My Family and Other Freaks (4 page)

Phoebe plays with my pencil case, pulling things out and saying, “I have this?” and, “I keep this?” while me and Amber run around destroying
the self-tanning evidence. Amber says she'd better be off home and scuttles out of the house. Honestly, she's such a wet sometimes.

“You smell funny,” says Phoebe, climbing on to my knee and sniffing my face like Simon does when I've got strawberry lip gloss on. It is true that the tanning towelettes do whiff a bit like smokey-bacon chips, but that's not a bad thing, is it? I tell her to button it or I won't read
Room on the Broom
to her for the 472nd time.

Wonder what I'll look like? I don't expect to look exactly like Treasure, but at least I'll be brown like one of those contestants on
Celebrity Love Island
. I look in the mirror in my room, ready to drink in my bronzed loveliness. OH. DEAR. GOD. ABOVE. It looks like I've turned into an elephantine rasher
of streaky bacon. My face is striped like a bumble bee and my hands are so smeared it looks liked I've wiped my bum with them.

Luckily Mom is still in bed because she's tired—again—but Rick sees me when I go down for breakfast. “Ha! You've been Tango'd,” he says.

I try covering it up with Mom's foundation cream, but the orange streaks show through. My dad says I could always pretend I was using Phoebe's wildlife face paints and it all went wrong. Phoebe, quite seriously, asks if I want to borrow her pussycat ears.

Dad seems to think this is hilarious until he realizes it won't wash off. “Get to school before your mother sees you,” he says. I'll have to save the mascara for another day.

I'm waiting at the bus stop wearing a duffle coat with the hood up and a scarf around my neck. It is
almost June. Some kids from Year 7 ask me if I'm dressed like that for a bet. I tell them to go away, except I use a very bad word.

Can I just say here that Amber is no help? When she arrived she just kept staring at me saying, “Oh girlfriend, that's so bad. SO, so bad.” Why does she speak like this too? Does literally everyone think they're American?

I decide I just have to tough it out before I melt and so I take off the coat and scarf and just sit on the bus miserably awaiting my fate. It comes in the shape of James Burgess from Year 9 who comes over and holds his hands up to my face going, “Aaaah, that's toasty,” as if warming them against a fire.

“At least I haven't got a gap in my teeth you could fly a light aircraft through,” I say. He looks a bit chinned.

In school, everyone is gathering around me asking whether I've been burned on a sunbed or had an allergic reaction to carrots. Ho, ho, how my
sides are splitting. Then I see Treasure arriving with Damian.

“Oh Danni, you HAVEN'T been trying to put self-tanning lotion on yourself, have you? Oh, that's so sweeeet. But you should only ever have it done by a professional. Otherwise you'll end up looking like that—a big, smudgy mess.” Damian pulls her away.

Miss Judd comes in. “What on EARTH has happened to your face, Dench?” she booms.

“It's, er, a fake-tan towelette that went a bit wrong, miss,” I say, knowing that this sounds quite funny. The classroom roars with laughter.

“Why you girls think it is attractive to have orange faces I will never ever know,” she says. “Go to the principal's office.”

I have been sent home by Mr. Cook. Quelle result! Why didn't I think of this sooner? Planning to
spend all day updating my Facebook page and watching CBBC. (I know—pathetic. Don't tell anyone.) Wonder whether I should buy a year's worth of tan towelettes as an investment. I could sell them at school.

Mom comes home from work early after collecting Phoebe from nursery. She's so wrapped up in herself she doesn't even notice my face until Phoebe starts stroking my hair saying, “Here, kitty, kitty. Naughty kitty need baff.”

Mom is quite angry that I've been sent home and sends me to lie in the bath for an hour with some of her essential oils. Another result.

Amber comes around with Megan to cheer me up. Megan is my second-best friend but sometimes I
promote her when I want to borrow her iPod/red jacket. We watch a DVD and then go to my room to sing on the Karaoke machine Dad got me from Argos for my birthday last year.

