Being Grown Up Is Cool (Not!)

by Karen McCombie

  “You’ve spelt ’knows’ wrong too,” Fee pointed out, sticking a finger (and a tiger Beanie) in my direction.

  Urgh … h ow had I managed to do that ?

  “I don’t get it, Indie…” muttered Soph, frowning at my top. “You’re not shy. And if you were shy, then everyone would know ’cause you’ve written it on there!”

  “It’s meant to be funny,” I tried to explain. “It’s meant to be…”

  I couldn’t think of the proper, grown-up word for being funny in a sarky way, so I just said “funny” again. Dylan and Soph and Fee stared at me then, making me feel like a total lemon.

  Suddenly, something zapped into my brain. Maybe Dylan and Soph and Fee weren’t grown-up enough to understand my new project. After all, Dylan was goofing around with a yo-yo, Fee was hugging a bunch of Beanie toys, and Soph didn’t get the joke on my T-shirt.

  Oops.

  I’d had a bit of a not-very-grown-up accident on the walk home from Soph’s. Something to do with a very big bubblegum bubble going …

  “Where’s Mum?” I muttered, bending over at the kitchen sink, with my nose squished flat against the draining board.

  Caitlin, meanwhile, was pressing ice cubes down onto my gummed-together clump of hair. (Frozen gum comes off easier than the chewy version, she said.)

  I didn’t want Mum to see me like this. The funny mood she was in this week, she’d probably end up telling me off again…

  “I think Mrs Kidd said there was an emergency at the rescue centre,” said Caitlin. “A snake tied itself in a knot or something…”

  “Are you sure?” I asked, turning my head sideways and frowning at her.

  Living with my mum and loving animals (nearly) as much as she did, I couldn’t help thinking that it didn’t sound like the sort of thing a snake would really do.

  “Um, or maybe she had a meeting. I can’t remember,” said Caitlin with a vague shrug. “I was in the middle of didgeridoo practice when she was leaving so I didn’t listen properly.”

  As she talked, I noticed that Caitlin was wearing the MOST amazing makeup. She’d used blue and purple and pink eyeshadow and sort of smudged it prettily together. It reminded me of the school fair last year when I got my face painted as a butterfly.

  “I like it. Your make-up, I mean,” I told her out loud, while in my head I added to my BEING GROWN-UP IS COOL list.

  Caitlin seemed pretty chuffed at the compliment.

  “Thanks, kid! I just started a new job today, so I’m making an extra-special effort to look nice.”

  “Oh? Who are you looking after this time?”

  It’s hard to keep track of the little babies and children that Caitlin looks after, ’cause of her getting fired and starting new jobs all the time.

  Actually, the fact that Caitlin gets fired all the time is weird. I don’t know why it happens, as she is very cool and nice and everything. When she babysits me, we have a lot of fun.

  Sometimes she fixes my hair in mad punk styles.

  Sometimes we just sit and watch telly and eat truck-loads of chocolate and Wotsits.

  And sometimes we play really funny games, like a brilliant kind of hide-and-seek, where she’s a vampire and she’s coming to get me.

  “I’m looking after a baby called Scarlett,” said Caitlin. “She’s pretty cute … but a wee bit shy.”

  I like Caitlin’s Scottish accent, and I like it when she says stuff like “a wee bit” instead of “a little bit”.

  “Hey,” Caitlin said suddenly. “Do you want me to do the same make-up on you?”

  “Yes, please!”

  And so for the next few minutes I sat very still and silent and let Caitlin concentrate on smudging rainbow colours around my eyes. The only sounds in the house were the doggy snoring of Dibbles, Kenneth and George, the bubbling of the fish tank and the of three tree frogs.

  And then the doorbell joined in.

  “I’ll get it!” I said, jumping up and racing the dogs to the door, just like I always did.

  Yanking the door open, I found Dylan on the doorstep, along with his bike.

  “Indie?”

  Um, he seemed to be looking at me all funny, as if I was some complete stranger, and not the step-sister he last saw twenty minutes ago at Soph’s place.

