“There’s probably more where that came from,” I shrugged, shunting the board out of the open front door into the garden and heading up the stairs. “I’d better re-cage this little daredevil.”
“We’ve got a deal on bedding at the moment if you want to pop back to the shop with me,” Fern offered, dithering in the hall.
Perfect.
#13 Fluorescent Lettering, Fluffy Walls & Furry Men
I stared up at the builder guys, nearly on top of the roof, hammering in the last few bright yellow letters.
Where it used to announce “Price's Purrfect Pets”, it now read “Firth’s Furries”. Or it would, when they’d finished the lettering – for now, it said “Firth’s Furri”, but it didn’t take a genius to work it out. (There was even a box with the remaining letters and logo in.)
However, until that (hopefully soon) point, this bloke who was Fern’s father was certainly gonna get a lot of flack…
Fern pushed open the (now fluorescent-yellow rimmed) door and we stepped into a world that I didn’t recognise as our regular, wood-floored, dingy pet shop. It was wall-to-wall with space-age hamster cage accessories, chewy bones and colourful, feathered cat toys (usually known as budgies).
A strange smell hung in the air (sawdust and dog food) and as I stared around the (considerably larger-looking) room. I took in the usual shelves of dog collars, pet food and throw toys. But then there were the (rather more mesmerising) fish tanks with multicoloured fish in, bird cages with multicoloured birds in, rabbit hutches with…er, yeah, I’m prattling. But I will add that the rabbits weren’t multicoloured; just the typical selection.
I glanced down at the newly laid floor. It was one of those sky-blue easy-wipe ones they have in all the new doctor’s surgeries, and the corner of a Junior classroom that has taps – the type with dazzling sparkly bits in, to put it a crumb overromantically.
“Is Dad here?” Fern asked unstammeringly to the zoned-out student at the counter, bringing me back up from the floor.
“Yeah, he’s in the backroom,” grunted the till-boy (whose name tag said “Tom”, but I wasn’t about to act interested in that until he acted interested in his job).
Well not only was Fern’s dad not out with Mum, but I was going to meet him. It also meant that Mum must’ve been doing something sensible for once. (Or not; maybe she’d taken up midweek, midafternoon roller-discoing?)
I followed Fern through the clean and shiny wooden door (it honestly was the same sort as Andy’s dad’s surgery). It had one of those flat metal handles that you push, like in posh offices. (I was so wracked with meeting-possible-stepdad nerves that I was noticing the fixtures.)
The man who met us was playfully unshaven with thin blonde hair falling to about his chin. He looked up from his box labelled “Pop’s china” and smiled. “We’re still unpacking; had to get the shop up and running before thinking of ourselves.”
I smiled back, politely.
He stood up, brushed all the excess sawdust off his lap, pulled down the large, floppy Ramones shirt that was riding up his back, and offered me his (slightly sawdusty) hand.
I shook it.
“Kenneth Firth,” he grinned, flexing his scrawny arms. “Good to see my Fernie making friends.”
“This is Harley,” Fern said for me, as I was lost in my this-isn’t-even-the-man thoughts.
“Uh, hi,” I said, hastily.
“Well, go on up to the apartment,” he said, motioning up the metal stairs though his eyes had steered back to the box of probably-his-dad’s china. “Sorry it’s not much yet.”
The staircase clanked as I followed Fern up. It was like an indoor fire escape. She twisted the handle and opened the door. “You’ll have to take your shoes off,” she warned, pulling hers off and placing them on a little mat just inside the door.
I did so, setting them next to hers. A pair of awkward boys’ trainers beside a pair of dainty little flats. (My feet were still so painful from Mum’s shoes that I hadn’t been able to wear my yucky lacquered school ones yet.)
I glanced inside the flat. My jaw dropped. If this was what Fern’s dad called “not much”, then I figured he’d drop dead upon setting foot within ogle distance of our loveable but dumplike… er … dump.
The smooth walls of the main room were painted bright white, except for one which was dark brown. The carpet was white too, and also fluffy (fluffy walls would’ve been too weird even for me). It was like some design out of The Sims, before the family move in and make it look more like my house, with its off-white (and I mean appallingly off-white) hallway carpet, scattered pet dribbles and stacks of dishes and wrappers and abandoned toys.
