Andy still looked concerned. 'Come in for a minute,' he said. 'Would you like a cup of tea? A Coke and crisps?'

My mouth watered at the thought. 'I can't really leave Kendall,' I said.

'Isn't your mum home?' said Steve, narrowing his eyes.

'Yes! Yes, but she's in bed, not very well. I want to make her a cup of tea, see, so if I could just borrow that milk?'

'Sure,' said Andy. He brought me a big two-pint carton, plus a couple of cans of Coke and a big bag of Kettle crisps. 'Take these back for you and Kendall.'

'Oh thank you, Andy, thank you!'

'What about breakfast? Has Mum got something in?'

'Well, the bread's gone a bit stale . . .'

He gave me half their loaf and a big packet of muesli.

'You're so kind.'

'Yeah, he's Mr Soft Touch,' said Steve, but he didn't sound too cross about it.

Kendall and I devoured the Coke and crisps. I felt we should save half as it was such a big bag but we were so hungry we ended up munching every scrap and licking out the bag. Kendall drank his Coke too quickly and got the hiccups. He found this uproariously funny at first. Then he got tired and tetchy.

'Stop me!' he begged.

I tried making him sip water but he hiccuped in mid swallow and choked. Even that didn't stop him. I knew you were supposed to be able to frighten someone out of hiccups so I tried creeping up on him and going boo. This didn't work either.

It seemed so stupid trying to frighten him when we were in such a scary situation already. The Voice of Doom was laughing its head off.

Kendall was still hiccuping when I put him to bed. I made him lie on his tummy and then I patted his back.

'I used to do this when you were a little baby,' I said. 'It always made you burp.'

'Me a lickle baby now,' Kendall lisped. 'Burpy burpy burp.' He made George jump up and down. 'Poor George. He's got the burpy hiccups too.'

'I'm not surprised he's got hiccups. Tell him to stop snacking on poor little Bobby Blue Bear.'

'He gets hungry,' said Kendall. 'And Bobby likes being eaten.'

'Well, tell George he'd better not start on Pinkie. I don't want shark slobber all over my bear.'

Kendall giggled, hiccuped one last time, and fell fast asleep. I took my clothes off and lay down beside him. I'd put Kendall to sleep. I'd put Mum to sleep. I wanted someone to come along and put me to sleep.

There were too many worries circling round and round my head. I knew Mum couldn't come home tomorrow. Maybe not even the day after. And when she did come home she'd probably still feel poorly. She wouldn't be able to work for a while. So what were we going to do for money?

I couldn't keep begging food from Steve and Andy. I couldn't think of any way I could earn money myself. You had to be thirteen before you could do a newspaper round. I'd seen a few kids helping out in the market, but they were all boys. I could filch a few bruised bananas and rotten apples as the market closed up each day but that wouldn't be enough to feed the three of us. I could hang about outside McDonald's and grab left-over French fries and half-eaten burgers. I could sidle round Sainsbury's and pinch a packet here, a tin there . . . ?

No, I couldn't. I didn't have the bottle. What if I got caught? It was wrong to steal. But Mum needed good food to build her strength up. She'd looked so little lying there in hospital. What if I had to watch her losing weight day after day? What if she died?

What would Kendall and I do then? Would they make us go back to Dad? He'd be kind to Kendall but I wasn't his little Jayni any more. I was big enough for him to batter.

I moved my jaw gingerly. It still sometimes ached from that one punch. I couldn't take it like Mum. I was a terrible baby. I'd cry, and that always made Dad madder.

I curled up small and felt for Pinkie bear. I hugged her hard against my chest. I thought of Dad's fists. Tears trickled onto Pinkie's fur. I wished she could grow bigger, big as my pillow, big as the bed. I wanted her to lift me up and cradle me against her pink fur.

Auntie Barbara had given her to me when I was born. Maybe Auntie Barbara looked like a giant Pinkie without her clothes.

I clutched Pinkie tight.

Auntie Barbara!

I couldn't remember her properly. I last saw her at Grandma's funeral when I was younger than Kendall. Mum talked about her size so much she seemed like a character in a cartoon. It was weird remembering she was real.

