' Ice Cream Sundae' by Lotty Talbutt

My mum says Johnny can come over whenever he likes. I think she feels sorry for him. She has the ability to annoy the hell out of me but I do appreciate how kind she is. She doesn’t judge Johnny like everyone else in this mean, small town does and she doesn’t believe the rumours, especially not the one about his dog. Why would he kill the only thing in this world that loved him more than anything, doesn’t make sense, that’s what she reckons and she’s probably right. He says our house is like a hotel, it’s so clean. Not that he’s ever stayed in one before but he’s been in the lobby of Dukes once, when he met the social worker. It was so clean he said he could see his face in the floor, and the chairs looked like they’d never been sat on. He was scared to sit on the light green fabric in case he made it dirty from his unwashed clothes, so he put a magazine he’d found on the table on the seat and sat on that. The social worker bought him a strawberry ice-cream sundae. But he couldn’t eat it. He thought she was going to take him away, he felt sick, thought he’d throw up right there in front of her. But she didn’t take him away. They just talked. His ice-cream melted into a big, pink, milky mess in the tall glass. He says he regrets not eating it more than anything. He told me he thinks about that sundae all the time. It even shows up in his dreams. He says when he gets some money he’s going to take me to Dukes and buy us both the biggest, pinkest ice-cream sundae going.