by Rae Earl
Lauren looks taken aback. “Millie! Why do you want to leave your mum?! You two are like sisters really. But sisters that get on! I know the Neat Freak is a bit—”
This makes me cross. “Gary is not ‘a bit’ anything. He is a FULL-ON pain. And Mum obviously doesn’t want me there, unless I’m doing school stuff. It would only be for a little while…”
Lauren looks at me and then softly says, “Millie, are you sure you’re not just being a little … jealous and spoilt and only-child? Your mum deserves to be—”
I lose it slightly. “Lauren, this isn’t about Mum being happy. It’s about her deciding that a man who uses hospital-grade hand sanitizer as shower gel is the ONE.”
Lauren backs down and changes the subject.
“By the way –” she has wrapped her duvet round herself now like some kind of very warm poncho – “have you seen the new boy?”
Have I seen the new boy? Yes, of course I have. New people at school are interesting. We know Reuben Stubbs can still fold himself up into a locker. It used to be impressive but we’ve seen the same trick a hundred times now. Anyone NEW is a very good thing.
Lauren looks very proud of herself. “I have information on the man!” She attempts a swagger. “He’s called Danny Trudeau and he is Canadian.”
“Ohhh…” I put on our MAJOR GOSSIP ALERT voice. “Is he? How has HE ended up HERE?”
Lauren starts to whisper. “Well. The rumour is that he could be related to –” Lauren looks around to check that there aren’t any other people listening – “the President.”
“The president of what?” I ask her. It sounds like a film.
“I don’t know,” Lauren says before realizing she sounds ever so slightly ridiculous and crumpling into a giggly mess on the floor.
“LOZZA!” I throw a hamburger pillow at her.
Lauren gets up and angrily slams the hamburger down so hard on the bed it loses its bun. “Now guess who is already following him on Instagram?”
We both know. Erin Breeler. How to explain her?
Erin Breeler is the Queen of Instagram at school. She is guaranteed hundreds of likes with everything she posts. She could put a pic up of her avocado salad and get total adoration from every breathing thing on this earth. Even non-breathing things like the avocados would probably like her posts.
On her account, she has the most perfect photos of her totally amazing, glowing life. Selfies like you’ve never seen. Her angles are perfect. Her eyebrows are sculpted. HER BUM IS A CELEBRITY ON ITS OWN. She smiles with perfect teeth (even when she had braces, she looked unbelievable) and wears clothes that the rest of us don’t dare to. She does yoga poses in dungarees. It looks GREAT. You think I’m exaggerating? Go and look. The girl is phenomenal.
And even though it’s all about what she looks like on the outside, she writes stuff like Feel the inner glow radiate out and I can be more mindful in this mohair cardigan, so you can’t even call her shallow.
She’s really clever about what she posts. When she had a spot, she made it into a good thing. She put her little finger over it, puckered her lips and posed with a No apologies! No one is perfect! caption. She acts like she doesn’t really know what she’s doing and everybody falls for it. It’s so FALSE but everyone seems to love her.
Girls like Erin don’t hang around with girls like me and Lauren. She’s too cool. Too edgy. And if you get in her space, she will take you down in SUCH a whip-smart way. YET a weird part of me still wants her to like me.
I know – pathetic. And, honestly, I’m scared of her. And I hate that in myself. She’s super confident both at school and in her posts and it’s like—
“Millie! Come back in the room!” Lauren is calling out to me.
“Sorry,” I say. “I was just thinking about Erin Breeler. Beautiful people can make you drift off, can’t they? Erin and Danny. Lovely Danny with his lovely—”
“Bag!” Lauren interrupts. “Have you seen it, Millie? That boy has serious stationery.”
Lauren likes paper and pens more than anything. She has a Pinterest board that is just fluorescent markers.
“I was going to say his eyes, but, anyway, Loz, I’d better go.”
Lauren gives me a huge hug. She also wishes me luck, which I’m going to need.
The truth is, I could stay here for ever.
I feel sick. I don’t want to go home.
