“That’s for laughing at my mum,” said Leanne as they strutted off.
Hannah came rushing over, too late, but at least the thought was there.
“Are you all right?” she asked, all concerned. I did feel shaken up, but I wasn’t going to admit it.
“I’m fine, they’re just idiots,” I said.
“Well, I think you’d better come straight to my place after school,” she said, “no arguments! Mum won’t mind you coming early. You can text your mum.”
So that’s what I did. But the remote control function failed, due to Mum’s phone having run out of battery (how was I supposed to know she was too busy rushing around after the Boy Toy to charge up her phone?).
The end result was a major row between Mum and Auntie Susan.
We were all sitting having lasagna and chips when the doorbell rang and it was Mum in Worried Mode.
“Thank God! Katie, I didn’t know where you were! I was worried sick!”
So I explained I’d texted her and she explained her phone was out of charge and it would have been okay, but then Auntie Susan said, “Why were you so worried? Don’t you think I’m capable of looking after your daughter?”
And then they had this huge argument. During which Auntie Susan suggested that perhaps Mum would have more idea what her kids were up to if she stayed at home more and that everybody could see she was spending too much time with her new man.
This caused Mum to instantly overheat and go into Angry Mode.
“I’ll see you in the morning, Katie!” she said, before she slammed her way out of the house.
She really is turning into a different person.
Auntie Susan felt so sorry for me—what with me being a neglected child—she went into Doing Something Nice Mode and made us hot chocolate! Then we had popcorn and watched a movie and did our usual Friday-night lazing around and chatting.
There was only one annoying part, which was when we went to bed and Hannah chattered on yet again about Neil Parkhouse and Thomas Finch and Jonathan Elliott.
“I think Loops and Thomas look great together, don’t you?” she said as we lay in our beds. “I think he likes her, especially now that her eyelashes look so great. He’s just shy. Loops says she’s going to ask him out if he doesn’t ask her.”
I pulled the duvet over my head, wishing I had a remote control and could turn the volume down on her prattling. I wish she would get a life and think about something else for a change.
What is it with everyone I love?
Thursday, September 24
CONTROL LIMITATIONS
Your Grown-Up is, unfortunately, a human being. They are constructed from flesh and blood, which means there are limitations on how much you can predict their perverse and annoying random behavior. If you had some sort of avatar Grown-Up you could right-click on them and choose the Eject option, or send them into some virtual orbit. But yours is real, so, sadly, these methods cannot be used.
I’d hate to have one of those robotic Grown-Ups, with the perfect house, who never have a hair out of place and when they’re asked how everything is always say “marvelous.” I’ve always loved the fact that Mum is normal and human and, just like most people on this planet, muddling on by. There’s this saying, “Life is what happens when you’re making other plans,” which Mum has stuck on the fridge. It’s so true. But even if life made Mum unpredictable at times, at least I knew where I stood. At the moment I just feel so confused.
I’m going to put my recent problems operating Mum down to control limitations. I know it’s a pathetic cop-out, but I haven’t got anything else.
Still, only another day till the weekend. Although, Stuart becomes more and more established on our sofa every Saturday night (I wish he was some sort of avatar and I could eject him).
I’m going to phone Hannah in a minute, but thought I’d catch up on the guide first. I don’t seem able to write as much in term-time as I did in the summer holidays, thanks to homework. Hannah has joined the drama group at school, like she threatened to. Fair enough, she did say she wants to be an actress, so the drama group is as good a place as any to start. And the teachers have been on at her to join for two years.
I’m being quite distant to let her know I’m fed up with her obsession with boys. Neil Parkhouse happens to be in the drama group. What a coincidence.
So on Wednesday lunchtimes Hannah is being all “dramatic” and pretending to be a tree with Ms. Edgerton and Neil Parkhouse and the rest of the suck-ups. Loops does gymnastics club, so I am alone.
This means that I have to spend the whole lunch hour hiding from Shannon and Leanne, who think it’s a blood sport to hunt me down and torment me with various forms of torture, which include:
• pushing
• jostling
• tripping me (very original)
• taking my stuff and throwing it over walls or down stairs
• bra snapping (while saying “You don’t need this!”).
All they need is a bugle and a pack of hounds. Still, running around the school is keeping me fit.
To try to forget my troubles and because I was half thinking of confiding in her about the bullying, I went over to see Auntie Julie the other day. She was on yet another dating website, “surfing for love,” as she puts it. Her house is becoming a real dump. I think she might be an Internet-dating addict. There were mugs everywhere half full of cold coffee, and plates with bits of takeout on them.
If she meets someone who isn’t a lunatic and brings them back to her disgusting house, it’s not going to do her any favors. What if Gary Barlow actually turns up? If he does I bet she’ll wish she’d cleaned the toilet.
“Sorry about the mess,” she said, not sounding at all sorry. “Find yourself a space and I’ll put the kettle on. I think I’ve got some biscuits somewhere.”
I like it when she treats me the same as she’d treat my mum.
I managed to clear a space on the sofa and flicked through one of her celebrity magazines while the kettle boiled. Another soccer player has got married; there was a picture of him and his bride standing in front of a wedding cake that was three meters high.
