Diary of a Parent Trainer

by Jennifer Smith

  SOCIABLE MODE

  When Grown-Ups are in Sociable Mode they smile and show their teeth and introduce each other to people and look delighted and interested in even the most boring situations. This function is called Making an Effort.

  Some models of Grown-Up are more sociable than others. They’re called “extroverts.” They love being surrounded by people, chatting away. They are happy for people to pop in and see them any time—positively relishing surprise visitors.

  Other models are “introverts,” which means they prefer to stay home and do puzzles, jigsaws or crosswords, read books or watch TV—or all five activities at the same time.

  Stuck home babysitting. AGAIN.

  Mum is making an effort in getting to know more about Stuart’s life and once again, leaving us! She’s gone into Oxford for a drink with the Boy Toy and some of his friends—most of whom are teachers, like he is. I can’t imagine a worse night out, spending it with a load of teachers. It would be my worst nightmare. Imagine a night out with our constantly angry math teacher, Mr. Catchpole, and Miss Mohair Tights. I’d rather go to the dentist to have all my teeth removed.

  But now Mum and Stuart are a proper couple with what is known as a “shared social life,” so they do everything together. How boring is that?!!

  For a long time Mum was not in Sociable Mode at all. After Dad died she made no effort whatsoever. She couldn’t bear to be among a crowd of people unless it was family, and even then she couldn’t stand too much of them (which you can understand, seeing what our family’s like).

  So I should be pleased she’s now enjoying going out and being sociable instead of staying in with us watching TV or having her usual Friday nights with Auntie Julie. I’ve made a resolution. I’m going to try to be pleased for Hannah and for Loops and everybody else. That’s how mature I am.

  I’ve given the Loops and Thomas situation some thought, and I’ve decided that if “going out” according to Thomas is the same as it was when he went out with me, then nothing is going to happen and I can deal with that.

  Okay, so I like him. Far too much. But I’m not going to let that ruin my life. What is it they say about the birds of sadness? They may fly overhead, but you don’t need to let them nest in your hair.

  Feeling in Sociable Mode myself—and because I have nothing more exciting to do now that everybody is practically married—I popped in to see Great-Grandma Peters on my way home from school today. She was watching her favorite late-afternoon show on TV.

  “This one’s a sad case,” she said, motioning for me to sit down. “She’s about to have her home repossessed and she’s desperate to win some money to pay off her debts. But greed will be her downfall, just like the rest of them.”

  We watched as the woman turned down sixteen thousand pounds.

  “That’s the best offer she’ll get, I tell you,” tutted Great-Grandma Peters, “but they never know when to stop. You’re the first person I’ve seen all day. I’ve been sitting here all on my own!”

  “I saw Nan in the shop,” I said. “She said she saw you at lunchtime.”

  “For about five minutes! No, I’m all on my own here. Everybody’s too busy to have any time for me.…”

  At that moment, the doorbell rang. It was Auntie Susan, still in her nurse’s uniform.

  “Hello, Granny,” she said. “Hello, Katie. So, what’s going on?”

  “She’s going to get ten pence, I know it!” Great-Grandma Peters said hopefully, pointing at the TV. “She’ll regret turning down that money! I’ve been saying to Katie that I’ve been alone all day.”

  I shook my head at Auntie Susan, who smiled and raised her eyebrows. An advert had come on the TV asking people to give money for dogs that’d been ill-treated.

  “All Fido wanted was love, but instead he got kicked,” said the advert. “Now he’s wagging his tail again, thanks to Dog Shelter.”

  “That’s a terrible thing, what people do to these poor dogs,” tutted Great-Grandma Peters. “They should shoot the lot of them!”

  “The dogs?” asked Auntie Susan, confused.

  “No! The people who ill-treat them. Line them up and shoot them, that’s what they should do. Along with the people who claim benefits when there’s nothing wrong with them.”

  The doorbell rang again. It was Matthew, who wanted some money from Auntie Susan so he could get sweets from the shop. Auntie Susan was having none of it. Immediately afterward Nan appeared, having finished her shift at the co-op.

