Read Online Four Waifs on Our Doorstep by Trisha Merry - Free Book Online

wouldn’t have time to
cook anything. Oh God, I thought, it will be manic when we get home and they find out there’s nothing cooking. You see, I always used to make sure, if they’d been out with Mike, that
when they came back the kitchen window would be open and they could smell the food as they got out of the car. But not today.
    ‘Are you going to be able to cope with the kids while I start cooking their tea?’ I asked Mike as we drove home. ‘They’re going to be starving.’
    ‘Well, why don’t we have fish and chips?’ He grinned.
    ‘But we don’t want to give them junk food.’
    ‘Fresh fish isn’t junk food.’
    ‘Well . . . Go on then. Let’s have fish and chips.’
    ‘Do you want fish and chips, kids?’ he boomed into the back of the car, where they were all squabbling as usual. It brought them to a halt all right. Nobody answered, so I assumed
that perhaps they’d never had fish and chips before. I turned round to face them.
    ‘You’ll like it,’ I said. ‘All golden and crispy.’
    ‘Yes please,’ said Hamish, and they all joined in, so that was that.
    I turned back to look at Mike. ‘So that’s five fish and chips please, and just chips for me.’ I’m vegetarian so I would find some cheese to have later at home.
    We pulled up outside the chippy and Mike got out, then stuck his head back in through the window.
    ‘Come on, Hame, I’ll need some help to carry it all.’
    So Hamish climbed out of the car.
    ‘I want to go too,’ wailed Anita.
    ‘And me,’ added Caroline, trying to clamber over her, until Anita shoved her back.
    ‘The chippy’s always full on a Friday night,’ said Mike. ‘So I can only take one of you in, and Hamish is the biggest to help me.’
    So I sat in the people-carrier that we had to buy to fit us all in safely, and the three younger ones sat in the back, Simon silently strapped into his car-seat and the girls starting off again
with their squabbling. I just sat and looked at the door of the chippy, willing the boys to come out soon. It was before we had smartphones of course, but I did wish I’d had a video camera
with me when Hamish emerged through that doorway.
    He came through first, carrying a big pile of wrapped packages of fish and chips. You could almost see the air waving as the steam and aroma came out through the white paper. He had this amazing
expression on his face – as if he was in paradise, his lips in a beaming smile and his nostrils quivering with pleasure as he sniffed the delicious smell. He sniffed right in, then let out a
long, satisfied breath, as he held the precious packages in his arms out in front of him, as if it was gold. Even the queen’s crown could not have been more precious to him than those fish
and chips.
    ‘Do you want me to hold it, Hame?’ I asked him.
    ‘No, no,’ he replied quickly, putting his arm over to protect his treasure. ‘I can look after it.’
    When we got back to Church Road, we all went and sat down on our two church pews, one each side of the long kitchen table, as Hamish carried the white packages over. The smell of the fish wafted
out, filling the kitchen before we even opened the paper. All their little noses were twitching. Of course, Hamish had seen the fish and chips being wrapped up, but the girls and Simon didn’t
know what it would look like.
    I went to get the salt and vinegar and Hamish carefully lowered the pile down in the middle, then sat down himself.
    I could see the children were all desperate to look inside and tuck in.
    ‘Let’s not bother with plates,’ I said.
    They all stopped and looked at me.
    ‘But what about knives and forks?’ said Hamish with a shocked expression.
    I smiled at the irony of it. Of course, I’d been drumming into the four of them since the day they arrived that they mustn’t eat everything with their hands, and they had just got
into the habit of using cutlery . . .
    ‘It’s OK with fish and chips,’ I explained. ‘You can eat