#FAMILYMATTERS
When I get home, Mum still isn’t back from the weekly big Saturday shop. Gary is cleaning the toaster and telling it off for hoarding little bits of bread. This is normal. He has a feud with the toaster. He says it’s a bad design. The toaster feels the same way about Gary but cannot talk.
Actually, I don’t think Gary is speaking to me after I damaged his robot true love. He looks up when I come in but then goes back to cleaning. Who spends their weekend doing that? Someone with no friends who likes telling things off. Worryingly, there is no sign of McWhirter.
I go upstairs to my bedroom and Dave comes and joins me. We are refugees from Gary “Neat Freak” Woolton’s Democratic Republic of Clean. I create crumbs. Dave sheds hair. We are the enemy.
I keep thinking about what Mum is going to say when I tell her about Dad’s. I can’t decide if she’ll be relieved or calm or—
She’s going to be cross. Who am I kidding? I try to take my mind off things. What will my new thumbnail be? A grab of something I’ve watched? A photo I’ve taken? Mum’s furious, sobbing face?
Finally, I hear her coming through the front door. I take Dave downstairs. Mum is in the kitchen, soaking, flustered and loaded with bags from Sainsbury’s. A soggy French stick is poking out of one of them, and wet carbs always put her in a REALLY foul mood.
I know I should probably wait for her to take her coat off and try and have a proper sensible chat, but it’s rushing up inside of me. I end up yelling at her so loudly that Dave leaps in the air. So high that if I’d been filming it, the video would have been a YouTube sensation: “Supercat scales a building”.
“Mum! I want to go and live with Dad.”
Mum just carries on unpacking. She must have heard, but I try again just in case.
“Mum – I want to go and live with Dad! At Grandad’s house. It’s a REAL place. It has a roof. It’s FINE!”
This has been building up all summer, so surely it can’t come as a surprise.
Mum wraps the soggy French stick in a tea towel, hands it to Gary and says, very calmly, “Of course you do, Mills. It’s like the Wild West over at your Grandad’s. Your Grandad tries, but you know what your dad is like. And don’t get me started on Teresa. You’d be able to do what you like. You’re perfectly OK here. I know you think some of my rules are over the top but turning the wireless off at night means your brain gets a rest! I’m looking after you! Protecting you! Now stop being silly and tell me what’s really wrong.”
This makes me cross. How could she not have noticed how unhappy Gary has been making me? I try and take a deep breath, but my brain goes on heavy-rain-flood mode, and my mouth gushes out all sorts of horror.
“Mum, eating a custard cream in this house has become a five-stage process, involving a dustpan and brush. And you DO NOT need a side plate to eat a banana! A banana is a big solid mass. It has its own neat little container – its actual skin! It’s the most interior-design-friendly fruit known to man. It loves being clean. Why are we even discussing how tidy food naturally is? See what Gary’s done to us?! And stop staring at my hand.”
I realize I have picked up a banana and I am banging it up and down to back up every point I am making. Fruit torture is not a good look.
Mum says, “You’re going to bruise that, Millie.”
Gary is already brandishing a newspaper in case I make the banana fully mushy and he has to wrap it up for the bin. He can’t help himself. He then starts pretending this argument is not happening and begins what he would call a “light clean” of the kitchen units.
I don’t care. I am on
a serious rant.
“Mum, I don’t mind your timetables. Your stupid rules. Mostly, I can put up with them! BUT NO ONE CAN LIVE LIKE THIS. We used to have great times together. Now we NEVER do. You’ve changed. And you’ve always said, don’t change for anyone. Don’t change for a man. But that is exactly what you’ve done. Call yourself a feminist? You’re actually a sappy, dappy cheeseball love lady. You’re not my mum any more. You’re HIS gooey girlfriend!” I point at Gary, who has frozen mid-polish. “And you don’t let me decide stuff for myself. Like when I do my homework or how late I stay at Lauren’s. Even though I never do anything wrong. I don’t ever get to do anything my way. It always has to be your way and it isn’t fair.”
All this is terrible, but it is how I feel.
Gary “Neat Freak” Woolton, who is NOT my dad, shouts, “Go to your room!”
Mum, who is still my mum, says quietly, “What’s happened to my lovely, sensible, clever girl?”
