Normally we’re not allowed to slam doors—it’s another one of Mum’s toilet cleaning offences. (If you break a rule, she doesn’t yell. She just gets the toilet brush and holds it out to you. We have a lot of toilets and most of them are very clean.)
But there are some times in your life where a door slam is completely and utterly necessary. This was one of them.
I threw myself on my bed gasping for breath. My hands were shaking. I was so angry and upset that I was practically hyperventilating.
This was unbelievable. Was my dad crazy? How does someone who carries a briefcase, wears a tie and catches the bus to work at a bank every day just suddenly announce, out of nowhere, that a whole family is going to move? From the city to a farm? And in the next six weeks?
I couldn’t help it. I actually started talking out loud, even though there was no one else in the room.
“It’s not fair! Not not not not fair!”
My mind was whizzing with protests. He’s not the only one in this family. I have rights too. And I don’t want to go anywhere. I love this house and I love the beach. And what about school? He wants to drag me away from my life and plonk me on a farm! I don’t do farms. They smell, they’re muddy and there’s nothing to do.
I rolled over and thumped my fists on my bed. Did Dad expect me to cheer like Charlie and Josh? I mean, they love that stuff. Charlie could spend her whole day on a horse. Josh would give anything to drive a tractor around. They didn’t care about mud and dirt and icky things.
Tears were prickling out of my eyes so I threw my hand over the side of my bed and scrabbled around for a box of tissues. I blew my nose snottily and dabbed at my face, trying not to wreck my mascara.
I turned to the teddy sitting on my bed. He was white with gold flecks in his fur and his name was Ruffles. I got him for my fifth birthday and for some reason he had the sort of face that just looked like he was listening to me. I snuggled right up to his nose and looked him in the eyes. He stared back like he understood.
“Yesterday it was like it was all beginning. And today it’s all ending. My future, according to Dad, is gumboots and mud. I mean, a farm? For real? And I won’t get to see my friends except for holidays and...”
I sat up suddenly, my eyes opened wide. Friends? Forget friends. This was it for me. There was no way that I could tell Saffron, Tiger and the other girls in the group about Dad’s ridiculous plans. I would be dropped so quickly and so hard that you’d be able to hear the sound of my bum hitting the floorboards from the other side of Sydney.
I started sniffling again. This was even more of a disaster. I’d be a country bumpkin for the rest of my life and no cool, beautiful people would ever want to talk to me again and my skin would get rough and I would never be able to go shopping for trendy stuff because there are no decent shops in the country, not that it would matter because no one who was any good lived on a farm anyway.
“I might as well move to the moon,” I sniffed to Ruffles. “And the only friend I’ll have left will be Sam because once I get the flick they’ll just move on to the next person.”
The next person! I hadn’t even thought of that. There would be at least 20 more girls clawing to take my place, all of whom would be super-happy to see me go. All the hard work that I’d done to get into the group would have been pointless.
“I am so angry,” I said firmly to Ruffles, holding his arms so tight that he probably would have squeaked if he’d been alive. “If this is true, and Dad isn’t just playing a joke, I don’t know if I will ever get over it. I am going to hate living on a farm. I am going to hate all the ugly country people.”
I turned over, looked at my ceiling, narrowed my eyes and pulled my teddy bear in front of my face.
“And, Ruffles,” I said, “I am probably, no, I’m definitely, going to hate my dad forever.”
I needed to have another cry. A serious cry. Forget about the mascara—my face was over for the day. After about 10 minutes of wet and snot I noticed that my tears were starting to make stains on my purple satin pillow case so I sat up, gulping and sobbing, and sat limply on the side of my bed. My hair was thrown all over my head but for once I totally didn’t care.
After a few minutes I heard noises on the stairs and then there was a tap at my door and Charlie stuck her head around.
“Are you okay?” she said, coming to sit on the bed. She put her arm around me.
“What do you think?” I said bitterly. “I mean, moving to a farm? Is Dad for real? Is he crazy? He’s a merchant banker, for Pete’s sake.”
“I think he really is going to do it,” said Charlie. “I mean, it is kind of crazy, but I think it will be okay.”
I groaned and threw myself back onto the bed, face down.
“I’m going to hate it!” I said, muffled by the cushions. It sounded more like Ibgodahadet. I put my head up again for air. “There’s just no way I can be happy on a farm.”
Charlie bumped down on the bed next to me. Our chins were nearly touching.
“I know,” she said. “I know you’ll hate it. I know you’re going to be miserable.” She propped herself up on her elbows. “But at least you can be miserable with me there.”
I stuck my tongue out at her and tried not to smile. “Sometimes I just do not believe that we are twins. Who are you, strange person? Why am I the only one of my kind in this family?”
Charlie flopped over on her back and stuck her legs up in the air. Her big toe on her left foot was poking through her sock as usual. She picked at her toenail.
“They want you to come downstairs. We’re going to talk about it. Dad’s got pictures from the internet up and everything.” She flicked the bit of toenail away on to my floor and I shuddered involuntarily.
“Gross, Charlie, don’t do that. Pick your toenails in your own room.” I said.
“Well, I can’t, because you’re in here and I want to be with you. If you want to get me out of your room you’ll have to come with me,” she said, rolling her head around so she could see my disgusted face.
“Oh, alright.” I sat up. “But I’m not going to be happy. This whole farm thing is completely ridiculous. Give Dad a week. As soon as he sees sense, he’ll be back to normal.”
I stood up and checked my mascara in the mirror. Streaks. Big ones. “Let me just fix this and then I’ll come.”
I grabbed a cotton ball and wiped my face, reapplied my eye liner and straightened up my mashed hairdo.
“Here,” said Charlie, holding out something small. “Your bindi fell off.”
I peeled it off her finger and pressed it firmly back on my forehead. If I had to go and talk about insane life changes with my crazy dad, I would do it with as much style as possible.