“Dad fancies himself as an interior designer,” Fern explained, nodding to the neat pile of look-at-this-perfect-house magazines on the coffee table. “That’s what he did at uni.”
I already felt dreadfully clunky in that flat. If she’d warned me at home I would’ve slipped back upstairs to replace my too-small orange sunflower shirt and naturally distressed jeans with pastels (or ideally something chic in brown and white that I’d never own). But what reason had she to do that? From her vantage point in the hallway it probably looked as if we might be like every other three-storey, perfect hedge, security lamp, multiple car, cosy attic window household on the block.
We went to sit down on the stylised chocolate-coloured sofa, and I stared around some more. The browns were so brown that they’d put Cadbury’s to shame on deliciousness. The whites were a shade I’d only seen on mates’ computer screens on a dizzy-bright plain document. I was embarrassed to find that I was drinking up the room like it was the first taste of milkshake touching an impoverished tongue. Fern reached for the remote control and flipped the telly on. “Sorry we haven’t got the box fixed up yet – we can still get four channels.”
“We have to stack one telly on top of the other just to get picture and sound,” I informed her, almost as if it was something to be proud of.
It looked like she was trying to figure out if I was showing off for real. “Oh.”
“It’s OK,” I assured her. “We’re not that into TV. Why don’t you show me your bedroom?”
“Umm… it’s kinda embarrassing actually – but you asked for it!” She smirked, leading me across the hall.
Well, wow. I’d thought my room was pink. Fern had a massive mural on the wall – a beautiful fairytale castle with pink turrets and even pinker flags sticking out of the top to blow in the fictional wind. Cartoon people milled around in the courtyard, and magnificent ponies trotted in the background, under the radiant sun. Elegant fairies and heavenly angels soared in the sky. And then I knew exactly what I would’ve wanted more than anything for my seventh birthday! (Admittedly it did seem a tad cringey for a teenager’s room.)
“Dad painted that last week for my fourteenth,” Fern sighed.
Everything else in Fern’s room was sparkly and (you guessed it!) pink; she had the same Barbie duvet as Kitty, plenty of frilled cushions and pillows, and she even had a pink telly with a built in DVD player! Pink dresser, pink unicorn-patterned curtains, pink wardrobe. The rug was pink, and fluffy, too – pink pony lampshade, even the light switch was pink! Pink, pink, pink, pink, pink!
Was there any chance I could move Kitty in here for a birthday present?
Speaking of Kitty’s birthday present, I realised as I glanced at the little-girly clock that it was time I was leaving if I wanted to find a gift for my sister.
“Look, I’m sorry to make this so brief,” I gabbled, shooting a worried look at the time. “I haven’t told my brother he has to cook tonight, and I’ve got to stop at the shop on the way before it shuts…”
I refrained from mentioning that it was a charity shop, or that I’m enough of a cheapskate that I was buying Kit’s birthday present from there, for fear of making Fern uncomfortable about her lovely stuff. She probably already thought I’d taken one look at her furry flat and been scared off.
* * *
B
arnardo’s was due to close in ten minutes, so I examined the box of dolls quickly. There were three naked Barbies with matted hair (one even had biro’d-on tattoos), two Sindys, and three Bratz. I considered all of the Bratz; one fair, one dark, and one brunette – plus they were all clothed. If I bought two for £1, I’d have enough left for lunch tomorrow… but if I bought all three, there’d be one each from Zak, Charlie and me.
I got them all.
* * *
When I let myself into the house at ten past six, Kitty was asleep on the sofa in front of an old Winnie the Pooh video from about 1993. She’d probably nodded off with boredom, ’cause we can only plug the video into the telly labelled “picture”. Still, it was nice to see that one of our brothers had made an attempt at a bedtime story, after her string of overexcited late nights.
Toots was stretched out on the floor with her back to the Jordy-imprinted beanbag, doggie feet paddling dozily next to the fireplace. The usual stack of post-dinner plates was on the kitchen counter – I realised it’d be tomato soup or cereal for me again.
