The Parent Problem (2 page)

Mum is still laughing. ‘Your
face
!’ she says. ‘I’m not that much of an embarrassment, am I?’

Harris leaps up from Pongo’s bed and yells, ‘You’re not embarrassing. You’re beeeeoooootiful!’ and launches himself at Mum’s legs. He rugby-tackles her to the floor and they roll around, shrieking and giggling. Pongo loves any kind of rough and tumble, so he joins in.

‘For goodness sake!’ I shout. ‘You are such losers.’

Mum pushes Harris and Pongo off and says, ‘That’s enough, boys.’

‘Aaaaaoooowwwww,’ Harris whines. ‘But it was fun!’

Mum gets up and gives him one of her indulgent looks as if to say, ‘You are such a naughty cutie-pie’. (She has been known to call him this. I have no idea why. Most of the time he is less of a ‘cutie-pie’ and more of a ‘grubby little worm’, if you ask me).

‘Come on, outside with you,’ says Mum.

Harris huffs and puffs but he takes Pongo into the garden and soon they can be heard shouting and barking at each other and doing what only Harris and Pongo do to have fun (which usually involves mud and mess and general nut-headedness).

Mum is looking at me. Her hair is wild and her eye make-up is smudged. She is still panting slightly from the rough-and-tumble. She looks like Roald Dahl’s character, Mrs Twit (i.e. quite mad).

‘Oh, Skye,’ she says sadly. ‘It wasn’t that long ago that you would have jumped in and joined us. You’re growing up so fast.’

‘Yeah, well, someone’s got to act like a grown-up around here,’ I mutter.

Thing is, I wish it wasn’t me.

‘This’ll cheer you up,’ Mum says, ‘Milly Brockweed tells me that the new people are moving in next door this week.’

‘Oh yes, that has brightened up my day no end,’ I say. ‘Anything to do with Milly Brockweed is bound to be fabulous. Tell me, is it her long-lost son from Australia that she is always banging on about? And will he have a million cats in his house, just like she does?’

Mum sighs. ‘Noooo,’ she says.

Milly Brockweed is our babysitter and a right old curtain-twitching nosey parker. She also has a houseful of cats which I have to feed when she is away. The first time I agreed to do it, she offered to pay me five pounds. I thought she meant ‘five pounds per cat’ so of course I was up for it. Turns out she meant ‘just five pounds’. Even though I went twice a day for a fortnight and had to put out food all over her horrible house (which smells of cat wee). Gollum made me suffer by being extra-scratchy with me during that time. Can’t say I blame her. From her point of view I must have reeked of The Enemy.

‘I wish Mrs Robertson hadn’t had to move,’ I say. Mrs Robertson used to be our babysitter. She lived next door until a few months ago when she had to move into a care home. ‘I miss her so much,’ I say.

‘I know,’ says Mum. She puts her arms around me and gives me a quick squeeze. The sequins on her top squash into my face, so I pull away.

Mum releases me and sighs again. ‘I miss Mrs Robertson too, but it will be nice to have some new neighbours at last. It’s been too quiet with her house standing empty. Maybe they’ll be super-friendly and offer to babysit,’ she adds, smiling. ‘Then I can stop asking Milly.’

‘No one can be as nice as Mrs Robertson,’ I say, staring at the floor.

Harris and I used to go next door after school when Mum was late from work. She always gave us homemade cakes and lemonade and helped us with our homework. It’s because of her that I love reading so much. When she came to babysit in the evenings, she always read to us. I was a slow learner and not that much good at reading at school, but when I was seven Mrs Robertson read
The Secret Garden
to me and it was like someone had turned on a light bulb in my brain. It is a story about a girl who is sent away to live with a relative she doesn’t know or like. She is full of anger until she makes a friend and finds a secret garden which becomes a special place where she can hide. I haven’t been sent away from my family, but sometimes I wish I had a special place just for me where I can go when I want to be alone. I suppose that’s why I read so much: books are like a secret garden for me.

I asked Mrs Robertson if I could borrow her copy of
The Secret Garden
, and I ended up reading the rest of it on my own and have been a bookworm ever since.

‘Well, maybe it will be a nice family with kids your age,’ Mum says, breaking into my thoughts. ‘Wouldn’t you like to make some new friends?’

She is still talking about the house next door.

‘New friends?’ I say. ‘I don’t want
new
friends. Why does everyone think that just because I am nearly thirteen I need to grow up and move on and try new things and – and
change
everything?’

Mum takes a step towards me, but I back off. I don’t want another faceful of those sequins and Mum’s cleavage.

‘OK,’ says Mum. She looks a bit hurt, but I can’t help that.

I open my mouth to say I am going to my room, when Harris bulldozes through the patio doors, a mud-splattered Pongo hot on his heels.

‘They’re here!’ he is shouting. ‘The new-people-next-door are here!’

And so begins a new and entirely unwanted chapter in the story of My Mortifying Life.

The rest of the morning has been taken up with Harris doing his best to find out as much as he can about next door without actually leaping over into their garden and inviting himself in to help them unpack.

OK, so I have been snooping too. In fact, I have been watching out of the bathroom window for . . . let’s just say ‘a while’, as my brother bounces on the trampoline to get a view over the fence. I should really have gone out ages ago and told him that it’s easier to see from up here but I can’t be bothered. From my higher vantage-point, I can see everything. Not that it has been that riveting. I have watched as the new neighbours (a man and a boy) told the removal men where to put their garden furniture, and I have seen them bring in two bikes, some tools and a lawnmower. So far, so yawn-making.

I wonder if there is a mum as well. If there is, there’s been no sign of her.

