The Bad Karma Diaries

by Bridget Hourican

  Actually I am gonna go to the soup kitchen on Sunday. Heeun wants to come too. Turns out she is actually big into going to mass and helping people. We are going to go together because – this is the good bit – I am staying over at Heeun’s after the party! I am really surprised that I’m allowed to because normally there is never any staying over at houses after parties. (I dunno what parents think is gonna happen to us if we don’t return to our OWN beds after parties, but they certainly think the WORST). I have a feeling my being allowed stay over is part of the plot to separate me from Anna and get me new friends. What they don’t know is that Anna is staying over too! (Ha!)

  Snuck a look at the blog. I cannot resist it though it is giving me nightmares … Anna’s last comment has started a whole new trend. It seems to be a Famous Quotations Trend.

  curiousinDenver wrote;

  Yes, exactly Bomb! All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.

  Hirohito:

  All your troubles start when you leave your room… so stay home Bomb and Demise!

  Heimlich manoeuvre:

  You can fool some people some of the time but you can’t fool all the people all of the time.

  I don’t see what the last quote has to do with anything but I guess it’s nice that our blog is attracting such well-educated readers.

  I could not resist. I wrote:

  Pippa and Xena, we are taking your advice (and sorry Hirohito we are disregarding yours!) – tomorrow we are leaving our rooms and going to a party. We will paint our nails electric blue and drop the cares of the world from our shoulders (who cares if they SMASH??!!)

  It is rash of me to encourage them by responding – especially after I warned Anna off – but they really want a response and I find it very difficult not to give people what they want.

  SATURDAY NOVEMBER 28TH

  Do not have a lot of time to write this. Just back from helping Heeun. Must have dinner, then shower, then dress, then go back to Heeun’s and have fun (that is an order!)

  Heeun’s house is large and has a lot of beautiful things – vases and carpets and statues and lamps – and it is tidy as a hotel. Her dad is the ambassador, that’s why. She never mentioned this, which shows that she must be a nice person (I think). There was no sign of her parents, Mr and Mrs Ambassador. Perhaps they at a reception? There were a lot of servants though! They are all Korean and they did not speak to us. This made me pretty uncomfortable. At Anna’s house they have a cleaning lady, Mrs O’Reilly, but she speaks all the time. She can speak and wash up and iron and feed Charlie all at once, so you do not feel embarrassed. In my house we do not have servants or a cleaning lady but then we are not a) ambassadors nor b) have lots of children.

  Anyway because of all the servants, I don’t think Heeun needed me to help her. Probably the servants could have put black paper around the lampshades and put out crisps and peanuts into bowls and plugged in disco lights and moved the stereo into the basement – that is where the party will be. But it was nice for Heeun to have me there, I can see that, she is quite nervous about how it is going to go.

  So am I!

  I am wearing this kind of long t-shirt, which could be a mini-dress but I am wearing it over leggings which makes it a t-shirt (I think), and my Doc Martens and loads of bracelets, and two necklaces. I will scrunch up my hair into a wild style. This is all quite daring for me. Normally I am just in jeans and t-shirt.

  SUNDAY NOVEMBER 29TH

  Today Mr Noisy shouted at me, ‘And how are you today?’

  I said, ‘Good … what about you.’

  ‘Me. I’m great, of course,’ he shouted, ‘The Boss is here!’

  ‘The Boss?’ I said, looking round.

  ‘The Boss!’ he shouted, ‘Jesus Christ. The Boss is here!’

  Agnes rolled her eyes. Heeun looked amazed.

  Now every time I think of Jesus I see him in a suit behind a huge desk with an American accent. The Boss.

  I hope that Mr Noisy has not stuck this image of Jesus in my mind for ever. I don’t think it can be right.

  It is very impressive Heeun and I managed to go to the soup kitchen and Anna to the asylum-seekers considering how incredibly late we got to bed and how incredibly tired we were. There was a moment when all three of us might have just said ‘forget about it’ and stayed on sleeping.

  But then Anna said – from her mattress – ‘the thick thug throttled the thrush by the throat’ like she’d been saying it all night in her dreams, and I knew she was preparing her lesson for the asylum seekers because she’d explained that the ‘th’ sound is difficult for foreigners – so I said (from my mattress) ‘carrots, carrots, carrots’.

