My Family and Other Freaks (6 page)

Mom and Dad are laughing in front of the TV. I'm in my room. Amber says The Change doesn't make you feel bad every day and that her textbook says it can be a “new phase in life.” Will this new phase involve going to the supermarket more often? That's what I want to know.

Dad is driving us to the protest in our embarrassing two-tone car. “What's this about again?” he says. “It's to demonstrate our objection to the new bypass they're planning, Mr. Dench,” says Amber.

“What's wrong with a bypass? Bypasses are good!” says my stupid father.

“Oh no, they attract more cars, which cause more pollution and they ruin the countryside, Mr. Dench,” says Amber patiently, as if addressing a person with learning difficulties.

My dad points out—and he does have a tiddlywiddly point—that if we look around us carefully we might notice that we are actually traveling to this protest IN A CAR. “I don't understand young people now,” he goes on. “Environmental protests! Kids your age should be doing something useful, like robbing gas meters.” He seems to think this is hilarious. Amber and I don't respond.

As I get out of the car I pause and say, “Dad? Is Mom going through The Change?”

He stares at me for about five seconds. Then he throws back his head and explodes with laughter. “Oh, that's priceless, that is,” he says. “That's really made my day.” I seriously think my parents are losing it.

I've never seen so many unattractive people gathered in one place. Or face hair. And that's just the women. Amber has this glowy look about her, like those Jehovah's Witnesses who knock on your door and ask if you want to be saved. One boy with Harry Potter glasses has climbed a tree and unfurled a banner saying: “The Earth is Yours. Save It!” He is also wearing a dreadful T-shirt with “I'm a lean, mean recycling machine!” on the front. No, you're not, buddy. You're a skinny, drippy wimp.

Amber is looking on admiringly. “Amber, if you ever buy a T-shirt like that, then I must tell you that we can't be friends anymore,” I warn tersely.

Then I spot another boy standing awkwardly at the foot of the tree. It is Shy Boy Sean. “Hello,” he says, a bit embarrassed.

“What you doing here?” I say, astonished.

He gestures with his eyes up the tree to the nerdy glasses boy. “I'm with him. My cousin Neil.” It is the geek in the T-shirt.

Hold on. This is the boy I'm supposed to be dog-walking with next weekend rather than Damian? Oh, my so-called life gets better and better.

“Hello, Neil,” Amber and I say together, shuffling our feet. All the while I am thinking I MUST NOT say Nerdy Neil, I MUST NOT say Nerdy Neil, because I can be a bit Tourette's like that. It turns out that Neil is starting at our school in September because he's had trouble “fitting in” at his own school. Right, so he's been bullied then.

Amber has now shimmied up the tree too. There are eight people up there now, all chanting, “I have a dream and it is green.” It's toe-curling, but Amber seems happy.

“If they like trees so much, why are they trying to crush one to death?” I whisper to Sean. He
snickers. I seize my chance. “How's, erm, Damian these days?” I ask.

Sean instantly looks shifty. “Fine,” he says defensively.

“I can't believe he hangs around with trashy Treasure,” I say as breezily as I can possibly manage.

“Well, if they're happy, it's up to them, isn't it?” says Sean, looking at me as though I'm the personification of evil. Lovely. So Treasure's now even got Shy Sean under her spell.

I sulk for the rest of the day.

When Amber's dad picks us up she's buzzing like a mad wasp, telling him how they're now going to march on the council planning meeting (I mean, what are we—old-age pensioners?). Her dad, who fancies himself as a bit of a Bob Geldof, seems impressed. I sit in the back on my own,
seething and hating Sean for being so nice about Treasure.

We are in Amber's bedroom eating hummus, chips and breadsticks. If anyone tried to kiss us now, they'd die from garlic fumes.

Amber is still raving about the fact that she sat in a tree with some boring people. Oh, to be so easily pleased.

I tell her what Sean said and that I feel depressed.

Amber puts her hand on my back like she used to when we were little. “Maybe you should play it a bit more cool with Damian.”

“What do you mean? I DO play it cool,” I say.

“Well, not reeeeeeally,” she says. “You could try and be a bit less …”

A bit less WHAT?

