Hunky Dory (2 page)

I have just thought of something else to add to my list and that is
friends
. I have two of them. Well, I have lots of people I am friendly with, but only two that are best mates. They are:

Rosemary Jones,
who is my Uncle Clive's step daughter, which is why we have the same surname. I usually call her the Herb, as she hates the name Rosemary. In return, she calls me DJ, or Deeje.

She is kind of shortish and stubbyish, with blonde hair which she wears in spikes. Even though she is a girl, we get on really well. She does sometimes giggle, but not in an embarrassing kind of way, and she never does that screechy thing that lots of girls do, like when one of the Russells jumps up and scrapes her leg or puts great dollops of mud all over her. Most girls would go
shrieeeek! Ow! Look what it's done!
but not the Herb. She doesn't mind getting muddy. She doesn't mind her legs being scraped. She doesn't mind getting rained on or falling off her bike and banging her head. For a girl, she is all right. She lives just round the corner, and as we go to the same school and are even in the same year (though not in the

same class) we see each other pretty much all the time.

My other best mate is
Aaron.
Aaron Chandler. I have known him for ever. He is a small, knobbly kind of person. Knobbly knees, knobbly wrists. His face is covered in freckles and he has bright orange hair the colour of carrots. Carrots is what I used to call him, back in Juniors, until he said to me one day that he didn't think I should, as it “wasn't politically correct”, so after that I didn't do it any more. I couldn't really see what was wrong with it, like I couldn't see that calling someone Carrots was insulting or anything, I mean what's wrong with carrots? But he is my friend and I didn't want to upset him.

Me and Aaron not only go to the same school but are in the same class. We hang out with Calum Bickerstaff and Joe Icard, but Joe and Calum live way over the other side of town so out of school we don't meet up that often. It's usually just Aaron and me—and the Herb. The Herb's like an honorary boy; she joins us most of the time. Aaron reckons she's OK.

Actually, I'm a bit worried about Aaron. He wasn't in school today, which was how Amy Wilkerson got to park herself next to me. If Aaron had been there, she wouldn't have dared. I just hope he's back tomorrow! I can't cope with this; it's all too much. I don't want another messed up page in my geography book!

Why can't all girls be like the Herb?

LIKES AND DISLIKES

Name your favourite

Food
Maggot pie and chips

Drink
Wet sick

Colour
Puke green
S

ong
Mr Smelly Goes to Town

TV programme
Secrets of a Sewage Farm

Band
Flaming Flamingos

The Microdot gave me this questionnaire. She said she
was doing tests, and I had to fill it in. So I filled it in, and she screamed at me.

“This is just
stupid
!”

Actually, I thought it was quite funny, but the Microdot has no sense of humour. She screeched, “I suppose you think you're being clever?”

I guess I might have smirked a bit. Not exactly meaning to; more like a sort of nervous tic. It does my head in when she screeches. Trouble is, once she starts she can't seem to stop. She just rages on and on. She screeched at me that it wasn't clever, it was
stupid
.

“There isn't any such programme as Secrets of a Sewage Farm, and if it was it would be disgusting!”

I said, “Pardon me, that is just your interpretation.”

“What about maggot pie? Are you trying to tell me that's not disgusting? And what's this stupid Flamingo thing? I've never heard of a band called that. You just made it up!”

I said, “How do you know? You don't know the name of every band there's ever been.”

Witheringly she said that nobody would call a band anything that stupid. “It's just about the stupidest name I ever heard!”

I told her that that was the fifth time she'd used the
word stupid. I said, “You ought to get a bit more vocabulary.”

She screeched, “Yes, and you ought to get a life! You know what this shows, don't you?” She snatched up the questionnaire and waved it at me. “It shows that you're
repressed.
”

I said, “Yeah?” I don't think she even knows what the word means.

She said, “Yeah! It shows you're too scared to reveal your true self…you have to hide behind being
stupid
.”

“That makes the sixth time,” I said.

“Sixth time
what
?”

“Sixth time you've used that word.”

“That's cos it's the only one that describes you!”

All because I treated her silly little questionnaire as a joke. I bet even if I'd taken it seriously she'd still have said it showed there was something weird about me. She's always saying I'm weird. She told me the other day I was like a human hermit crab.

“Skulking in your shell!”

If I'm like a hermit crab, she's like a hornet, all angry and buzzing.
Zzz, zzz, zzz! You're stupid, you're weird!

I'm not like a hermit crab; I don't skulk. She just can't bear it when other people don't share her interests.
Shopping, and shrieking, and
giggling
. I reckon she ought to learn to be a bit more tolerant.

