Darcy Burdock

by Laura Dockrill

  ‘Hold tighterer.’

  ‘Gosh, it stinks up here of old naans.’

  ‘Bleugh.’

  ‘Oh, look, a cupcake tray.’

  ‘Hey, bring that down for tomorrow – leave it out so Mum gets the hint.’

  ‘Here it is!’

  ‘Show me!’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘That’ll do.’

  ‘Rinse it out. It looks like Mum just packed all this stuff without cleaning it. It’s all dusty.’

  We rinse the yellow bunny-shaped jelly mould out. We can’t find a tea towel so we dry it on our pyjamas. Then we dollop the jelly into the body of the jelly mould. Then shove the whole thing into the microwave.

  ‘How long for?’

  ‘I’m not sure – maybe an hour?’

  ‘Sounds about right. Most things usually take an hour, don’t they?’

  We shove the jelly in the microwave and decide to get ready for the day while the jelly cooks. When it comes out it will be like one big lovely jelly sweet.

  ‘Morning, kids!’ It’s Dad. He’s woked up as a monster and chases us around the hall and kitchen, scooping us up and tickling us so we laugh like hyenas. Poppy and Hector get tipped upside down but I don’t as much because I’m more heavier now and feel a bit fat in places actually, but I don’t let that upset me and just happily wait my turn to be tickled.

  ‘Thanks for my coffees! All three of them!’ He laughs.

  ‘Did you love them?’ Poppy asks, quite reasonably.

  ‘They were all cold. I have to make a new one.’

  ‘Sorry about that.’

  ‘You guys go and get ready and I’ll make a coffee and jump in the shower.’

  YES! YES! YES! A whole day of being with Dad and having a great laugh. Which is fabulous, because I was a bit worried it was going to end up like the day when Mum promised us the zoo which turned out to just be chaos.

  BANG!

  BANG!

  BANG!

  BANG!

  ‘What the—?’ Dad shouts. We smell it before we see it. Hot, thick lava. Plastic, melting, yellow and orange sun river, like an alien, gloopy, snotty, sticky, custardy, molten, sicky flood. And the microwave is black. Splattered, explosion of charcoal steam and electric burning. The powder soot smoke stains creeping up the wall. The wire burned out. The smell is thick, cloggy, plastic, plastering up our noses and retching the back of our throats. Mum is pounding down the stairs, wrapping her dressing gown around her.

  Dad is so angry he just shouts at us to get out and go away. Then he picks up the whole microwave quickly and boots it out into the garden where it singes in the grass. I don’t think he was meant to touch it. His face is so angry like a dangerous livid animal. We all stand together – Poppy, Hector and I – in a tiny small crowd, trying to hide like tincy crumbs.

  All Dad can say to us in his rage is, ‘You lied about the time! It’s so early!’

  And we creep up to our room. Far away from the rancid smell of burnt microwave, mushroom clouds of black smoke, crystallized sugar and melted plastic.

  Chapter Eighteen

  We have camed to the Adventure Playground to get out of the smoke-filled in-trouble house. We all have our tails very in-between our legs because we got SO in trouble about the microwave and Mum said it was Dad’s fault because he didn’t wake up with us. But really, it was definitely OUR fault. We all know that.

  It turns out I don’t know if I like the Adventure Playground as much as I thought. I mean, if I wanted an assault course, I’d go on one. It’s like training for the army! The slides are all really tall and winding and scary and the ladders go on and on and on. There’s this one tyre on a rope that slides along, except only all cool-looking growed-up kids that all know each other’s names are queuing up to go on it and I don’t want to look a fool in front of them. I can’t lose my insecurities and be myself like how I used to in the park and pretend I live in the jungle or whatever. So I just sit by Dad on the bench while he reads his book. I watch a dog sniffing another dog’s bum. The other dog doesn’t seem to mind it either, weirdos.

  Poppy and Hector play in the smallerer park and Poppy loves it because she can do everything and has basically become the superhero of the baby park, gliding along the monkey bars, whooshing down the slide, swinging kids off the roundabout, bouncing on the seesaw. Showing off. And I can’t participate, even though I want to. In case the big kids from the tyre swing see me having a laugh with the little ones.

  Four weeks into the holidays and it feels as though my life has not progressed in the slightest. At least Will is back soon.

  ‘Hi,’ says a voice. I turn round. It’s this boy with lots of little plaits like worms and glasses. ‘Want to play airports?’

