The Parent Problem

by Anna Wilson

  ‘It’s COOL!’ he says, pounding the air with pretend drumsticks.

  ‘What’s all the noise?’ says Mum, coming out of the kitchen.

  ‘Harris is excited cos next door have drums,’ I say. ‘As if that is something to celebrate.’

  ‘Oh, lovely,’ Mum coos. ‘Someone with a bit of creativity – that will liven up the street.’

  ‘You won’t be saying that when you can’t sleep because they’re playing the drums all night,’ I say.

  ‘Well, I think it’s fab,’ says Mum.

  I cringe. Why does she have to use words like that?

  ‘Yeah!’ says Harris, punching the air. ‘Maybe they are rock stars.’ He starts jumping up and down, holding his arms as though he’s got a guitar and begins violently strumming the air.

  Mum grabs a hairbrush from the shelf by the stairs. ‘Cos we all just wanna be big rock stars!’ she bellows.

  ‘Give me strength,’ I say.

  ‘Well, you had better get used to me dressing up in sequins and sashaying along to groovy tunes,’ Mum says. She puts the hairbrush back and gives a twirl in the jumble-sale (sorry, vintage) satin skirt she showed me the other day.

  I stare at her. ‘What?’

  Mum beams. ‘While you have been spying on the neighbours, I have been Surfing The Net,’ she says.

  Uh-oh. I scrutinize Mum’s face for hints of what to expect next. She is grinning and looking pleased with herself. This does not bode well.

  ‘Have you been shopping online?’ Harris asks. ‘Oh yay! Have you bought us a new TV?’

  Mum ruffles his hair. ‘Sorry, little bean,’ she says. ‘I still haven’t won the lottery, so the answer to that will have to be a big fat no.’ She makes the kind of noise they play on quiz shows to indicate that a contestant has lost: ‘Eeeh-uuuhhh!’

  Harris whines. ‘Aaaawwwwooo.’

  ‘What then?’ I ask. ‘Mu-um! Please don’t tell me you’ve been “liking” Aubrey’s posts again?’

  Mum shakes her head and says, ‘No, come into the kitchen and I’ll show you . . .’

  ‘Oh my goodness!’ I cry. ‘You haven’t gone and posted another embarrassing photo of me as a baby so that all my friends can see? Why do you keep doing these things?’ I drop my head into my hands.

  It should be illegal for parents to follow their kids online. Mum is always stalking me and posting stupid comments like, ‘What are you doing on here? Thought you were doing your homework? ’ When is she going to learn that she is too old for this kind of thing? I can’t stand it when she uses ‘winky face’. ‘Wrinkly face’ would be more appropriate.

  ‘You are ruining my life,’ I groan.

  ‘I hate to break it to you, Skye,’ says Mum. ‘I haven’t done any of those things, because – it’s a funny thing, I know – but my life doesn’t revolve one hundred and ten per cent around you. In fact,’ she says, her eyes glinting, ‘for one night a week from now on, it is going to revolve around me. Which is what I was about to explain until you got all stressy on me.’

  I groan. ‘Don’t say “stressy”. No one says “stressy”.’

  Mum ignores me. ‘Come on, I want to show you the website,’ she says, beckoning me and Harris into the kitchen.

  ‘But I want to go back outside and spy on the neighbours,’ says Harris.

  ‘You won’t have to spy on them for long,’ Mum says over her shoulder. ‘I’m going to invite them round once they’ve had a chance to settle in.’

  ‘And once you’ve had a chance to change your clothes, I hope,’ I mutter.

  If Mum hears me, she doesn’t react. ‘So . . .’ She goes over to the kitchen table where her laptop is open. ‘I have been thinking for a while about getting a new hobby. I was having a look at evening classes—’

  ‘Not this again!’ I say. ‘The last time you did this we had to listen to you practising Italian all hours of the day and night. And you set the satnav to Italian – you nearly crashed the car when you went straight on instead of turning right and ended up on the pavement outside the cinema.’

  Mum laughs. ‘Oh yes, I’d forgotten about that. Che scherzo!’ she adds in a sing-song accent.

  ‘Well I haven’t forgotten,’ I say. ‘Livvy and Izzy were waiting outside and you almost mowed them down. They have never let me forget it.’

  Livvy and Izzy are twins in my year and they are the most evil people I have ever met. Their surname is Vorderman, so Aubrey and I call them the Voldemort Twins, or the VTs for short. They take great delight in the misfortune of others. Particularly in mine.