Now she's threatening to give me more of her idiotic tests. She gets them out of girly mags.
Ten Ways to Tell if a Boy's Interested in You.
(Like any boy ever would be, the way she carries on.)
Check your Popularity. Check your Street Cred.
It's all rubbish! She'd better not try any of them on me. She tried one on Dad the other day. Something about hair.
What your Latest Hair Style reveals about You.
Dad practically hasn't got any hair. Will said, “What it reveals is that Dad is going bald.” She didn't have a go at
him
. She didn't accuse him of being stupid. It's just me she's got it in for. Her and her tests!

If she gives me that one about
Check your Popularity
I shall refuse to answer it. I don't see why, just because she's my sister, she should be allowed to humiliate me.

Aaron came back to school today; he said he'd been off with earache. I told him what had happened with Amy
Wilkerson, parking herself next to me and breathing over me. He drew in his breath and said, “I'd keep an eye on her, if I were you. Gobbles boys up for breakfast, that one. Obviously fancies you. It's what they do, they come and breathe over you, and touch you…did she touch you?”

I said, “She kept nudging me with her knee.”

“See, this is what I mean,” said Aaron. “She fancies you! She's got her sights set on you…
donk
!” He shot out the first two fingers of both hands, straight into my face. “It's like smoke signals, you gotta be aware of the signs. You gotta know how to respond.”

I said, “I don't want to respond!”

“No, but if you did.”

“I don't!”

“Can't say I blame you,” said Aaron. He sucked in his cheeks. “Amy Wilkerson! Have to be careful with that one.”

I wish now that I hadn't mentioned it to him. Aaron is one of those people, he always claims to know everything about everything. But you can't actually rely on him. Like the time he told me that a prendergast was someone that molested children, and for ages I believed him and wouldn't go into the newspaper shop cos of the lady in there being called Mrs Prendergast, until in the end Mum wanted to know what the problem was, so I told her, and she laughed and laughed and explained that Prendergast was just a perfectly ordinary surname like Smith or Jones and nothing whatsoever to do with molesting children. Aaron had got hold of the wrong end of the stick.
As usual
. It was very embarrassing.

I refuse to let him embarrass me again! When it comes to girls, I'm not convinced he knows what he's talking about. I don't believe that Amy Wilkerson fancies me. Why should she? I've hardly ever spoken to her. I reckon she was just, like, doing it for a joke. I bet what it was, her
friend Sharleen had dared her. I bet that's what it was! Like the Microdot getting all her friends to hang about at the gates and giggle. Just to upset me.

On the other hand, who told Janine Edwards to keep beaming? There can't be two of them that fancy me! I don't want to be fancied; I just want to be left alone!

I'm really glad it's Friday; I am beginning to feel
persecuted.

Wee Scots is coming tomorrow. That should be liven things up.

Wee Scots arrived this morning, bright red as usual with the usquebaugh. Mum went to fetch her from the bus station. As they came through the front door Dad said, “Watch out, here she is, Hell's Granny!” Wee Scots bashed him with her handbag and cried, “Och, awa' wi' ye!” They have a really good relationship.

After lunch, while me and the Microdot were
doing the washing up, which is one of the tedious tasks we have to perform in order to get any pocket money, the Microdot said she'd got a secret to tell me. She said, “You know my friend Linzi?”

I didn't, but I didn't bother to say so; I just grunted. The Microdot has so many friends I can't keep up with them. Last year for her birthday she invited twenty people. Boys, as well as girls. She claimed they were “all my friends”. I can't understand why she's so popular; she is
very
bed-tempered.

“My friend Linzi?” She snatched a plate out of my hand before I'd even had time to put it on the draining board. She always treats washing up like it's some kind of competition. “The one with the plaits?”

When she said that, I had this faint uneasy feeling come over me. I'd noticed a girl with plaits in the middle of the gigglers. She'd been giggling along with the rest, but more in a sort of embarrassed way. Grudgingly I said, “What about her?”

“She's got a crush on you.”

“What?” I was so alarmed I let a glass go slipping through my fingers on to the kitchen floor.

“Now look what you've done,” said the Microdot. “You've gone and broken it.” Like I needed her to tell me? “That was Granny's favourite usquebaugh glass.” I said, “It's not an usquebaugh glass. She uses tumblers for usquebaugh. This is a water glass.”

“It's still broken.”

“I can see that, thank you very much!”

“Yes, well, anyway. Like I was saying…about Linzi. She's got this massive crush on you.”

I said, “What d'you mean,
crush
?”

“Crush! Like she wants to
crrrrrrush
you!”