Abandoning my beanbagnapping plan, I gently shook Kitty awake. “Kitty Kat? D’you want to go to bed now?”
She mumbled something which sounded vaguely like, “Yeah, s’a nice Kit Kat, Matty…”
I shook her again, a bit harder. “Kitty, it’s me, Harley. You will remember me when you’re on a world cruise honeymoon with Matty, won’t you?”
She clutched nervously to my arm, dragging her eyes open sleepily. I fumbled for the buzzy dimmer, realising you should probably put lights on when waking up a six year old with the curtains closed. “You fell asleep on the sofa while I was at my friend’s house…”
Her eyes focused to the light. “What’s in the bag?”
Duh!
“Um, it’s just some stuff…” I said, tucking the bag between the video shelf and the wall. “Let’s get you ready for bed…”
I had a sneaking feeling that this week wasn’t going to get any easier, waiting for the daysaster of thirty six-year-olds crashing through the house to arrive and be done with.
#14 The Grammar Of The Barfing Moose
“AAAAIEEEEEEE! Bleurgh!”
“Huh? I think I’m losing you…”
“Oh, that’s just Lioum. He and Bray and Jason are playing fritter barfing moose.”
From the muffled retching noises, that wouldn’t surprise me at all, but I thought I’d check.
“Who’re Bray and Jason? And what is a barfing moose?”
“Bailey and Jason. They’re his little mates from school, and how’m I supposed to know what a barfing moose is?”
“I thought you just said that Lioum and his friends were playing with a barfing moose?”
“I said they were playing three-player ‘duck, duck, goose’; we don’t get meese in Australia.”
“Meese?”
“More than one goose is geese, so more than one moose must be meese…”
“Zak!” I called with my hand over the mouthpiece. “What d’you call it when there’s more than one moose?”
“Moose!” he replied, from the living room.
“Zak says it’s still moose,” I replied, as a drop of something cold and wet landed on my arm.
“D’you expect me to believe a ten year old over my own idea?”
“OK, I’ll ask a thirteen year old, then: Charlie, what would you say when there’s more than one moose?”
“It's crowded in here!” he called back from the kitchen, clearly way more interested in pasting coleslaw inside a sandwich as an after-school snack.
“Seriously.”
A bigger drip landed on my lip as I pivoted into another position. We’d been on the phone a while and my legs were hurting.
“Mooses!” he informed me.
“Charlie says it’s mooses,” I confirmed, licking my lip absentmindedly. Mmm, orange.
“Well it’s got to be one or the other. Ask Kitty.”
“She’s only six,” I reasoned.
“Ask her anyway!”
“Kitty Kat,” I said to my feet where she’d been sat just a moment ago, making our ancient plastic Pokémon figures have relationships. “Kitty?!”
“Yes?” She was at the top of the stairs, licking a dripping Solero.
“What’s more than one moose?”
“Ooh! I love jokes. Is it…two moose?”
“No really, it’s not a joke.”
“Moose…”
“Kitty agrees with Zak; they must have taught this at school when we were off with chickenpox or something.”
Then a big, wet blob of lolly landed in my hair as I realised there was nobody on the end of the phone anymore. Bleurgh.
#15 The Mystery Of The Escaping Bra
We had swimming for PE on Friday. Keisha wasn’t doing it ’cause this week’s perfectionism was directed at her hair. She’s started straightening it to death every day before school and putting it back in this awful ponytail. It makes her look somewhat like an elf with hooped earrings.
The “introducing Fern” problem had been solved during Inter-Tutor the morning before, when our Tutor Group’s girls’ team was pitted against Chan and Dani’s for netball, and against Chantalle’s wishes the shyer two had hit it off.
Speaking of Fern, she was off begging Nelly Coldarse to let her skip swimming. Without a good excuse, this would be to no avail. We’re talking about the teacher who tried to push Danielle into using tampons in Year 7, just to get her into the water with the rest of us. I am so sure that if reported, Winterbottom would be out of here.
“Can’t your dad give you a letter to say you’re on your period?” asked Keisha when Fern returned, playing with the corner of her own parentally signed-for note.
“But I-I’m not,” Fern mumbled. “I couldn’t lie to Dad like that. He’ll only make some big deal out of it anyway.”
