“Nah, it’s OK,” I say.
Alice B. Lovely shoots me an incredulous look – and then we both burst out laughing.
I mean, the place is trashed.
There’s the bowl (and random dollops) of leftover gungey paste from making the papier maché for the wonky wire-framed crocodile, never mind the endless tatters of sticky newspaper.
And while we’d been waiting for tea to be ready (fish fingers, noodles and beans), Alice B. Lovely got us all making monsters out of the floppy, ready-for-the-bin vegetables she found in the fridge (like I’ve said, Mum really hasn’t been great with ordinary stuff like shopping lately).
Now there are a fine selection of only-slightly-mouldy veggie monsters sprawled out on the coffee table, with bodies made out of potatoes or avocado, and legs and arms of spring onions and carrots, held together with cocktail sticks. Alice B. Lovely awarded first prize to Stan, for his monster with an onion for a head, bits of broccoli for ears and mushrooms and raisins for “menacing” eyes.
They all look great (and of course Alice B. Lovely has taken photos of them), but we haven’t quite got around to clearing away the chopping boards and the odds and ends of veggie scraps. A lot of which Buddy had helpfully cached, which we can see from the bumps here and there under the rug.
“Listen, I’m sorry Buddy ruined your book,” says Alice B. Lovely, nodding down towards the vampire novel that was pretty much stripped of paper when we came back from our art tour. All that was left was the cover and a floor-full of torn and clawed pages.
(Some of the pages have been recycled into Stan’s homework project croc, while the others – the ones under chairs and tables – I haven’t bothered gathering up yet.)
“It doesn’t matter. I didn’t like it much. And neither did Buddy, by the looks of it!” I laugh.
“Yes, but I’ll still buy you another copy,” offers Alice B. Lovely.
“Please don’t,” I tell her. “I’ve gone right off the author…”
“Why?” asks Alice B. Lovely, blinking her silhouette lashes at me.
“She’s a big, fat phoney,” I say, jerking a little as I speak and disturbing Buddy. He flutters his wings and hops on to the arm of the sofa.
“Why? What’s she done?”
“She came to my school for Book Week and did this talk,” I say with a shrug. “She came out with this really dumb line, about how ‘your dreams will come true, if you just believe in them…’ I just think that’s so lame.”
Alice B. Lovely says nothing for a second. I turn around to face her and she is leaning her head on the back of the sofa, her curtains of glossy fair hair spilling over behind it.
“Dreaming is fun,” she says in a soft, thoughtful voice, as she stares at the ceiling.
I don’t know what she’s acting so thoughtful about. It’s pretty obvious what the problem with dreams is.
“Not if you dream about something that can never come true,” I say with an edge of brittleness in my voice.
Now it’s Alice B. Lovely’s turn to face me.
“What happened with your mum and dad?” she asks simply.
She knows.
She knows I’m really talking about Stan’s dream about our parents getting back together.
Her honey eyes are locked on mine. I worry that she might genuinely be able to see inside my brain.
’Cause then she might find out that it’s sort of my dream too.
I’ve been rumbled…
“You know how people fall madly in love?” I sigh at last.
“Yes.”
“Well, my parents sort of fizzled out of love. It had been happening for a long, long time. It just got worse when they both started new jobs.”
I think back to that final argument, when they just couldn’t stand one more second of being with each other. Dad had threatened for the millionth time to leave, and Mum said, “Fine! And take this with you!”, which was when the Arsenal mug got chucked and Dad stopped just threatening and actually left.
Eight o’clock exactly, one Friday night; that’s when he went. I remember because the clock of doom chimed the time, so we’d never forget it.
Which reminds me; I haven’t heard it chime in ages … did something snap inside it when I knocked it over this morning?
“I know it doesn’t feel like it, but it’ll be all right,” says Alice B. Lovely, bringing my thoughts crashing back to Mum and Dad. “I don’t mean straightaway. But it will be all right.”
