Lou Out of Luck

by Nat Luurtsema

  “No,” Mum sighs. “There was a fight in the toilet, Nicky stole a bottle of whiskey, the jukebox is broken and the landlord said his donkey was traumatized. Although I have no idea what that means.”

  I pause in my quest to rid my hair of icing and glance back at the sudden silence behind me. Roman and Gabe are fast asleep on each other. It takes a while to wake them when we get back to their house, and their mum, Janet, comes out to say hi. She watches us shaking her sons and doesn’t look thrilled at the state of them, which is fair.

  She gives them both a beady look. “I don’t want either of you oversleeping tomorrow.”

  They wrinkle their noses at the thought of school.

  “Might go to bed now,” Roman mumbles. Lav and I get tired waves from them both as they slope off. I hope Gabe’s all right. He hasn’t had an ME relapse since Christmas, but I can’t imagine his doctor recommends loud parties, alcohol and donkeys.

  Janet turns back to Mum, but Dad holds up a hand.

  “We cannot afford to chat,” he tells her. “Taxi’s on a meter! Byebyebye.”

  We drive off, Lav and I waving goodbye to Janet out of the window to make up for our hasty exit. Dad leans towards the driver and starts trying to haggle money off because neither of the boys were sick in the back. “And you thought they would when you quoted for the journey, right? Factored in a little sick charge?”

  “Fine,” the driver admits grudgingly. “I thought the little one would blow.”

  I feel proud of “the little one”.

  We get home exhausted, though Dad’s jubilant at saving five pounds. He goes into the kitchen and carefully puts the change into a teapot on the window sill. This is his cunning hiding place for cash. It used to be a secret until Mum’s work friend Aggy came round one time and filled it with tea without checking inside. I came home to find Dad furiously hair-drying fivers on the kitchen counter.

  I go to my room and scroll through Twitter. Hannah’s retweeted my tweet of a photo of a plug that looks like a screaming face. What does this mean: I’m annoyed but it’s not terminal? I like you enough to RT something* but not enough to text you back a friendly emoji?

  *(Something HI–larious)

  There’s a knock on the wall from Lav’s room and I pop in to see her. She’s emptied her wardrobe out onto her bed, which I’m surprised doesn’t collapse under the weight. “Is there anything you want?” she asks. “I was going to put a load of stuff online to sell.”

  “Are you not tired?” I ask her.

  “I had four Cokes and a lemonade,” she tells me. “I’m so full of sugar I could fly.”

  I pick through the piles but Lav has the sort of elegance that means she looks great in weird clothes. If I wore her lace and denim jumpsuit to school, I’d be sent to the nurse. So I say no, sell it all.

  I watch Lav carefully spread a shirt on the floor then stand on a chair to get a photo of it. She looks at her phone and makes an unimpressed face before showing me. Yeah, it doesn’t look enticing, crumpled on the floor like the Invisible Man just fainted.

  “You should wear it,” I suggest. “If you look pretty in it, people will want to buy it.”

  “You think?”

  “Yes. That’s how advertising works.”

  Lav touches up her make-up and I roam the house looking for a nice wall. I’m tempted by the green tiles in the bathroom and stare at them, stroking my chin. I make a little square with my fingers to imagine how it would look in a photo. Bit gloomy.

  “Oi, Lou – this isn’t for the National Portrait Gallery!” Lav calls from her room.

  Portrait? I scoff to myself. Only fools take photos in portrait. I’m going landscape.

  I decide, after much thought, that Mum and Dad’s room has the most stylish wallpaper, so I get Lav to stand on their bed.

  “Lav, stop wobbling.”

  “I can’t help it. When did they get a water bed?”

  I check under the covers. “You’re standing on a hot water bottle.”

  I take some excellent photos, even if I say so myself. It helps that Lav is so pretty, but I take credit for turning her the right way and pointing three reading lamps at her.

  I only realize how late it’s got when Mum and Dad are standing next to the bed in their pyjamas asking if they’re going to have to sleep around Lavender’s feet?

  “So unreasonable,” I tell them. “We are working to improve the family finances, actually, thank you.” I leave Lav to upload the photos and pad to bed, happy with my day’s work until I realize that I have nothing to sell. I look around my room: everything I own is scuffed, chipped or broken, and no one will buy my clothes. Maybe I could sell my hair? I examine it in the mirror and run my fingers through it. They immediately get stuck.