“Obvious.”

OBVIOUS? I am not obvious! I am the queen of subtlety.

“Well, you could not copy Treasure so much and maybe not STARE at him quite so much. I think people have noticed.”

I know Amber thinks she is helping, but right at this moment I want to flick her very hard on the nose. I'll get her back one day.

Still, I practice my “I'm not even looking at you” walk in the mirror. Amber says I look like I've been hypnotized by Paul McKenna.

School. Time to put the “I'm not even looking at you” walk into practice. Ooh, ooh, Damian is queuing with everyone in the corridor outside the math classroom. Here goes. But I'm concentrating so hard on staring at the floor I walk straight into
the wall. Slam. If this was a
Tom and Jerry
cartoon I'd have a flat face like a frying pan. My geography lever-arch file comes apart and the pages flutter everywhere.

I can hear two people laughing—oh, what a surprise. The snickerers are Mickey the Thicky and Treasure.

“Oh Danni you're so CLUMSY,” says Treasure in a twittery, patronizing voice. “You're like a baby elephant sometimes.”

I want to cry. I banged the bridge of my (huge) nose when I walked into the wall and now I can't even think of a cutting reply so I just sit on the floor with my throbbing conk, surrounded by pages about rainforests. I want to cry, but I mustn't under any circumstances. Where is Amber? This is all her fault for the “too obvious” slur.

Then—salvation. I feel two pairs of arms pulling me up. Strong arms. And a smell of hair gel. It is Damian and Sean. “You OK?” says Damian, as Treasure looks on, giving me the evils.

OK? I'm on the crest of a wave!

“Your, erm, nose is bleeding,” says Sean, offering me a tissue, which I hope hasn't been used because I'm stuffing it up my nostril. Damian says they'd better walk me to the sickbay. No, no—carry me, Damian! Like Mr. Darcy.

Treasure, obviously sensing the electric attraction between me and Damian, dives in and stands over me saying, “I'LL take her.” Bog off, Treasure.

I ignore her and carry on looking pleadingly at Damian. I consider pretending to faint in Damian's arms, but then Amber comes running down the corridor—her last class had been kept behind. All she sees is me covered in blood and Treasure standing over me, so she shrieks, “What's happened? Oh my God, has she HIT you?”

“Has WHO hit WHOM?” bellows the voice of Mr. Ince, our math teacher. This just gets better! He orders Amber to go with me to see the nurse, and I can hear him taking Treasure aside for a grilling. As soon as me and Amber turn into the
next corridor I stop her and start giggling. “Did she hit you?” she asks, all shock-faced.

“No, I walked into the wall, trying to look nonobvious!” I say, and we both just fall apart laughing, me with little droplets of blood spraying from my nose.

The school nurse cleans me up and says I can go home if I want, but I choose to go back to class so that Damian can see how brave and ungirlie I am. Everyone gives me a round of applause when I go back in—apart from Treasure, that is—and I bow like I'm on stage, but not too low because it makes all the blood rush to my nostrils.

This has been an extremely successful day.

Last day of term before the summer holidays!!!

“All right, class,” says Mrs. Shutterton in English, “I have a question for you. Who can spell ‘discombobulated'?”

Oooh, and I have a question for YOU, Mrs. Shutterton—who on the whole planet is ever going to need to write or say or type the word “discombobulated”? You may as well ask us to spell “blutitriollisticalenchortrasirpfgjhkkfarlt.” Remind me never to become a teacher … What a waste of time.

No wonder she gets called Mrs. Sh … well, you can probably guess.

She's given us a book to read over the summer. I thought she was meant to be good at English. She should look up the meaning of the word “holidays.” The book she has given us is
My Family and Other Animals
by Gerald Durrell. Amber is thrilled about this because it's about nature and geckos and bugs and things. I, on the other hand, am not thrilled. My family ARE animals. I live this book every single day.

Mom meets me and Rick from school, saying she will “buy us a milkshake” to celebrate the end of the school year. A milkshake. How will
we stand the excitement? If this is Mother's way of trying to show she is a good parent she gets zero out of ten. “I just wanted to spend time with my big boy and girl,” she says, with moist eyes. It must be her hormones again. Give me strength. Rick's face is all twisted in a way that looks like acute pain but which I know to be mortification.