In the soft light of the table lamp, she looks like some mythical fairy-tale creature, and I want her to look into my future and tell me when exactly I might feel happy ever again.
But there’s another creature in the room – one that’s standing on the back of the sofa and pecking at my head!
“Buddy, stop it! What’s he doing?” I ask, laughing and at the same time trying to pull away from Buddy’s prying beak.
“He likes you – he’s trying to groom you,” says Alice B. Lovely, reaching over to help. “Hold still, and I’ll get him to stop. Oh, did you know you’ve got a big tangle of hair here?”
“Yeah,” I mumble, as she gets hold of Buddy and gently sends him flapping off towards the papier maché crocodile. “I’ve got quite a few.”
I pat the smoother top layer of my hair down self-consciously. The mats I keep hidden underneath could probably make a cosy nest for a hamster. And don’t even get me started on the never-ending nits. I feel itchy now that Buddy’s fussed with my hair. Wow, I have got to sort myself out.
“I’ve got some really intensive hair conditioner at home,” says Alice B. Lovely. “I’ll bring it next time and sort all your tangles out if you want.”
Gulp.
She’s being too nice, just when I’ve relaxed a bit, and that’s a dangerous combination for me.
I look away from her and dig my nails into my hands, trying to will away the tears. I wish for the first time ever that I had a pair of those big alien lobster claws; they’d be bound to hurt more.
“Don’t.”
It’s just one word, but Alice B. Lovely says it at the same time as she takes hold of my hands and uncurls my digging fingers.
Double gulp.
This feels a little bit weird.
Well, a lot weird.
I mean, it feels like Alice B. Lovely could maybe help sort out more than one type of tangle for me. (Is that possible?)
As I dare to glance back up at her, I realize something with a start: Stan was right.
Alice B. Lovely really is special.
And it isn’t just her mad clothes and her weird doll face and fake eyes and her strange pet.
It’s just … her.
Alice B. Lovely isn’t a big fat phoney.
She wasn’t sucking up to Mum and Dad when she said she liked their work – she was just really interested.
She wasn’t trying to get Stan to like her when she took her soft toy to meet his – she thought it might make him happy. Same with cooing at passing pigeons and liking his homework and playing Tickle Tag and bringing around Buddy.
Even something dumb like that waiter in the pizza place; she didn’t tell him I didn’t like cheese ’cause she was butting in for the sake of it – she thought it was important.
That I was important…
And it is SO amazing to know that there are people in the world – apart from me and Stan and Tash – who aren’t BFPs…
“Can I tell you something, Edie?” says Alice B. Lovely, suddenly leaning in towards me and brushing my hair away from my face.
Oh, please.
Oh, no.
I can’t stand it if she’s even more lovely to me.
I might start crying so much that I don’t know if I’ll be able to stop.
“Did you realize you have a bit of broccoli stuck to your eyebrow?�
��
BOING!
No, that’s not the sound of the clock in the hall, which will never chime again, I don’t think, ’cause I’m pretty sure the mechanism broke (oops) in the happy second it hit the floor.
Nope; that BOING! from somewhere deep inside me marks the moment my life switches from drab and dull to new and shiny.
It marks the twelfth time I have burst out laughing today.
(Oh, yes, I’m so sad – or so surprised? – that I counted.)
Twelve times; that’s more than I’ve laughed in … well, since I can remember.
As Alice B. Lovely smiles at me and her startling eyes twinkle, I know I don’t have to ask her when I will be happy again.
’Cause (tick-tock, tick-tock) with the two hands of my imaginary happiness clock perfectly placed on twelve, the answer is: right now.
And in case you can’t guess, that feels pretty lovely to me…
It’s just an ordinary Monday lunch-time.
Whatever’s on the menu smells delicious, but I’m not hungry. ’Cause I’m full up with happiness, high on life and buzzing with a brilliant idea.