  I can’t think who’d want my hair unless their dog had bald patches.

  I lie in bed, feeling quite sugar-buzzed myself. I should go to sleep but Hannah’s annoying me. She still hasn’t replied to my messages, so I write something that no self-respecting best friend can ignore.

  Han? Mum’s lost her job. Now both parents are out of work. (Poo emoji, scared face emoji, more poo.)

  Immediately dots appear. Thank you. This is major news and deserves a reply.

  Oh no! But you’ll be OK, right?

  I don’t know.

  Of course you will. They can sell something. Don’t they have a flat somewhere?

  A flat somewhere. I. Can’t. Even.

  Hannah, though an otherwise wonderful friend – understanding, hilarious and only-moody-when-her-brace-is-tightened – is also rich. Sometimes she forgets that other people aren’t.

  No, I reply, trying not to sound exasperated. Of course we don’t have “a flat somewhere”.

  But they’ve got savings, right?

  No!

  Why not?

  I massage my head and delete my first response as it’s quite rude.

  Because there’s no money to save. They fritter it away on things like food and bills.

  That still looks snappy, so I add some emojis to soften the blow. Any old things – vegetables and a mouse.

  Oh. That’s awful. What are you going to do?

  Lav’s selling clothes. I’m trying to think how I can make money too.

  I’ll think.

  Thanks, pal.

  Hannah’s good at thinking up ideas, I’ll give her that. If she comes up with a money-making plan, all is forgiven. And if not, I’ll ask Hari for tips on staying calm when life gets a bit “much”. I decide to listen to a podcast about UFOs – I like this one, it makes my problems seem small as no one is trying to abduct me or probe my brain via my bum. (Surely it would be quicker to go via the ear?)

  While I’m listening, I give my bedroom a quick tidy (by which I mean Hiding Mess in Drawers). I find an old notebook wedged under my desk and pull it out, vaguely recognizing it. About two years ago we were reading Anne Frank’s Diary in class (5/5, would recommend), and Mr Peters suggested we all started keeping diaries to record our thoughts and feelings. This was mine – for a bit.

  I flick through it, wondering at Past Me’s thoughts and feelings. They weren’t extensive – I only filled eight pages.

  MONDAY – Muffins and Nutella for breakfast. Felt stodgy all day. Spaghetti for lunch – it was OK. I hate Lavender by the way.

  By the way is scrawled really heavily. Then there’s three long columns of numbers and I realize they’re a record of my old swimming times. Past Me is boooooring.

  The front cover of the diary has a picture of a cake on it and beneath that the word WORRY. Food worries? Bit negative. Who bought me that? Good job Past Me didn’t develop an eating disorder.

  Tuesday – how many times a week should you poo? Or is it daily? Need fibre.

  Admittedly, Anne Frank had World War II to write about, but I have a nasty feeling World War III could have erupted around Past Me and I would’ve written Crispy Puffs for breakfast. Skimmed milk – ugh.

  I chuck the Worry Diary in my
bag and get into bed, keeping the UFO podcast on because I’m sure I won’t be able to fall asleep. I lie there, pondering how even something like this would be dull by the time it reached my diary. Abducted by aliens last night. They don’t have the crisps I like – boo.

  I wake up with my headphones tangled around my neck and Mum telling me off. “I told you!” she says loudly in my sleepy face. “About that BOY who DIED when his headphones STRANGLED him. Did you think it was a joke? It HAPPENS. Exactly like this!” She brandishes my headphones at me, chucks them on my desk and stomps off. She pauses at the door. “There’s orange juice on your bedside table,” she adds grudgingly, like I don’t deserve it.

  I feel more cheery than I did last night. There’s something about the morning that announces, “Everything is going to be FINE!” and you believe it. At night-time this optimism is followed by a whisper: “Unless it isn’t…?”

  I put on clothes that look like they were ironed before I bundled them in a drawer, to make today feel GOOD. My hair isn’t terrible, Mum and Dad might find jobs soon and I haven’t attempted eyeliner. I stroll downstairs with an upbeat feeling.

  A feeling which is soon squashed.

  “Listen,” Mum says to the table in a curiously shy tone.

