My Family and Other Freaks

by Carol Midgley

  My Family and Other Freaks

  Carol Midgley

  New York • London

  © 2012 by Carol Midgley

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  ISBN 978-1-62365-260-9

  Distributed in the United States and Canada by Random House Publisher Services

  c/o Random House, 1745 Broadway

  New York, NY 10019

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, institutions, places, and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons—living or dead—events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  www.quercus.com

  For lovely Lucy, who makes me laugh every day

  CONTENTS

  May

  June

  July

  August

  September

  October

  November

  December

  May

  Saturday

  7 p.m.

  I am writing this diary beneath my new Ikea duvet cover. I’m sweating like a pig on a sunlounger. A mousey-haired pig with blackheads if you want the full 3D picture. I may die from suffocation, but this is probably for the best. My life is so O.V.E.R. I cannot set foot in school ever again. I would die of shame. So, whichever way you look at it, I’m dead.

  Am never coming out, even though Britain’s Got Talent is on.

  7:10 p.m.

  Hmmm. Britain’s Got Talent sounds quite good. Dad is downstairs winding up my little sister Phoebe. It’s his usual trick of picking up the phone and pretending to book himself on the program. “I’m going to fart the National Anthem on stage,” he says into the phone, all serious as though he’s talking to the producer.

  Phoebe, who has just turned three and believes literally everything she’s told, is trying to grab it off him crying, “No, Daddy, pleeeeese don’t fart on TV.”

  This is quite funny, but I must not be tempted. I hate my parents. Hate them. If they hadn’t been canoodling on the sofa again (kissing at their age—in front of me! It’s practically child abuse) I wouldn’t have had to take the dog for a walk to avoid puking up and then I wouldn’t have bumped into HIM—Damian Griffiths from our year—dreamy, delicious, divine Damian as Megan calls him (she reckons she’s good at English but she just looks in a Roger’s Thesawhateveritis) and suffered the biggest humiliation of my 12 sorry years of life.

  Why are my mom and dad like this? Why can’t they be like normal parents and get a divorce? My friends don’t know how lucky they are having parents who hate each other. Stupidly in-love parents are a curse. My dad—and this is totally gross—pinches my mom’s bum and his face goes all pink and he says, “Ooh you’ve still got the body of an 18-year-old.”

  Hello? Is the man blind? How many 18-year-olds do you see with bingo wings and a cesarean scar? Emily Morgan’s big sister is 18 and she’s got a figure like Beyoncé. Mick Taylforth (who’s a bit of a perv) says she’s “fit as a butcher’s dog” and you could “bounce a tennis ball off her bum.” I think that’s a compliment. Whereas my mom is forty-bloody-four with a backside like a blancmange. So my dad’s a liar as well as a bad father.

  My brother, Rick, who’s 15 and growing his hair long and mostly ignores me because I am a “loser” (this from a boy whose room, the Stink Pit, smells like a wrestler’s bottom—not that I’ve ever gone up to a wrestler and smelled his bottom), well, he says they’re both selfish, and if we have any hope of going to university they’ll have to split up or at the very least lose their jobs because universities only want kids from underprivileged backgrounds now. Fiona Wilde’s dad left her mom for a barmaid and took her to Lanzarote and now Fiona’s form teacher, Mrs. Ryan, is dead nice to her and says, “It’s OK if you’re late with your homework, Fiona. I know your life is chaotic at the moment.” Chaotic? She wants to come around to our house/hovel sometime. Rick says Fiona could get to any uni she wanted now without doing any work because she’s officially from a “dysfunctional home.”

  Dysfunctional? University people are supposed to be clever, but they clearly don’t know the meaning of the word. Am too upset to write anymore now. If this diary suddenly stops, it means I have died from asfixya asphyxiation not enough air.

  7:13 p.m.

  Should somebody one day find my corpse and need to know why I lie here, this is my official last testament.

  What happened was this: I took Simon to the park (that’s the dog—he’s named after Simon Cowell because his teeth are really white) but first went to the cupboard under the kitchen sink to get poop-scoop bags. Except of course there were none left because my mom’s too busy flirting with Dad to ever bother doing the shopping so I had to take a Tesco carrier bag instead. Simon was very well behaved—by his standards, anyway. He only burst one toddler’s ball, though he did cock his leg up on someone’s picnic basket but I don’t think they noticed. Anyway, he did his poo; it makes me laugh because he always dances around in these tight circles before he “stoops to poop.” I picked it up because I’m a responsible citizen. It was DISGUSTING and all runny because Phoebe secretly fed him her porridge this morning when Mom wasn’t looking. I tied a knot in the top of the bag and was looking for a bin when I saw him. Damian. This is the boy I have spent most biology, math and English lessons staring at for the past six months. He is The One.

  He was sitting down chewing a piece of grass in a really cool way with Sean O’Connor, who’s a bit too weird and shy for my liking, but apparently can play the guitar so qualifies as acceptable even though he’s got nerdy hair.

  “Hi,” I said all casual and sophisticated—well, as sophisticated as you can be while swinging half a kilo of dog diarrhea. I call Simon to heel because I want to look like a woman in control.

