The Illustrated Mum (15 page)

“Go back to your original places at once, Brian and Dolphin.”

“Oh, but Miss!”

“I am Miss
Hill
, Dolphin,” she said, breathing out as she said it, as if she were blowing out birthday candles. “Now, I'm not having you playing Musical Chairs in my classroom whenever you feel like it. Sit back in your proper place, if you please.”

“But’

“Be quiet!” Miss Hill yelled.

Whenever she wanted silence she screamed. And then when it was silent she was the one who made the noise.

“Brian Barley! What is that black all over your arm?”

She didn't appreciate Brian's skin art. She sent him off to the cloakrooms to have a good scrub with soap.

“And I'm warning anyone else stupid enough to ink silly pictures all over themselves, I'm quite prepared to bring a bar of carbolic soap and a scrubbing brush to school and I'll scrub it off myself.”

“Miss Hill would have a hard time scrubbing down old Bottle Nose! Look at her
neck
. It's almost as black as that stupid raggedy old dress she wears.”

I felt my neck burning. I didn't know if they were just winding me up or if my neck really was black. It wasn't a place I ever saw. I tried to remember when I'd last washed it. And my dress wasn't raggedy, not now Star'd pinned the hem. It wasn't stupid. It was powerful. It was my witch dress.

I summoned up all my occult powers. I turned my head ever so casually and with just one wink of my witch's eyes I whisked Kayleigh and Yvonne right along the corridor and into the girls' toilets, where I stuck them down a loo each, headfirst, telling them to wash their own dirty necks.

Then I gazed at Miss Hill. I inked her all over, a full tattoo job: body, sleeve, every single wobbly little bit of her. I threw in a few piercings for good measure‘ studs along those arched eyebrows and a ring right through her snooty nose.

“Why are you staring at me, Dolphin?” she said,
highly irritated. “Get on with your work at once. You of all people need to practice your writing skills.”

I tried to write. I could make up all sorts of stories, but the torrent of words in my head wouldn't slow down so I could copy them out on the page. The few that ended up on paper wiggled their letters round so that half of them were back to front.

Miss Hill ended up putting a big red line right across my page and told me to do it all over again. Oliver offered to help me at lunchtime in the library.

“You could tell me what you want to say. Then I could write it out for you and you could copy it,” he suggested.

So we did that for a bit but it got boring and I sometimes mucked it up and copied the words all wrong.

“I'm not stupid, you know,” I said fiercely, pushing the workbook away.

“I know,” said Oliver. “You're dyslexic.”

“Does that mean I just can't write properly?”

“That's it. You should have special help.”

“I don't want to be special needs. Yeah, dyslexic‘ that's what they called me at my last school but one. How do you spell it then?”

“Don't ask me. It's a daft word for people who can't write properly. I'm top in spelling and yet I haven't got a clue.”

“You're top in everything, Mr. Smarty Pants.”

“You should be top in drawing. That was a
great
tattoo you did for Brian. You don't do your mum's, do you?”

“No, of course not! You have to do, like, an apprenticeship, and there's heaps of stuff to learn, and you have to be seriously scrupulous about sterilizing. But I can draw on skin OK. I'll do you, if you like.”

“After school, eh? When I'm at your place.”

“You're scared Miss Hill will get you into trouble, right? Well, under that boring old beige blouse and navy skirt
she's
a Technicolor dream, I kid you not.” I turned over my page and started drawing a naked tattooed Miss Hill.

“Oh, Dolphin, your story's on the other side! You won't be able to hand it in now,” Oliver said, sighing, but he spluttered when he saw what I was drawing.

“Wow. It really
looks
like her. Oh, look what you're doing on her chest! Little faces, and their mouths are … oh!” Oliver's glasses started to steam up in his excitement.

I was getting inspired. I drew the wildest and lewdest and most imaginative tattoos ever, making full use of all her body parts.

“You are dreadful!” said Oliver. “I'll never be able to look at Miss Hill again.”

At that exact moment Miss Hill walked into the library!

Oliver gasped. I whizzed my drawing off the table and into my lap in double-quick time.

