9 Bryony’s Idea of Fun
Jane had said this was going to be fun.
As far as Bryony was concerned, fun was going to an amusement park, or a pop concert, or shopping with Mum. Fun was dancing and parties. Fun was playing games. Fun was laughing and joking and being excited.
Fun was not kneeling on hard stone floor with one hand wedged down a filthy old toilet.
“How’s it going?” asked Jane, who was busy de-weeding the sink.
“Fantastic.” Bryony made no effort to hide her sarcasm. “Can’t think of anything else I’d rather be doing. Except jumping off the Niagara Falls wearing concrete water wings.”
Jane smiled, and continued with her work.
Bryony’s arm was aching, so she sat back and took a well-earned breather. The toilet looked like it hadn’t been cleaned for centuries, and half an hour of scrubbing had made no difference at all.
“Don’t forget to do behind the back,” Jane reminded her. “I saw lots of cobwebs down there.”
“My arm hurts,” whined Bryony. “You do it.”
“But I’m doing the sink, sweetheart.”
“Don’t call me sweetheart.”
“I’m just trying to be friendly.”
“I told you not to bother.”
There was a long pause before Jane made another stab at conversation. “Bill, your father, tells me you’re keen to take up horse riding now we’ve moved to the country.”
Bryony gritted her teeth. “I know Bill is my father.”
“That wasn’t what I meant, darling.”
“And don’t call me darling, either. I am not your darling or your sweetheart, and I never will be. Got it?”
Jane’s smile looked more like a grimace as she tore a handful of dandelions from the sink. “Then what would you like me to call you?”
“Anything,” said Bryony, after giving the question due consideration. “As long as it’s from a very long way away.”
“That’s not very nice,” said Jane.
“I know.” Bryony nodded. “I wouldn’t have said it otherwise.”
Jane’s smile looked very forced, now. “I’d prefer it if you called me Mum, darl… I mean sweet… I mean Bryony.”
“But you’re not my mum.”
“I am in a way, now we’re living together as a family.”
“But I’ve already got a mum. A proper mum. So I don’t need another.”
Jane tossed an assortment of shredded weeds into a bucket, and then looked straight at Bryony.
“Being a mother is about more than blood. Being a mother is about caring and loving and being there when it counts.”
“So?” Bryony glared at Jane. “My mum cares about me and loves me and is there when it counts.”
“She’s in America. She has been for the last three years.” Jane set to work on the sink again.
“She still loves me,” said Bryony.
“Ah-huh.” There was something in that ‘ah-huh’ that gave the impression Jane didn’t believe her.
Bryony got angry. “That’s it. I’m not cleaning this stupid toilet anymore.”
“I’m sorry,” said Jane. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I just want us to be friends, that’s all.”
“Then stop slagging off Mum.”
“I wasn’t slagging her off. I was only trying to …” Jane bit her bottom lip, then smiled again. “I’ll clean behind the toilet if you like. You can finish the sink.”
“Whoopee,” breathed Bryony.
They swapped places. Bryony turned her back on Jane, taking her anger out on the stubborn plant-life that shared their bathing facilities. They worked in silence for a while, until…
“Eeeeek!”
Bryony looked round and saw Jane shrinking back, face contorted with horror as she pointed at something behind the toilet. “It’s a spi… spi…”
“A spider?” Bryony didn’t see what the fuss was about. “So what?”
“I don’t like spiders,” squeaked Jane.
“Oh dear.” A grin broke across Bryony’s face. “Frightened, are we?”
Jane crouched there, shaking like a leaf. “Please… take it away…”
“I’m busy.” Bryony turned her attention back to the sink.
“Please…”
“Lots of work to do.”
“Please, Bryony…”
“OK. But only if you promise never to call me darling or sweetheart again.”
“I promise!”
“And to never bad-mouth my mum.”
“Yes, yes, whatever you want. Just get rid of it, please!”
Bryony left the sink, and then knelt to peer behind the toilet. From the fuss Jane was making she expected to see something the size of a tarantula, but the offending spider was no bigger than a pin-head.
“You’re such a wuss,” she laughed, reaching down to pluck the spider from its tangle of webs.
Jane shrieked again. “There’s another one!”
“That’s just a bit of fluff.”
“I saw it move!”
Jane had gone deathly pale, and her freckles stood out against her ashen skin. Bryony tossed the spider out of the broken window, wishing that a whole plague of the things would appear and drive Jane out of her life forever.
And no sooner had she wished it, than...
“Aaaaarrrrggghhhhhh!”
The scream pierced Bryony’s head like a speeding bullet. She wheeled round and saw a tide of tiny spiders oozing from behind the toilet. Jane just stood there, paralysed with fear and gasping for breath.
Bryony blinked, and wondered if she might be daydreaming. But more spiders came, advancing towards the petrified Jane in a tide of twitching eight-legged bodies.
Then Jane found her voice again. “Bryony! Do something!”
“I am.” Bryony folded her arms and leaned against the wall. “I’m watching. This is much more my idea of fun.”
Jane sobbed, and curled into a cringing ball as the spiders formed a circle around her. Bryony had never seen so many of the things, but couldn’t understand how anyone (even a wuss like Jane) could be so terrified of creatures that tiny. She wondered how Jane would react if something bigger came along…
There was a gurgling from the toilet, and something emerged from the dirty china bowl. It was a leg: a huge, segmented leg thicker than a broom handle.
Bryony staggered back, unable to believe what she was seeing. More massive legs emerged from the toilet, eight in total, followed by a bulbous body as big as a football.
Jane’s auburn head jerked up; her grey eyes widened, her lips twisted, and from the depths of her lungs came the loudest, most nerve shredding scream Bryony had ever heard…