  Mum is rolling her eyes. ‘You need to chillax a bit more, Skye,’ she says.

  ‘How can I “chillax” and “stop being stressy” when you insist on saying things like “chillax” and “stop being stressy”?’ I say. ‘Don’t forget the time you joined that drawing class and our house was covered in sketches of ugly naked people.’

  ‘That was Art,’ Mum says. ‘It was a serious life-drawing class where I learned important skills.’

  ‘All those bottoms were very funny,’ says Harris, snorting with laughter. He wiggles his own (thankfully not naked) bottom to make a point.

  ‘ANYWAY,’ I cut in, before Mum starts going on about the natural beauty of the human body. ‘Are you going to tell us what crazy idea you have had for a hobby this time?’

  Mum smiles. ‘It was this lovely new outfit that gave me the idea,’ she said, twirling around.

  ‘Why do you keep doing that?’ I ask.

  ‘Because,’ she says, curtsying, ‘I am going to join a ballroom-dancing class.’ She flings her arm out and gestures to the laptop with a flourish.

  There on the screen is a site for a class in the town hall. I read it out loud.

  ‘“Tuesday evenings, seven till nine. Learn to dance together. HAVE FUN! BE STYLISH! GET FIT! Follow in the footsteps of our professionals and you’ll soon be tangoing your toes off and waltzing your way to weight-loss!” ’

  Oh. My. Actual. Life.

  Mum has grabbed Harris by the hand and is holding his arm high, spinning him round as though he is a ballerina.

  ‘This is fun. Can I come dancing with you?’ Harris says, his eyes shining.

  ‘No, sausage. It’s an evening class for grown-ups,’ Mum says. She lets Harris go and he makes a big deal out of feeling dizzy, staggering around the kitchen and ending up on top of Pongo, who is snoozing in his basket in a patch of sunlight. (Harris likes joining Pongo in his basket. He does it a lot. That’s how weird he is.) Pongo takes this intrusion as a cue for a game: soon the two of them are chasing each other and running rings around the table, knocking the chairs flying as they rocket past.

  I feel my stomach go cold as I realize what day it is. ‘Tuesday? Did it say Tuesday?’ I turn my back on Harris and Pongo and confront Mum. ‘It’s Tuesday today. You’re not going tonight, are you? You can’t.’

  ‘Why not?’ she says.

  ‘Er, well . . .’ I grasp at the first reason that comes to mind. ‘School starts tomorrow,’ I say.

  ‘Not for me!’ says Mum.

  ‘OK, but you should be here for us the night before school starts!’ I say.

  Mum’s face falls. She looks a bit like Pongo when he’s been told off for chewing something he shouldn’t have. ‘I guess so,’ she says. ‘But I won’t be late. I can’t miss the first class, Skye.’

  For one tiny second I feel my heart go melty at Mum’s wounded-puppy face, but then my brain is flooded with images of her doing the foxtrot in spandex and the rumba in sequins – all with other people her age, who no doubt also love spandex and sequins – and all my meltiness hardens into a hot knot of rage.

  ‘You so can miss the first class,’ I say. ‘In fact, you can miss the second and the third and every single one after that!’

  Mum looks shocked. ‘What has got into you, Skye? What earthly reason have you got for demanding that I give up on this idea? How does it affect you in any way?’

  ‘I’ll tell you how,’ I
say. ‘Number one, because it is hideously embarrassing, and number two, because it is the last night of the holidays and there is no way I am putting up with Milly Bad-Breath Brockweed coming round and “babysitting” and telling me I can’t watch what I want on TV and that I have to go to bed early.’

  ‘I think ballroom dancing sounds amazing, Mum,’ Harris pipes up, pulling his head out from under Pongo. ‘On that show we like watching they are always saying that dancing keeps the elastic bits in your body all elasticky and means you can do awesome stuff like the splits. I can already do the splits,’ he adds. He then proceeds to demonstrate while sitting on top of Pongo. ‘SEVEN!’ he shouts, copying one of the TV show judges. He flings his arms wide in a triumphant gesture.

  The dog wriggles with delight and sniffs Harris’s bottom.