  “What have you done, Mother?”

  “Remember my friend Aggy – she used to work at the uni?”

  “Filled my money pot with tea!” Dad says immediately.

  “No,” Mum says, “she filled your teapot with tea, like a normal person. YOU filled a teapot with money.”

  “She’s not a normal person.” Dad’s not ready to let this go. “She quit that job saying that if she had to listen to one more mopey sex-obsessed student poem, she’d tear her clothes off and run screaming from the campus.”

  Lav and I look at Mum for her take on this. Mum holds her hands up. “OK. She’s unusual. But she’s lovely. And –” she turns to me – “she practically lives round the corner!”

  “Riiiiight,” I say, warily. I don’t know why she’s telling me.

  “So she’s offered to drive you to school while we’re having trouble with our car.”

  “But, but, no!” I say. “Roman drives me to school. Roman driving me to school has been the number one thing that has made me cool! Gabe helped, obviously – added to the package – and my personality might’ve contributed a little … but not much if I’m honest.”

  “Lou, he only drives you half the time. The rest of the time he has free periods and goes in late or leaves early. If Aggy drives you, you have a guaranteed lift.”

  “He goes back to pick up Lav even when he leaves early!”

  Dad looks up. “I give your mum lifts. I wouldn’t ferry her relatives around.”

  Fine. Good point. But… “Why didn’t you say ‘That’s a lovely offer, but how about some money instead?’ Ask for the cash equivalent of the petrol. Or a new exhaust or whatever it is the car needs.”

  “Lou.” Mum is stern. “Don’t be bratty.”

  “Yeah,” Dad adds. “You’ll have no lifts when Lav and Roman break up… What?”

  Lav has finally looked up from her phone and is giving him a stony-faced stare.

  “Ninety-nine point three per cent of all relationships between the under-nineteens end within five months,” he defends himself. “I read that on the internet. But hey, prove me wrong, Ms Zero Point Seven Per Cent.”

  It’s like they’ve each chosen a daughter to annoy this morning. I seethe gently.

  “So, does Aggy’s daughter go to my school?” I ask.

  “Son,” Mum says.

  “Oh, yeah? What’s his name?” Lavender joins the conversation.

  “Dermot.”

  “Oh … my…” Lavender exits the conversation again.

  Dermot.

  He’s in my class – not that you’d notice. He’s the most spacey person I’ve ever met in my life. He’s like a ghost that drifts in and out of school, with no friends, rarely speaking in class. Our mums have been friends for years and I had no idea he was her kid. He dresses in old-fashioned clothes that smell musty and make his bum flat like an old man. The other day he started using a wicker basket as a school bag. By lunchtime I saw him crouched in the corridor picking chewing gum out of the wicker.

  I get a sinking feeling in my stomach. The feeling of my social standing at school plummeting downwards, fast.

  I go upstairs to clean my teeth and I’m surprised to get a phone call from Gabe.

  “Hey!”

  “Sssshhhh…” he croaks.

  “Oh dear. How’s your head?”

  “It hurts. I was sick. My mouth is drier than it’s ever been.”

  “You did drink a lot of—”

  “Lou, please don’t list drinks I drank or I will be sick right now down the phone to you.”

  “OK.”

  Let’s hang on to some of the mystery, keep it romantic. I decide to distract him with my terrible news. I won’t see him in the car this morning or any morning ever. He isn’t as devastated as I’d like. He says, “You’re not great in the mornings anyway…”

  “That’s a funny way to say ‘I’ll miss you’.”

  I hear him give a small hiccup and decide not to bully him when he’s hungover.

  “I don’t understand why your year are so nasty to Dermot. He’s nice. He gave me a stuffed otter once.”

  “I think it’s his clothes and odd sense of humour and his wicker school bag— Hang on. A stuffed otter?”

  “Torquil. He’s got little shoes and a monocle.”

  “Can I have him?”

  “No.”

  “Please?”

  “It’s still a no from me.”

  “But I love bad taxidermy! You’ve seen my Instagram.”

  “Well, then you won’t want Torquil – the detailing is exquisite.”

  I sigh. Gabriel and Dermot aren’t that different. It’s just luck that Gabe is cool while Dermot is bullied. I’m going to be nice to Dermot, I promise myself.

