The Parent Problem (8 page)

I am about to say something about it to Aubrey when she starts talking first.

‘So,’ she says, unloading the contents of her school bag. ‘You were going to tell me all about last night. You said something about “avoiding Boy Next Door”? What happened?’

I really don’t want to talk about this now. I just want us to get back to normal. ‘Oh, nothing,’ I say. ‘I told you – I was in my room all evening.’

Aubrey looks at me. I know she can tell just from my tone of voice that I am hiding something. We have always been able to read each other like a book.

‘Anyway, I have to talk to you about Mum,’ I say, clutching at a change of subject. ‘I am seriously worried. She says she’s going to enter a dance
competition
and that it was “nice meeting people” last night—’

‘Hmm,’ says Aubrey. ‘So when are you going to introduce me to Hot Neighbour Boy? Have you found out his name yet, by the way?’

She is not paying attention to me. She is not even looking at me now. She is aligning her books in her locker with great concentration. Honestly, she complains that her mum goes into super-organizational-mode, but I have to say it is getting to be a serious case of ‘like mother like daughter’. What does she think she is doing? Oh my life: she is colour-coding her stationery! OCD, or what?

I have to stop her right now, as I can tell from the look of concentration on her face that otherwise I will not get her full attention until she has finished. I decide I am going to have to tell her exactly what Finn is like. I will tell her how he lied to Mum about me giving Pongo popcorn and making him sick. That way she will see how mean he is and she’ll lose interest in me ‘introducing’ them.

‘Sure. I’ll tell you
all
about Boy Next Door,’ I say.

Aubrey immediately stops fiddling with her locker and turns to face me, eyes shining. ‘Go on!’ she says.

Gotcha.

I take a deep breath. ‘So. First of all, Mum asks him – he’s called Finn by the way – to BABYSIT us. Can you believe it? Milly Badbreath couldn’t make it, and just as I am about to convince Mum that Harris and me would be OK home alone, Finn’s dad, Rob, rings the doorbell and ends up volunteering his son to stay and “look after” us. And Mum only stands and chats to him in her
hideous
sequins-and-spandex outfit as if everything is normal and then she leaves us with Finn and it is a
nightmare
. . .’ I tail off.

Aubrey has lost interest. It is because I started talking about Mum instead of giving her gossip about Finn. She is tutting over the fact that a protractor has found its way into the pen compartment in her oversized pencil case.

‘Aubrey?’ I say.

Aubrey puts the pencil case down and turns, putting her hands on her hips again. ‘What?’ she asks.

‘Mum is determined to ruin my life,’ I say.

Aubrey rolls her eyes. ‘Oh come on. Your mum is lovely! Anyway, I thought we were talking about Finn.’

I groan. ‘I was, and now I am talking about Mum. She is a nutter!’

Aubrey giggles. ‘Don’t be mean. Anyway –’ she leans in conspiratorially. ‘Back to more important matters: how come you didn’t text me the
minute
Finn otherwise-known-as Hot Boy Next Door came round last night? Is this all a plan to keep him to yourself?’ She does a weird kind of nudge-nudge-wink-wink manoeuvre, which I am guessing is supposed to mean that I too think Finn is ‘hot’.

I open my mouth to deny this, to apologize for not texting, to elaborate on the Pongo-and-popcorn story – anything to stop her looking at me like that and speaking in that frankly rather sick-making tone of voice – when Aubrey lets out a gasp and drops the book she is holding. On my foot.

‘OW!’ I say, hopping up and down.

‘Shh!’ says Aubrey. She flaps her hands at me and shrinks back against her locker. I realize she is staring at a point past my right shoulder.

I stop hopping and turn to follow her gaze. I can’t see anything worth gawping at. I turn back to face her, frowning.

‘Aubrey? What . . . ?’

My friend looks odd. Her face has gone shiny, as though she is bathed in golden light from on high. She looks literally awestruck.

Then she breaks out of her statue-mode and flicks her hair, dips her head and smiles in a shy kind of way while blinking as though she has got something in her eye. When did this whole hair-flicking thing start? She never used to do it. She looks as though she is having some kind of fit.

