The Bed and Breakfast Star Read Online Free PDF Page B

growled.
    He’s always like that with me. Ready to bite my head off. He’s the one who’s like a lion, not me.

    I wish I could figure out some way of taming him.
    ‘I’ll feed Hank for you, Mum, and see that Pippa has a proper breakfast,’ I promised kindly.
    ‘Your mum’s going to have a proper breakfast herself,’ said Mack. ‘That’s what she needs to make her feel better. A good cooked breakfast. And if we’re getting it as part of this lousy bed-and-breakfast deal then we ought to make sure we all eat every last mouthful.’
    ‘All right, I’m coming,’ said Mum, slapping a bit of make-up on her pale face and fiddling with her hair. She took out her mirror from her handbag and winced. ‘I look a right sight,’ she wailed.
    ‘You look fine to me,’ said Mack, giving her powdered cheek a kiss. ‘And you’ll look even better once you’ve got a fried egg and a few rashers of bacon inside you.’
    ‘Don’t, Mack! You’re going to make me throw up,’ said Mum.
    I’d throw up if Mack started slobbering at me like that.
    We trailed down all the stairs to the ground floor, where this breakfast room was supposed to be. Mack started sniffing, his hairy nostrils all aquiver.
    ‘Can’t smell any bacon sizzling,’ he said.
    We soon found out why. There wasn’t any bacon for breakfast. There wasn’t very much of anything. Just pots of tea and bowls of cornflakes and slices of bread, very white and very square, like the ceiling tiles in reception. You just went and served yourself and sat at one of the tables.
    ‘No bacon?’ said Mack, and he stormed off to the reception desk.
    ‘Hank needs his egg,’ said Mum, and she marched off after Mack, Hank balanced on her hip.
    Pippa and I sighed and shrugged our shoulders. We straggled off after them.
    The big lady was behind the desk. She was wearing a fluffy blue jumper this time. I hoped she’d painted her fingernails blue to match, but she hadn’t. Still, Mack was certainly turning the air blue, shouting and swearing because there weren’t any cooked breakfasts.
    ‘It’s your duty to provide a proper breakfast. They said so down at the Social. I’m going to report you,’ Mack thundered.
    ‘We don’t have any duty whatsoever, sir. If you don’t care to stay at the Royal Hotel then why don’t you leave?’ said the big lady.

    ‘You know very well we can’t leave, because we haven’t got anywhere else to go. And it’s a disgrace. My kids need a good breakfast – my baby boy needs his protein or he’ll get ill,’ said Mum.
    She spoke as if Hank was on the point of starving right this minute, although she was sagging sideways trying to support her strapping great son. He was reaching longingly for this new blue bunny.
    The big lady stepped backwards, away from his sticky clasp.
    ‘We’re providing extra milk for all the children at the moment. We normally do provide a full cooked breakfast but unfortunately we are temporarily between breakfast chefs, so in these circumstances we can only offer a continental breakfast. Take it – or leave it.’
    We decided to take it.
    ‘Continental breakfast!’ said Mum, as we sat at a table in the corner. ‘That’s coffee in one of them cafetière thingys and croissants, not this sort of rubbish.’ She flapped one of the limp slices of bread in the air. ‘There’s no goodness in this!’
    There were little packets of butter and pots of marmalade. And sugar lumps. Lots of sugar lumps.

    I got busy crushing and sprinkling. I made myself a splendid sugar sandwich. Pippa tried to make herself one too, but she wasn’t much good at crushing the lumps. She tried bashing them hard on the table to make them shatter.
    ‘Pippa! Give over, for goodness sake. Whatever are you doing?’ said Mum, spooning cornflakes into Hank.
    ‘It’s Elsa’s fault. Pippa’s just copying her,’ said Mack. ‘Here, give me that sugar bowl and stop messing around. You’ll rot your teeth and just have empty gums by the