I’ve told Tash about the unexpected dollop of happiness I’ve been hit with, and she’s well chuffed for me.
I’ve told her how after this weekend, life suddenly seems lighter, things seem brighter, and she slapped me a high five.
I’ve told her about the dumb stickers on the bus shelters and the broken clock of doom and the upcoming gum art show and the full-sized crocodile in the living room and she giggled out loud (bad – we were in chemistry at the time).
I haven’t told her about the brilliant idea buzzing in my head because it’s only just occurred to me.
“Hey, why don’t you come to mine after school? We could take Max for a walk, or just hang out in my garden,” Tash suggests, as we hover in the long queue for lunch.
I hesitate.
Before Mum and Dad broke up, I loved spending after-school time with Tash, just ’cause she was my best friend.
After Mum and Dad broke up, I was desperate to spend after-school time with Tash, just ’cause it meant I didn’t have to be around one crummy nanny or other.
Last week, I could’ve happily moved into Tash’s, just so I didn’t have to spend a nanosecond with Alice B. Lovely.
How funny to think that I’m now trying to figure out how I can let Tash down gently!
The thing is, I seriously want to head out of after-school club today and see the fabulous parakeet waiting for me in the huddle of drab starlings.
I couldn’t care less if Dionne, Cara or Holly see Alice B. Lovely waving to me. In fact, I want to wave to her first.
Actually, I won’t just wave; this afternoon I am going to shout out her name, so everyone knows she’s my friend.
My friend, not my nanny.
(Alice B. Friend.)
“I don’t know … I sort of promised to help Stan finish painting his crocodile,” I say lamely.
At the same time, I am staring two people ahead of us in the queue.
And the two people happen to be Dionne and Holly. (Minus Cara.)
Dionne is standing chatting in a bored, couldn’t-care-less way with Holly, her hands locked behind her head, her patterned alien lobster claws in full view.
And that’s what I’m fixing on.
I take my phone out of my pocket, select the camera option, and hold it up.
“What are you doing?” asks Tash.
“Art,” I say simply, zooming in on the alien lobster claws, in all their splendour.
This is my brilliant idea: just like Alice B. Lovely does her bus-stop installations, I’m going to photograph phoniness. Well, fakeness, anyway.
I’ve got Saturday’s photo of Alice B. Lovely’s lovely but non-real eyes and eyelashes.
Right now I can snap Dionne’s painted and pimped nails.
Then there’s that girl Jada someone-or-other in Year Ten who’s had really obvious hair extensions, AND Mr Powell, the drama teacher, who’s had his teeth whitened so much you need shades when he yells, “Come on, people, let’s do this!”
CLICK!
Yep, this is the start of a whole new project for me.
“Hey!”
I hear the first hey, but don’t assume straightaway that it’s aimed at me.
“HEY!”
OK, so now I’m hearing loud and clear.
“What are you doing? Are you taking a photo of my friend?”
It’s Cara, emerged from somewhere or other, come to join her mates and freaking out ’cause I’m taking a picture.
“No!” I lie, and feel Tash nudge me in the ribs with her elbow.
I guess my best friend is saying “What is she like?” in her own, coded way.
“Dionne! Dionne!” Cara calls out. “She’s taking photos of you!”
Dionne whirls around, spots Cara pointing one of her own alien lobster claws at me, then steps away from the queue.
She comes and confronts me, followed – of course – by Holly.
“Are you? Taking photos of me, I mean?” she asks me to my face.
I wish some of the teachers who love Dionne and her buddies could see this now. Where’s all the simpering and sweetness she turns on when I see her talking to them in the corridors or the playground?
“No,” I lie again. “Why would I take a picture of you? You’re not that interesting!”
I nearly “ooof” as Tash thumps me in the ribs again.
Huh? Why’s she doing that?
“What’s with your attitude?” says Holly.
“What’s with yours?” I bite back, my anger reaching boiling point.