  “I’ll see you at breaktime?” I say.

  “I’ve got to talk to my politics teacher.”

  “Lunch?”

  “Advanced maths. The weekend?”

  “Fiiine.”

  Gabriel puts a lot more effort into school than I do. I never thought I’d need an education – I was going to be an Olympic swimmer. I just needed to read enough to find my way to the pool. But now I’m not going to be a swimmer, I have to actually study, especially if my parents keep falling in and out of employment. I’ll probably end up being the breadwinner.

  My throat suddenly feels tight with anxiety and I try to ignore it as I swish mouthwash around my gums.

  “Lou, they’re here!” Mum yells up the stairs and my good resolutions go down the plughole. Fantastic, they’re mad for punctuality. This couldn’t be worse if the car was made of wicker and full of spiders. I drag myself miserably downstairs, where Mum pops my hat, scarf and rucksack on me and pushes me firmly out of the door.

  “Bye, then,” I say hollowly as Mum waves at Aggy over my head. Aggy drives a big, rusting van. Like a serial killer. I approach the passenger door. Dermot gives me a shy wave, which I return because I’m in a bad mood but I’m not a monster.

  I can see Aggy beside him. It’s impossible to miss her – she has a shock of bright pink hair. “The door sticks!” she calls down to me and I pause mid-wave.

  “What—? WHOAH!”

  The passenger door swings open under a violent kick from Dermot and stops, with a gentle boop, on the end of my nose.

  “I’m sorry!” He gives me a stricken face as I climb into the van, checking my face is intact. “The door usually sticks.”

  We head off to school. The van has a bouncy sort of swing to it. It’s fun to be so high up. Although, when we speed up as we turn onto the main road there are some worrying rattling noises. Aggy has an injured thumb as well, so every time she wants to change gear, she shouts “GEAR!” and Dermot does it for her. He doesn’t
get it right every time and there are a lot of lurching motions and grinding noises.

  Plus, that musty smell I always notice around Dermot? I know where it comes from now, the van stinks like a damp shed. I make a note to put body spray in my bag in the future in case I absorb the smell. Mum and Dad had better get a job soon, I tell myself, hanging on tightly to the door handle.

  “HOW DID YOU HURT YOUR THUMB?” I shout over the roar of the engine.

  “WHAT? OH, MOVING FURNITURE. I DO HOUSE CLEARANCES. YOU’D BE AMAZED AT THE WEIRD STUFF YOU FIND.”

  I look at Dermot, who’s wearing a three-piece mustard-coloured corduroy suit and holding a violin case as a lunchbox and think, Nah – I wouldn’t.

  “SO I WAS MOVING SOME GEAR!”

  …

  “GEAR, DERMOT! CHANGE GEAR!”

  Dermot fumbles with the gear stick – “I thought you said you were moving some gear!” he defends himself.

  “NO, NO, NO, DOWN!” Aggy shouts, as we approach a sharp corner in fifth gear, which even I know is not The Done Thing. Dermot hurriedly wrenches the gear stick into second gear and we whizz around the corner so fast I’m not sure all the wheels stay on the road.

  “SO –” Aggy continues the conversation as if we’re not tweaking the nose of Death – “I WAS MOVING SOME FURNITURE. I HAD A CHAISE LONGUE – YOU KNOW THOSE SOFAS WITH ONLY ONE ARM?”

  “OK!” I shout back, because no, I don’t, but I can imagine.

  “AND IT FELL DOWN THE STAIRS TOWARDS ME. MY COLLEAGUE RAHUL GRABBED MY HAND TO PULL ME OUT OF ITS PATH, BUT HE ONLY GRABBED MY THUMB AND…” She makes a horribly graphic cracking noise and I nod, queasily. I won’t risk telling Gabe this story today.

  By the time we reach school, I’m clammy and nauseous. I decide to skip breakfast for as long as Aggy is driving me. I have a sneaky peek around the school car park for any witnesses. The only people I see staring at us are little kids in the lower years, who are, of course, nothing to me. Mere plankton.

  I can’t wait to get out of the van, although … it’s not that easy. I flap the handle a few times, uselessly, and look back at Dermot.

  “THROUGH THE WINDOW THEN?” Aggy suggests, and I would rather not but there’s a blaring of car horns behind us.