“Hello, Mr. Harrison. I've come to collect those books for the Victorian project,” said Miss Hill. She looked over at us. “Whatever is the matter, Oliver?”

Oliver's mouth stayed helplessly open. I could see his eyes revolving behind his glasses.

“Oliver's worried because he was helping me with my story, Miss. Miss
Hill
. And he was worried it would get him into trouble, but I said you'd be pleased that he was helping me. It's very kind of him, isn't it, Miss Hill?”

“Well. Yes. Although really you should do the work yourself, Dolphin. Is that your story you're clutching in your lap? Let me see how far you've got.”

Oliver gave an agonized gasp.

“No, this is just a first attempt and I mucked it up,” I said, crumpling it quickly into my palm. “But I'm about to try again, aren't I, Oliver?”

Oliver nodded, incapable of speech.

“Very well. I shall await this story with bated breath,” said Miss Hill, bustling over to the Victorian section.

Mr. Harrison went with her. When she'd squeaked off across the polished floor right out the door he turned and winked at us.

“I don't know what is actually
on
that scrap of paper in your hand, Dolphin, but I should hide it right away.”

“Very good advice, Mr. Harrison,” I said, sticking it in my pocket.

“P-h-e-w!” said Oliver, wiping his brow under his long floppy bangs.

“Pull yourself together now, Oliver. Old Tattoo-Tummy is going to make a real point of asking for my story now,” I said.

Oliver collapsed into helpless giggles.

“Shhh now!” said Mr. Harrison. “Settle down. Stop being wicked, Dolphin.”

I shushed, I settled, I stopped. I liked Mr. Harrison so much I'd have done anything for him. I wished like anything he could be my teacher but he had the Year Threes and I'd missed being one of them. They all loved him. Whenever he was on playground duty they clustered round him and hung on his hand, like he was their dad. I wished he were
my
dad.

I wrote a story called MY DAD. Well, I told Oliver and he wrote it and I copied it. My hand was
aching
by the time I got to the end of it.

“Really?” said Oliver.

“Really ride on a dolphin?” I said. “Well, not
really
really.”

“No, really am I your best friend?”

“Yes. You're coming to tea, aren't you?” I said.

I was starting to get worried about it. We met up with Star after school and she was unusually sweet, chatting away to Oliver as if he were her special little brother, telling him this long funny story about some silly mishap with her hockey stick. Oliver kept giggling. I hung back a step, starting to feel left out, but he lagged a little too, keeping time with me.

Star nipped inside the newsagent's for a moment and he said shyly, “I like your sister.”

“Yes. Everyone does. She's ever so pretty, isn't she? Her
hair
!”

“It's lovely.” Oliver paused. “But not as nice as yours.”

This was such a sweet but stupid comment that I went bright red.

“What's up with you, Dol?” said Star, coming out of the shop with a big paper bag.

“Nothing.”

“What have you been saying to make her blush, Oliver?”

“Nothing.”

“You're like a pair of little parrots, nothing nothing nothing,” said Star. “Here, help yourselves.”

She offered us the paper bag. She'd bought sherbet saucers, banana toffee chews, fizzy cola bottles, liquorice wheels and long red jelly snakes.

“Yummy yummy!” said Oliver.

We sucked and licked happily all the way home. I felt a bit sick as we went through the broken garden gate and up the path to the front door. The sweet stickiness in my mouth went all metallic.

“You live in quite a big house,” said Oliver politely. “Ours is just a semi, and we might have to move into a flat soon.”

“Ours is a flat. There's an old boot who lives downstairs. We live on the middle floor. And there's a ghost upstairs.”

“A ghost?” said Oliver, giggling expectantly.

“Not a silly spook in a white nightie. A real awful moldering maggotty ghost with bits falling off him at every step.”

Oliver blinked and stood still.

“Shut up,” said Star, putting her key in the door. “Take no notice, Oliver. It's just the man upstairs died and no one's come to clear away his things yet and
once Dol and me thought we could still hear him shambling around upstairs.”

“Really?” said Oliver.

“Not
really
really,” I said. “You can never suss out what's real and what's not, Oliver!”