  ‘Thank you, Harris,’ says Mum with feeling. ‘At least someone believes in me.’ She makes a point of looking at me, her mouth twisting in that way she has when she is trying not to get cross. ‘I can see that you don’t like being left with Milly, and I am sorry about that, but I don’t have anyone else to ask and it will only be once a week. What I can’t understand is how you think I will be embarrassing you, Skye? I am hardly going to cha-cha-cha down the High Street in front of everyone we know.’

  ‘You say that now,’ I warn her, ‘but one whiff of a Latin beat and you will not be able to stop your hips from swinging. That’s what they say on that dancing show Harris was going on about. I only watched it once with you and it gave me nightmares. Lots of old, wobbling bodies prancing around to what you call “groovy tunes” while their partners try to heave them up into lifts and spin them around—’

  ‘What a lovely image, Skye,’ Mum snaps. ‘Anyway, I don’t really care what you think – or anyone else, for that matter. I am going to do it. So there.’ Her jaw is set at a very stubborn angle. ‘In any case,’ she adds, ‘I need to meet people my own age.’

  I gawp at her like a goldfish who has lost all thirty seconds of its memory. ‘Meet people?’

  What does she mean by meet people? She already knows people. She goes to work in an office with ‘people of her own age’. Why does she need to meet any more?

  ‘Yes,’ says Mum. ‘Meet people. As in “make friends”.’ Her cheeks flush pink as she says this.

  Why is she blushing?

  Then a huge penny the size of a dinner plate drops into the slot machine of my mind.

  Oh no. Oh nononononono. When she says ‘people’, she doesn’t mean male ‘people’, does she? As in men? As in boyfriends?

  I cannot bring myself to ask her this.

  I really don’t think I want to know the answer.

  There is only one person who can help me deal with this.

  ‘I’m calling Aubrey,’ I say.

  It is later in the afternoon and the removal men have gone from next door. Aubrey has come round and she and I are sitting on the beanbags in my room. I am hoping and praying that Mum has not rushed around to introduce herself to the neighbours dressed like a giant purple boiled sweet.

  Aubrey is putting a lot of concentrated effort into painting her toenails a toxic shade of green. She brought the nail polish with her. I don’t have any. I have never seen the point of painting toenails. Most of the time no one gets to see them as they are in shoes or socks or slippers. And who thinks green is a good colour to put on your body anyway? It is the colour of pus.

  I have just been filling Aubrey in on Mum’s crazy internet-fuelled dreams of becoming the next winner of the Strictly Ballroom trophy, but I can tell she is not really listening.

  I sigh loudly to get her attention. ‘I wish my mum was like yours.’

  ‘Hmm?’ she says, finally looking up from her Shrek-coloured toenails.

  ‘I said,’ I repeat with a certain amount of impatience, ‘I wish my mum was like yours.’

  ‘What?’ Aubrey scoffs. ‘A woman who speaks Elvish and dresses up in long flowing robes to go to HobbitCon to talk to dwarves? Tell you what, I’ll swap you.’

  You wouldn’t think that a household that worships at the altar of all things Tolkien would be a saner place than my home, but let me tell you, it really is.

  ‘At least your mum doesn’t prance around in public in low-cut tops and sequins and join a ballroom-dancing class to try and get a boyfriend,’ I moan.

  ‘Oh, pur-leeeese,’ says Aubrey, rolling her eyes. ‘What is so great about my mum?’

  ‘Everything!’ I say.

  Not that this is what I actually want to talk about, but never mind . . . To be honest, I had expected a bit more of a reaction from Aubrey about Mum wanting to ‘meet people’ (in other words, find a boyfriend).

  I get up and pace the room. ‘For a start, your mum doesn’t wrestle your brother and dog on the floor and say things like “You’ve just got to chillax”.’

  Aubrey snorts with laughter. ‘Well, I don’t have a brother or a dog, so that’s probably why. And it’s a good thing. Imagine what Mum and Dad would have called a boy?’

  Aubrey has a sophisticated older sister called Cora who is hardly ever at home. (Sounds like the ideal sibling to me.) She is also named after a character from The Lord of the Rings. Aubrey is jealous of her name because ‘at least it is normal-sounding’.

  I give a dry chuckle. ‘Yeah, it might be awkward having a brother called Frodo. Anyway, back to me and my life,’ I say with emphasis. ‘What do you think about Mum’s latest crazy idea?’

  ‘So she wants to learn to dance? So what?’ Aubrey asks. ‘It’s not like she’s going to pick you up from school in her outfits or anything. Mind you,’ Aubrey sniggers, ‘do you remember the time she came to get you from swimming dressed as a pirate?’