  Then Heeun said (from her bed), ‘I will get scrambled eggs and toast for us.’

  ‘And orange juice?’ I said, and got up.

  I was glad I did. It was even good to see the carrots and Mr Noisy.

  Oh the party?

  Well, that will have to wait. I am exhausted, and my fingertips and even my eyeballs have turned orange from all the carrots, and the only thing going through my heavy and exhausted mind is: the thick thug throttled the thrush by the throat the thick thug throttled the thrush by the throat what did the thick thug throttle who throttled the thrush by the throat what was the thrush throttled by what did the thick thug do to the thrush …

  MONDAY NOVEMBER 30TH

  Just checked the blog. Pippa has posted up:

  So???? What about the party?

  And Xenawarriorcleaner:

  what no word??? Is it too much to hope you went mental and are still sleeping it off???

  It is nice that people are so interested (I guess), but it is kind of alarming too.

  So the party. First things first: I looked quite good. My hair looked punky and wild, but not a mess. Even mum and dad said I looked nice. I waited till I got to Heeun’s to put on make-up because I’m not allowed wear it. Heeun looked great! She was wearing a white dress with big red flowers on it. It looked like a really very expensive dress. It was daring of Heeun to wear it because it was almost girlie pretty, and it’s not cool to look girlie pretty (well, Anna and me don’t think so) but she got away with it (the dress didn’t actually have frills. It did not go that far!) Then Anna arrived. She was wearing jeans and a t-shirt, as usual, and her hair was short and neat, as usual, and she didn’t put on any make-up, as usual, so in fact she might have been calling round to watch a DVD, not go to a party. She is a very consistent person. Me and Heeun found this reassuring. We were nervous enough about our own outfits. At least one of us was as usual.

  People began to arrive. Practically the whole class was invited and some of them brought friends. So there were a lot of people. Heeun’s basement can take a crowd. You’d never get that amount of people into my house. It was interesting that her parents a) let her invite so many people and b) weren’t even there! A lot of adults – servants – were there and one of them, Myung, seems to be Heeun’s nanny, or housekeeper, or stand-in-mum or pseudo-mum or whatever you want to call her. So we had supervision, but still! Luckily our parents did not know we were unparented! There was a big stereo system and most people brought music. Actually too many people brought too much music and soon there were the stereo wars. The battle of musical tastes! Caroline Hunter would put on Rihanna or Kanye West and she and her friends would start dancing and then Ben would put on My Chemical Romance or something (I can’t pretend I know all the names of the bands he listens to) and he and his friends would start jumping around – pogo-ing or whatever it’s called – and Caroline and her friends would howl. It was a real mess and actually – for once! I agreed with Caroline because I like some of Ben’s music, sure, but you can’t precisely dance to it. Well the class – those who were keeping out of the stereo wars – didn’t know what to do. They were willing, but confused, they’d start bopping dancing and then they’d start pogo-ing (some of them) and then they’d just sit down.

  So luckily Anna took charge. At least she took Hee
un firmly by the arm and said, ‘Heeun, you have to sort this out’ because it was Heeun’s word, of course it was, it was Heeun’s party.

  So Heeun said, ‘For one hour it is Caroline’s music, and then you can have your choice, Ben.’

  She managed to say it quite firmly, almost as well as Anna. Perhaps that is her ambassador’s training. Or perhaps it’s that she had Anna beside her, which is like having a bulldog beside you. Anyway it worked. Truce in the stereo wars! The girls began dancing (and some of the boys too, pretending to do taking-the-piss dancing, but actually secretly enjoying it).

  Then J.P. arrived and the whole atmosphere changed. Suddenly all the girls were dancing to him (even though they weren’t necessarily looking at him, they were definitely dancing to him). He took a quick look round the party and saw that it was un-parented.

  So then he came sauntering up to me and Anna with his hands scrunched into the pockets of his tight jeans, ‘Let’s do a whip around and send someone to the off-license.’

  Our jaws dropped. ‘For beer?’ I squeaked.

  ‘Well not for Fanta,’ he said sarcastically.

