed to be trains and shops and caves. You have to wade through all this junk to get across the room to the big cupboard. It’s falling to bits and half the drawers don’t fit properly, but Carrie’s painted it with dragons and mermaids and unicorns and all sorts of other fairy-tale stuff so it looks quite pretty if you like that sort of thing.
    I think I’d have maybe loved a cupboard like that when I was Crystal’s age. I wouldn’t mind one now. If I could have it back in my own bedroom at Mulberry Cottage.
    Mum says it sounds as if I have to sleep ina rubbish tip and she gets particularly narked that I don’t have a proper bed. Carrie’s made this weird cotton sleeping-bag that she says is like a Japanese futon. She embroidered little Japanese ladies and butterflies and birds all over the front and I thought it was specially for me and I couldn’t help liking it a lot. But then I found out that Zen and Crystal’s creepy little friends come to stay sometimes and they sleep in the Japanese bag too, so I went right off it.
    I made a great fuss about my back hurting and my neck hurting and my everything else hurting after a night trussed up in the bag.
    â€˜Don’t be such a whinge, Andy,’ Dad said sharply.
    â€˜Whingy-pingy,’ said Zen, trampling on my feet in his boots.
    â€˜You can share my bunk-bed with me if you like, Andy,’ said Crystal.
    â€˜No thanks. You wet the bed,’ I said.
    â€˜Only sometimes,’ said Crystal, blushing.
    I felt a bit mean then. I wasn’t really cross with Crystal. I was cross at Carrie because if my dad hadn’t gone off with her then I’m sure we’d all be living happily ever after in Mulberry Cottage.
    I say heaps of mean things to Carrie butshe’s never mean back. She always acts like she’s pleased to see me but I’m sure she’s not. She doesn’t want me around half the time. She wants my dad to herself. I bet that’s why she made the Japanese bed-bag. She can fold it up and stow it away in the cupboard. I bet she’d like to fold me up and stuff me out of sight too.
    Anyway
again
, I was busy trying to clear a little bit of space for
my
stuff so I had to chuck some silly junky toys out of the way and Crystal didn’t mind when her Barbie went whirling across the room and landed with her legs in the air and she just laughed when her My Little Ponies went flying through the air like Pegasus, but Zen started yelling that I was mucking up all his Transformers and he started kicking me really hard. So I hooked my leg through his and tripped him and he gave a roar of rage and punched me right in the stomach.
    â€˜Stop it, Zen!’ Crystal shouted. ‘You mustn’t hit people in the stomach. Carrie said.’
    â€˜She said I mustn’t hit
her
in the stomach, because she’s going to have the new baby,’ said Zen. ‘I can still hit anyone else.’
    â€˜Oh no you can’t,’ I said, and I pushed him over and sat on him. ‘What’s all this about a new baby?’ I said, breathing hard.
    â€˜It’s Carrie and Simon’s new baby,’ said Crystal.
    She was sucking her thumb so it came out very indistinctly. I made her repeat it again, while I tried to catch hold of Zen’s kicking legs.
    â€˜Stop that, Zen, you silly little squirt,’ I said, and I pulled his hair which he hates.
    He started yelling and