  I hide my face in my hands. ‘Don’t!’ I wail.

  ‘What was that all about again?’

  ‘She had gone trick-or-treating with Harris,’ I say, ‘and apparently “didn’t have time to change” before coming to get me.’

  ‘Aw, come on,’ says Aubrey. ‘It’s cool that your mum doesn’t care what people think . . .’

  ‘Yeah, like you mean that!’ I say.

  We both start giggling, as we remember Mum’s pirate outfit.

  Then something catches my eye out on the street. It is the boy from next door. He is standing on the pavement outside our house, looking up at me. What is he doing? Oh great, he probably thinks I am spying on him now. I turn away and face Aubrey, but she is putting another layer of polish on her toes and has started chatting again.

  ‘. . . and your mum has been on her own for a while,’ she is saying. ‘Maybe it’s time she met someone?’ She gets up and walks over to the window towards me.

  ‘Why are you walking like that with your toes in the air?’ I ask.

  ‘So the nail polish dries properly and doesn’t get carpet fluff on it, obviously,’ Aubrey replies.

  How does she even know these things?

  ‘Cheer up, Skye,’ she adds as she gives me an awkward hug, leaning forward so her toes don’t bash against me.

  ‘Thanks,’ I say. ‘But Mum has not been “on her own”. She has me and Harris and Pongo and Gollum.’

  ‘I know,’ says Aubrey, releasing me. ‘But she has been Without A Partner for some time.’ She puts her head on one side and smiles.

  Why do I get the feeling she is patronizing me?

  ‘Yes, and it’s been fine being just the three of us, thank you very much. Why on earth would she suddenly start to talk about meeting people?’

  ‘Maybe she’s been thinking about this and didn’t want to tell you,’ says Aubrey. ‘You did say that she’s been flirting with Ben from the butcher’s counter at the supermarket.’

  ‘I know, I know! Don’t remind me,’ I groan.

  I can’t go to the supermarket with Mum any more. The moment she sees Ben she puts on this silly, high, girly voice and flicks her hair. (I am sure it is a health-and-safety hazard around all the chops and sausages.) Ben is about thirty, which is obviously ancient, but
Mum is at least forty and should know better.

  ‘Oh no,’ I gasp. ‘What if the flirting with Ben was all training for The Real Thing? What if Mum meets people at ballroom dancing and flirts with them and they flirt with her and – Oh! I cannot bear to think about it.’

  Aubrey laughs.

  ‘It is not a laughing matter,’ I say. Then I add, without thinking, ‘Oh flip. I hope Mum doesn’t try and flirt with our new neighbour.’

  ‘New neighbour?’ says Aubrey. She runs to the window and pushes her face up against the glass. ‘You didn’t tell me you had a new neighbour.’

  ‘It’s not that exciting,’ I say. ‘Harris was spying on them—’

  ‘WOW!’ Aubrey butts in. She jumps away from the window as fast as Gollum did the time she landed on the hob when it was still on.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Does your new neighbour have a son?’ Aubrey breathes.

  I frown. ‘Yes. At least I think so, I haven’t actually met them yet. Why?’

  ‘Is that him out there?’ Aubrey nods to the window.

  I peer out over her shoulder. The boy is still there, looking up at us.

  Flip . . .

  ‘Sit down!’ I say, dropping to the floor. I grab Aubrey by the hand and pull her away from the window.

  ‘Ow!’ she says, tumbling down on to me. Just before she falls I notice she gives a little wave. ‘What did you do that for? You can’t wave at him like that!’ I say.

  ‘Why not? I was only saying hello,’ says Aubrey.

  ‘I don’t even know him – YOU don’t even know him. It’s too weird,’ I say.

  Aubrey’s eyes are shining. ‘No it’s not – have you seen what a babe he is?’

  ‘A WHAT?’ I say.

  ‘A babe!’ says Aubrey. ‘As in “hashtag gorgeous”,’ she giggles and crosses the first two fingers of each hand over each other.

  ‘Hashtag?’ I say. ‘Seriously?’

  ‘YEAH! “Hashtag totally hot”,’ Aubrey squeals. ‘Look at him! He has the most A-MAZING hair. And those eyes . . . And he looks really cool – his clothes, I mean.’ She is literally babbling now.