Megan, who wants to leave school and be a singer when she's 16, does
Born This Way
by Lady Gaga. I put on my mom's white high heels, shove two socks down my bra and do an impression of Treasure doing a Cheryl Cole song and tossing her hair. Amber and Megan are rolling around my bed laughing so much they nearly wet themselves. I should be on the stage really.

Dad shouts up that we have to turn it down and that other people live in this street too, and that if he wanted to listen to cats being skinned alive he'd prefer if it was those ones that use our garden as a toilet. He's such a self-centered man. Come to think of it, he's looking a bit old and careworn these days too, like my mom. Grumpy old pair of miserable boots.

I show Amber and Megan my Pact with God
to make Damian like me. They look at each other a bit funny.

“What?” I say.

“Nothing!” they say, in voices that are too high.

“If you don't tell me, I'll let Deirdre out,” I say (Megan has a fear of rodents).

That does the trick. She tells me that on Friday, when I was off sick, Treasure announced to a group of girls that she'd been to the pictures with Damian to see some stupid film in 3D and that they exchanged friendship bracelets. She kept getting it out and showing anyone who was walking past.

I stare at them. Feel super sick, like I've been kicked in the kidneys with a pair of wedges. Here's my advice to anyone who's interested—NEVER make a pact with God because He doesn't listen. In fact this is proof that God doesn't exist. There's no way I can compete with Treasure. She's pretty and has boobs AND an iPhone. To my horror and shame I start
howling until big bubbles of snot come down my nose.

Mom and Dad come rushing up the stairs. “For God's sake, what's wrong?” asks Mom.

“Damian's given Treasure a friendship bracelet,” I wail as tears run off my nose.

“Jesus, is that all?” says Dad. “Lads your age are ten a penny—they're like s*** in a field.”

Megan and Amber start snickering at this but I tell them it's not remotely funny or relevant to compare my heartache to cowpats.

Didn't sleep much. I keep my head down all day at school, pretending to have a cold. My eyes and nose are red from crying, or possibly all the soap I've been rubbing into my face. I hide in the library at lunchtime and don't go to the toilets all day, even though I'm bursting, in case Treasure is in there, touching up her makeup and holding court
to her giggly, stupid followers. Her mom buys her Clinique “invisible” foundation so the teachers won't know she's got it on. Can you believe that? My mom says she could get a full shop in from Asda for what that costs.

But then, just as the last bell of the day goes after French and I'm scurrying out of the main doors with Amber, I literally bump into Treasure and she drops her math exercise book right at her feet. She is surrounded by her smirking, fawning Klingons.

“Danni, are you OK? You look AWFUL,” she says, in a delighted voice.

One of the Klingons repeats, “Yeah, awful.” What a cow.

“I think there's an echo in here,” I say. “Either that or we've got a very stupid ghost in the school. Anyway, it's probably just pneumonia—nothing serious.”

Treasure is smirking, knowing she has bracelet-power. So I pick up her book and say,
“Here's your math book. Oh dear—only 11 out of 20. Still, I suppose you don't have much time for revision at night after you've scraped all that muck off your face.” Her face clouds over—well, as much as it can when it's bright tangerine—but then she sees Mr. Cook in the distance and smiles falsely instead.

I'm thinking, Don't show me the bracelet, don't show me the bracelet …

She doesn't. Now I'm annoyed and thinking, Show me the bracelet. Show me the bloody bracelet. “Well, I hope you feel better for Thursday,” she says. Thursday? Thursday? What's happening on Thursday? “The youth-club disco,” whispers Amber. Oh NO. I'm not going. I'm NOT GOING.

Go home and cuddle Simon. He licks my cheeks, probably wondering why they smell of pet food. Thank God for animals. Take him for a walk and
he chases Fat Madge, the cat that lives at number 28. Her owner, Mr. Robinson, who is also fat, tells me I should learn to control my dog. I tell him he should learn to control his pet's rations of Kitekat so it might be able to run a bit faster. He tells me I'm a cheeky little *beep word* and he'll have a word with my mom. Good luck with that, pal. She barely even listens to Phoebe these days.

