17
Heaven’s big bay window has gone all Christmassy. Twinkling fairy lights are draped around the frames and brightly wrapped presents are piled up in heaps. A Christmas menu, pinned to the window, lists mysterious new cakes with names like Santa’s Special, Rudolf ’s Nose and Snowdrift Slice.
‘Can we try them?’ my little sister Kazia breathes.
Mum is working extra shifts at the hotel, which means that I’m taking care of Kazia after school these days. We hang out in the flat, curled up beside the rusty radiator doing homework, or come to the cafe with Frankie and Kurt to take advantage of Dan’s free cake offer.
Kazia loves it, and not just because of the cake. Dan’s mum makes a big fuss of her, and she gets to see Dan’s little brothers, Ben and Nate. Ben’s in her class at school, and sometimes the three of them take over a table and do homework together, or draw, or read comics, or teach each other rude words in English and Polish. Sometimes, they put on aprons and wait on the tables, and the customers always order an extra cake or an especially fancy kind of tea, just to please them.
Today, Christmas carols are playing in the cafe and Dan is behind the counter, wearing a Santa hat.
‘Now I’ve seen it all,’ Frankie says. ‘First an angel, then a saint?’
‘Saint?’ Dan frowns.
‘Saint Nicholas,’ Frankie says. ‘Santa, right? No beard? No padding? No reindeer?’
‘Ho, ho, ho,’ says Dan. ‘Very funny, Frankie.’
‘We have a special day for St Nicholas, in Poland,’ Kazia says. ‘December the sixth. Very soon!’
‘Yeah?’ Dan asks.
‘That’s right,’ I say. ‘If you are good, St Nicholas will come in a sleigh with a white horse, and leave apples and gingerbread and sweets in your shoes! Not everyone does it these days, but it’s a tradition in our family…’
‘In your shoes?’ he echoes. ‘I’ve never found sweets in my shoes before!’
‘That’s because you are not good,’ I tease. ‘Bad boy!’
‘I’m very good,’ Dan laughs. ‘Ask anyone. Well, anyone outside of school! This St Nick day sounds cool… like having two Christmases!’
Kazia’s face clouds. ‘This year is different,’ she says. ‘Maybe St Nicholas won’t even come. We are in Liverpool now, not Krakow. He might not find me.’
‘He’ll find you,’ Dan says with a wink to me. ‘Anya’ll make sure of that. Betcha anything.’
I flop down in the window seat with Frankie while Kazia joins Ben and Nate, who are making paper snowflakes in the corner.
Dan brings us drinks and a plate piled high with the new Christmas themed cakes. ‘No Kurt, today?’ he asks.
‘No,’ Frankie says, selecting a Snowdrift Slice. ‘His gran texted, telling him to come straight home. Not sure why. Wow, this cake is awesome… the window too! At least we know what you were doing all day, when you should have been at school. Draping fairy lights all around the window…’
‘Mum’s hoping the display will attract a few more customers,’ Dan says. ‘We sold three pots of tea, seven coffees, four milkshakes and thirteen cakes, yesterday. It’s not enough.’
‘Too right it’s not,’ Frankie agrees. ‘How much stuff did you give away for free?’
‘Er…’
‘Exactly,’ she says. ‘You have to get tough. Um… not with us, though.’
Dan laughs and drifts back to the counter, and Ringo looms over us, alarming in his orange satin coat. ‘Have you heard about the Lonely Hearts Club?’
‘Beatles song, isn’t it?’ Frankie says.
‘No, no, this is a special singles night, inspired by the song,’ he explains. ‘Every Friday night, starting this week, right here in Heaven. Ten-pound entry fee, to include a free cake and coffee, and Beatles songs playing all evening. All singles over the age of eighteen welcome. If you know anybody who might be interested…’
He offers us some flyers, printed up with swirling sixties’ hearts and flowers. ‘It’s a tough world out there, you know.’ He breaks into a random Beatles song abruptly. ‘All the lonely people… where do they all come from?’
I choke on my cake and struggle to keep my face straight as Ringo dances off to the next table, now singing another song at full volume. ‘All you need is love… da da da da da…’
‘Yeah, right,’ Frankie snorts under her breath. ‘As if !’
‘You don’t believe in love?’ I grin.
Spots of pink appear in Frankie’s cheeks. ‘Of course not,’ she says. ‘I believe in friendship.’
‘What about Kurt?’ I ask.