  “She thinks she’s neglected,” Auntie Susan whispered to Nan as Great-Grandma Peters ranted at the TV. The woman on TV had won seventy-five thousand pounds. The studio audience was screaming with excitement, whooping and shouting. The woman was crying; now she could pay off her massive debts and keep her house. You could see Great-Grandma Peters was bitterly disappointed.

  “That was dumb luck,” she said, “just dumb luck! There’s far too many people here, I can hardly see the TV. Clear off, the lot of you!”

  Wednesday, September 30

  When I got home from school today, Stuart was there. Again. He’s our regular surprise visitor these days. Only it’s never a welcome surprise, not for me and Mandy, anyway.

  He had been on some school trip to London and snuck off early to come and see Mum. Mandy was fuming in the kitchen.

  “He thinks this is his home away from home,” she hissed as she glugged down a can of Coke. “He must be stopped.”

  I wasn’t sure. I was beginning to think that we might be interfering too much.

  “Maybe we shouldn’t give Stuart such a hard time.”

  “Yeah, and maybe he shouldn’t be turning up on our doorstep without any warning!” Mandy said. “It’s all part of his long-term goal to move in and take charge of our lives.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” I said. “I know, let’s have bad table manners—you know, disgust him!”

  “I reckon the food’ll be enough,” whispered Mandy, looking over at the pot of overcooked and slimy pasta mixed with kidney beans.

  “Isn’t it great that Stuart’s staying for dinner?” said Mum, clearly in Sociable and Happy Mode as she glooped the pasta into five bowls. “What a nice surprise!”

  Stuart smiled hopefully. Really, he doesn’t get it. Talk about thick-skinned!

  “Mmm, pasta!” I said enthusiastically. “I just can’t eat enough of it!”

  I started to shove a huge forkful into my mouth. I had to stop myself from gagging.

  “Me too! I just love pasta!” said Mandy, doing the same.

  “Was school okay?” asked Mum.

  “Mnfughhhgggggglmmmlshw!” I said, and a lump of congealed pasta dropped from my lower lip into my bowl.

  “Glwgggrmmm mumphflggg!” added Mandy, then carried on eating, smacking her lips and opening her mouth too wide so we were all treated to the sight of her half-chewed pasta.

  Stuart looked slightly revolted. It was bad enough having to eat the stuff without seeing it being showcased in Mandy’s mouth in all its half-digested glory.

  “Don’t talk with your mouths full, girls,” said Mum, shooting us a warning glare. She was beginning to switch from Sociable Mode to Irritated Mode.

  “Sorry!” said Mandy, and then did an enormous, five-second-long sonic-boom sort of a burp. “Whoops! Sorry for that too!”

  Jack looked at Mandy with awe and respect.

  Then I pretended that my head was itchy. I scratched at my scalp furiously with both hands, right over my plate.

  “There’s head lice going around at school again,” I lied, carrying on my exaggerated scratching act. I noticed that Stuart was slowly shifting his chair away from me.

  “Katie!” cried Mandy, peering into my bowl and pretending to be shocked. “You’ve got head lice in your pasta! I can see them, they’re huge! Some of them have got wings!”

  “Not to worry,” I said.

  Then I took another enormous mouthful. Stuart looked like he might actually be sick.

 
At which point Jack unintentionally put the icing on the cake.

  “Mum, I know it’s banned at the dinner table,” he said, “but I’ve done a deadly fart. It’ll get over to you in a minute so you might want to hold your breath. It smells worse than one of Rascal’s.”

  After Stuart left (straight after tea, unsurprisingly), Mum went into Angry Mode. I could tell she was working herself up to give us a serious lecture just by the way she stomped up the stairs.

  “WHY are you being like this?” she shouted, appearing in the door of the Cupboard.

  “Like what?” said Mandy innocently.

  “You know what I’m talking about,” said Mum. “You deliberately ruined things again! Why were you deliberately disgusting and antisocial? Can’t you make more of an effort with Stuart? He’s trying so hard.”

  “Sorry,” I said quickly, even though I wasn’t sorry, not one bit, “we were just being stupid. It was wrong of us.”

  She looked surprised.

  “Well, at least you’ve apologized,” she said, unsure of what to say next. Then she turned and went back downstairs.