  “Cool dog,” says Damian.

  “Thanks,” I say, trying to pull back my jacket so they can see the T-shirt Amber bought me which shows I am sponsoring an endangered cheetah. “We got him from a rescue shelter. He’d been tied to a railing outside Asda and left there. It took nine hours for the man who collects the shopping carts to realize he’d been abandoned. He was so thin they couldn’t even tell what breed he was.”

  “What breed is he?” they both ask at the same time.

  “A Labrador/Alsatian/spaniel/beagle cross,” I say proudly. It’s very rare.

  “They should bring back the firing squad for people like that,” said Sean, which to be honest was the most I’ve ever heard him speak. Then he said he was getting a collie from a rescue center as soon as his dad had cleared the rusty bikes out of the backyard.

  This was GREAT—me basking as a rescuing heroine, them both stroking Simon, who was wiggling his bottom really sweetly and only trying to hump their legs a little bit, when suddenly Damian leaped back screaming, “Ugggh! Get it away from me. Get it OFF!!”

  At first I thought he meant Simon and was thinking, Well, make
your mind up, buddy. You were all over him five seconds ago—but then I saw what he was pointing at: the carrier bag from hell. Yellowy poo was spraying out of the bottom. It was spattered all over Damian’s jeans like mustard, and they were his best ones from Topman, apparently. Oh Lord and Father, I’d forgotten that supermarkets now put air holes in carrier bags so stupid toddlers don’t put them on their heads and suffocate. Thanks, darling Mother. Not only am I now humiliated in front of the most gorgeous boy in school, whom I’d planned to marry but who now hates me, you apparently don’t care if I die of toxomplaswhateveritis. I could end up blind or dead or, worse, having to wear bifocal glasses. Never mind Fiona Wilde—it’s me who should be seeing a child therapist.

  8 p.m.

  Am definitely reporting my parents to the police for child cruelty. Just been downstairs for a Mini Milk from the freezer and foolishly told them what had happened and how I wanted to die or at least change schools. They were all weird and silent at first. Then I noticed Dad’s shoulders were shaking and Mom was holding her Take a Break magazine up to her face. They were LAUGHING.

  “I’m glad you think your daughter being ostracized and sinking into childhood depression is funny,” I screech.

  “You’re not ostrich-sized!” says Phoebe. “You’re much bigger!”

  Why is this child not in bed by now?

  “Oh, I wish someone had had a camera,” is all Dad said. It’s the first time I’ve ever heard him say anything positive about Simon. Normally he just makes sick jokes about the time he went to South Korea and ate dog (note to self—am never going to that sick country). He thinks it amusing to shout “boshintang” in Simon’s ear. Boshintang is dog-meat soup, but my dad is stupid because Simon can’t even speak Korean. Dad says we’re too soppy about animals in this country, and that something has gone wrong with evolution when it’s humans walking behind dogs carrying their sh** in a bag.

  Sore point, actually.

  But then when he’s on his own in the kitchen with Simon I hear him talking to him in a baby voice. “Do you want a Bonio, little lad?”—that sort of thing. So he’s a fraud as well as a liar and a bad father.

  10 p.m.

  Text Amber with an SOS. “Def leavin home at 16,” I write. “Major crisis. BTW can I copy yr French homework? xx.” Well, I hardly have time to think about some stupid essay called “Les Vacances” (très original, professeurs) with MY problems.

  Amber is my best friend. I’ve known her since we were two; we used to live on the same street and, as our mothers never tire of telling us, we were potty-trained together. Some people don’t get Amber because she’s a bit quiet and serious and obsessed with the environment. Sometimes—and I’m only saying this because I care—she can look pimply because she won’t wear makeup to cover them and only uses this non-toxic soap which is made from grass or elephant poo or something. But she’s very funny and loyal and always there for me in a crisis.

  Except now. Why hasn’t she replied to my text? Silly cow’s probably forgotten to charge her phone. Why can’t people be more organized? What if her best friend needed her? Must I be forever surrounded by selfish people? These are the questions of my so-called life.

  Monday

  5:30 a.m.

  Had a terrible dream that Damian’s mother was chasing me down the street with the dog-dirt jeans. I tried to run away but something was weighing my legs down. Wake up to find that it is Simon asleep, lying across my calves. I shove him off and he wriggles up the bed on his belly to lick my face. He knows I am hurting inside and he’s trying to comfort me. We have telepathy. I fall back to sleep with four stone of mongrel snoring in my ear and his paw on my shoulder. Bless his little rescue-dog heart—this is his way of thanking me for saving him from death row.

  7:30 a.m.

  Evil mother says I can’t miss school because then she’ll go to prison like that woman in the papers from Devon whose daughter had 94 days off. I say, “Mother, you should go to jail anyway for neglect.”

  Phoebe says, “What’s necklect?”

  “When your parents don’t look after you properly,” I tell her.

  “Oooh, I’m necklected!” she says. “There’s no cheese strings left.”

  “Exactly,” I say.

