phoned to confirm it, but I—’ My words are cut off because Logan starts to yell, actually squeal like a pig. He jumps up and down on the spot, he runs to his dad and launches himself, so their bodies smash into each other with a ferocious energy. A move that is somewhere between a hug and an attack. He doesn’t know how to contain himself. He is literally overflowing. Effervescent. It’s brilliant.
‘What’s going on?’ Emily is in the kitchen too now.
Logan announces, ‘We’ve won the lottery. We’re millionaires. We’ve won seventeen million and something pounds!’
Emily looks cynical. ‘Yeah right.’ Sluggishly, she reaches for the cornflakes.
‘It’s true, my princess,’ says Jake, picking her up and twirling her around, just the way he used to when she was much younger and less self-conscious.
‘Honestly?’ Emily asks, caution and disbelief swilling in her eyes.
‘Yes,’ I verify, with a beam.
Emily bursts into tears and then we all run to one another, and amalgamate into a big mass of cuddles, screeches and happy tears.
We’ve been saved.
4
Emily
Tuesday 23rd April
‘Emily, get up. Your alarm didn’t go off. You’ve slept in.’ Mum is banging on my bedroom door, then she opens it and rushes in, she’s carrying a freshly ironed school shirt. It’s like this weekend never happened. ‘Come on, sweetheart, you’ll miss the bus,’ she urges.
‘Do I have to go in?’
‘Are you ill?’
‘No.’
‘Then of course you have to go in.’ Mum looks confused.
‘But we won the lottery,’ I remind her.
‘Emily, I’m surprised at you. Come on, get in the shower. Get a move on.’
She rushes out of my room and I hear the almost exact same conversation play out between her and Logan. He mutters, ‘What’s the point of being a millionaire if I have to go to school?’
‘He has a good argument,’ yells Dad from their bedroom. I smile to myself. Dad is always on our side.
‘Come on, people. I’m serious. Get out of bed,’ Mum insists. I stay where I am, thinking about how it is going to be at school today. The holidays are ridiculous this year anyhow. Who goes back to school straight after Easter? Who goes to school at all if they have just become millionaires?! Mum and Dad have said we can’t tell anyone about the lottery, which is going to be so weird because why wouldn’t they want to tell the entire world?! We are rich. Like super-off-the-scale rich! Mum says I just have to put it out my mind. Like as if!! How am I going to keep this from Ridley and Megan? We are lottery winners! MULTIMILLIONAIRES! Mum sometimes does this thing where she reads my mind; she does it now and swings back into my room. She hovers at the door looking uncomfortable.
‘I know it’s going to be hard keeping this from Ridley and Megan.’
‘Yeah, like understatement of the year. Why do I have to?’
‘Because there is a proper chance their parents are going to take this really badly. We were all doing the lottery together until just last week.’
‘Yeah, but they said it was lame.’
‘I imagine they’ll feel very differently now.’
‘Can’t we just give them some of the money?’
Mum doesn’t answer me. She just looks torn. Mum has morals and makes a big thing of it all the time. If, for example, we are going into London to see a show in the West End and she sees someone sleeping rough, which is a given, right, then she insists we give the exact money we spent on one ticket to the guy on the street. Dad says it’s a waste and that they’ll just drink it or shoot it up their arms. But he says this at the interval when we are in the bar and he’s drinking a glass of red wine, so Mum’s counter-argument is staring at his glass.
‘We can’t tell a soul until everything is finalised and your dad and I have had our meeting with the lottery company. Honestly, this will be for the best, for you, for Ridley and Megan, for everyone.’
This is about the millionth time she has repeated this to prove she’s really serious about it. Like there is any doubt. Mum is always really serious about everything, even winning the lottery apparently. It’s a bit of a buzzkill.
I mean I can see that the Heathcotes and Pearsons are going to be gutted. Can you imagine pulling out of a lottery syndicate the week before your numbers come up?! Major fail! But Ridley and I will get through this.