  And how come he said my name like it was a question?

  “Yes … it’s me, duh!” I laughed.

  “What’s up? Do you want to come in?”

  “Er,

  no…

  no,”

  he bumbled, backing away from me, which was hard, since Dibbles the dog had waddled out and grabbed the ankle of his jeans for fun.

  “Well, how come you’re here, Dylan?”

  “I was just cycling home, and I wanted to check you were OK. ’Cause you left Soph’s really quickly, like you’d gone …

  um…”

  “Gone what?”

  Dylan’s eyebrows (all two of them) did a little dance on his forehead, as if he was trying to figure out what to say next.

  And then he just came out and said it.

  “Gone nuts.”

  “Dylan! What are you on about?!” I gasped, feeling hurt and confused and annoyed with him all at once.

  “Oh, hellooooooooooooo, Indie!” a voice trilled over the hedge at that precise second.

  It was Mrs O’Neill, our nice old lady neighbour from over the road.

  I was quite glad to see an adult who spoke sense (ie Mrs O’Neill) instead of a little boy who said stupid things (ie Dylan).

  “Hello!” I said cheerfully to Mrs O’Neill.

  At the same time, I noticed Dylan shaking Dibbles off his leg and reversing his bike out of the gate.

  He didn’t even say bye.

  Honestly, what a strange “wee” boy he was (as Caitlin might say).

  “Oh! Are you all right, Indie, dear?” Mrs O’Neill suddenly asked, frowning hard at me. “Have you been in an accident?”

  “Er, no!” I said with a shake of my head, wondering if she’d gone a little mad. (That wasn’t a mad thing to say, by the way – Mrs O’Neill was often out polishing her wheelie bin or dusting her hedge.)

  “But then why do you look so … odd, Indie dear? And your eyes … aren’t they bruised?”

  “Um … it’s nothing. Honestly,” I replied, my heart suddenly beginning to sink. “Listen, I’d better get back to my homework.”

  With a friendly wave, I quickly shut the door and turned around to look at myself in the hall mirror.

  Uh-oh.

  Caitlin had been so keen to do my eye make-up that she hadn’t finished picking off the hardened bubblegum in my clump of hair. It was now standing straight up at the front of my head, like a fringe in a force 10 gale (with bubblegum in it…).

  And if my hair was standing straight up, it meant that Dylan and Mrs O’Neill would be getting a full-on glimpse of my half-an-eyebrow.

  And maybe Caitlin’s version of the blue, purple and pink butterfly eye makeup looked great on her, but I could see that from a distance, it might look like I’d gone three rounds with a kangaroo in boxing gloves.

  Oooh, this trying to be grownup thing was much,

  MUCH

  harder work than I’d expected…

  I came up with the latest reason for my list this morning, before I left for school.

  Mum had been all flustered and grouchy again. I didn’t know what was making her that way, and thought that asking might make her even more flustered and grouchy.

  So I just tried to be useful and fed the dogs their crunchies, and Smudge the cat her meaty chunks, and all our fish their flakes, and the tree frogs their crickets (yuck…).

  “Listen, Indie, I’m going to phone Dad and see if you can go to his for tea after school. I’ve got to work late at the rescue centre again today, and Caitlin says she won’t get back in time to mind you.”

  Ah, so that was why Mum was stressing. She’d been wondering what to do with me. Not that she needed to do anything with
me – I could look after myself for once, couldn’t I?

  And anyway, I didn’t want to go to Dad’s – at least, I didn’t want to go to Dad’s and see Dylan after looking like such a dork in front of him yesterday…

  “Mum, I could just come home! I don’t need anyone to look after me!” I protested.

  That’s when Mum made a total fuss and said I was way too young to be left on my own.

  Great.

  Somehow I managed to convince her that I had lots of homework and wouldn’t be able to concentrate at Dad’s ’cause of Dylan being there. Could I maybe just go over to Mrs O’Neill’s for a couple of hours?

