Indigo Blue Read Online Free PDF Page A

careful… it won’t go far. It took me months to save this, stashing odd pounds and pennies away. Once it’s gone, that’s that – we have to spend it wisely.’
    Mum takes us to a carpet warehouse and buys a vast offcut of speckly blue carpet for £25. It’s thin and nylon and scratchy, but it’s also big, cheap and blue. Blue is Mum’s lucky colour, so there’s no way we’re about to complain.
    The carpet is too big to carry, but the bloke in the shop winks at Mum and says he’s got a delivery later near Hartington Drive, and he’ll drop it off, no problem, no extra charge.
    In a side street, just behind the sports centre, Mum discovers a junk shop selling a chest of drawers and a wide, wobbly bookcase for £10 apiece. For an extra £2, the lady will arrange to get them delivered.
    They’re seriously grim, but Mum promises she can make them cool and gorgeous.
    We go to a shop that sells wallpaper, and Mum finds loads of little tins of paint in a big basket, reduced to 50p each. We pick every colour we can stand the sight of, then Mum splashes out on a huge tin of emulsion in cornflower blue.
    ‘Kitchen,’ she says, grinning. ‘Bathroom too, if there’s enough left over. Ooh, we’ll need a roller…’
    We grab a packet of cheap brushes, because the rollers are too pricey, and Mum hands over £16 for the lot.
    Next we go food shopping. We trudge to a funny supermarket just out of the town centre where the tins and packets are stacked up on the floor instead of on shelves. You can buy twelve tins of baked beans for a quid.
    We stock up on beans, pasta, peanut butter and cereal like we’re expecting some kind of siege. Then we add washing powder, soap, shampoo, Marmite, cheese, milk, bread, bananas.
    Misti’s asleep by the time we’re on to the cleaning gear, cruising the aisles of a cut-price hardware store, grabbing bleach, washing-up liquid, candles, scourers.
    I’ve glazed over, bored, tired. I think about what I’m missing at school. Games this afternoon, maybe netball, loping about the playground trying to avoid the ball and Miss McDougall’s sharp tongue at the same time.
    I wonder if Jo’s missing me. Is she sorry she was so moody yesterday? Does she believe me now? Or is she hanging out with Aisha Patel, slagging me off and asking Aisha over to play after school?
    I scowl horribly to stop myself from getting sniffly.
    Mum remembers the powercards and sprints off to stock up on a few so we’ll have light, heat and a hot meal later. My arms are aching from the heavy bags and I’m sick to death of shopping, walking and trying to get excited about a damp, greasy cellar in a tatty, crumbling old wreck of a house.
    I push Misti over to a bench and sit down wearily, avoiding the chewing gum. It’s starting to drizzle, so it looks like Mum has her rainy day after all.
    She comes up behind me and we’re huddled together before I know it, snuggled up like ragamuffin gypsies in the rain.
    ‘You must be tired, Indie. I know I am. Starving too. And poor old Misti – she’s been an angel. God, you don’t deserve this.’
    I frown hard and wipe my face. It’s just the rain, honest. Mum doesn’t deserve this either. Not the bruises, not any of it.
    ‘Hey!’
    Mum’s on her feet, waving a £20 note in the air and ploughing through the crowd with the pushchair. ‘Look at us – faces like a wet weekend! We’re hungry, we need cheering up – how about Pizzaland, one last blowout? What d’you say?’
    ‘Yes! Yes, please… oh, yes!’

It’s not finished exactly, but it’s a whole lot better.
    We have scrubbed the floors, washed the walls, wiped the grime and mould off doors, windows and skirting boards. We have scoured the grease from the kitchen tiles and doused the cooker, the bath and the loo in bleach cleaner. For days, all I could smell was bleach.
    Now all I can smell is paint. We painted the kitchen walls cornflower blue – Misti did the low-down bits, I did the middle bits, and Mum