  TROUBLESHOOTING TIP

  Saying “sorry” straight after you’ve done something wrong is a simple but remarkably effective strategy with Grown-Ups. Admit everything before their huge lecture and you can stop them in their tracks. For example, if they’ve been getting ready to have a five-minute foaming-at-the-mouth rant about how lazy and selfish you are, it’s much harder for them to do it if you’ve just said, “I’m sorry. I am lazy and selfish, there’s no denying it.”

  Saturday, October 3: Noon

  INTERFERING MODE

  Some models of Grown-Ups just can’t help themselves. They are born to switch to Interfering Mode at every opportunity. They think it’s okay for them to meddle in other people’s affairs. In fact, it is hardwired into their circuitry.

  Last night, when I was getting ready to go to Hannah’s, Mum asked how late me and Hannah stay up and what we eat. She wanted to know how much chocolate Auntie Susan lets us have and whether we are watching DVDs in Hannah’s bedroom.

  Mum has never asked these questions before! Maybe it’s because Auntie Susan hinted she isn’t taking enough interest in us since Stuart’s been on the scene. Or maybe it’s just Stuart’s evil influence. He’s obviously been saying things to her. She’s been suggesting that we not go on the computer so much, and saying that we shouldn’t rush our homework so we can watch TV but should spend a full hour on it. Which is so harsh!

  Also, she thinks that as a family we should eat round the table more instead of on our laps in front of the TV. Apparently it’s better for our digestion. Though in my opinion, eating different food than what she cooks would be better for our digestion.

  It’s Stuart.

  He’s messing with our lives, just like we knew he would.

  Honestly, Mum’s becoming almost as bad as Nan—and Nan’s the most interfering of all our relatives. Nan always thinks she has a better way of doing things, and she’ll never tire of telling my poor mum and anyone else unfortunate enough to be within earshot her opinions. Which are often something along the lines of “Cut your coat according to your cloth” or “You can cross that bridge when you come to it.” None of it ever makes sense, of course. Sometimes she even mixes them up and says stuff like “A stitch in time is worth a bird in the hand” and people actually agree with her!

  She means well, but sometimes she does go too far—like when she took me, Jack and Mandy for haircuts not long after Dad died, without consulting Mum.

  We did need haircuts, and obviously Mum had been too distracted to sort it out, but what upset her was that Nan got the hairdresser to give us all matching pudding-bowl haircuts, so we looked totally ridiculous.

  This meant that not only did we have to cope with the fact that our dad had died, we also had to cope with looking like pudding-bowl-headed losers.

  Gran Sutton used to interfere a lot when Mum and Dad were newly married, because they were so young. She would buy them things without asking if they were what Mum and Dad really wanted. One time she even ordered a carpet without asking what color they’d like(!). She chose a horrible mustard color, and Mum and Dad had to live with that carpet for years. They felt they couldn’t complain because she’d paid for it.

  I remember the day they saved up enough to get the mustard-colored carpet ripped up and put down laminate flooring. Mum was in Happy Mode like never before.

  Speaking of Gran Sutton, we’ve not seen her for weeks. I know she’s always been a bit annoying—but she’s my gran. It feels bad that she’s shut us all out like she has. That’s the bad side of Interfering Mode, thinking that you know best and punishing people when they don’t do things your way. It’s really Controlling Mode.

  None of this would have happened if it wasn’t for Stuart.

  1:16 p.m.

  Friday-night sleepovers are now all about Hannah talking endlessly about Neil Parkhouse and Thomas Finch—she’s getting as obsessed with boys as Mandy and the Clones! She keeps going on, practically in Interfering Mode, about how I should go out with Jonathan Elliott. She says that if I go out with him then we can all go out in a crowd.

  I’ve said I’ll think about it. I’m getting sick of staying in on my own on Saturday nights while Hannah and Loops go out on their so-called dates—which involve hanging about at the park. It’s just what we’ve always done, but now it’s with the boys.

  I’m off to meet Hannah and Loops in ten minutes. My newly interfering mum has been quizzing me about where I’m going and when I’ll be back. I could see her looking at my short skirt disapprovingly. She opened her mouth to say something but obviously thought better of it and shut it again. She knows I always get dressed up when we go to Oxford.