  He’d gone crazy. I couldn’t even begin to say what was wrong with his plan, but a) it wasn’t like we were all carrying money – I mean why would we be? We didn’t need it at the ambassador’s reception – and b) who were we going to send to an off-license? Some people look sixteen, maybe, but nobody looks eighteen, let alone twenty-one, and c) nobody else wanted booze. J.P is just a lot more advanced than the rest of us. So his plan was crazy and probably he knew this and was just trying it on. Anna and I decided to go along with it, cause we knew it wasn’t going to happen.

  We said, ‘right!’ in a ‘you-can-count-on-us’ way and went round to everyone, saying importantly, ‘Do you have any money? Cause J.P.’s gonna go to the off-license?’

  So of course everyone turned their pockets inside out for J.P., but it was like I guessed, nobody really had any money on them. It made us all feel important that J.P was asking us, but the truth is we were at a house party that our parents had driven us to and our parents would be picking us up from. J.P. obviously thought he was at another kind of party, an older party, where people fended for themselves and bought beer.

  ‘No go,’ I said to Anna. She said, ‘Yeah…’ then ‘we’d better warn Heeun.’

  So we went up to her and Anna said, ‘J.P. is gonna come up and ask you to get money to send someone to the off-license, so you’d better say no, okay?’

  Heeun looked totally panic-stricken – poor her, wouldn’t you, saying no to J.P.? – but she said, ‘Okay …’

  And this was super well-guessed of Anna cause when we told J.P. That no one had any money, he got his most jeering expression, and said, ‘Losers,’ but then he said ‘but there’s money somewhere’ and his red eyes gleamed round at the big house and the silent servants. He went up to Heeun. We watched, but she did extremely well. She didn’t turn into a flailing mess like I would have. She kept this incredibly charming smile on her face and she kept giggling with her hand over her mouth, and nodding, and shaking her head, and it was a wonderful mime. You didn’t even have to hear her to know what she was saying, ‘Yes … yes … great idea! .. but impossible … sorry … impossible … so sorry …’ so J.P. had to walk away empty-handed and not even able to jeer at her. You couldn’t jeer at those giggles. He went up to Celine and draped his arm round her and soon they were necking in the corner. He generally necks Celine, but not always. She isn’t his girlfriend. He doesn’t have girlfriends. He moves around.

  Well that kicked off necking time. Soon the usual couples were draped round the place. Anna sloped off with Carl. I went up to Heeun. She was looking happy and I could see why because it was a successful party. Soon as J.P. arrived it was guaranteed success.

  She said, ‘Oh. Ben’s turn for music.’

  I looked and he was actually dancing like crazy to Michael Jackson. So I said, ‘Let’s wait till he notices.’

  She said, ‘Yes, because I think if we start pogo-ing, someone will be injured’ and we giggled. I was looking round for David Leydon though. He hadn’t arrived. I don’t know who Heeun was looking round for. I hadn’t asked her.

  Then after a bit Ben came up to Heeun, and said, ‘Hey, my go on the decks now’ and she smiled and said, ‘Yes, Ben’ and went up and he changed places with Caroline and her friends and soon we were all leaping about totally unrhythmically, but with loads of energy and it was mad fun.

  Heeun’s method was working brilliantly. We’d been getting sick of Caroline’s pop dance tunes, we wanted something mental.

  So there I was chucking myself round the floor and bumping – bang! – deliberately into Ben so he’d send me flying – bang! – into Pierce (very brave of me!) and even J.P. had laid off necking Celine to join in the scrum – boom! boom! boom! – and all of us leaping and sweating like crazy, when I saw come in the door David Leydon and Derek and Brian and that guy, Hallowe’en Boy – Keith – that we’d met in town that day party shopping. So my heart leapt and I thought great! and kept on jumping about but keeping an eye on them and I saw they surrendered immediately to the wild atmos and flung their coats on the floor so they could join in. Even David Leydon did and he is usually a stand-offish kind of a person.

  At that moment Anna came up and shouted in my ear, ‘I’ve broken up with Carl!’

  I shouted back, ‘Oh!’ and then, ‘Why?’ and she shouted, ‘I’m fed up of him!’

