Mother had expected, and it took a few attempts to make the first tear. However, soon the book was nothing more than confetti. Chloe bowed her head, tears welling up in her eyes, as her mother dropped all the pieces in the bin.
“Do you want to end up like your father? Working in a car factory? If you concentrate on your maths and don’t get distracted by silly stories, you have a chance of making a better life for yourself! Otherwise you’ll end up wasting your life, like your father. Is that what you want?”
“Well, I—”
“How dare you interrupt me!” shouted Mother. Chloe hadn’t realised this was another one of those questions you’re not actually meant to answer. “You’d better buck your ideas up, young lady!”
Chloe wasn’t quite sure what that meant, but it didn’t seem like the best time to ask. Mother left the room, dramatically slamming the door behind her. Chloe slowly sat down on the edge of her bed. As she buried her face in her hands, she thought of Mr Stink, sitting on his bench with only the Duchess for company. She wasn’t homeless like him, but she felt homeless in her heart.
Monday morning. The first proper day of the Christmas holidays. A day Chloe had been dreading. She didn’t have any friends she could text or email or SMS or Facebook or Twitter or whatever, but there was one person she wanted to see…
By the time Chloe got to the bench it was raining heavily, and she wished she’d at least paused to pick up an umbrella.
“The Duchess and I weren’t expecting to see you again, Chloe,” said Mr Stink. His eyes twinkled at the surprise, despite the rain.
“I am sorry I ran off like that,” said Chloe,
“Don’t worry, you are forgiven,” he chuckled.
Chloe sat down next to him. She gave the Duchess a stroke, and then noticed that the palm of her hand was black. She surreptitiously wiped it on her trousers. Then she shivered, as a raindrop ran down the back of her neck.
“Oh, no, you’re cold!” said Mr Stink. “Shall we take shelter from the rain in a coffee shop establishment?”
“Err…yes, good idea,” said Chloe, not sure if taking someone quite so stinky into an enclosed space really was a good idea. As they walked into the town centre, the rain felt icy, almost becoming hail.
When they arrived at the coffee shop, Chloe peered through the steamed-up glass window. “I don’t think there’s anywhere to sit down,” she said. Unfortunately, the coffee shop was full to bursting with Christmas shoppers, trying to avoid the cruel British weather.
“We can but try,” said Mr Stink, picking up the Duchess and attempting to conceal her under his tweed jacket.
The tramp opened the door for Chloe and she squeezed herself inside. As Mr Stink entered, the pleasing aroma of freshly-brewed coffee keeled over and died. His own special smell replaced it. There was silence for a moment. Then panic.
People started running towards the door, clutching serviettes to their mouths as makeshift gas masks.
“Abandon Starbucks!” screamed a member of staff, and his colleagues immediately stopped making coffees or bagging muffins and ran for their lives.
“It seems to be thinning out a little,” announced Mr Stink.
Soon they were the only ones left in the shop. Maybe smelling this bad has its advantages, thought Chloe. If Mr Stink’s super-smell could empty a coffee shop, what else could it do? Maybe he could clear the local ice rink of skaters so she could have it all to herself? Or they could go to Alton Towers together and not have to queue for a single ride? Better still, she could take him and his smell into school one day, and if he was particularly stinky the headmistress would have to send everyone home and she could have the day off!
“You take a seat here, child,” said Mr Stink. “Now, what would you like to drink?”
“Er…a cappuccino, please,” replied Chloe, trying to sound grown-up.
“I think I’ll have one too.” Mr Stink shuffled behind the counter and started opening tins. “Righty-ho, two cappuccinos coming right up.”
The machines hissed and spat for a few moments, and then Mr Stink pottered back over to the table with two mugs of a dark, unidentifiable liquid. On closer inspection, it appeared to be some kind of black slime, but Chloe was too well brought up to complain and pretended to sip whatever it was that he had concocted for her. She even managed an almost convincing, “Mmm…lovely!”
Mr Stink stirred his solid liquid with a dainty little silver spoon he pulled out from his breast pocket. Chloe stole a glance at it and noticed it was monogrammed, with three little letters delicately engraved on the handle. She tried to get a better look, but he put it away before she could see what the letters were. What could they mean? Or was this simply another item Mr Stink had purloined during his career as a gentleman thief?
“So, Miss Chloe,” said Mr Stink, breaking her train of thought. “It’s the Christmas holidays, isn’t it?” He took a sip from his coffee, holding his mug elegantly between his fingers. “Why aren’t you at home decorating the tree with your family or wrapping presents?”
“Well, I don’t know how to explain…” No one in Chloe’s family was good at expressing their feelings. To her mother, feelings were at best an embarrassment, at worst a sign of weakness.
“Just take your time, young lady.”
Chloe took a deep breath and it all came flooding out. What started off as a stream soon became a rushing river of emotion. She told him how her parents argued most of the time and how once she was sitting on the stairs when she heard her Mother shout, “I am only staying with you for the sake of the girls!”
How her little sister made her life a misery. How nothing she did was ever good enough. How if she brought home some little bowl she had made in pottery class her Mother would put it at the back of a cupboard, never to be seen again. However, if her little sister brought any piece of artwork home, however awful, it was put in pride of place behind bulletproof glass as if it was the Mona Lisa.
Chloe told Mr Stink how her mother was always trying to force her to lose weight. Up until recently, Mother had described her as having “puppy fat”. But once she turned twelve, Mother rather cruelly started calling it “flab” or even worse “blubber”, as if she was some species of whale. Perhaps Mother was trying to shame her into losing weight. In truth, it only made Chloe more miserable, and being miserable only made her eat more. Filling herself up with chocolate, crisps and cake felt like being given a much-needed hug.
She told Mr Stink how she wished her dad would stand up to her mother sometimes. How she didn’t find it easy to make friends, as she was so shy. How she only really liked making up stories, but it made her mother so angry. And how Rosamund ensured that every day at school was an absolute misery.
It was a long, long list, but Mr Stink listened intently to everything she said as jolly Christmas songs played incongruously in the background. For someone who spent every day with only a little black dog for company, he was surprisingly full of wisdom. In fact, he seemed to relish the opportunity to listen and talk and help. People didn’t really stop to talk to Mr Stink—and he seemed pleased to be having a proper conversation for once.
He told Chloe, “Tell your Mother how you feel, I am sure she loves you and would hate you to be unhappy.” And, “…try and find something fun you can do with your sister.” And, “…why not talk to your dad about how you feel?”
Finally,