The man looks nice enough. He laughs a lot as he chats to the removal men. He is tall, has very short brown hair and is wearing dark jeans and a checked shirt. He has a beard – not one of those dirty great bushy ones, thank goodness. I wonder what it would be like to have a dad with a beard. Would it tickle or scratch when he kissed you goodnight? (Why does my brain come up with such weird thoughts?)

I have to lean close to the window to get a really good view. The glass kept clouding with my breath to start with, so I had to wipe it with my sleeve. The boy is almost as tall as his dad. They carried a ping-pong table in just now. They certainly have a lot of stuff. Our garden has the trampoline and a shed full of junk, that’s all. We don’t even have a table and chairs.

I haven’t seen the boy’s face properly yet because his straight, black hair falls into his eyes. I wonder how old he is. Well, that has put an end to Mum thinking I would be making a new friend, anyway. There is no way I am making friends with a boy.

Wait a minute: Harris has jumped down from the trampoline and is running inside with an excited grin on his face. I can hear his feet drumming on the stairs. He is probably charging up them two at a time as usual.

I’m going to have to stop: he will tell Mum I was writing in the bathroom and then she will find out about this journal and might even read it. NO!

The door crashes open just as I shove my journal under a pile of towels.

‘Hey, watch it!’ I cry, as my little brother barges past me to the loo. He starts using it with no consideration of the fact that I am still in the room. ‘What are you
doing
?’

Harris looks at me. ‘Having a wee,’ he says.

‘Well next time, don’t do it in front of me!’ I shout. At least he hasn’t asked me what I am doing in here.

Harris pulls a face. Then he says, ‘Guess what? I have been spying on the neighbours. There is a dad and a boy!’

‘I know that,’ I say.

‘Oh.’ He looks disappointed.

I watch him go to the sink to wash his hands and the expression on his face makes me feel a tiny bit sorry that I have stolen his thunder. ‘So. What exactly have you discovered, Midget Spy 003½ ?’ I say, wiggling my eyebrows.

Harris looks up and giggles as he dries his hands. ‘One of them plays the drums,’ he says. ‘I heard them talking about which room they should put them in.’

‘And this is good news
how
, exactly?’ I ask, as I follow him out of the bathroom and down the stairs.

‘It’s COOL!’ he says, pounding the air with pretend drumsticks.

‘What’s all the noise?’ says Mum, coming out of the kitchen.

‘Harris is excited cos next door have
drums
,’ I say. ‘As if that is something to celebrate.’

‘Oh, lovely,’ Mum coos. ‘Someone with a bit of creativity – that will liven up the street.’

‘You won’t be saying that when you can’t sleep because they’re playing the drums all night,’ I say.

‘Well, I think it’s fab,’ says Mum.

I cringe. Why does she have to use words like that?

‘Yeah!’ says Harris, punching the air. ‘Maybe they are rock stars.’ He starts jumping up and down, holding his arms as though he’s got a guitar and begins violently strumming the air.

Mum grabs a hairbrush from the shelf by the stairs. ‘
Cos we all just wanna be big rock stars!
’ she bellows.

‘Give me strength,’ I say.

‘Well, you had better get used to me dressing up in sequins and sashaying along to groovy tunes,’ Mum says. She puts the hairbrush back and gives a twirl in the jumble-sale (sorry,
vintage
) satin skirt she showed me the other day.

I stare at her. ‘
What?
’

Mum beams. ‘While you have been spying on the neighbours, I have been Surfing The Net,’ she says.

Uh-oh. I scrutinize Mum’s face for hints of what to expect next. She is grinning and looking pleased with herself. This does not bode well.

‘Have you been shopping online?’ Harris asks. ‘Oh yay! Have you bought us a new TV?’

Mum ruffles his hair. ‘Sorry, little bean,’ she says. ‘I still haven’t won the lottery, so the answer to that will have to be a big fat no.’ She makes the kind of noise they play on quiz shows to indicate that a contestant has lost: ‘Eeeh-uuuhhh!’

Harris whines. ‘Aaaawwwwooo.’

‘What then?’ I ask. ‘Mu-um! Please don’t tell me you’ve been “liking” Aubrey’s posts again?’

Mum shakes her head and says, ‘No, come into the kitchen and I’ll show you . . .’

‘Oh my
goodness
!’ I cry. ‘You haven’t gone and posted
another
embarrassing photo of me as a baby so that all my friends can see? Why do you keep
doing
these things?’ I drop my head into my hands.

It should be illegal for parents to follow their kids online. Mum is
always
stalking me and posting stupid comments like, ‘What are you doing on here? Thought you were doing your homework?
’ When is she going to learn that she is too old for this kind of thing? I can’t stand it when she uses ‘winky face’. ‘
Wrinkly
face’ would be more appropriate.

‘You are ruining my life,’ I groan.

‘I hate to break it to you, Skye,’ says Mum. ‘I haven’t done any of those things, because – it’s a funny thing, I know – but
my
life doesn’t revolve one hundred and ten per cent around
you
. In fact,’ she says, her eyes glinting, ‘for one night a week from now on, it is going to revolve around
me
. Which is what I was about to explain until you got all stressy on me.’

I groan. ‘Don’t say “stressy”. No one says “stressy”.’

Mum ignores me. ‘Come on, I want to show you the website,’ she says, beckoning me and Harris into the kitchen.

‘But I want to go back outside and spy on the neighbours,’ says Harris.

‘You won’t have to spy on them for long,’ Mum says over her shoulder. ‘I’m going to invite them round once they’ve had a chance to settle in.’

‘And once you’ve had a chance to change your clothes, I hope,’ I mutter.

If Mum hears me, she doesn’t react. ‘So . . .’ She goes over to the kitchen table where her laptop is open. ‘I have been thinking for a while about getting a new hobby. I was having a look at evening classes—’