  I could think of a lot of things to say but I just yelled sarcastically, ‘Well, this makes a change!’ and she looked a tiny bit cross, but then she began to laugh because, really she had to admit, what change did it make? I guess she had to break up with him in a party because that’s the only time she speaks to him. So then I went thud into her and sent her flying and then I saw J.P. go thud into her and I was jealous, of course I was. Imagine being flung into the middle of next week by J.P.!

  But then – bang! – I was sent flying by Derek and – bang! – I sent myself flying into David Leydon, and now the dancefloor was actually getting dangerous because with David and the others there were far more boys on it than girls and nobody was holding back and the good thing was at least I was wearing Doc Martens not ballet slippers because all the girls in ballet slippers had had to retreat for fear of getting their feet stamped and then I saw Anna was on J.P.’s shoulders! His white t-shirt was drenched with sweat. If she put her hands down she could have felt his greasy hair, but she was waving them in the air, and he was rocking her about, and then – wooah – I felt myself lifted up, up and I was on Pierce’s shoulders which if not very exciting shoulders to be on were at least safe shoulders, being so wide, and we were rocking up and down and going – thud – into J.P. and Anna, and I was pushing Anna as I thudded into her and we were having hysterics laughing and then it was all the craze – J.P. had started it – the dancefloor was full of girls on boys’ shoulders, and all the girls in ballet slippers were back in the game because now their feet were safe, and we were charging into each other. Heeun was on Ben’s shoulders. But I checked – David Leydon didn’t have anyone on his shoulders (good).

  And then, just like that, we all calmed down. Which may have been because a) J.P. stopped and lowered Anna to the floor, or b) the music changed and Ben put on something else which just didn’t do it for us, or c) we were all exhausted, especially the boys carrying us, so we all went off to get beer (J.P.) and coke (the rest of us).

  Straight off David Leydon and Derek and Keith came over to me and Anna, and Keith said, ‘Cool party,’ and Derek said, ‘Yeah, where’s the parents?’

  We chatted on like that. Keith was definitely chatting Anna up, it was like when we met in town, but much more obvious. Then Ben put on ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ which is an All Time Classic and we wanted to dance to that and we’d cooled down by now so we hit the dance floor and jumped around. There were a lot of people jumping round but I couldn’t see J.P. anywhere.

  After a bit
I saw Myung – the nanny/housekeeper/pseudo mum – was talking intently to Heeun and Heeun was looking quite upset so I went over.

  Heeun said, ‘Oh Denise …’ and then quietly, ‘Myung has had to throw J.P. out.’

  I said, ‘Oh my God! Why?’

  Heeun said, ‘He was upstairs in the salon, going through the cabinets.’

  My jaw dropped open. I was totally totally shocked. This was an unbelievable way to behave. Stealing! And it didn’t seem like J.P. He’s up for it, for fun I mean, but he’s not like a criminal. And then, suddenly I knew, ‘He was looking for booze,’ I said in relief, ‘not stealing!’

  Heeun looked confused.

  ‘Drink,’ I explained, in case booze was not a word that people in Korea used, ‘he was looking for your dad’s beer or whiskey or something. He wasn’t trying to steal your precious ornaments!’

  She said ‘Oh,’ and started speaking Korean to Myung. It sounds a very strange language.

  Heeun turned back to me, ‘Myung says it is still stealing … and he is too young to be drinking booze.’

  ‘Right,’ I said, ‘Myung is right, but …’ I turned to her ‘Of course you had to throw him out,’ I said earnestly, ‘but looking for booze is not the same as stealing, really it’s not, I mean you don’t have to call the police or anything!’

  I must have looked incredibly worried and this must have looked incredibly stupid – the combination of my worried face with my punky hair maybe – because suddenly Myung started to giggle and then Heeun caught on and they were both giggling at me.

  ‘Oh Denise,’ said Heeun, ‘of course we aren’t going to call the police!’ and ‘The police!’ said Myung, going off into peals, as if I’d suggested calling in Darth Vader’s storm troopers, so then I began to giggle too, though I didn’t know why.

  Heeun said, ‘Myung is not even going to tell my parents, right?’ and she looked pleading/super charmingly at Myung but Myung said, ‘Oh yes, so sorry, must tell your parents,’ and Heeun sighed but didn’t argue it.