‘Kurt?’ she squeaks. ‘Kurt Jones? Are you serious? No way! I mean, I like him, as a friend… but that doesn’t mean we… erm… fancy each other. Or anything. Obviously.’
‘Obviously,’ I say, hiding a smile. ‘Whatever you say. Take a flyer for your mum, though. She’s single, yes?’
‘She likes being single,’ Frankie says. ‘But she also likes cake and coffee and the Beatles, so maybe…’ Frankie folds up the flyer and slips it into her pocket.
The door chimes and Kurt bursts in, pink-faced and flustered. ‘Slight problem,’ he says under his breath, sliding into an empty seat. ‘OK, scratch that. Major problem. Disaster, even.’
‘What is it?’
He shakes his head. ‘Gran was dusting on the landing when she heard a loud squeaking noise coming from my room –’
‘Cheesy!’ I exclaim.
‘She’s found him,’ Kurt says. ‘She opened the wardrobe and… well, there he was, poking his nose through the chicken wire. Gran fainted. Clean out.’
‘Is she OK?’ Frankie gasps.
‘Yeah,’ Kurt sighs. ‘But I am in big trouble… I mean BIG trouble. Cheesy needs a new home. Like now!’
A small twitching tail appears, sticking out from Kurt’s jumper sleeve. ‘You can’t bring him here!’ Frankie hisses. ‘You’ll get the place closed down!’
‘I know!’ Kurt wails. ‘I know, but I have to do something… can you have him, Frankie? Just for a night or two?’
‘No way,’ she says. ‘My mum is terrified of rats!’
‘Anya?’
‘No pets allowed in the flat,’ I shrug. ‘Sorry!’
Kurt fixes his gaze on Dan. ‘Hey,’ he calls over. ‘I’ve got the perfect Christmas pressie for your little brothers! A cute pet, cuddly, clever, free to good home…’
‘Sorry,’ Dan says. ‘We had a guinea pig once, but we had to give it away. Ben’s allergic to animal hair.’ Dan’s eyes open wide and he drops his voice to a whisper. ‘It’s not… the rat, is it?’
That’s when Cheesy wriggles out of the neck of Kurt’s drooping handknitted jumper and perches on his shoulder, twitching.
Somehow, we get Cheesy out of the cafe without starting a full-on riot. ‘I can’t believe you brought a rat into our cafe!’ Dan growls. ‘Are you crazy?’
But when Kurt explains how Cheesy has been turned out on to the streets just before Christmas, Dan just sighs and sends his brothers to fetch the old guinea pig cage from their attic. Half an hour later, Cheesy has a new home – a shiny, roomy cage in the corner of my bedroom.
It’s a bad, bad idea, I know that, but Cheesy is homeless. And we might be too, pretty soon, if Dad’s business doesn’t pick up. I can’t help feeling sorry for the little rat. We have a lot in common.
‘He can’t stay,’ I remind Kurt. ‘Mr Yip, the landlord, will be angry. Just one night, until you find a proper home for him!’
‘He’s cute!’ Kazia sighs.
‘He’s not staying,’ I repeat. ‘If my parents find him…’
And then we hear the door click shut, and it’s too late, because Mum is home. Seven guilty faces peer at her round the bedroom door. Eight, if you count Cheesy. Caught, red-handed.
‘A rat?’ she says, horrified, then subsides into Polish, calling on a whole bunch of saints to save her from certain disaster.
‘Gran won’t have him in the house!’ Kurt explains.
‘My mum’s terrified!’ Frankie adds.
‘My brother’s allergic,’ Dan chips in.
‘But we’re not,’ Kazia pleads. ‘So can he stay here? Please?’
‘He’s cooler than a guinea pig,’ Ben and Nate add.
Mum shakes her head. ‘No!’ she says. ‘He’s a rat! And no pets are allowed here, anyway. And we cannot afford –’
‘I’ll supply food and bedding and hay,’ Kurt promises. ‘Think of him as a lodger. Just one or two nights, Mrs Mikalski, till I find him a permanent home…’
‘Please, Mama?’ I ask.
Mum rolls her eyes. ‘One night,’ she sighs grudgingly. ‘Two at most.’
Cheesy’s two nights turn into three, then four, and after that Mum stops mentioning the deadline. ‘He is no trouble,’ Dad comments. ‘Not really. Just keep him hidden from Mr Yip!’
‘He’s temporary,’ Mum reminds us. She doesn’t add that we are too.