Lula Does the Hula (21 page)

‘Tallulah!’ yelled VD from the driver’s seat, where he was obviously doing his best to ramp my nausea levels with some crazy driving. ‘You’re
brave
in the boat, now be
brave
in the bus!’

‘I can’t!’ I wailed, my eyes watering. ‘Zac just spat out
the window and the phlegm has stuck to the glass! And I can’t breathe! I –’ and then, to my shame, I retched AGAIN.

‘Stop the bus, please, sir!’ wailed Boris. ‘She’s gonna be sick on me!’

‘It’s you, you know, Boris,’ remarked Arns. ‘You smell worse than any of us. It’s all that garlic sausage you keep bingeing on.’

‘He sweats it out of his pores,’ added Fat Angus. ‘Even I can smell it, and I reckon I’m pretty ripe myself.’ He lifted an arm and took a deep appreciative breath from his hairy armpit.

I gagged and retched, my hand clamped firmly over my mouth, while Mr VD screeched to a halt on the side of the dirt road.

‘Out!’ he yelled.

I didn’t give the wild animals even a passing thought. Not a one. I elbowed my way out past nine smelly boys to the door and fell out on the road where I staggered to a halt on the grassy verge and retched some more before throwing up the McCoy’s and Maltesers combo I’d had for a 3 p.m. snack.

‘Nice,’ I heard from the bus window behind me, but I couldn’t even whirl round and point my witchy finger threateningly.

Oh,
why
hadn’t I staggered into the bushes for a bit of privacy?

Another heave assaulted me.

‘Do you think we worked her too hard?’ Matilda’s voice floated out from the passenger window. ‘She is
actually
being sick now.’

‘Maybe,’ came VD’s reply, ‘but she’ll man up, no problem. She’s a natural, that one.’

Another heave threatened, but I forced it down, my face flushed with the shame of all this. There was the rattle of trainers on gravel, and my eyes slid past my own red-Conversed feet to see some familiar black-Conversed feet.

Arns came no closer, but held out a handipack of Kleenex. ‘Here,’ he said. I would have thanked him gratefully, but then he added, ‘not so much for your runny nose, more for the post-puke drool,’ and laughed. After I’d pulled out a tissue with shaking hands and cleaned my sorry self up I followed him back to the bus and, just as he was climbing back in, I kicked him in the ass. Hard.

‘Thankoo, Daddy,’ said Bluebird. ‘Yumyum in my tum.’ And she swirled her spaghetti vigorously.

I sighed heavily. Holding a fork hurt. I wondered if anyone would mind if I just kind of slurped it up with my lips and teeth.

‘Oh, Lula-lu!’ said Mum. ‘I’m so sorry your hands are sore. How’s your back feeling?’

‘Will you stop pandering to her pathetic whimpering and moaning!’ Pen had fixed her eyes on me and they were all narrow and cross-looking. She pointed her fork at Mum. ‘She got herself into this mess. Everyone knows you have to warm up before you go running. It’s Tallulah’s own fault.’

‘You’re just miffed because you’re getting no attention,’ I said.

‘Giiirls.’

We both ignored Mum’s warning tone.

‘I don’t need attention,’ said Pen. ‘You’re the attention-seeker. Helen Cluny was saying that to Matilda McCabe today when Tilda told her about your public vomiting.’

My cheeks flamed and I had no response to that.

‘Well, really!’ exclaimed Mum. ‘That’s not very kind!’

‘No, hollible ’len ’luny,’ said Blue, and she shoved her chair closer to mine. ‘You are lovely, Luli, and I’m sowwy your hands hurt.’

‘Well, exactly, Bluebird,’ said Mum. ‘That’s very mean of Helen . . . Maybe I should tell you . . .’

‘What?’ said Pen, stabbing her creamy prawn pasta viciously. ‘What’s there to tell? She’s only saying what everyone’s thinking. I mean . . .
vomiting in public
?’ Her face was pure scorn. ‘There’s always some drama with Tallulah.’

‘And thank heavens for that!’ exclaimed Mum.
‘Otherwise we’d all die of boredom in this village. Eat your pasta, Penelope.’ She got up from the table and cleared some plates. Dad raised his eyebrows at me and winked. I tried to smile, but the lump in my throat was all big and spiky and I could hardly swallow. Blue passed me a square of kitchen roll and I swiped at my nose while pretending to dab at pasta sauce on my mouth.