“A big deal?” Keisha snorted. “Why? My dad would just go all embarrassed and offer me a trip to the nail bar or something.”
“My dad’s kind of over the top about anything to do with growing up,” Fern shrugged. “I’m dreading the day I actually start.”
“You what?” snorted Chan. Girls like her can’t process the idea that any female out of Primary school doesn’t menstruate, or any person over seven hasn’t been kissed yet. (I’m 100% certain her friendship with me is one of routine and selective obliviousness. I’m still waiting for my second one, and the kiss thing hasn’t come along either, yet she’s been my mate since Juniors.)
“Wait a sec, why don’t you want to do swimming then?” asked Rindi, who was about to be told off for hopping about on the poolside to warm up.
Fern shuddered. “I can’t swim.”
* * *
Forty-five minutes of overchlorinated up-to-the-neck wading and floating later (basically hell for me, because I’d just missed our first two lessons to get my braces tightened), I was frantically searching the changing rooms for my bra. I supposed someone else had accidentally put it on while I was still frantically scrubbing the chlorine smell off my skin in the showers, knowing Friday is not one of my bath days in our chaotic house. But whose boobs would fit in my 32a?
In the end I’d given up and wandered off to English with arms folded. We turned out to have a further half hour to kill in the Maths block as we had to wait for Keisha’s detention (touching up her mascara in the mirrors the class were supposed to use to study shapes, as we heard later). It was her place we were supposed to be heading back to after school, so no way could we leave without.
At Keisha’s, we enjoyed an hour or so in front of old sitcoms where you could predict when the canned laughter is coming (i.e. count to three after the last bit). We were all sat on or around her mum’s leather sofa, giggling over the crap on TV and painting each other’s nails.
“Look at this,” said Chantalle, thrusting a double page of magazine at as. “The astrological stuff – it’s saying I’m compatible with Leo! And Gemini, Sagittarius and Aquarius.”
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“So?” said Rachel.
Keisha laughed. “And incompatible with Taurus. Good, because that’s me! Who’d you have in mind?”
“There’s nobody in mind,” Chantalle said defensively. “I just mean, don’t you think it’s interesting? Who do we know that’s a Leo, for instance?”
Me, I thought, unenthusiastically. And Charlie.
“Harley, aren’t you a Leo?” teased Keisha.
“Yeah, a Leo, not a lesbian!” giggled Rachel.
“But that makes Charlie a Leo as well,” said Dani.
I couldn’t tell if Chantalle cringed or shuddered then. (Let’s call it a “crudder”.) “Oh who knows, maybe we’ll get married one day…?”
“That stuff can’t be proven,” yawned Keisha. “Rindi, who was the tall ’Talian-looking guy you were with yesterday?”
“Oh, that’s just my sister’s ex; don’t get too excited. He wanted tips from me on how to win her back. So I suggested a bouquet of pansies, and, erm, peanuts. Only because he was crushingly cute and I couldn’t think straight!” She paused to flick back her hair, revealing some red marks on her neck. “That’s where I got these. Nadine strangled me, ’cause her parting excuse had been an arranged marriage… which is not really happening…”
It wasn’t surprising that he’d bought the excuse. Though Rindi’s folks don’t go big on tradition, she and her sisters often manage to startle the pants off people with made-up differences. I shrunk a little, remembering how silly I’d felt when we were paired on Year 6 Day and she pretended not to know what cheese roll was, to take the mickey out of me for looking so nervous. (Actually, not all my nerves had had anything to do with never having met an Indian girl before, and it was more because of the scary new school situation, but she couldn’t have guessed.)
I turned back to my toenails, which I’d been making a huge mess of with my eyes on the TV. Fuchsia Pink, which smelled disturbingly like tuna.
* * *
Later, when I’d got the absolute last of the tuna / nail varnish off my feet, and the last of the stickiness off the Bratz, me and the boys were no closer to solving the Mum Mystery. When I got in at five, she was home already and was finishing a lovely shepherd’s pie, acting like nothing was even different. It was a pity my teeth hurt so much that I couldn’t manage any carrot – to tell the truth, I felt too sick to swallow much at all.