  I go upstairs to feed Deirdre, my degu, whose stinky cage is now on the shelf in my bedroom because Simon keeps pushing his nose through the bars and nearly giving her a heart attack. Everyone thinks she’s an overweight gerbil, but they are ignoramuses. She is actually part of the chinchilla family and a very exotic rodent, although in her home country of Chile they call degus brush-tailed rats. She’s the only one in the house who doesn’t try to ruin my life.

  7:45 a.m.

  Correction. Deirdre is also trying to ruin my life. She bit my finger, little stinking rat, and I was only trying to remove a bit of apple that had gone brown to stop her getting ill. Stupid, ungrateful, smelly, fat gerbil. I might put her in her exercise ball later and let the dog push her around the room with his nose to teach her a lesson. It’s cruel but, let’s face it, funny. Last time Phoebe clapped her hands and said, “Deirdre disco ball! Again. Again!”

  Can the RSPCA point cameras through people’s windows?

  8:00 a.m.

  My finger’s dripping blood and it’s art today. I need a bandage but, quelle surprise, we’ve run out. My mother is a slattern (we learned this word in English. It means “a slovenly woman”), so I have to wrap toilet paper around it and it’s all shabby like a First World War wound. My mom doesn’t seem to care because she’s listening to Chris Evans on Radio 2 and laughing at some kid who’s rung in to say his spaniel ate his homework and is now pooing an essay on Macbeth. I don’t mean to be rude, but if I had a live spot on national radio I’d say something a bit more amusing than THAT.

  8:25 a.m.

  Amber is at the bus stop. “Didn’t you get my text?” I say huffily.

  “Yes, didn’t you get mine?” she says.

  I look at my phone. I’ve forgotten to charge it and the battery’s dead. Bah. I tell Amber in full about the poo incident. She is snuffling and snorting with laughter. “Shut UP!” I say, a bit tearily, so she puts her arm on my back which is the signal that she’s sorry. “This is the boy I love-lust,” I wail. “What if he never speaks to me again? It will be like someone has switched the light off in my life. Everything will be in black and white, not color.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” says Amber, “don’t be such a drama queen.” She can be very snappish. “If he never speaks to you again over that then he wasn’t worth it in the first place. Besides, he and his friends are so worried about looking cool he probably hasn’t told anyone.”

  This might be true. Amber wants to help the planet when she grows up and, like all do-gooders, naively sees the positive side of everything, but please let her be right this time. Amber doesn’t really get what I see in the gorgeous Damian, but then this is a girl who is genuinely interested in algae, so she’s hardly normal, is she?

  8:30 a.m.

  Darling brother Rick arrives at the bus stop with two of his too-cool-for-school friends and totally ignores me. Why are they all growing their hair? Why do they call each other “bro”? Do they think they’re living in the Bronx?

  “Hello, big bro,” I say, just to annoy him.

  “Get lost,” he says, and gives me one of his withering looks. He thinks the dog-poo incident is another example of my cretinousness and says from now on he’s going to pretend that I never existed.

  “This is why I’m sometimes glad I don’t have a sibling,” says Amber, handing me the French homework. Amber is so right about everything.

  9:05 a.m.

  Amber is so wrong about everything. Written in huge letters on the form-room whiteboard are the words “Dench the Stench” with wavy “smell” marks coming off them. Everyone knows. Everyone is laughing. Even Fiona Wilde is snickering, and her miserable gob virtually never cracks a smile. This is mental cruelty. Why am I not being offered counsel
ing? Thank God Damian’s not in my form or I’d jump out of the window. Amber helps me rub it off the board, but I can see she’s smirking. To make myself feel better I tell her, “That pimple on your cheek is oozing pus.” She runs off to the toilets clutching her cheek. Well, if your best friend won’t tell you these things, who will?

  10:30 a.m.

  I hate biology. Hate, hate, hate it. Who cares how plants reproduce? Or that worms clean up the soil? I’m never going to chuffing eat soil, am I? Amber says it’s the key to life. Key to dying of boredom more like. Hopefully Miss Judd, the teacher, is ill again. She’s always ill, or late. Megan reckons she’s having an affair with Mr. McKay, the PE teacher. Ugh, he has nose hair and always smells of coffee. No wonder she’s ill all the time.

  Damian’s in this class; he’s ignoring me. He walks past quickly as if he thinks I’ve got another loaded poop-scoop bag hidden in my satchel which I’m going to pour over his head. He looks really handsome with his dark hair curling over his white collar. I get butterflies when I look at him. Well, more like big flapping moths actually.

  Maybe I should just go over and try to make a joke of it all. I will, I will. We’re all grown-ups here, aren’t we?

  10:32 a.m.

  Oh, dear God, no. Treasure “check me out, boys” Cavendish is walking toward him. What kind of person calls themselves Treasure, eh? Her mom and dad chose it when she was born because she was their “little treasure.” But since this fact would make you vomit every single day of your life, you’d just change it by deed poll as soon as you were old enough to hold a pen, wouldn’t you? But she hasn’t. She actually LIKES it—and that’s all you need to know about Treasure Cavendish. She knows I fancy Damian because Emily Morgan told her. Little snitch. I must remember to accidentally tell Andrew Slater, who she’s got a big crush on, that she still gets in bed with her mom and dad.