  ‘How old are you?’ I ask?’

  ‘Eight and three quarters.’

  WAY TOO YOUNG, plus besides I hate it when kids say ‘three quarters’. You’re not eight and three quarters. It’s not cute. It’s annoying and you are eight. Just eight.

  ‘I have a sister that might want to play airports,’ I say back and call Poppy over.

  She pants towards us. ‘Wassup?’

  ‘Want to play airports with this kid who’s eight?’

  ‘And three quarters,’ he adds.

  ‘Whatever.’

  ‘Sure. I’ll play. Let me get Hector.’

  ‘I have my cousins here too. Maybe they can play.’

  Nobody told me there were others.

  ‘If we pretend this is the terminal and this is the check-in bit?’

  ‘Hey, the roundabout can be the carousel where you collect your luggage off ?’

  ‘OK. Cool.’

  I watch Poppy and Hector begin to bond and play. Dad watches me watching them.

  ‘Why don’t you join in, D?’ He nudges me. He is reading a book with a blue cover – it looks hard to read. ‘You like to play too.’

  ‘No I don’t! Not baby games,’ I want to snap, but I need to keep my calm. I’ve been doing so well at not being an Angrosaurus rex out in public (or anywhere, if I do say so myself).

  He glances me a look. ‘OK, fine.’

  I get lumbered with the job of taking people’s tickets when they board on the aeroplane. The aeroplane is the big slide. I don’t have to do much so I don’t mind. I just sit at the top of the slide. It’s just a bit annoying because I can see Poppy and Hector chatting to 8 and ¾ and all his cousins all the way down there by the sandpit and I just have to be all here on my own waiting for when they decide in the game that it’s time to board the plane.

  ‘Are you getting on the aeroplane yet then?’ I shout across, and 8 and ¾ has the audacity to shout back, ‘We’re just in Duty Free! Hold on!’

  I’m thinking, DUTY FREE, it’s a GAME. It’s IMAGINARY. There is no Duty Free, for crying out loud sake. Still I wait. Like an overripe lemon. Watching the other kids in the playground let their hair dangle to the ground on the back of a swing, trip up on their Velcro-strap trainers, toddlers crying, ice cream toppling off cones, mums shouting, dads laughing, mums laughing, dads shouting, nannies catching up with the old chitchat, and me. Alone. Waiting for people to get on my imaginary aeroplane like an absolute mug.

  I’m well bored. I know what I’ll do . . .

  ‘This is the LAST FINAL call for MISS POPPY BURDOCK, HECTOR BURDOCK and ALL THOSE OTHER PEOPLE THEY ARE WITH!’ I shout.

  Poppy looks up, mortified, like I’ve bombed her life.

  ‘I repeat!’ I shout again. ‘THAT THIS IS THE FINAL AND LAST CALL FOR ANY OTHER PASSENGERS FLYING!’

  ‘No!’ shouts Poppy. ‘That’s not fair, you didn’t give us an even fair chance to get on or enjoy the airport!’

  ‘It’s not my fault that you’re swanning about in Duty Free!’

  ‘I didn’t know the flight was about to take off.’

  ‘Yeah, well, it is.’

  ‘OK, quick! Guys! Come on!’ Poppy shouts to everybody with a worried look on her face. ‘We don’t want to miss the fl
ight.’

  ‘Where is this flight going?’ 8 and ¾ just has to get all involved, doesn’t he?

  ‘Italy,’ I say.

  ‘Oh no, that’s not us. Don’t worry, Poppy, we’re getting on the flight to Egypt.’

  ‘Oh, phew.’ Poppy is relieved, like she’s at a real actual airport and taking sides with this wormy-haired creep.

  ‘This goes to Egypt too,’ I say, all making it clear that I know best actually.

  ‘We are a DI-RECT to Egypt,’ he argues like I’m a two-year-old idiot, all spelling the sentence out.

  ‘Oh, I beg your pardon, I’m sorry, I get muddled up because I do so many flights. Sorry, this is in fact the direct to Egypt and I know because I WORK here.’

  ‘Really?’ 8 and ¾ snottily looks the slide up and down. ‘Are there first-class seats?’

  This boy is really getting on my nerves. Poppy and Hector and ALL the other cousins start snobbishly looking down the slide too as though it’s not to their taste. I feel myself beginning to take pride in the slide, embarrassed almost. Why is it covered in leaves and graffiti? It’s MEANT to be a first-class aeroplane to Egypt!