I yell, “She’s in a … a coma of really fed-up!” Which is a totally rubbish response but I’m really angry.
When I storm out of the room, I trip over McWhirter, who is probably trying to escape all the noise. It completely ruins my exit, but at least he is still alive. My Aunty Teresa would call this karma. I call it further evidence of my life being ruined by cleaning equipment. Vacuum sabotage. I bet Gary programmed him that way.
#NOTADIVA
Are you still here? I’m surprised. I’m a bit horrible. I’m sorry you had to witness that.
I curl up on my bed and have a mini cry. A wrong-time-of-the-month sort of sob at a sad film. I can see Mum loves Gary. The calm part of my brain can see he makes her laugh and he rubs her dry heels with cocoa butter. She’d been single for years because she didn’t want to settle for second best. Gary came along with his posh mountain bike and amazingly expensive muesli and – BANG! – it was major relationship time. So believe me, I don’t want to ruin my mum’s happiness.
But if I’m honest, the whole situation is making me really unhappy. This house feels like a ride at a theme park that never stops and I can’t get off. And it’s not making me feel good. My chest feels tight all the time. And the thing is, in that argument with Mum, I didn’t even sound like me. I’m usually totally chilled and…
OK, let’s just say it – sensible.
It’s a CURSE. I’ve always been that way. I blame Mrs Woods. She wrote in my school report: Millie is a girl with plenty of common sense. How did she know? Well, when Stephen Pearson broke his arm skidding on the playground pretending to be an owl, I was the one who suggested we should probably call an ambulance. Everyone else was trying to find a phone to get a photo. Including, probably, Mrs Woods.
I was nine.
I know. Sweet. But also a bit tragic.
You can be anything at school. Geeky with geek chic, do cosplay or be a MAJOR member of the Nerdverse – that’s basically ALL FINE. No one cares. Bradley Sanderson in Year 10 has a vlog called “The King of Elevation”, where he films himself in lifts or going up and down escalators. One of his videos has 77,000 views! That’s way more than Erin has ever got for one of her mindful-in-mohair posts. To some people – admittedly not many at school – HE is the BOMB.
But me? Being the sort of person that is quite … wise? Well, I’m less cool than Daniel Gyver from Year 11, who can chew through six entire biros in one Geography lesson, including the metal nibs.
My friends love me. Mum says I’ve got a good ear and a soft shoulder. She doesn’t mean I’ve got a floppy, mushy body (sorry – you probably realized that). She means I usually know what to do in a crisis. Even the sort of crisis that Lauren says makes you hide in your bedroom for days eating crisps and playing Pet Doctor.
I can usually cope with my crazy family. I can even cope with real men. I’ve had a REAL BOYFRIEND. Dylan Anthony. Yes! Him! HE was mine. For a month and a half. Until we had a massive row over the suffragettes. He thought they were overreacting. I said not having a vote JUST because you’re a girl was a pretty big deal.
I know. I sound like a right doofus. But in that moment, it just felt RIGHT. This is why I feel so panicky now. I’m not normally the one having a meltdown. I’m not the one who makes any silly decisions, and yet here I am about to…
It is not sensible to want to leave your mum and go and live with a man who still lives with his own dad at the age of thirty-eight, and once used elastic bands and a copy of Mixmag magazine to make you a nappy.
There is not much common sense there, Mrs Woods. But this is what I want to do.
Perhaps I just need time. Some time to stop being a wobbling mess. I’m not a dessert shaking in a desert. I’m Millie. I’m—
I need to go.
For once, I’m going to follow my heart, and my head can just … shut up, be quiet and DO ONE. If it possibly can. And if it can’t, my heart can go out partying alone and my brain can stay home with a tub of ice cream and watch a film.
I must be nervous. Can’t stop thinking of puddings. CLASSIC sign.
#HEARTACHE
After some mumbling downstairs, Mum comes up to see me. She’s in tough mode. I can tell because her eye is twitching. This happens to both of us when we are angry. It’s a genetic numpty gene we share.
“Mills,” she says, sitting next to me on my bed.