  After that fun start to the day

  (not),

  I spent the morning at school…

  Meet me in park after school?

  I’d texted him, as I waited in the school lunch queue for sausages and mash.

  He didn’t get straight back to me – so by the time I’d got to the pudding section I panicked and sent him a photo-message of my face too. Well, not my face, exactly … more my left half-an-eyebrow, so that he knew I knew he knew.

  If you see what I mean.

  OK he’d suddenly texted back.

  Where in park? Not beside swings and slide -you might frighten little kids!

  Well, ha, ha, ha, I thought, rolling my eyes.

  But Dylan was being quite funny, I supposed.

  Anyway, here we were in the park: me and my quite funny step-brother Dylan.

  Dylan mumbled aloud, reading my opened notebook upside down as he sat on the grass next to me. “Is that another reason why BEING GROWN-UP IS COOL?”

  “Yep,” I said with a nod. “I came up with that one ’cause Mum doesn’t like the idea of me being home alone. Don’t know what she thinks I’d do. I’m not a baby – I wouldn’t exactly stick my fingers in the sockets or play with matches!”

  “Yeah, but maybe you might have an accident or something…” Dylan suggested.

  “How much of an accident could you have, sitting on the sofa watching TV and eating biscuits?!” I laughed.

  “Dunno.”

  “But just think about it,

  Dylan; think how amazing it would be if you said you could look after yourself and people just went …

  ‘OK’!”

  “Is that important?”

  “Well, course it is!” I told him. “It would mean people trusted you, and didn’t feel like they had to watch over you every single second of the day!”

  Dylan blinked very fast, as if his brain was a computer and he was storing information.

  It didn’t seem like he was planning on saying anything though (Dylan can be a bit odd, in the nicest way), so I decided it was time to tell him why I’d asked him here.

  And then a noise got in the way.

  “What is that?” I wondered aloud, glancing around at the park for signs of

  “My phone,” said Dylan, his face clouding over as he stared at the screen.

  Only Dylan would have a ring-tone that sounded like Zebedee from The Magic Roundabout …

  “Aren’t you going to answer it?”

  “Nope,” he replied, shoving it back in his pocket. “It’s my mum. I’ll speak to her later.”

  “Uh, all right. Anyway, I wanted to ask a favour. I know I looked freaky yesterday, but I was just fooling around with Caitlin. And about my eyebrow, well—”

  Sounded like Dylan had a text message now. I waited as he took his phone out, frowned again and speed-texted something back.

  I thought he might tell me who he was texting, but instead he just looked up and said, “How did you do it?”

  I couldn’t figure out what Dylan meant (for the zillionth time), and then I sussed it.

  “Doesn’t matter,” I said, smoothing the long bit of hair over my eyebrow. “Dylan, I really need you to PROMISE me that you won’t say anything about it to anyone. Specially anyone like Soph and Fee!”

  “How come you don’t want them to know? Aren’t they your best friends?”

  “Yes, but they’d so tease me if they knew. I mean, even I would tease me if I saw my half-an-eyebrow.”

  Honestly, I couldn’t face Soph and Fee taking the mickey out of me, specially since Mum was making me feel bad enough. Last night, she’d smothered ‘soothing’ cream on my bald bit of eyebrow. The sort of ‘soothing’ cream you put on babies’ bums when they’ve got nappy rash.

  Oh, the shame…

  “It won’t take long to grow back, I hope,” I waffled on, “so it’s not like I need to hide my eyebrow for ever or—”

  Ah-ha. My more sensible- sounding phone this time.

  “Hello?”

  “Indie? It’s Dad,” said my, er, dad.

  “Have you heard from Dylan today?”

  “Huh?” I huhed, playing for time as I glanced over at my step-brother, and made a sign for him to stay shushed.

  “He was supposed to be home half an hour ago – Fiona’s very worried.”

  “Oh?”

  (More like uh-oh.)

  “She tried to get hold of him on his mobile, but all she got back was a very cheeky text, saying that he was old enough to look after himself!”