‘You should know, and this goes no further, mind, the Clunys are under a lot of pressure,’ continued Mum. ‘They’ve had some financial tangles, and there’s nothing like money stress to bring out the worst in a person. Try not to take it personally, Tallulah.’

She put a bowl of Ben&Jerry’s Phish Food ice cream in front of me and took away my plate. Blue jumped up and came back with a hot handful of Maltesers, which she tipped on top, and Dad reached over and squeezed my shoulder.

‘Your hands look bloody awful,’ he said. ‘I’ll get you some Micropore tape to protect them next time you go out, okay?’

I nodded and bit my lip, staring fixedly at the ice cream. No way on this earth was Pen going to see me cry.

‘Oh, FINE!’ yelled Pen suddenly. ‘Sorry, okay? Sorry, sorry, SORREEEE! Helen is a cow and I did actually stand up for you, you know, and money pressure is no excuse for being a bitch.’

‘Pen!’ squawked Mum. ‘Blue is sitting right here!’

‘Bitch,’ said Blue clearly.

‘OH!’ shouted Mum. ‘Now look –’

‘Who’s a bitch?’ asked Great-aunt Phoebe appearing in the doorway.

‘OH! OH!’ Mum flapped her tea towel at all of us, and we started to laugh. ‘
Don’t say that word!
’ said Mum to Blue, and she turned back to the dishwasher.

‘Hi, Aunt Phoebe,’ said Dad, trying not to laugh as he waved a warning fork at Pen and Blue. ‘Where’ve you been? Pasta’s getting cold.’

‘I’ll bung it in the microwave for you, Phoebe,’ said Mum. ‘It’s delicious. Lula is a genius.’

‘I’ve been consulting recipes too,’ said Great-aunt Phoebe, throwing me a conspiratorial wink. She sat down and handed Dad a bottle of something clear and fizzy. ‘Your mother’s remedy for stress, Spenser.’

Pen perked up. ‘Did you get that from her spell book?’

Great-aunt Phoebe sighed. ‘For the last time, it’s not a
spell book
. It’s natural remedies, Penelope. I thought your father might be under a lot of stress with the luau coming up and we’d like him to hit
this
bottle, if at all, rather than any other.’ She threw him a pointed look.

‘Yes, yes . . .’ muttered Dad. ‘I’m off the booze, I promise.’

‘Are you that stressed about performing at the regatta luau, Spenser?’ asked Mum, handing Great-aunt Phoebe
a plate of piping-hot pasta. ‘I thought you were looking forward to it.’

‘I am, I am . . .’ said Dad hastily. He pulled the anti-stress bottle closer and scrutinised the label.

‘Well, I don’t know why you should be looking forward to it,’ said Pen baldly, ‘with Lula up on stage alongside you, hula hularing in a bikini for all to see.’

The tissue in my hand clenched instantly into a ball, and the lump in my throat vanished.
A bikini?
‘WHAT?’

‘Yeah,’ continued Pen. ‘If ever there was going to be anything to make a person drink heavily, it’s got to be Lula half naked in public.’

‘Penelope!’ scolded Mum. ‘Stop that!’ She turned to me. ‘Don’t worry, Lula. You’re going to look lovely. You’re perfectly proportioned.’

‘Yes,’ I wailed. ‘Big butt, big stomach –’

‘Oh, you have
not
,’ snapped Great-aunt Phoebe. ‘Just stop it now, girls.’

‘– big knockers,’ added Pen, and I let out a squeal of outrage.

‘What’s knockers?’ asked Blue.

‘NOW,’ said Dad, waving the bottle around with a dramatic expression of anguish, ‘now I’m feeling stressed! Stressed and thirsty!’

‘We help you be unthirstly,’ said Blue, slurping up a wiggly spaghetti, then licking the sauce off her chin.
She looked round at us all like an old and wise woman, a person we could trust in our darkest hour. ‘I am Daddy’s favouwitest water spwite and I get him fizzy water allatime.’

‘Stop moaning,’ hissed Alex. ‘Moan, moan, whine, whine! These steps are not hard! This dance is frikking easy! I can’t wait to take Gavin salsifying.’

‘My hands hurt,’ I bleated. ‘No one told me rowing is a contact sport!’

‘What’s the problem back there?’ shouted Mrs Baldacci.

I flinched. ‘Er . . . my hands,’ I admitted. ‘I can’t even wave them.’

Mrs Baldacci threw her own beautifully manicured pair in the air. ‘You! You cannot even wave now?’ She muttered something darkly and I flushed. ‘Concentrate, girls! We must perfect our steps before the boys get here. And I think we must have some music that is live. We cannot just have the recordings, no?’

