My Family and Other Freaks (3 page)

Bad-breath Biggins makes us check under all the desks and chairs for chewing gum, clean the brushes in the art room and then read a pamphlet on bullying.

“Bullying ruins lives. Bullies are cowards,” it says. I tell Mr. Biggins that for the last time I WAS NOT BULLYING Treasure Cavendish. It was her being nasty to me and my family.

“Well, you two don't spoil a pair,” he says. How dare he? What does he mean? I'm the opposite to Treasure in every single possible way.

Phoebe looks so sweet in her ballet dress. But she's not speaking to me because I didn't see her do her Teddy Bear's Picnic bit on stage. “You can't come to my birthday party now,” she says, folding her chubby arms. I don't have the heart to tell her that her birthday's nine months away. But then she notices that I've bought her a Flump and so I am forgiven.

Mom comes into my bedroom to ask if I'm OK. Behind her back is a bag. She has bought me a new sparkly top from Tesco. When will my mother learn that I disagree with supermarket clothes? Amber says it's all made by child workers getting paid 5 pennies a year or something. It is unethical. Mind you, it's quite a nice top and will go with my white jeans. I decide that I will accept it since my mother
needs encouraging to go to the supermarket more often.

Simon's being really cute, guarding Mom's Ugg boots and snuggling up to them. He thinks they're his girlfriend and pines for them, howling and lying by the door whenever Mom goes out in them, which isn't very often because he growls whenever she tries to put them on. I do love him. Stupid mutt.

Mom asks whether I saw Damian at school.

I lie, saying that I ignored him to make her go away.

She says, “Good—you must keep your mystery with men.” Yawn. I know what's coming next. I count down in my head: Five, four, three, two, one…

“Do you know, in 18 years of marriage your father has never seen me on the toilet?” she says.

Yes, because you've told me five million times, Mother.

“Have I?” she prattles on. “Well, did I ever tell
you that if he comes in to use the toilet when I'm in the bathroom I always look away?”

“Yes,” I say, “but why bother? When Dad wees he sounds like a horse. You can hear him from the bus stop.”

She tells me to stop being so filthy and that Phoebe might hear. I can't believe my mother still fancies my father, especially now he's got a receding hairline. But she must do, because that's how Phoebe came along. She tells anyone who'll listen, “Phoebe was a mistake [drum roll] … but she's the best mistake I ever made!!!”

Sigh. If I had a pound for every time she's said that, I could—well—pay for a nose job.

And what's that they teach us at school about contraception? If a 12-year-old can grasp what a condom is, I don't see why a couple of forty-somethings can't. Still, I'm glad Phoebe's here. She's funny and she's now riding around the room on Simon's back. I can't imagine life without her.

Fake illness so I don't have to go to school. Put talc on my face and pretend I've been sick by flushing the toilet four times. Turns out Mom's off work sick too. I tell her that she looks about 90 today and she turns away with a really weird look on her face.

Honestly, she really does need to get a sense of humor.

I tell her about Treasure and her gorgeousness and how I'm sure Damian fancies her.

Mom says being beautiful can cause you no end of problems.

“Oh well, you got lucky then, didn't you, mother?” I say. Again—no laughter. Lighten UP, woman.

Mom says I'm more fortunate than Treasure because she's an only child and big families are
happier families. She's kidding—right? I'm blessed to sleep next to the Stink Pit?

I tell my mother that she is seriously misinformed. For a start, Treasure's dad is loaded and spends tons of money on her because he's always away working, PLUS her mother's given her a Topshop account card. She goes on three foreign holidays a year and doesn't come home from school to find that her little sister has made a hammock for Deirdre out of her best bra. Find me the bad bits in that, I challenge you. And what did we get? Two weeks in Gran's camper in Wales where it rained for ten days without stopping and the showers had other people's front-bottom hairs in them.

“You've got a lot to learn about life,” says Mom. Er, well, she's got a lot to learn about what makes children happy.

After school, Amber brings over the homework I missed. “You got B minus for your essay about the Romans,” she says, looking
disappointed for me. B minus? This is a personal best!

“Did anyone talk about me today?” I ask.

“No, they were all gossiping about Natasha Marshall cos she had a love bite on her neck,” says Amber.

Am looking at my nose sideways in the mirror to see if it has grown any bigger. I think it has. Great. How long until they start calling me “Beaky” and buying me Trill?

I've had a thought. Maybe I've imagined that Damian fancies Treasure. Maybe he's just being polite. Yes, yes, because he was nice to me too that day. Before, erm … the Poo Incident, which from here on will be known as the PI. My imagination has been getting carried away with itself again.

I make a list of 12 Solemn Vows, ways that I promise to be better if only God will make Damian like me instead of her … (yes, I know it's usually ten on these occasions, but I have a lot to atone for).

My Pact with God

1. I will go to church every Sunday (except when I'm on holiday, and when it's raining and I might catch a cold and when I actually have a cold. Oh, and when I'm having a sleepover at a friend's house, because I don't want them to think I'm some weird Jesus freak if I get up on Sunday morning and say, “No, I don't want to go on Facebook with you and eat chocolate muffins. I'm off to listen to Father Michael talk about fish and loaves and stuff.”).

2. I will never again hide the TV remote from my dad when he wants to watch the news so I can carry on watching
Hollyoaks
.

3. I will never again swap my packed lunch with
Kieran Campbell for two tubes of Mega Dust sherbet and a packet of Monster Munch and then tell my mother I had a nutritious meal.

4. I will definitely never eat meat again and I mean it this time. Amber says the world would be saved if we all stopped stuffing ourselves with cows and pigs. Not that it stops her.

5. I will not do Deirdre Disco Ball ever again. Nor will I let Phoebe dress Simon up in her old bonnets and skirts or give him a makeover with Mom's best eye shadow and lipstick.

