Read The Year I Turned Thirteen and Broadened my Mind Page 2

  Chapter 2

  Dad was away driving his truck for the first couple of nights the girls were to be here so Mum was a bit stressed out. The three of us rushed home from school on Tuesday. Amber won easily because she took her bike. I had to walk because my bike has a puncture in the back tyre and Dad still hasn’t got round to mending it. It’s pretty old anyway and I was hoping for a new mountain bike for my birthday. I thought if Mum and Dad saw me walking they might give me an early birthday present but so far it hadn’t worked. It’s not far to go fortunately as we live on the edge of town. So Kevin and I burst in through the front door and into the living room where we stopped dead. The Argentinean girls were there, but these were not girls, they were women. Two pairs of huge brown eyes fringed with long dark lashes turned in our direction. The girls were each wearing some sort of tight top thing over jeans and their chests were enormous. Kevin and I stood at eye level with these huge bosoms which looked on the verge of toppling out of the plunging cleavages they turned to us. My knees went all weak and trembly and I swear Kevin started dribbling. It was obviously the first sign that our minds were broadening.

  Mum wen, “Oh Robbie. Here are Juanita and Conseula. This is my son Robbie.” She put her hand on my shoulder.

  “Ow do you do?” said Juanita politely, or it may have been Consuela, they both looked alike. She held out a soft hand which I shook, feeling acutely self-conscious. The girls both smelled wonderful. Some sort of strong musky perfume which had to be what was making me dizzy. I tore my eyes away from Juanita’s cleavage and found myself staring down Consuela's equally ample top and decided that my mind was broadening very nicely.

  “Hello, pleased to meet you,” I stammered, as much to my acute embarrassment my voice broke halfway through and I ended on a squeak. Kevin didn’t say anything. He just stood there with his mouth open looking like a not very bright fish until I poked him in the ribs and he grunted something that was probably “hello.”

  “Ees thees your ozzer son?” murmured Consuela. Her voice sent shivers down my spine. It was the sort of sound you would expect warm chocolate to make if it could talk. It conjured up visions of moonlight and roses and glowing sweaty bodies and I started feeling hot and bothered again.

  “He’s not our brother, he just eats here,” said Amber who was looking fairly annoyed by this time.

  That was hardly fair to Kevin even if it was true. Kevin’s parents don’t live together. In fact, I don’t think they ever did. Kevin’s Dad lives in a bus and he doesn’t work because apparently he has some sort of depressive illness which means he doesn’t keep jobs for long. He travels all over the place and usually comes here for a few months every couple of years. He keeps telling Kevin he can come and live with him when he is older but he’s been saying that for years now and it hasn’t happened yet.

  Kevin’s Mum married his step-Dad not long after Kevin was born and he has a brother Troy just over a year younger. Then Kevin’s Mum had another three or four little girls who I can never keep track of. The problem is that Kevin’s Step-Dad hates Kevin’s Dad and thinks he’s useless and that Kevin will probably turn out the same way. They think Troy is wonderful and he actually is an okay sort of guy. He’s blonde and good looking while Kevin is dark and kind of weedy. Troy is better than Kevin at everything, even though he’s younger and Kevin says his Step-Dad hates him. It’s always Kevin’s fault if something happens and Kevin gets the blame. Mum asked once if Kevin’s Step-Dad hit him, as he tends to drink a lot, but when I asked Kevin he said “not much really.” He said it was more that his Step-Dad yelled at him all the time and called him useless like his old man and said he was a total waste of space. So Kevin comes round to our place whenever he can to get away from it. His Dad was in town again so Kevin was supposed to be spending time with him but he said his Dad couldn’t be bothered about meals much so instead he came round to us quite a bit at teatime.

  Mum said that she didn’t expect the girls to do any work on their first day here so perhaps we’d like to show them the town. The girls started to look excited by this so after a quick change of clothes and a couple of peanut butter sandwiches we all trooped off down the street. We left Mum preparing the dinner. Dad was away on a long trip for a few days so Mum was a bit anxious about everything going okay.

  We walked down the main street towards the shops with the Argentinean girls chattering to each other in Spanish. We would have liked to talk about them but were a bit scared to in case they understood us. A couple of guys in a car drove past and whistled at the girls. Amber went red and looked embarrassed when the girls waved back.

  “They shouldn’t do that,” she hissed at me.

  “Well, you tell them not to.”

  “No way. Anyway they’re not likely to listen to a couple of kids.”

  She was right. Juanita and Consuela weren’t even very interested in us once we got near the mall. It’s not a proper shopping mall as we only live in a little town. More a sort of alleyway, with a café at one end, but it’s where most of the kids hang out. Consuela kept saying things in Spanish and the word ‘sexy’ kept cropping up. They obviously knew all about this. As we got to the café there was a stampede as a whole heap of senior guys came rushing up saying things like,

  “Hey Amber, who are your friends?”

  “Are you going to introduce us?”

  I could tell that Amber was torn between delight at being so popular yet wanting to the tell the boys to stuff off because they weren’t interested in her. One of them was Guy Pearson who is deputy Head Boy and who Amber had a crush on for the last six months.

  So she stammered, “Oh hi Guy,” then introduced him to Juanita who fluttered her long lashes and said she was “very ‘appy to meet heem.” She looked like she was going to be happy to do a whole lot more than that and promptly went off with Guy to a table in the darkest corner of the café. Consuela appeared to have disappeared until Kevin spotted her getting on the back of Colin Murphy’s motorbike. Amber was horrified.

  “Come back,” she bleated.

  “We’re just going for a spin,” said Colin casually, as he revved the engine. “I’ll drop her off at your place later.”

  “Tea’s at six,” shrieked Amber, as they roared off up the street. “Oh my goodness, I don’t believe this.”

  We turned to see what she was looking at .There was Guy with his arms round Juanita and they were kissing flat out. Poor Amber looked sick and Kevin and I felt really embarrassed especially when Guy, still entwined with Juanita, went off to his car.

  “I’ll bring her back later tonight,” he mumbled to Amber, taking a quick breath before kissing Juanita again.

  “Oh gross,” said Kevin. “I’m not going to be like that when I grow up. Think of all the germs he could catch!”

  “What are we going to do?” said Amber in anguished tones. “We can’t go back and tell Mum we’ve lost the girls on their very first day.”