‘Are you feeling OK?’ I ask.

‘Shh,’ she hisses again through her fixed smile. ‘It’s him!’

I turn slowly back again.

No. Nononononono. The reason for Aubrey’s bizarre behaviour is standing by the Year 9 lockers.

It is, of course, Finn. He looks a bit lost. A tiny part of my brain tells me I should go and say hi, but then my sane brain clicks in and reminds me that Finn Parker is my nemesis.
And
he is my best friend’s heart’s desire. I look back at Aubrey who is clutching a folder to her chest and grinning at Finn as though she has fallen into a hypnotic trance. Any minute now she is going to do her own impression of the
Romeo and Juliet
‘Wherefore art thou?’ scene. This is enough to stop me from feeling even a weensy bit sorry for him being a newbie.

I try to think of something to distract Aubrey and get us away from Finn, but my mind has gone blank.

‘He is
seriously
hot,’ Aubrey whispers. ‘Even better than from a distance. Look at those eyes! Like . . . like almonds!’

‘Like
what
?’

‘And that hair! Is his dad Asian? He’s sooooo beautiful . . . He even makes school uniform look cool. Capital O. Capital M. Capital G!’ she breathes. ‘You
have
to introduce me this minute.’ And she gives him a girly little wave with her fingers and giggles like a half-brained moron. Luckily Finn has not noticed Aubrey and now one of the Year 9 boys is talking to him.

‘Come on,’ I say. ‘Let’s go to the form room.’

‘Say hi,’ she says quietly. ‘Go and get him to come over!’

‘You get him to come over if you’re that bothered,’ I say.

‘I can’t!’ Aubrey says. Her face collapses and her shoulders sag as if she is in severe pain.

Flip. It’s like she’s possessed. I think of all the sci-fi stories I have read, where aliens come and wipe your memory clean and you wake up with a different personality. If I didn’t know differently I would think this is what has happened to my best friend. I no longer recognize her.

She is fluttering her eyelashes now and trying to get into Finn’s line of vision again.

I am speechless for at least one whole minute as I stand there and watch Aubrey making a complete fool of herself. Then I snap into life and grab her wiggly-fingered hand and force her to look me in the eye.

‘He’s mental!’ I say in a low voice. ‘I keep trying to tell you. He spent the entire evening rolling around on the floor with Harris and Pongo and squashing popcorn into the carpet. That is why I didn’t text you – because there was
nothing interesting to tell
.’

Aubrey’s expression darkens. ‘You could have invited me round,’ she says.

I let out an exasperated sigh. ‘You are not listening to me, are you?’ I glance over my shoulder. It is my turn to gasp now – but in mortification, not luuurve. ‘He’s looking at us,’ I say. I keep my eyes fixed on Aubrey and lower my head so that my messy hair falls across my face to hide it from Finn.

‘Is he?’ Aubrey squeals. ‘I’m going to literally die!’ she says. She flaps her hand in front of her face as though to fan herself and giggles like a demented monkey.

‘Aubrey, you are not going to
literally
die. It would make a nasty mess and cause complications for the school nurse.’

She doesn’t react. She just carries on gawping at Finn.

‘Listen to me,’ I insist. I try to stand in her line of vision. ‘Finn is really
not
a nice guy. OK? He completely ignored me and made a massive mess in our house and when Mum came back she asked him what had happened and he said it was my fault. And Mum believed him AND she paid him fifteen quid AND she asked him to come again next week!’

At that point the bell rings and everyone starts scurrying past us to get back to lessons.

‘Next week?’ says Aubrey, as people push and jostle us. ‘In that case, if you won’t introduce me, I’ll have to come round to help babysit next week – just try and stop me!’

School is a living hell for the rest of the day. I find myself actually missing the days when all I had to worry about was a bit of cattiness from the twins. That was a picnic with fairy cakes and ice cream compared with Aubrey going on and on about Finn.

