Chapter Nine

 The summer had passed all too quickly and Xavier was nervously preparing to go to secondary school when Marta brought him the letters.

 "She'd hidden them under her bedside table, but Misha got herself stuck under there and when I was coaxing her out I found these," she explained handing him a wad of five or six envelopes held together by a rubber band.  "I gave into temptation and read one of them."

 "Not love letters, are they?"  Xavi asked with panic in his voice.   The last thing he thought he needed right then was a new step-father to cope with.

 "If only they were," his sister sighed.

 "What could be worse?" he asked, slipping the rubber band off and opening the one on top.
 
 

 "So that explains her weird behaviour lately,"  he said as he put the last letter back in the pile and replaced the elastic.

 "It also explains why she hasn't let us out of her sight," Marta added.  "Those references to the health of her children are an open threat.  It's blackmail!"

 "She should take these to the police!" Xavier proposed.

 "She's had this on her mind for weeks and not told anyone about it," Marta declared.  "Oh why didn't she tell us about it?"

 "Where is she going to get the money?"  Xavi asked with a frown.

 "Uncle Raimon!"  Marta announced.  "It's the only answer.  I'll bet she's gone crawling to him.  Oh, poor Mummy."

 "Oh God, you're right.  All that talk about suing him must have been just for show."

 "But he'll never pay up," Marta asserted.  "So what has she been planning to do?"

 "We'll have to have a word with her," said Xavier after a pause.

 "But how will we explain how we knew?"

 "Tell the truth, of course!" replied her brother tapping the wad of envelopes into his open palm.
 

 Their mother listened quietly as Xavier revealed what they knew, then she exploded:

 "You had no right to go looking through my mail, you little minx!" she bellowed, rounding on Marta, then turning on Xavier she
roared: "And you ought to know better young man, you're not a child any more!"

 Marta caught Xavier's eye and shook her head.

 "I think we ought to have kept what we knew to ourselves," Marta thought as her mother continued berating them.

 In a moment of calm, Xavier, holding back tears, said:

 "But we only want to help Mum."

 "You can help me best by keeping your noses out of my affairs!" Maria snarled.  "And whatever you do, don't mention this to Grandma, will you?  You haven't, have you?"

 "No, of course not, we wanted to-"  Maria cut her son short:

 "That's one thing anyway.  Oh, as if I didn't have enough to worry about!"

 "Have you been to see Uncle Raimon about this?" Xavi dared to ask, instantly regretting it.

 "That's none of your business!" his mother snapped.  "Now get upstairs the pair of you, and I don't want any of this going beyond these four walls, do you hear?"

 The two children nodded and went up to Xavier's room.
 

 "I didn't expect her to be so unreasonable," Marta admitted.

 "Well, she's under a lot of strain," Xavier said in her defence.

 Marta sighed and sat down on the bed saying:

 "So I suppose that's it then.  We'll just have to do as she says and leave her to find her own solution."

 "Not likely!" Xavier responded.  "We'll just have to come up with our own ideas and keep it all from her."