  ‘Of course, sir!’ I smile.

  ‘Very well then.’ They hand me their tickets. The tickets are tissues that one of the cousins’ mums had with them. I take them, thanking them as they pass. And then I just get the idea in my head to really show this 8 and ¾ who is boss, but I’m going to have to be clever about it, and I can’t lose my temper as I normally would do as I refuse to break my no-drama challenge due to a duel with this little 8 and ¾. Play along . . .

  ‘May I take a look at your passport please, sir?’

  ‘Errr . . .’ Ha! Got him now! He frowns.

  ‘You do have one, don’t you?’

  ‘I . . . erm.’ Stupid annoying showy-offy 8 and ¾ panics and pats his pockets furiously. His cousins and Poppy and Hector are all seated one after the other on the slide. 8 and ¾ looks so flustered he stares at Poppy in blaming fury. ‘DID YOU NOT PACK MY PASSPORT?’ he roars at her.

  ‘Don’t blame me!’ Poppy shrieks. ‘I only met you five minutes ago.’

  ‘You KNEW to pack the passports!’ he says, still locked in the improvisation game. ‘That’s your job!’

  ‘I’ve already seen POPPY’S passport!’ I lie. ‘Didn’t I, Poppy?’

  ‘Yes.’ Poppy sticks to the lie.

  ‘I’m afraid anybody without a passport can’t come to Egypt. Sorry about that.’

  8 and ¾ looks at the bark on the ground, hoping he’s dropped his imaginary passport somewhere, wishing for a leaf to fall, a chewing-gum wrapper to roll past, anything that will make a convincing prop as a passport, but I will not be convinced.

  Losing at your own game is the worst.

  And I can’t help but smile and wave as we take our seats, buckle up for take-off and enjoy a safe and pleasurable slide/flight to the pyramids.

  Chapter Nineteen

  ‘Darcy, it’s for you . . .’

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘A friend from school.’

  Huh? I don’t really have any friends from real-life school other than Will or . . . maybe there’s Maggie, I guess, but she’s on Girl Guide camp, making rope, eating beans out of tin pans and weeing in the bushes.

  Still, I nearly break my neck tumbling down the stairs. ‘COMING!’ I shout.

  It’s Leila! Leila is my secret special friend from school who is basically a ninja mixed with a detective mixed with a superhero . . .

  She’s lying outside my new house with her hands behind her head, chewing on a blade of grass like an absolute boss. Wow. Why’s she always got to be so good?

  I’m wearing a Minnie Mouse vest top and spotty turquoise culottes and my hair is in bedraggled space bun knots on either side of my head. Meanwhile Leila absolutely eclipses me, again, with her mighty coolness.

  ‘Writer’s Bump!’ (That’s the cool nickname Leila gave to me when we met at the school sleepover. It’s because of the funny bump on my finger that I got from writing so much.) She turns to me. She is wearing a camouflage two-piece. On me it would look like I was on my way to a fancy-dress party, but she wears it with red trainers and just looks great tbh. BLEUGH. BE SICK AT HER! Even the way she knows how to fold down her trainer socks so brilliantly at the back like an actual cool real person.

  I don’t bother asking her how she knows where I live. If you read my last writing book you would know that Leila just pops up wherever and whenever Leila feels like it. And Leila always knows. It wouldn’t surprise me if she kidnapped the removal men or something.

  ‘Did you want to hang out today?’

  ‘Of course. Sure.’ I don’t hesitate to look like an absolute eager beast as per usual when it comes to Leila.

  ‘Do you want to go to the forest?’ Her eyes glint when she asks me.

  ‘Yeah, but I have to ask my mum first,’ I say, feeling all tumbling babyish, but it’s a true real-life unavoidable fact.

  ‘’K. Go ask your mum,’ she laughs. Out of her pocket she pulls a can of freezing cold Fanta and cracks it open with one hand and drinks it without her mouth touching the can. HOW does she DO that? WHO even HAS a freezing cold Fanta just SPARE hanging around in their back pocket?

  ‘Gimme a sec.’

  I dart into the house where Mum is arranging the under-the-stairs cupboard.

  ‘Mum, can I go to the forest?’

  ‘The forest?’

  ‘Yes please.’