Eat one miserable baked potato with baked beans for tea while my murdering family all have spaghetti bolognese. Cow killers. I must buy a “Meat Is Murder” badge.

Sean O'Connor asked me today at school if I was OK. “Why does everyone keep asking me that?” I snap back.

“Because you've hardly spoken for two days and normally you, erm, never stop,” he says,
fiddling with his Lucozade bottle. Strange boy. The cheek of it though! I am quiet and mysterious, aren't I? “Isn't a person allowed to be ill?” I say, flouncing off.

Wake up to angry voices in the kitchen. Simon is in disgrace. So far in one morning he has chewed:

• one cushion from the living room (red)

• one lip gloss (mine, actually)

• a three-pack of Dove soap (he's definitely going to vomit)

• a talking Peppa Pig with pull string (Phoebe is inconsolable and has been promised a trip to the Disney Store to stop her squawking).

I, the beta child, have just been told, once again, “That dog only brings stress to our lives. It's supposed to be your responsibility.”
It?
How rude. He is a pain but he's got a face like a teddy bear
and his paws always smell of cheesy Wotsits. What more do they want? Plus—if there's a better laugh than taking Simon through a car wash (in a car, natch), then I'd like to know what it is. He thinks the giant brushes are monsters and has a fit trying to fight them.

Realize that thinking about this has made me smile. I feel a bit better now. Maybe I will go to the disco tonight. Yes, I'll make Amber and Megan come with me.

I literally have not a stitch to wear. Mom offers to lend me something of hers. Thanks, Mother, but it's not OAP theme night. I put on the Tesco sparkly top and jeans and slap on some of Mom's most expensive foundation cream. That'll teach her.

Why did I let Amber and Megan selfishly talk me into going to the disco? Treasure was there, flaunting her stupid bracelet and standing with Damian all night. She did look stunning, in a spoiled-brat sort of way. She was wearing a denim playsuit thing and there were loads of drippy girls oohing and aahing around her all night.

“She can be quite nice sometimes,” said Megan. “She lent me her felt-tips in history once.” Well, pardon ME. I'm SO sorry to have misjudged her. Put the bleeding flags out. (Note to self: Megan the traitor is now relegated to backup friend.)

When I go to the toilets to reapply my Rimmel lip gloss (borrowed from Mom—I'm sure she'd have said yes if I'd asked) who should come in after me? Treasure.

“Oh, hi, Danni,” she says, in a treacly voice. “Seen the bracelet Damian gave me?”

“Is it a shag band?” I say airily. “You must have quite a few of those by now.”

I can see she's annoyed by this, but she laughs sarcastically instead. “That's just about your level, Danni. Actually it's a commitment bracelet.”

Commitment? COMMITMENT? The word is “friendship,” you desperate, push-up-bra-wearing airhead.

“Aaah, sweet,” I say, in my best Not Bothered voice. “I used to have one of those when I was in primary school.”

She is rattled by this. But she is determined to deliver her killer line. “Who knows,” she says, so simperingly I could slap her, “one day after we've been to university, maybe Damian will make it an engagement ring.”

I have gone red like a sweaty raspberry but I'm not going to let her know I'm jealous. “Oh, I doubt that,” I say. “Not when he sees what you really look like under all that slap. I bet your parents would
barely recognize you underneath six inches of concealer.”

I must say that was a pretty good retort even for me. Treasure looks winded. “Oh, go home and clear out your ferret or whichever filthy caged animal I've heard you keep in your Clampett bedroom,” she says. Yes, I think I came out the winner there.

Time to go home.

My parents are in the kitchen again, whispering, not smiling. Why are they whispering? Why are they not smiling? Something's going on. Maybe they're splitting up! Maybe my dad's having an affair. Brilliant! Thank you, God! Oh, except no one would have him, not with his disappearing hair and jelly belly.