6. I will do my homework on time and only copy off Amber when it's science or math. Or geography. And sometimes German, when it's the grammar bit.

7. I will not tell Rick's friends again that he watches
Sleeping Beauty
with Phoebe and sometimes pretends to be the handsome prince riding by.

8. I will not tell my mother I hate her because
she failed to wash my Daisy Duck top in time for the youth-club disco (although I wish to clarify that there really was no excuse).

9. I will help old ladies across the road and not get impatient when they don't move fast enough.

10. I will not complain that my nose is big because, hey, everyone's special in God's eyes.

11. I will not laugh when Andrew Slater calls Miss Jeffer, our PE teacher, Jeffer the Heifer just because she's what my gran would call “well built.”

12. I, erm, will think of another one later …

I roll the list into a scroll, tie it with a hair bobble and put it under my bed.

Gran comes around, fussing about her bowels again. “I've been lovely and regular and then I
stayed one night at Sissy's—just one night!—and my body clock's all gone to pot again,” she's saying to my mom in the kitchen. Why are old people like this? If we went on about our poo all day at school we'd get told off for being “crude” and “vulgar,” but once you're past 70, it seems you can say what you like.

“How old are you, Gramma?” says Phoebe, who is for some reason painting her Barbie dolls' eyes black and white, like Marilyn Manson's.

“I'm 79 years young, love,” says Gran, like always.

“Oh,” says Pheebs sweetly, “does that mean you'll die soon?”

I know what will happen when I go down and say hello. “Hello, Danielle—have you done your packet?” she will ask. “Phoebe, Rick—have you
done your packets?” She means have we done a poo today. She always asks this, even when people are here from school and I have to pretend she's talking about sending a parcel to an African charity or something. She really does need her head examining.

Remember I need to put Clearasil on my blackheads.

That's funny—Mom and Gran are still murmuring in low voices in the kitchen and Mom hasn't even shouted up telling us not to be so rude and come down and say hello to our grandmother. I go into the kitchen. They stop talking immediately. “Oh, hello, Danielle,” says Gran absentmindedly. Not so much as a “how are you?” She didn't even inquire after my packet! I am offended. Old people are so self-obsessed.

It's meat-and-potato pie for tea, my absolute favorite, but I inform my mother that I am now vegetarian and that it's about time she started considering the welfare of animals too.

“Are you going to last more than two days this time?” she says.

I explain that this is a life decision.

“Well, you'll have to make yourself a cheese sandwich then.”

I hate cheese. I also hate vegetables. This is a problem. Maybe I will starve to death. Not that anyone will notice. But imagine how good that would look to Damian as my epitaph: “She loved animals so much, she perished.”

Mom decides we should all go to the park with Simon “as a family.” Rick lies that he's got mocks
to revise for so it's just the four of us. There's a bit of a kerfuffle when Simon ruins someone's picnic by running through the middle of it and stealing the sausage rolls, but after we've calmed Mr. Angry Middle-Aged Man down it's quite a nice day all in all. Mom is still being a bit weird and emotional, saying to me and Phoebe stuff like, “You're both still my babies, you know. Don't forget that!”

Dad rubs her like she's a distressed pony. Phoebe is outraged. “I'm not a baby!” she says. “I wipe myself.”

Drag Amber to the drugstore with me after school. Have decided that in order to make Damian see sense and prefer me to Treasure I am going to have to change my look. I spend £3.99 on a mascara that promises “telescopic lashes to get you noticed!”

“You can't wear it for school,” says Amber, always the goody two-shoes. “Mr. Cook [the principal] will just make you scrub it off.”

“Look, if Treasure can get away with it, so can I,” I say. “Now I need some tanning lotion.” Amber says it might be toxic and that I have no idea what I'll be putting on my skin and why don't we go home and research it on the internet first?

Honestly—what is she like? “Everyone uses it,” I say, and at least I'm not going on one of those sunbeds that give you skin like an old tortoise. Except that I don't have enough money left for a whole bottle.

“Good, let's go home,” says Amber. But then I spot some little sachets of “self-tan towelette” which cost 99p each. Amber thinks they'll be rubbish, but I tell her to shush and lend me a pound so I can buy three. I will apply it tomorrow when Mom is at the pub quiz with Auntie Karen.

Amber comes around at 6 p.m. to do the deed and we tell Dad we are going upstairs to do our history homework. “I'm glad one of Danni's friends is having a good influence on her,” he says. Amber's face goes all pink and guilty-looking. She really is a hopeless liar.

Simon's head is resting cutely on his “girlfriend.” When Dad tries to pull Mom's Ugg boots away from him he growls and buries them under his front legs like he's hugging them. They cost £100 and are now covered in slobber.

“It says you have to exfoliate first,” says Amber, squinting through her glasses at the packet.

“What does exfoliate mean?” I say.

“I don't know,” she says.

“Just ignore it then,” I say, and start taking off my school uniform.

“Are you sure Damian's worth all this trouble?”
she says. “I sometimes think he seems, you know, a bit up himself.”

Poor Amber—she just doesn't understand boys.

I'm going to do my face and neck and Amber's doing my legs and arms. It just feels like one of those wet serviettes you sometimes get at the end of a meal in a Chinese restaurant. It says it will make me look “tanned, healthy and glow with summer radiance” within 12 hours. Amber looks doubtful and says it seems a bit cheap. She's such an old woman, that girl. We rub it on and then I hear Dad bringing Phoebe upstairs to bed. She wants to come in my room, like always, to be with the big girls. I shove a T-shirt and some jeans on and tell my dad she can come in for ten minutes, tops, because we've got a lot of Roundheads and Cavaliers to get through, actually.