Would she help us? I knew Grandad would have nothing to do with us. But maybe Auntie Barbara was softer? She must like us a little bit if she sent us special teddies. She used to send books too, before we moved to the flats. I remembered a big book about an elephant and one about a little bear and a funny one about jelly with a hole in the pages. I'd loved those picture books but Kendall tore them all when he was a toddler. Auntie Barbara hadn't sent us any presents for years. But maybe she simply didn't have our address.

I didn't have her address. I couldn't ask Mum. She'd go mad if she thought I was going begging to the sister she couldn't stand. I wondered why Mum didn't like her. Maybe Auntie Barbara had been really mean to her. But she wasn't just Mum's sister, she was my auntie. Aunties were meant to help you, weren't they?

Harpreet had heaps of aunties. They made a big fuss of her and invited her to tea and bought her special sweets and hair slides and bangles. Maybe my Auntie Barbara wouldn't mind if I asked her to send a few fivers to tide us over until Mum could work. She must have quite a lot of money if she lived in Grandad's pub.

I couldn't remember the name. It was some sort of fish. The Cod? No, that sounded stupid. The Salmon? That wasn't right either. The Trout, that was it! And I knew the town, even if I didn't know the street.

I sat up in bed and rang Directory Enquiries on Mum's mobile. I wrote the number down and then dialled it quickly before I could change my mind. The phone rang and rang. I hoped Grandad wouldn't come to the phone. I was about to give up but then someone answered. A woman.

'The Trout. Can I help you? Though it's after closing time-'

'I'm sorry. I forgot it was so late. Can I speak to to Barbara, please?'

'Speaking.'

'Oh! Well, you don't really know me but but I think you're my auntie.'

'Oh, good lord! Is that Jayni?'

'Yes.'

'Oh Jayni, how lovely that you phoned!'

'You don't mind?'

'Of course not! I've been hoping and hoping you would all get in touch. What's happened, Jayni? Are you all right?'

'Well. Sort of. It's just . . .' I didn't know where to start.

'Let me have a word with your mum,' said Auntie Barbara.

'Well, that's just it. She's not here.'

'Where is she?'

'In hospital.'

'Oh God. Did your dad catch her then?'

I sat up in bed, startled. How did Auntie Barbara know we'd run away?

'No, she's had to go to hospital to have a lump taken out. She said she'd come straight back but she didn't. So we went to see her and she's all sleepy but I think she's all right. We're back home now, Kenny and me, but we haven't got any money left. I don't know what we're going to do for food. We've got some muesli but I don't think Kenny will eat it. The bread's gone mouldy so I was wondering if you could send us some money, Auntie Barbara, just for a few days. We'll pay you back the minute Mum gets work. She doesn't know I'm phoning and I'd be ever so grateful if you don't tell Grandad because I know he doesn't like us but I thought you might just be kind enough to-'

'Jayni! Let me get a word in edgeways, sweetheart! Now calm down. I'm going to help, don't worry. Hang on while I get a pen and paper. Then you can give me your address.'

'Oh Auntie Barbara!' I said, and I burst into tears. She sounded so nice.

I cried so hard I could barely stammer out the address. Auntie Barbara repeated it back to me to make sure she'd got it right.

'There now, Jayni, don't cry, pet. It's going to be all right. You can count on me. Now, have you got the door locked, you and Kenny? Then I should try to go to sleep now. Don't worry any more. I'll get everything sorted out, you'll see.'

So I went to sleep, clutching Pinkie to my chest, Kendall breathing softly by my side.

Then Kendall woke me up, shaking my shoulder and tugging my hair.

'Leave off, Kendall.'

'There's someone knocking at the door, Lola Rose! It's the middle of the night!'

'What? It'll be someone for Steve and Andy. One of their mates will have been at a party.

'They're calling out for Jayni and Kenny.' Kendall paused. 'Is that still us?'

'Oh help!'

I flew to the window, thinking it was Dad. I saw a very large woman peering up at me in the moonlight, clutching great carrier bags. 'Auntie Barbara!'

I ran down the stairs, tripping and nearly falling in my eagerness. Miss Parker poked her head round her door. She had a hairnet pulled right down to her eyebrows.

'I'm telling the housing people on you,' she said. 'Waking a body at all hours! It's disgraceful.'

'I'm sorry, really sorry, but it's my auntie,' I said, hurrying towards the front door.

'I don't care if it's little green men from Mars, they shouldn't come knocking in the middle of the night!' said Miss Parker.

