Read My Life and Other Massive Mistakes Online
Authors: Tristan Bancks
My Life and Other Massive Mistakes (5 page)
The monster mask twists and I can't see out of the eyeholes, and when I straighten the mask I can't see Stella. She's gone.
Maybe she snuck into the house?
I tear the mask off ⦠and guess who I find lying there on the veranda, flat out on her back?
âStella?'
I prod her with my foot. âStella, get up. I know you're faking.' She doesn't move. âI'm not that stupid, Stella.'
I go around to her left side and kneel down to check if she's breathing, but she doesn't seem to be. She really is very good at this. I feel a pang of nervousness. Maybe I scared her to death?
âStella, you'd better not be tricking me. If you're faking and you're not dead, I'm going to be so annoyed with you.'
But it doesn't seem like she is faking. It feels like the real thing. I place two fingers on her neck to check her pulse. She's warm but I can't feel any beating. This frightens me because I know what people have to do in this situation. I practised it in Health class on a plastic dummy.
Mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
Stella has so much brown goo on her face, it's mental. I can't put my lips on that. I try to wipe the chocolate off but it's too sticky. I can't even remember what I'm supposed to do. Do you breathe first then pump down on the chest, or is it chest then breathe? Stella looks pretty pale, though, so I figure I need to do something.
I lean down towards her. I look at her face close-up. I try to pretend that I am my best
friend Jack and that Jack is the one giving Stella mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, which makes me feel slightly better.
I check one more time to see if she's breathing but she's not, so I squeeze my eyes closed, press my lips against hers and blow.
Stella jerks forward and her face jams hard against mine, nearly knocking out my front teeth. My first thought is that I must have done something right because she's responding. But then my worst fears are confirmed. Stella's arms lock around my neck and I'm stuck. I try to struggle out of her hold, but she's got me and my mouth is smooshed up to hers. It's hideous. I am kissing Stella Holling through a mask of chocolate sludge and I want to bite off my own lips.
I grab her shoulders and use every ounce of strength I have to push myself up and away. I jump back and wipe my mouth.
She sits up, grinning like a mad person, bunny ears all crooked.
âThat was
revolting
. I
knew
you were faking. Why would you do that?' I ask.
She gazes up at me, lovingly, like we've just exchanged wedding vows, like I've just kissed the bride.
âGimme my rabbit,' I demand, holding out my hand.
âCan't,' she says.
âWhat do you mean “can't”? Yes, you can. You got your kiss. Now fess up the bunny.'
âIn here,' she says, pointing to her belly and laughing. âYum, yum, yum! Happy Easter, Tommy!'
So, I went to my Nan's last night and she served a very sloppy, rank-smelling beef and vegetable curry for dinner. I think it may have been out of a can. I didn't have the heart to tell her that I'm allergic to sloppy food so I ate it.
Then, to heal myself, I went home and wrote this list of reasons why sloppy food should be banned.
- Sloppy food is for babies and old people, both of whom scare me with their gummy smiles and nappies.
- Sloppy food usually has at least one hair of unknown origin in it.
- I like snappy words like âcrisp' and âpop' and âcrackle' and âsharp'. âSloppy' is not a snappy word. It's more like âooze' and âsquelch' and âsquidgy' and âgloop'.
- When I was five I found Nan's false teeth in my potato and leek soup. Soup should not smile at you.
- The word âsloppy' makes me think of sloppy joes â the shapeless, itchy green sacks they make us wear to school in winter.
- Sloppy food reminds me of a horror movie I once saw where creamed corn squished out of a guy's belly button. Any food a filmmaker can use as a special effect for human gizzards should not be eaten.
- Underpaid kitchen hands and angry waiters can spit or wee in sloppy food and stir it in without you ever knowing.
- Soup is sloppy. Soup is a very bad food. Especially when it contains any of the three most repulsive substances known to humankind: pumpkin, eggplant and zucchini.
- Sloppy food does not solidify as it travels through your body. Sloppy in. Sloppy out.
My mum bought a cat. He's ginger. His name is Gordon. And he's the weirdest cat in the world. I know that everyone says their cat is weird but Gordon is YouTube weird. He makes other bizarro cats seem normal. And he's kind of creepy, too. Here are just a few reasons why Gordon Weekly is the world's freakiest cat:
Last night, in the darkness of my bedroom, he smiled and spoke to me. Not in a good way.
My mum has taught him to use a human toilet. There is nothing more frightening than sitting down on the toilet in the middle of the night and realising you've sat on a cat.
His favourite place to sleep is on my face.
He has a pocket on his front right side where he keeps miniature throwing knives and a short length of rope.
Last week, I caught him smoking a cigar late at night on the back veranda.
He uses one paw to stop the bell around his neck from ringing and then walks on three legs so that he can sneak up on birds and eat them.
If you tease him and say the words âI tawt I taw a puddy tat,' he scratches you. I used to think it was funny until I had to have the eye operation.
He licks his own bottom.
Then he licks me.
He sometimes sleeps in my clothes drawers and, last night, he vomited inside my favourite undies. But I didn't have a spare pair so I had to wear them to school. Luckily Tuesday's canteen special is fish burgers, which helped hide the smell.
His favourite food is M&M's (chocolate is supposed to be poison for cats, but not for Gordon) and he won't drink milk â only pineapple juice.
He likes to leave little presents for me. On his second day in the house, he dragged home a chihuahua and dumped it on the front doorstep.
He sneaks out late at night and, once, I followed him to an alley off the main street where there were a dozen other mean-looking cats betting on a mouse race.