I followed Star through the door and pulled Oliver after me. I could smell baking even from downstairs. I exchanged glances with Star. She looked tense too, wondering if Marigold had baked a hundred and one cakes again, but when we got upstairs we found it was just
one
cake, a special iced sponge with a big brown marzipan owl on top.

“It's specially for you, Owly,” said Marigold.

“Oh, Marigold, he's
Oliver
, not Owly,” I said.

But Oliver didn't seem to mind.

“Thank you,” he whispered, admiring the cake. He kept darting little glances at Marigold, admiring her too, though I could tell he was disappointed that there wasn't much of her on display. She was wearing jeans and a long-sleeved shirt with the collar turned up so her third eye was hidden.

“It's not
just
cake for tea, is it, Marigold?” said Star.

“Of course not, sweetie. There's sausage and beans and chips. And fruity yogurt. And real fruit too, apples and bananas and mandarin oranges.” Marigold recited this menu anxiously, waiting for our approval.

We ate it all. Oliver got the slice of cake with the owl. Then we finished up the rest of Star's sweets.

“I thought you said you didn't get much to eat at home,” Oliver whispered. “I've had
heaps
.” He idly sucked at his red jelly snake as he helped clear the table.

“You don't have to do that, sweetheart,” said Marigold, dodging backward and forward to the kitchen, still practicing being a normal mother.

“I don't mind a bit. I like to help. Thank you for the
lovely
tea,” said Oliver a little indistinctly, because he'd wedged his snake between his teeth so he could have both hands free for the dishes.

“You're a young man after my own heart,” said Marigold, rolling up her sleeves to wash the dishes.

She saw Oliver staring at her arms and pulled her sleeves down again quickly.

“Oliver likes your tattoos,” I said. “Show him my dolphin.”

Marigold seemed hesitant. She glanced over her shoulder. Star had gone into our bedroom, saying she had to get on with her homework.

“OK,” said Marigold, and let Oliver see the dolphin tattoo.

“C-o-o-l!” breathed Oliver, the glistening red tail of his snake hanging out of his mouth.

“Show him
your
snake, Marigold,” I said.

Marigold glanced over her shoulder again, double-checking Star was nowhere around. Then she pulled the tail of her shirt right up under her armpits and showed Oliver the long green coils of her serpent.

“Ooooh!” said Oliver.

Marigold swayed gently to and fro so that the serpent slid sinuously up and down her spine.

“Ooooh!”
said Oliver, and his mouth opened so wide his own snake dropped out of his mouth, slithered down his T-shirt and ended up stuck on his bare pink leg.

“
My
tattoo,” said Oliver. “Oh, I can't wait till I'm grown up. I want to have tattoos all over.”

“Run and get your felt-tips, Dol,” said Marigold. “Right, Oliver! Your wish is our command.”

We sat Oliver on the sofa between us. Marigold drew serpents and dragons and dinosaurs up and down his left arm while I drew unicorns and mermaids and stars all over his right. Oliver looked left and right, right and left, as if he were watching tennis. His smile stretched from ear to ear.

Star came out the bedroom once to go to the bathroom. Marigold started nervously. Star just shook her head and said, “Gross.”

“Do I look gross?” Oliver asked, sounding enormously pleased.

He nearly cried when it was time for him to go home and we had to scrub his tattoos away.

“No,
please
, I want to keep them!” he begged, though he admitted his mum would be shocked.

“Then she might not let you come round to my place again, Oliver,” I said.

“OK then. Because I
so
want to come again. This has been my best day ever.”

Star and I walked him home. He burbled happily until he got near his house. His mother was watching for him behind the curtains. His house looked alarmingly tidy. Even the flowers in the garden looked like soldiers on parade. It was my turn to go to tea with Oliver next but I wasn't at all sure it was going to be enjoyable.

When Star and I got back home we caught Marigold having a drink, and she kept going out to the kitchen for another sly swig, though she wasn't fooling anyone.

“Little Owly really enjoyed himself,” she said.

“
Oliver
. But yes, he did,” I said. “Thanks for being so nice to him, Marigold. He thinks you're wonderful.”