Any chance she gets during the day she is talking about him, dreaming about what it will be like to talk to him, pondering about where he comes from and what he is into. She even gets hold of a magazine at break and consults it as though it is an Oracle of Luuurve.

‘It says here,’ she says, flicking through
Teen Girl
, ‘that you have to play it cool if you want to get the guy of your dreams. Maybe that’s where I am going wrong?’ She looks up at me, her forehead crinkling.

‘Can’t see how that’s going to work,’ I mutter. ‘He hasn’t noticed you when you wave at him, so how is he going to notice you if you play it cool? Why don’t you just go up and say hi and get it over with?’

‘But that’s the whole point,’ says Aubrey. ‘If he hasn’t noticed me when I am being totally obvious, then I have to use “reverse psychology”,’ she says with emphasis, stabbing her finger at the page. ‘Then he might “realize what he is missing”,’ she adds. ‘It says, “If you love someone, let them go—”’

‘Oh yeah, let me guess,’ I cut in. ‘ “If they come back, it means nobody else liked them, so you’d better set them free again”.’ I snigger.

Aubrey frowns. ‘No, it doesn’t say that,’ she says. ‘It says “If they come back, they are yours”.’

I let out a heavy sigh. I don’t know why I bother saying anything. Even my sarcasm is lost on her now she is in über-loved-up-mode.

Thankfully Aubrey doesn’t get another chance to catch sight of Finn. The first day back at school is always pretty hectic with endless assemblies and lessons on how to write your name in your new books and how to walk sensibly when crossing the road for the bus.

I finally get a reprieve from her love-struck wittering at the end of the day when she goes to get the bus into town to go to the dentist. (I do wonder why she didn’t go in the holidays, but at the same time I am glad she is busy and can’t try and invite herself over to spy on Finn.)

I get on the bus going in the opposite direction from Aubrey and decide not to turn my phone on, just in case she bombards me with Finn-related questions all the way to the dentist’s waiting room.

It is a lovely peaceful journey during which I manage to dream up some pretty cool descriptions of the VTs with their crocodile-smile faces. On the short walk from the bus stop to my house, I start planning what I am going to do later once I’ve finished my homework when I realize that someone is walking behind me.

I keep my head down and pray it isn’t Finn.

‘Hey.’

It is Finn.

I half turn my head, keeping my face shielded by my scruffy hair. ‘Hey,’ I mutter.

‘D’you always get the bus?’ he says. He takes a couple of longer strides to catch up with me.

I glance sideways at him. ‘Depends.’

Finn nods. He hoists his bag higher up on to his shoulder.

We walk along in silence. I cannot believe he is getting the bus too. Am I going to have him in my face everywhere I go from now on? Wait till Aubrey finds out. She is going to love it . . . This is horrendous.

I try to keep a pace ahead of Finn, but it’s tough as he’s so much taller than I am. I wish he would either fall back or run ahead, as I can’t think of anything to say to him other than ‘Go away’, but I can’t quite bring myself to say that. I actually don’t want to be drawn into any kind of conversation, even one that shows Finn just how much I resent him.

We have reached our houses. I look up at them. They are joined together. Not all the houses on our street are like this. Some of them stand alone. Suddenly, seeing our houses joined like this, it feels like an ominous sign: Finn moving in on my life, pushing into my space. For the second time that day I find myself wishing I possess some kind of magical power. I would so love to be able to split the houses in two and banish Finn and Rob as far away from us as possible. Or bring Mrs Robertson back. That would be the best thing I could do.

I open our gate, taking care not to look at Finn.

‘So, maybe see you tomorrow?’ he says.

I jerk my head up. I feel the blood drain from my cheeks. There is no
way
I am going to let him anywhere near me at school. Aubrey would pounce on him like Gollum hunting a mouse. Although with less hissing and blood and guts involved. Tempting as that image is, I shake my head to banish it immediately because Finn is looking at me strangely. I hope he can’t read my mind. That is the only place where I am safe from him.

‘Sure,’ I say, then I get my key out and fumble with the lock.

‘See ya, then,’ he says, as he lets himself in through his door.