Meg had felt a twinge of something she didn’t quite understand.
‘Who knows what a family tree is?’
Meg wasn’t sure but she didn’t like the sound of it. She avoided Mrs Holly’s gaze by pulling at the loose stitching on her shoe. The hand of a serious, studious boy shot up. He informed them all that a family tree was ‘a way of naming all the people in a family and showing how they are all connected’, and even stood up to draw a diagram on the whiteboard. He wrote his own name, then drew a vertical line up to his parents, who he connected to each other with a nice, neat, horizontal line. Then he added his two brothers, and he was about to add his grandmother when Mrs Holly stepped up. ‘Thank you, Darcy!’ she said, taking the whiteboard marker.
Mrs Holly handed out large pieces of paper and sent them back to their tables to get started. Meg stared at the blank page. Her chest felt tight. Beside her, Sophie Stevens was making speedy progress, her brow furrowed in concentration as she wrote the names of her older siblings. Opposite, Oscar Wells had already connected himself to his mother and father, and two other people too, next to his dad. Meg wasn’t sure who they were. Aunts or uncles, maybe.
She looked back at her page.Meg Hunter, she wrote in the centre. Above her name she wroteJenny Hunter, mum. The tightness in her chest felt heavy now, like a big stone was making it hard to breathe. She looked over at Mrs Holly, who was crouching beside the next table. ‘Good job,’ she said to Meg’s classmate as she stood. Meg looked back at her page, with all its empty white space. She traced over the letters of her own name so it looked like she was working.
‘Good work, Oscar!’ Mrs Holly had appeared beside their table to check on their progress. ‘I remember your big brothers!’ She looked at Meg. ‘Come on, Meg. Who are you going to add now?’
Meg shrugged. ‘There isn’t anyone else,’ she said, quietly.
‘Pardon?’ Mrs Holly knelt by Meg’s side, enveloping her in a cloud of sweet perfume. ‘I didn’t catch that, sweetheart?’
Meg spoke a little louder now, but not loud enough to be overheard by Sophie or Oscar. ‘There isn’t anyone else.’
‘Of course there is!’ Mrs Holly said, with the confidence of someone who’d grown up with a tribe of siblings and cousins.
Meg didn’t want to disappoint her. She drew a line sideways next to her name. She’d always wanted an older sister. What would she call her? She shuffled through her favourite girls’ names. Josie. A warm feeling spread through her. This must be what it feels like, she thought, to have a proper family instead of just a mother.
She looked sideways at Sophie’s diagram. ‘Who’s that?’ she asked, pointing to where Sophie had written ‘Wendy’ on the page.
‘That’s my auntie Wendy, she lives in London. Last time she came, she brought me a money box in the shape of a red double decker bus.’
Sophie looked at Meg’s page. ‘You haven’t even done your daddy, silly billy!’
‘I’m just writing him down now,’ Meg said. She hovered her pencil over the white space next to Jenny’s name.
Sophie’s dad’s name was Luke. His name was written carefully next to her mum’s. Luke and Alison. Meg sat up higher in her chair, craning her neck to see Oscar’s diagram. Sarah and James. Mum and Dad. Just as it should be.
Meg wrote ‘Tim’ in the space where her dad’s name should go. Tim ‘The Toolman’ Taylor. He was the only dad she could think of—they watchedHome Improvementon Sunday nights— and Mrs Holly needed her to write down a dad. She sat back and looked at her page. It looked much better. She thought about aunts now.
By the time Mrs Holly announced it was packing-up time, Meg had a father who played the guitar, two aunties who spoiled her when she visited them during the school holidays, and a grandmother called Mary, who would read her Roald Dahl stories. It was sort of like creative writing. She loved stories. Mrs Holly had told her she might be an author one day. Yes. It was just like that.
‘You’ll probably have some blanks on your family tree,’ Mrs Holly said. ‘Have a chat to Mum and Dad tonight to fill them in. Tomorrow you will present your family tree to the class.’
Obviously Meg didn’t mention the family tree to her mum that night. Jenny was not in the mood—Meg had seen her put the empty wine bottle in the bin before dinner was ready—so that was lucky. And anyway, it was surprisingly easy for Meg to present her family tree to the class. Mrs Holly seemed pleased.
The following week was the Learning Showcase. Meg wasn’t sure what that meant, they hadn’t done that at her last school. It turned out it meant the parents were invited into the classroom to hear about their learning. Mrs Holly had created displays on the pinboards with examples of their work.
Meg’s family tree had prime position, front and centre, directly under a sign which proudly proclaimed these were OURFAMILIES.
‘You have a lovely family, Mrs Hunter. Meg speaks so highly of all her aunties and uncles and cousins,’ Mrs Holly said, stopping to stand beside Jenny, who was studying the diagram. Meg felt like she might cry. What would Mrs Holly think, when she found out Meg had made them all up?
She looked up at her mum’s face. Jenny’s lips were pressed together in a thin line. Then she said, ‘Yes, we do. We’re very lucky—’ she put a hand on Meg’s shoulder, ‘—aren’t we, Meg?’
Meg nodded.
‘Is Dad coming tonight?’ Mrs Holly asked.
Meg frowned and shook her head.
‘He’s working late, unfortunately,’ Jenny said.
Mrs Holly made a sad face. ‘Shame,’ she said, before moving on to greet Oscar’s mum, who had a chubby baby on her hip.
In the car on the way home, Meg waited for Jenny to ask her why she’d lied, but she didn’t. She just reached over and held Meg’s little hand all the way home. They never spoke about it, then or ever. They moved again a few months later.