  ‘What forest?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Well, go and find out.’

  ‘Oh, but MUM!’

  Mum is trying to jam the hoover in between these wobbly tins of paint and her patience is wearing awfully thin. I dash back outside. Don’t look TOO eager, Darcy! Hold it down.

  ‘Ready?’ Leila asks me. Her long blonde hair unfolds like autumn leaves.

  ‘Almost,’ I lie. ‘Which forest?’

  ‘Just there.’ Leila points into the distance where I can vaguely see some trees. That’s enough evidence for me. I run back in to Mum.

  She’s right under the stairs now, her face all red and hot and puffy.

  ‘It’s just across the road, behind the houses.’

  ‘No. I don’t know it, so I’d rather you didn’t, Darcy. You’ve got a whole new garden to play in outside.’

  ‘BUT MUM, please, I’M SO BORED.’

  ‘You always say it’s impossible to be bored.’

  ‘MUM! Can’t you just LET me go?’

  I get all tangled up and tight and stressed. I start to feel little fist balls clench either side of me and my teeth gritted up. My true Angrosaurus rex inside me wants to pour herself out and unleash but then a little tap at the door happens. It’s Leila . . .

  ‘Hello – Molly, is it?’ Leila says to my mum oh so cool and able to talk to mums . . . and how does she remember her name? I DO NOT KNOW.

  ‘Errr . . . yes . . . hello?’ Mum tips back and pushes her hair behind her ears like she’s talking to a queen. That’s the Leila effect.

  ‘If there’s a problem I’ve got a phone. You can take the number, but we are literally just going across the road.’

  ‘Yes, I’ll take your number, thank you . . . Sorry, I don’t know your name?’

  ‘It’s Leila.’ She winks at me when she says it and punches her number into Mum’s phone.

  I LOVE LEILA.

  ‘OK, well, be back in a couple of hours, I want you back for lunch, Darcy.’ FOR LUNCH? Mum says it like it’s an actual event, when we all know we just take turns to rummage in the fridge and see what’s in date or hasn’t already been taken or moan by Dad’s side until he bothers to put some pasta on the boil.

  ‘All right, Mum.’

  And we are free. FREEEEEE . . . RUNNING in the warm toasty sun, our trainers beating down the tarmac street, happy and sunshine free and our shadows and dancing Peter Pan silhouettes with the puppet strings cut, all sharp and slanted and tall with spiky spider legs.
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br />   ‘Right,’ Leila says, ‘we have to climb this fence.’

  OH NO. I HATE CLIMBING. ‘No problem,’ I lie.

  ‘Is that a skirt you’ve got on? Be careful in case it gets caught on the spokes.’

  ‘NO!’ I grin. ‘Culottes!’ I stretch my legs out to show the shorts are attached, thinking that she might be that so impressed with my shorts/skirt that she might forget to break into the forest.

  ‘Oh, cool! Just be careful you don’t rip them when we climb.’

  ‘OK.’

  The fence is made up of big black iron railings with spokes. Scary and not allowed. And then I start to wonder why isn’t there just a normal gate? I’m sure there is – it’s just Leila, being extra as usual.

  Then I watch her, with one hand, hurdle herself over the railings. And I am left. On the street. How do I even manipulate my body to get up something like this? Do I take a running jump? Do I throw myself at it and hope my body just snaps into place subconsciously and attacks the jump? Do I just run home?

  No. Come on, if Leila did it with one hand you can do it with two.

  ‘Come on, Writer’s Bump!’ She is already out of sight. What is she? A part-time squirrel?

  What if I smash my teeth out?

  And I just try and climb the painted shiny railings and my terrible trainers are just sliding off and my hands already hurt from tugging the spokes and I am using all my muscles but I can’t . . .

  ‘Here you go.’ It’s Leila, and she grabs her hands around mine and heaves me over. I can’t help but smile when I remember that this was how we met, with her dragging me up by the hands. It’s just as horrible the second time around. It hurts the entire time. Ouch. Ouch. YIKES! WAH! But I’m over.

  ‘OK . . . what now?’ I ask her.

  ‘We be wild!’ she says, and then she runs ahead. I follow her yellow-white hair swimming through and around the trunks like a flowing river, ribbons in a fan. ‘Let’s throw our shoes off!’ she says and kicks her shoes off and chucks them behind her head. I do the same too, clumsily kicking them off at the heel.