(Somewhere, the hands of my imaginary happiness clock are both still pointing to twelve. But the longer one is now juddering uncertainly.)
“Edie!” Tash is hissing at me.
I ignore her.
“What’s your name?” Cara asks Tash, out of the blue.
“Natasha,” says Tash, sounding nervous.
“Leave her out of this,” I snap.
“A word of advice, Natasha,” says Cara. “I’ve seen you around; you seem nice. Not like your friend. I’d ditch her and her lame attitude if I was you.”
“Well, thanks for your opinion,” I hiss at the high-and-mighty sixth former. “We’re fine without it!”
(With a clunk, the long hand of the happiness clock takes a tick backwards.)
Cara, Holly and Dionne do what looks like synchronized eye-rolling and go back to the place in the queue that Dionne and Holly were in originally.
“Morons…” I mumble blackly, and look to Tash for a nod and an “Uh-huh”.
But Tash isn’t nodding.
She’s not “Uh-huh”ing.
She’s got her arms folded, her lips pursed, and is turned away from me.
Little Miss Sunshine seems to have a storm cloud hovering over her.
“What?” I ask.
“Why,” she says, her lips tight but her voice wobbling, “do you always want to start a fight with everyone, Edie?”
What?
I do not want to start a fight with everyone!
And to show that what Tash has said is one hundred per cent not true, I say nothing.
I just walk away.
And wait for her to follow me with an apology.
Which she doesn’t do.
I can’t believe this … it just proves that – gulp – she sides with the BFPs more than me. And so I guess that makes my best friend a phoney.
How tragic is that?
So much for happiness… I think I just tripped into a big pit of gloom.
It’s just an ordinary Monday, late afternoon.
Pigeons and seagulls are circling around us, mildly curious as to what a teenage schoolgi
rl with scraggly hair, her kid brother in an oversized blazer, a freaky person in vintage clothes and a pet carrier covered in a black cloth might be doing up quite so high in their sky.
And yes, I do mean their sky.
We are twenty-one stories up, not just staring out of a high-rise window but standing on the flat roof of this towering multi-storey block of flats.
It’s like I found that mountain I was looking for, where I can shout my worries to the wind… Only I’m too busy being amazed to think of anything but “Wow!”
“Not too close to the edge, Stan,” Alice B. Lovely calls out, as Stan swoops and flaps, blissed out and thrilled to be up so near to the clouds.
There is a waist-high wall all around, but I guess she’s just being super-careful, like a responsible nanny should be. Especially with all the exuberant running and swooping Stan’s doing.
“Yeah, Stan,” I copy her. “Just stay in the middle, OK?”
“You too, Edie. Don’t forget I’m meant to be looking after you as well!”
Alice B. Lovely is gently teasing me, but I know she does care.
She truly does care, or she wouldn’t have brought me – and Stanley – up here.
(“It’s just a blip. A little blip. We can fix that,” she’d said, when I came out of after-school club, tensed-up and scowling, my head thumping with the effort of ignoring Tash and the upset of her ignoring me back.)
And what are we doing up here near the clouds, exactly?
To be honest (properly honest), I’m not sure, ’cause Alice B. Lovely said I just had to follow her and she’d show me something special.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” says Alice B. Lovely, glancing around at the rolling hills in the distance, the ramble of rooftops and church spires reaching out to them, the sway of treetops in the park below.
Yes, the view is beautiful. Yes, it’s incredible to be up here, in this secret, off-limits space. Did Alice B. Lovely think it would take my mind off my happiness blip? She might be right…
“So which is your house?” asks Stan, as he lollops past us in his flapping blazer.
He’s not talking to me, obviously, since both our homes – Mum’s flat and Dad’s – are on the other side of the park from here.
“Down there,” answers Alice B. Lovely, pointing vaguely at the streets of Edwardian houses stretching all around.
Life According To...Alice B. Lovely Page 10