We tell our mother that if she does not call us her BIG BOY AND GIRL ever again we will allow her to take us for a Frankie and Benny's pizza.

Ugh. Today's the day I promised to meet Shy Sean and Nerdy Neil in the park. How can I get out of it? I could say Simon has dog swine flu and cannot leave the house because he is infectious to other four-legged beasts. But I've got to take him for a walk anyway, and knowing my luck I'll bump into them and be exposed as a big, fat liar.
I call Amber and tell her that she's got to talk to Nerdy Neil and keep him away from me. “OK!” she says, surprisingly brightly. Text Shy Sean and we arrange to meet by the memorial stone in the park.

Amber is here with a camera because she wants to take some photos of “nature.” Seriously. Do you see what I'm up against? I can barely believe we're friends sometimes. We have nothing in common.

We walk to the park. Simon pulls me all the way on his lead like a Scud missile. This is very undignified for me because it looks as if I am waterskiing but on a pavement. Sean is wearing combat pants and looks slightly less weird
than usual. I cannot say the same for his cousin, who is dressed like my dad when he's going to Homebase, in a checked shirt and cords. He also has hair like our milkman, who might be as old as 50. But at least he's got different glasses on today and doesn't look like that man who reads the news. Plus, he has at least got a kind, smiley face despite being an ocean-going nerd.

Neil says he thinks Simon is “boss” and should be in a TV advert because he's so cute. Well, I did say this boy has his good points. But he is a very poor substitute for Damian, who should really be here today. I can't see why Sean couldn't do me a favor and bring him along. I'm doing him a favor by allowing my dog to bond with his, aren't I? Aaah, bless, they do seem to be in doggy love though—sniffing each other's bottom, rolling
around with their mouths around each other's throat and making growly noises. Sean looks a bit worried about this.

“Don't worry!” I say, all masterful and Dog Whisperer-like. “It's called mouthing and it's perfectly natural. It's how they play.” Sean looks at me with big, impressed eyes. Mitzy, his collie, is very sweet and pretty, though obviously nowhere near as pretty as Simon.

Amber is earning some brownie points by chatting to Neil the Nerdmeister. He's examining her camera and coming out with words like “shutter speed” and “pixels.” Amber is actually doing a good job of pretending to be interested. Who knew she was such a good actress?

Just to make conversation, and in the hope that he will mention it to Damian, I tell Sean that I am now a vegetarian. He looks impressed again. Or
rather he just looks at me. Have I got a bogey on my nose?

Oh God. Wish I hadn't mentioned the vegetarian thing. Neil, who has not eaten meat since the age of five “because I don't eat anything with a face” offers to bring some leaflets over to my house. He wants me to sign up to the Vegetarian Society, Compassion in World Farming and all sorts of other things that I just don't have time for in my busy life. I don't mind having principles—I just don't want them intruding on my leisure time. Amber says that she'd like to see the leaflets though. Good. That's got him off my back.

“Where's Damian today?” I ask Sean as casually as I can manage.

“Gone on holiday with his family in France,” says Sean. Oh no—he'll come back with a tan and look even more gorgeous.

“But when's he back, when's he back?” I shriek, not at all casually. “How should I know?” says Sean. Honestly, he's a very touchy person.

Aaah, a nice lie-in. And I deserve nothing less after my traumas.

Yesterday wasn't too bad, considering. The dogs loved it. Not that I'll ever do it again.

Just had a text from Sean suggesting that we do it again.

“Deffo!” I text back. Why can't I just say no?

Phoebe comes and starts tying Play-Doh ribbons into my hair. “I got a boyfriend at nurthery!” she says. “He kith me!”

What is wrong with me? Even my baby sister has a boyfriend, and she can't wipe her own back bottom.

Still, this is nice. Simon is in bed with me too, with his Ugg-boots girlfriend, which he has, rather disgustingly, buried under my duvet. He seems to have full-time custody of the boots these days. When winter comes and Mom remembers she quite likes wearing them I predict some shouting chez nous.