  We’re going to buy some bits and pieces for our Halloween costumes. Usually we trick-or-treat on Halloween, but this year we’re old enough to go to Uncle Pete’s annual party. The last few years Mandy and I’ve had to content ourselves with helping Mum get all dressed up for it, but now Uncle Pete’s finally relented and said teenagers are welcome. Result! I know it’s still a few weeks away, but we’re ridiculously excited. Well, this is Brindleton, remember?

  We’re going to dress up as cats. It’s an easy costume: black tights, leotards, cat ears and painted-on whiskers.

  Stuart arrived ten minutes ago and he’s gone straight off fishing with Jack. Jack loves it now, and he’s got his own rod and fishing net. He looks happy—like a proper little fisherman. They go even if it’s raining. Mum usually joins them for a picnic lunch—though I’ve noticed Stuart’s started making his own sandwiches. “To save you the trouble,” he says, in Lying Mode. To save himself tuna with cheese and brown sauce, more like.

  5:00 p.m.

  The trip to Oxford did not exactly go according to plan. Well, not my plan, anyway. And I did not expect to have one of the most embarrassing things to ever happen to me in my life happen this afternoon.

  When I met Hannah and Loops at the bus stop, Neil Parkhouse, Thomas Finch and Jonathan Elliott were waiting too.

  “What are you doing here?” I said rudely.

  “We hear you’re going to get your cat costumes,” said Neil, “and we happen to be world experts on ears and whiskers, aren’t we?”

  “That’s right.” Thomas grinned. “And tails.”

  “I happen to know the best shop in Oxford for such things,” said Jonathan. “It’s near the covered market.”

  Hannah and Loops looked ecstatic that the boys were coming along, so I decided to remember my new mature outlook on life and not to spoil it by sulking—though I was tempted.

  It turns out they’re invited to the party at Uncle Pete’s too, which isn’t surprising, as half of Brindleton will be there.

  “Did you know,” said Jonathan, who had, of course, bagged the seat next to me on the bus, because the others were sitting in their cozy pairs, “that Halloween started as an ancient Celtic harvest festival? They thought the
dead came back to visit the living on that night.”

  “Spooky!” said Loops, in her impressed voice. I wish she wouldn’t encourage him.

  The trip turned out to be fun. We watched some fantastic street performers, had a McDonald’s (Coca-Cola was originally green—guess who informed us of that fact.…) and then we raided the party shop and got some cat stuff. Neil insisted on modeling a pair of cat ears on the way back to the bus stop, and Hannah giggled like it was the funniest thing she’s ever seen in her tragic life.

  “Did you know, if a cat falls off the seventh floor of a building it has a thirty percent less chance of surviving than if it falls off the twentieth floor?” said Jonathan.

  “Shut up! I do NOT believe that,” I said.

  “Let’s test it out,” Thomas Finch said, winking at me. “Let’s put the ears on Jonathan and chuck him off the top of something!”

  I’ve got to admit, since he’s been seeing Loops, Thomas has been more confident. He never used to speak up so much. And he’s actually quite funny.

  “Great idea,” I said. I’m quite relieved he no longer seems to hate me. He seems to have forgotten the library incident. If I’m totally honest, my heart gave a little leap when he winked at me.

  It was on the way back from Oxford that the radically embarrassing thing happened. Why is it always to me?

  By the time we got on the bus there was room to stand. We all shuffled down the middle aisle.

  I was holding on to the vertical bar thingy, swaying along like everyone else. Then, after a few minutes I heard the first snigger. Then there was another. I looked round, but I couldn’t work out what on earth everyone was laughing at. I hoped it wasn’t my legs, which I was worrying were looking skinny in my short skirt. Hannah and Neil were right at the back, so I couldn’t see them, but I could tell by looking at Loops and Thomas and Jonathan that there was something funny happening.

  “What?” I mouthed to Loops.

  She just shook her head in despair and looked at the ground. Thomas and Jonathan were doing a sort of silent laugh. I looked round and saw that other people also seemed to be finding something funny and they were looking at me.