‘Yes, just the recordings,’ I begged under my breath. ‘Don’t make us play instruments too. And no, no boys!’

‘Back in a minute!’ proclaimed Mrs Baldacci, and she hurried out of the hall.

‘Oh, thank frik,’ I exclaimed, falling to my knees. ‘A break!’

But a break it was not. It couldn’t be, with Alex
haranguing me, and especially not when Mrs B returned with not only a sorry-assed troop of dewy-eyed boys, but ALSO, my FATHER.

PLUS his shiny Chanel handbag!

Dear God!
Whyyyyyy?

‘Dad! What are you doing here at school?’ I hissed to him once he’d been triumphantly introduced by Mrs Baldacci as our talented tunes man. ‘You should be faaar away! At home! On campus!’

Dad raised his eyebrows and rumpled his rumpled hair. ‘I was just chilling in the staffroom after my Year Ten tutorials. Why are you looking all cross and frantic?’

‘What? You teach
here
now?
Dad?
’ Frik! No one in my family ever tells me anything!

‘I started this week. Don’t worry, it’s just on Thursdays, just to help out. The school’s got no funds – they need all the help they can get . . .’ He sat down at the piano and tried a plinky plinky island-stylie riff with a beatific smile at me. ‘La la la-la-la!’ he trilled.

‘No singing!’ I hissed. ‘Please, Dad.’

He sighed in a deeply wounded way that was supposed to make me feel guilty, but so did not. ‘Ohhhkaaaaay, T-Bird.’

Truly. Pathetic.

It was a terrible afternoon. I could tell that Alex was deeply regretting asking me to do dance with her. I was so bad at it.
I stepped on all those boys’ toes.
Stomped
, even. It was just about bearable until Mrs Baldacci yelled my full name at me – ‘TALLULAH BIRD! WILL YOU
NOT
! PLEASE!’ – there was a little whisper around the room and I could hear the words ‘witch girl’ and ‘dead boyfriend’ and ‘A&E’, and then that was it. No one would dance with me. Not even when Mrs B shook weird instruments at them, like the upi. Not even with upi shaking going on.

Dad was a bit taken aback by all of this. I could tell. I could feel waves of sympathy rolling across the hall from the piano, and it made everything much worse. If I was tense before, now I was past tense. I couldn’t think straight, couldn’t dance straight, was in dire straits.

I was about to publicly resign from the whole debacle, in front of my father, and face the wrath of Mrs B and all that it would entail, but then there was a little miracle.

Jack.

Yep, that’s right.

He just appeared. Like some kind of knight in shining armour, or a cinematic hero, or, let’s face it, drop-dead gorgeous Greek god.

There was a crash of the hall doors opening and there he was. A uni student on school premises. It had never been done before.

‘Hey!’ he called, catching sight of my misery-stricken face before I could change my expression.

Dad’s hands stayed on the keys, and the music ebbed away.

‘Who are you, tall boy?’ yelled Mrs Baldacci.

Jack was about to say something, anything, but she was already issuing orders. ‘Get over here and dance with the rhythmless one. You are late, you must suffer.’

‘Nice,’ breathed Jack, coming straight over to stand in front of me. ‘But look! This is fate! We were meant to be together!’

‘
What are you doing here?
’ I whispered, my cheeks all fiery. ‘Are uni students even
allowed
on school premises?’

‘I have information that could not wait,’ he twinkled back. ‘Is that your dad at the piano?’

‘Yes.’ Unfortunately, no time for conversation. Step one two, step one two and twiiirl – ‘Hey!’ I exclaimed in delight.

‘Aha! We have breakthrough!’ announced Mrs B. ‘At last the girl can dance. Maybe . . . maybe is the beautiful partner.’ She swept Jack a deep curtsey and he swung into a graceful bow.

‘Oh, don’t,’ I said, but I was trying not to laugh.

‘Quiet down,’ said Jack, still smiling at Mrs B, ‘or I won’t kiss you later.’

‘Frik!’ No laughing now. ‘Did we not
discuss
’ – I could hear my own voice getting shrill – ‘that my father is
right here
? In this room? Playing the piano and listening to you get flirty?’

‘I am brave,’ consoled Jack. ‘And you’re paranoid. I’m speaking incredibly quietly.’

‘Still,’ rumbled my father, his back to us as he picked out a pretty tune, ‘your incredibly quiet voice is not quite quiet enough, Jack de Souza.’