I took no notice, fiddling with the bolts on the door. 'Don't go, Auntie Barbara, I'm coming!' I called.

I got the door open at last. Auntie Barbara dropped the bags and held out her arms to me. I fell against her.

Whenever I hugged Mum hard she always teetered on her heels and said, 'Careful, you'll knock me over.'

No one could knock Auntie Barbara over. She didn't budge an inch. She stayed still, like a well-upholstered sofa, while I leant against her and cried on the big soft cushion of her chest.

A small fist pummelled at my bottom.

'Do we know her?' Kendall asked.

I stopped snivelling and stepped back, reaching for Kendall. 'Of course we do! This is our auntie. Auntie Barbara, this is Kenny.'

'I'm Kendall,' he said.

Auntie Barbara stooped, arms open. Kendall backed rapidly.

'I don't hug strange ladies,' he said.

'Kendall!' I hissed.

Auntie Barbara laughed. 'Quite right, Kendall. And they don't come any stranger than me.'

She did look strange. She had long blonde hair, thick and soft, like Mum's, but Auntie Barbara's was really long. She wore it caught up and coiled and twisted into a bun at the top of her head, though little tendrils escaped and hung down like earrings. She had a very pretty face with Mum's big blue eyes. She didn't wear any make-up. Her skin was very pink as if she spent a lot of time scrubbing it. If you chopped Auntie Barbara off at the neck like one of those old hairstyling doll heads she'd win any beauty contest. But things started to go weird past her shoulders. There was just so much of her. She was the BIGGEST LADY I'd ever seen. She wasn't just fat, she was vast, so massive she seemed a different species altogether.

She wasn't wibbly-wobbly like the lovely maid at the hotel. She looked like she was made of pink marble, a great monument. She was wearing a vast silk top in a wonderful deep purple, with a matching wrap-around skirt. It could have wrapped round Kendall and me a dozen times. Her toenails were painted purple too, shining in her silver sandals. I wondered at first how she could stretch down over her huge stomach to reach her toes, but she proved amazingly agile for such a large lady. She bounded up the stairs to our flat, swinging the great bags.

Miss Parker watched, open-mouthed. 'Who's she when she's at home the Queen of Sheba?'

Auntie Barbara laughed and gave her a regal wave. She had a great silver ring on either hand and a huge chunk of amber hung on a thick silver chain. It was easy enough to imagine an amber crown on top of her coiled hair.

Kendall and I followed in her wake. Her bottom was enormous above us. Kendall's eyes met mine. We struggled not to giggle.

Steve and Andy peered down from their landing above, in little shortie Japanese dressing gowns. Auntie Barbara waved to them too. When we got inside our front door, Auntie Barbara said, 'I wonder if they realized we could see right up their dressing gowns!'

We could all giggle together.

'Right, Jayni, where's the kettle? I'm dying for a cup of tea. And biscuits.'

'I'm afraid we haven't got any.'

'I have,' said Auntie Barbara. She opened one of the carriers and brought out tea bags, chocolate Hobnobs, a walnut cake, fairy cakes, doughnuts, a multipack of sandwiches, bananas, apples and a giant bar of Cadbury's chocolate. 'I think we could all do with a bit of sustenance,' she said, smiling. 'I went to the all-night supermarket on the way.'

'How did you know I like that chocolate, Auntie Barbara?' I asked her, awed.

'I like it,' said Auntie Barbara. 'I've been known to eat a whole bar by myself.'

'Not a giant bar?'

'You bet a giant bar,' said Auntie Barbara, bustling around making tea as if she'd lived in our flat all her life.

'But aren't you worried that-?'

'That it'll make me fat?' said Auntie Barbara, she hooted with laughter. 'Bit late in the day to start worrying!'

She sat herself down on Mum's sofa bed, filling it as if it was her own armchair. Kendall and I sat cross-legged in front of her. We had cups of tea too, and started on Auntie Barbara's picnic. It tasted wonderful. Even Kendall ate heaps, properly too, swallowing the crusts on his sandwiches and eating the sponge as well as the icing on his fairy cake.

Auntie Barbara ate the most though. It was plain she could out-eat anyone. She saw me watching every mouthful she took. 'I'm a very bad example, Jayni,' she said. 'It's very unhealthy to eat as much as me and get so terribly fat.'