“So what’s going on, then?” Auntie Julie said, arriving with the tea and biscuits. “I feel like I’ve hardly seen your mum. I can’t remember the last time we had one of our Friday nights!”
To cheer her up, I told her about Stuart and Mum talking in the backyard, repeating what we’d heard more or less word for word. She looked suitably impressed and interested.
“Now, that’s a turnup!” she said, distracted from her bourbon biscuit for a second. “I should have guessed that there was something wrong with him. I mean, what kind of person doesn’t take antihistamines?”
“So what do you think he’s hiding?” I said.
“I can’t decide. It may be a criminal past,” Auntie Julie mused.
I felt better knowing Auntie Julie thought the same as Mandy and me. He is definitely really sketchy, that’s for sure.
That’s all I can think of to write for now. Off to phone Hannah.
9:27 p.m.
Oh. My. God!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hannah is OFFICIALLY going out with Neil Parkhouse! But I can’t believe she waited till I phoned to tell me. If I’d found out from anyone else I definitely would not be talking to her.
“Please don’t be annoyed,” she said. “I can’t wait around for Ben Clayden forever.”
“When did it happen?” I asked.
“Ten minutes ago! You know he’s been texting me for weeks? This time he said in his text ‘R U my girlfriend?’ and I texted back ‘Yes!’ So it’s definite.”
“I don’t suppose you can help yourself,” I said, feeling pleased that I was the first to know about it. “You are obviously just man mad.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if Loops gets a text from Thomas Finch tonight,” said Hannah.
“What makes you think he’d do that?” I said, too sharply.
“Because
I sent Neil another text saying ‘Thomas shld txt Loops 2 C if she is his.’ ”
“Hannah! Should you have done that?”
“Course I should, Loops is here now, it was her idea!” And then I heard this mad, hysterical laughing in the background. It was Loops. And there I was thinking that I was the first to know. What an idiot.
“Are you still coming for a sleepover tomorrow?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I said, unenthusiastically. “S’pose so.”
“Great, I’ll make cheesy nachos.”
Hannah’s trying to be nice, but I feel cornered. It’s like Hannah and Loops have our whole lives worked out. They’ve probably decided how many children we’re all going to have. And I’ve a horrible feeling that in their master plan, I will be having lots of brainiac babies with slightly sticking-out ears.
Why is everything spiraling out of control?
Friday, September 25: 10:39 p.m.
I found it hard to get to sleep last night thinking about Hannah going out with Neil Parkhouse. I can’t believe Loops and Hannah sent that text practically ordering Thomas Finch to ask Loops out!
Today, he was next to me in the lunch line. (On Fridays Mum lets us have a school lunch instead of a packed lunch, but it’s nothing to get excited about; they’ve stopped doing fries, seeing as there are too many children who are over-weight or something.)
“What’s up?” I said to Thomas in a friendly sort of a voice as I dolloped a huge splat of mashed potato onto my plate.
He just grunted. He’s obviously still mad about the romance novels thing. Then Loops came up, all hair-twirling and batting eyelashes.
“Hello, Thomas,” she said, looking up at him adoringly, “mind if I push in?”
And he let her! Then the rest of the way up the line they were chatting away and I might as well have been invisible.
I am writing this at Hannah’s house. Hannah’s reading in bed. She wanted Loops to come along tonight too, but Loops had to go to her grandma and granddad’s. At least that keeps her out of mischief, I suppose. I prefer the idea of her playing dominoes with her granddad to batting her eyelashes at Thomas, somehow.
As she’d promised, Hannah made me nachos and I let her babble on some more about Neil and Thomas. But it was a good evening. We talked about other things as well, and we watched a movie.
Before I went off to Hannah’s bed, I made the mistake of telling Mum that everybody seemed to be pairing off and that I was not too happy about it. She went straight into Been There, Done That Mode (of course) and told me this long story about her and some friends and how exactly the same thing had happened to her.
BEEN THERE, DONE THAT MODE
This must be one of the most infuriating Modes that a Grown-Up can switch to. Whatever you do, they’ve done it before, and they insist on telling you all about it.
You can’t win on this one.
I can’t believe Mum! She’s no better than the rest of them. It’s maddening. The one time I’ve managed to get her alone to talk to her about my innermost feelings and she does that! I can’t tell her anything anymore.
I had to act as if she was helping me, while thinking, I don’t WANT to hear about what you did back in the Dark Ages. Why can’t Grown-Ups just say, “I’m sorry to hear that, it must be rotten”? Why do they always have to relate it to their own distant youth, when nothing was like it is now?
She can’t possibly understand.
11:30 p.m.
“Hannah,” I said, a few minutes ago, “everything’s not going to change, is it?”
“Of course not,” she said. “You know what the magazines say: friends first. I won’t let Neil Parkhouse or anyone else come between us, not ever.”
I feel better about it all, now she’s said that.
Saturday, September 26: 9:22 p.m.
It’s now Saturday night and I can officially announce that I am the biggest idiot ever.
After the sleepover last night, Hannah and me went over to Loops’s house. Loops was still in her pajamas when she answered the door with a triumphant look on her face. As soon as I saw her, I knew.