  Oops. Did Dylan do that ’cause of me? Absolutely…

  “Really? Oh – I just remembered … I did get a text from him about five minutes ago, saying he was on his way home.”

  Wow, I was such a lousy actor. Luckily, Dad fell for it.

  “Oh, that’s a relief. Still, I’ll have to have a word with him about texting his mother in that tone of voice…”

  “Um, listen, Dad, I’ve got to go – I’m … with someone !”

  Blip – I switched the phone off quick before I had to admit that the someone was Dylan.

  I hadn’t thought being a cool grown-up would be quite so complicated, or mean getting my little step-brother in such a huge heap of trouble.

  Little did I know I was also about to be in a HUGE heap of trouble myself…

  On the way home from the park, I tried to take my mind off the trouble I’d got Dylan into, all because of my list.

  So I thought about tree frogs.

  And here’s what I thought about tree frogs… I might technically be a kid, but I knew TONS about animal stuff that most adults didn’t know. Like with tree frogs, I knew that…

  The tree frog stuff was rattling around my brain when I turned into our street and saw something that made my stomach do a backflip.

  Mrs O’Neill, our old lady neighbour, was standing on the pavement – her nicely dusted hedge behind her – and she was crying…

  Mum – who was supposed to be working late today – had her arm around Mrs O’Neill and was giving her a pat on the back with one hand, and pressing her mobile to her ear with the other.

  HELP … what was wrong? I started running towards them, desperate to find out what was going on.

  And then – as they both set eyes on me – it dawned on me that I was what was going on.

  “Indie!!” Mum called out sharply. “Where have you been ?”

  Her face was doing the opposite of smiling.

  “The park…?” I told her, in a teeny-tiny voice, realizing I’d forgotten all about Mrs O’Neill minding me.

  “Oh, Indie! Thank goodness! You’re not dead!” gasped Mrs O’Neill, hurrying towards me in her cosy cardie and slippers and giving me a HUGE head-to-chest hug.

  “The park?” I vaguely heard Mum say. “Well, you weren’t at the park with Soph or Fee, because I just called them! And you know you’re not allowed to go to the park on your own unless you’ve got the dogs with you!” Mrs O’Neill’s arms – and cardie – were wrapped around my head so tightly it was hard to hear Mum properly.

  “Mmm … I wasn’t at the park on my own … I was with Dylan…” I mumbled, not sure if Mum could hear me back.

  She could.

  “With Dylan? Well, who you were or weren’t with isn’t really the point, Indie. The point is, we’ve been worried sick about you! Mrs
O’Neill expected you at her house straight after school,” I heard Mum rant. “And when you didn’t turn up, she had to phone me at work to let me know you’d gone missing. I was just on the verge of phoning your dad, and then the police!”

  “The police? But … you didn’t … have to … worry! I hadn’t … gone … missing!” I tried to protest, as Mrs O’Neill hugged me tighter, kissing the top of my head like I was a long-lost cat that had turned up on her doorstep.

  “India, you’re only ten years old – of course I’m going to worry about you! Especially when you had your mobile switched off!”

  O’Neil s cardie-hug, I realized that I had switched it off – in case Dad phoned again trying to track down Dylan.

  “Mum, I’m sorry…” I muttered, gently wriggling free of Mrs O’Neill at last.

  “Indie, I’m sorry too… I was hoping you could be more grown-up, but I see you can’t,” said Mum, rubbing her face with both hands and looking miserable. “Look, can you go home, please? Caitlin’s just arrived, and I HAVE to get back to work.”

  Ouch!

  Mum’s words and tone stung like the prickliest nettles. I knew I’d messed up, but when did she get to be so grouchy with me?

  Whatever – I did what I was told and walked towards our house.

  And that’s when I suddenly thought of my sixth reason why …

  Mmm,

  wouldn’t

  that

  be nice…?

  So, I’d scared Mum by being late home.

  Then she was so annoyed with me that I got sort of scared too.

  About five seconds – and five steps away from Mum – later, that made me come up with my seventh reason why .