Sitting next to me. You’ll recognize that as a brilliant parent tactic that’s meant to say, “I’m on your level. I understand.”
I don’t think she does.
“I understand it’s difficult to share me with Gary—”
She definitely doesn’t understand.
“You’re not a tube of Pringles, Mum!”
“No – but you’re used to having me to yourself. And now I’ve got someone else to focus on.”
I’m quite calm now. “Someone else,” I say, “who has completely insane levels of cleanliness. He tried to use an antiseptic wipe on a cushion the other day—”
“He struggles with Dave. He’s never had pets,” Mum interrupts.
“Whatever, Mum. Dave cleans herself at least twice a day. She would probably use deodorant if they made the can paw-friendly.”
I’m still calm. Ish.
“Millie,” Mum whispers, putting her arm around me. “You’re right. Dave is a very clean cat. And you are a good girl. You’re self-regulating.” (What does this mean – she’s always using it?!) “When you were a toddler, you would ask to go to bed. You’ve always been…”
We cuckoo together like Grandad’s manky clock, “Sensible.”
“I’ve rung your dad. He’s really happy to have you. And he says you can take Dave – but, Millie, I don’t want you to go! I won’t stop you if that’s what you REALLY want, but in that magnificent head and heart of yours, I know you know that THIS is a bad idea. You’re back at school. You need stability. You know you do!”
How does Mum do it?! She’s straight into the whole of me like a drone with a really clever missile. And she carries on. She can read me like a book that has hardly any words and lots of pictures.
“Perhaps we can work together and find a compromise to stop all this? How about the wireless goes off at 10 p.m. and we all, as a family, have a conference about crumbs?”
This makes me smile even though I don’t want to. I put my head down so Mum can’t see. I know she’s trying to make me laugh.
“You know,” Mum says softly, “Gary is a lovely guy. Yes – he’s very house-proud but he also makes me laugh a lot. He’s funny, Millie, and kind. Give him a chance.”
I don’t believe this for one minute. The Neat Freak is probably already planning to turn my bedroom into the Museum of Sanitation (that’s a good word stolen from the hand dryers at school), to display his collection of SERIOUS dusters.
“Come on, Millie.” Mum puts her arm round my shoulder. “You know I just want the best for my little girl.”
And THAT is the problem. To Mum, I am still that little girl in a doctor costume trying to wrap Dave’s ear with a
dishcloth. She won’t let me actually become an adult. Moving out is really the only way to show her and Gary that I AM one. Or nearly am one.
I snuggle into her shoulder. “Mum, I love you but I really want to go and live with Dad. Just for a bit. I think some time away from here will be good for me.”
Mum looks hurt but keeps her arm round me. She takes a deep breath. “OK. Well, I don’t want you to go. Even for a little while,” Mum says. “But you’ll only be down the road. And I know, whatever I might say, that you’re a big girl really. I’m not going to stop you if that’s what you really want to do. Perhaps you’ll appreciate what you have here and you’ll come back with…”
She stops talking and sadly plods out of my room. I hear her sniff. Please let it be a sudden allergy to pet hair and not tears.
Oh Mum! I want to stay. I want HIM to go. IT IS HIM! I don’t mind your rules, homework, even the way you tell me I shouldn’t have a boyfriend till I’m thirty-two. I just want him to go and for you to let me be normal and live in the twenty-first century.
But I don’t say that. I text Lauren to tell her what’s happened. Then I go downstairs to tell Mum I will pack some overnight stuff and my school uniform and come back for the rest next weekend. I don’t speak to Gary. Thanks, Head, for still being a little bit my boss.
I think.
Before I go and put my things in the car, I take a photo of my room and put it on Instagram. All my books and my lights shaped like cacti. With a Slumber filter, it looks really cool. It also means I can check in the future to see if anyone has moved anything, or tried to scrub it. Don’t mess with me, Gary. I am basically a forensic policewoman scientist thingy and I can trace your every cleaning move.
By the time I leave home, I already have a couple of likes. I’m collecting witnesses. AND they like the way I’ve done my room!
My old room.
What am I doing? Brain, come back from holiday.