Before I knew what was happening, the Microdot had flung both arms round me and was squeezing me to a pulp. I said, “Geddoff!”

“I'm just showing you what she'd like to do to you. She'd like to
hug
you! And
kiss
you. Aaaah…it's so sweet!”

“Why don't you just shut up?” I said.

“Cos I want you to know how she feels. She's in love with you! Only she's too shy to tell you, so I thought I would.”

I said, “Is that what all the stupid giggling was about?”

“Yes. It's really pathetic! They've all got crushes on you…they think you're so cute!” She gave this great cackle, like she was inviting me to join in. “But poor Linzi, she's got it worse than anyone. She is totally
gone.
She is, like,
demented
. She's written your name all over, everywhere! I've told her what you're like, but she just can't stop herself. I feel
sooo
sorry for her.”

Crawling round the floor with the dustpan and brush, keeping my face hidden because I just knew I'd gone bright beetroot, I said, “So what did you tell her I was like?”

“Well, like you are…peculiar! Anyone that spends their time digging holes in the back garden and playing about in the mud…where's the sense in having a crush on someone like that?”

This is what I mean about my family, and the difficulties I face. Scorn and derision at every turn. I don't
play in the mud
and I'm not just digging a hole, I am
excavating
. It is serious work. They know this perfectly well; I've told them over and over. It is an archaeological
dig.
But the Microdot still treats me like I'm some kind of geek. Even Mum and Dad have a secret giggle—well, not all that secret, either, cos I heard them the other day telling someone about “Dory's hole”, like it was just totally hilarious. It is an uphill struggle, in this house, trying to make something of yourself. One day when I'm Sir Dorian, and famous for my work on dinosaurs, they'll look back and feel ashamed of the way they treated me.

Of course I might be famous as a Crime Scene Investigator. That's another career I'm thinking of pursuing. I reckon I'd be good at it, as I find it most interesting on television when they examine the contents of people's stomachs or collect maggots and bugs that have taken up residence inside dead bodies. The Microdot says I am gruesome. She says it is totally disgusting and would make any normal person feel sick, but that is just her point of view. Mine happens to be different.

Anyway, if I'm peculiar so is she. She screamed her head off the other day, all because there was a spider walking across her bedroom ceiling. She screeched, “Get rid of it, get rid of it!”

I've told her about a hundred times that spiders are perfectly pleasant and harmless creatures, just going about their business.

“What d'you think they're going to do, bite you?”

She screeched that they might fall on top of her while she was in bed. They might even get into the bed.

“They could get down my nightdress!”

How peculiar is that? Fantasising about spiders getting down her nightdress. What makes her think any self-respecting spider would want to? I can't understand it when girls start freaking out at the sight of anything with multiple legs. The Herb came across a centipede the other day;
she
didn't freak. But then the Herb is different.

I spent the whole afternoon excavating. I've only got till the end of the month, then the builders are coming in to build Dad's new workshop, so I'm trying to get as much done as I can. Aaron and the Herb are helping me: they are my official assistants. I am doing my best to train them, but I have to say it is uphill work. They don't seem able to grasp the fact that there is more to excavating than simply picking up a trowel and digging as fast as you can. I've told them, you have to dig slowly. You have to dig carefully. You have to
sift
. Then if you find anything, you have to label it, and say where

it was, like how far down, and how far in. The Herb asked me today exactly what it was we were hoping to discover. Before I could give a more scholarly reply, Aaron had jumped in and yelled, “Dinosaur bones!”

“What, in Warrington Crescent?” said the Herb.

Aaron said why not. They'd have stamped about in Warrington Crescent same as they did anywhere else.

“In the
back garden
?”

“You gotta remember,” said Aaron, “it was all primeval swamp in them days. That's what it still is, deep down. Then the bones kind of work their way up. Prob'ly quite near the surface, some of 'em. I wouldn't be surprised if we came across the odd one now and again.”

I said, “I would.” This is exactly what I mean about Aaron always claiming to know everything when in fact he knows nothing. I said, “I'd be very surprised.”

“So what are we
searching
for?” demanded the Herb.

I had to explain that it wasn't dinosaur bones, which in any case would be fossils by now, but just whatever turned up. So far I have discovered:

An old coin dating from 1936 A piece of broken china (a shard, as we professionals call it) A small blue bottle (probably contained poison) A rusty penknife, almost certainly antique.

They are all cleaned up and properly labelled. I showed them to my assistants, thinking they would be impressed—thinking
they might actually learn something—but the Herb just giggled and Aaron said, “Is that it?”

I said, “This is history, this is.”