“Guess who got a text last night?” she said smugly.
Hannah jumped in the air and then hugged her.
“You got a text from Thomas? Let’s see it!”
Loops showed it to us. It said “R U my girlfriend? If so C U at park 2morrow.” He’d even done a smiley face.
“Oh my God!” shouted Hannah. “What are you going to wear?” They started discussing which stupid shirt Loops was going to put on to go to the park in.
“Are you okay?” I heard. I realized Hannah was talking to me. Her voice sounded quite far away.
“What? Yes, I’m fine.”
Loops looked at me strangely.
“You are okay, aren’t you, Katie?” she asked. “I mean, you did dump him, after all, so you two are over.”
She was absolutely right.
“Yeah, I’m like totally fine with it,” I said. “I’ve just got a bit of a headache. I think I need to get home and lie down or something. You go on without me, I’ll meet you later.”
“Are you sure?” said Hannah, concerned.
“Yes, honestly, you two go ahead.”
I don’t know how I got home. I was in a daze. Even though I’ve had weeks to get used to the idea that Loops would probably get her mitts on Thomas, the reality hit me like a sledgehammer.
I’ve been kidding myself that I don’t care, but the horrible truth can be denied no longer: I’m mad about him. And now—with my full permission—he is going out with one of my best friends. Well done, Katie, you’ve outdone yourself!
This is not like the way Hannah and me have been about Ben Clayden, just a silly crush. This is so different. I really, really like Thomas, but now I’ve messed everything up.
I sneaked up to the Cupboard and lay facedown on my bed for ages. There was no point talking to Mum, because she’d only go into Been There, Done That Mode yet again. After a while I crawled under the duvet. When Mum called me for lunch I said I wasn’t hungry. How could I think about food? I was thinking about Thomas. I thought about his brown eyes and his shy, lopsided smile. I thought about Loops and him having that long conversation in the minimart.
I’d like to say that I lay in misery for all those hours, but if truth be told, I did nod off for a while.
About midafternoon I heard the door to the Cupboard open, but I stayed under the duvet pretending nobody was there.
“Hey, you.”
It was Mandy.
“Go away!” I said, trying not to sound sleepy, my voice muffled by the duvet. I felt the mattress sink a little as she sat down beside me. She actually patted me on the shoulder! For Mandy, that is a huge gesture, believe me.
“It gets easier,” she said, in Sympathy Mode. I reckon she was thinking about Joshua Weston. Then she got up and left the room.
A little while later, Mum appeared. She sat stroking my hair for a while like she always does when I’m upset.
“Is it about everyone pairing off? Or is it more than that? Is it about a boy?” she asked.
I nodded, then whispered, “Don’t tell Hannah and Loops or anyone. I don’t want anyone to know.”
“I won’t tell anyone,” she said, then added, “Katie, I know this might not help … but believe me, things that seem important when you’re thirteen never stay that way. One day you’ll look back and wonder why you cared so much. You might even laugh about it!”
I just knew, even before she started, that she’d go into Been There, Done That Mode. That’s twice in one weekend! Grown-Ups are so dense sometimes. How could I ever in a million, billion, trillion, zillion years look back and laugh about this?
SAD BUT TRUE FACT
Grown-Ups think that what happened when they were teenagers is not that different from what happens today. As if their sad and pathetic lives a hundred years ago could ever have anything in common with ours!
After Mum, my next visitor was Rasc
al, who jumped up, burrowed under the duvet and licked my face madly. I kept pushing him off, but he kept trying to get at me with his enormous wet tongue. I wondered if he was actually trying to snog me. That would be typical of my luck, if my first proper French kiss was from my dog.
Eventually I got up and washed my face. I found the strength to eat later on because (luckily) Stuart had got us all fish and chips and I could not resist, which shows that either I’m not completely devastated—or maybe I’m just a greedy pig who can stuff her sorry face no matter how bad she feels.
The only thing that made me feel a little better was Jack.
“I’m putting on a show,” he announced after the fish and chips, “starring me.”
Then he disappeared and in a few minutes reappeared wearing his Batman cloak and nothing else but a pair of red underpants. He bowed.
“Proud to present, the amazing Magico! Using my special power, I will now read your minds!”
“Okay,” said Mum, “what am I thinking?”
Jack held his head dramatically, then said, “You are thinking that you need to give me double allowance for doing this amazing show!”
“Nice try,” said Mum, laughing.
“What am I thinking?” said Stuart.
Jack made another big show of mind reading, closing his eyes in concentration.
“You are planning a journey. I see airline tickets. I see Mickey Mouse. A trip to … Florida! You are taking us all to Disney World!”
Stuart looked at Mum and grinned.
“What’s Katie thinking, then?” asked Mum.
Jack closed his eyes again.
“Katie is feeling sad,” said Jack, “but she’ll feel happy again if Mum buys her a new cell phone!”
He opened his eyes and gave me a big overexaggerated wink. Maybe he’s right. If I can’t have Thomas, a new cell would definitely help.
Tuesday, September 29: 8:59 p.m.
Diary of a Parent Trainer Page 12
