My Family and Other Freaks

by Carol Midgley

  Dad comes home and then trudges sheepishly to my room to apologize too. “I don’t know what to say, Dan,” he says. “We’re a pair of fools.”

  “Yes, you are,” I say. “But fortunately I’m a thousand times cleverer than the pair of you put together.”

  Dad is gawking at me quizzically. I’m grinning triumphantly. “Wait here,” I say, running to get my coat.

  5 p.m.

  Sean seems sad to let Simon go. “I’ve enjoyed having him,” he says a bit sulkily.

  “Come see him any time!” I say. “Mom will think you’re the nicest boy in the world when I tell her what’s happened.”

  Skip home with my dog. I know Mom’s going to offer to take me shopping for clothes too in an attempt to grovel. There is a God.

  5:45 p.m.

  Mom and Dad are standing in our front garden/ scrapyard waiting as I walk down the street with Simon. Like the lovely, forgiving animal that he is, Simon gallops to lick them and sniff their crotches too.

  “Is that …? What? Eh? How?” says Mom, clearly only capable of saying words of one syllable.

  “I think we can safely say our daughter is a conniving, duplicitous, lying little S.H.I.T,” says Dad. Then he bends to kiss me on the head. “That’s my girl!”

  I tell them what happened, about Amber and Sean and me getting up at 5 a.m. (That’ll be the first and last time in your life, says Dad sarkily.) Phoebe wants to know if Simon’s brought her a present back from his holidays. Mom says, “Well, Sean sounds a nice boy. You must bring him around for tea.” See—what did I say?

  Tuesday

  It is all around school about the SOS project. At break people gather around the four of us asking if it’s true that Sean and Neil hid Simon for a week in a secret attic and he lived on dead mice. Yes, we lie, because it sounds more exotic than the truth. Damian is standing so close to me I can smell his hair gel. I have turned the color of a lobster. My cheeks are so hot I think they might be hissing.

  Treasure hates all the fuss over me. “It’s only a DOG,” she says. “The disgusting dog, might I add, whose poo Danni sprayed all over Damian. Ugh, they shouldn’t be allowed near people.”

  I’m thinking up one of my more cutting replies when I realize Damian’s speaking. “Treasure?” he says. “Why don’t you just shut up for once?”

  I think I might have died and gone to heaven.

  6 p.m.

  I’m in my bedroom with Amber and Megan eating chocolate buttons. “So what do you reckon?” I’m saying to them. “Do you think this is my moment with Damian? Did you see him looking at me? He was looking at me, wasn’t he? Do you think he admires me or fancies me? Or admires AND fancies me? Should I buy some new clothes and move in for the kill?”

  Amber has gone a bit quiet and Megan’s saying half-heartedly, while eyeing Deirdre’s cage warily, “Yeah, sure—if that’s what you want.”

  What I want? They KNOW it’s all I’ve thought about for a year.

  “Amber?” I say.

  “Mmm, well—it’s, er, just that I think you can do a lot better than Damian,” she says.

  Better than Damian? Ha hahahahaha! With whom—JLS?

  “Look, I’m just saying there’s plenty more fish in the sea. Look around you. Open your eyes.”

  “Yes, Amber,” I say. “And when I open my eyes I see a vision of gorgeousness and, lo, it is Damian.”

  “He’s not all THAT handsome,” she says.

  Memo to Amber: you definitely should have gone to Specsavers.

  8 p.m.

  In kitchen with Mom. “Wendy came around again today,” she says. “She’s spitting feathers that we’re keeping Simon. Strange woman. Oooh, there’s a hardness to her.”

  Hardness? She’d make Fu Manchu look like Makka Pakka.

  Wednesday

  Call into the sweetshop on the way home from school for some Mega Dust sherbet. Am tipping it down my throat when Mrs. Papadopoulos who lives opposite comes running up. “Valerie …” she says (she has always, for some reason, thought my name was Valerie), “Valerie, there’s an ambulance outside your house. I hope everything’s all right.”

  Why do people say this? Do people usually call ambulances when everything is all right?

  My stomach feels like it has dropped into my legs. Run home imagining a life without a mother when I see her being carried out on a sort of stretcher on wheels by two paramedics. I must say she looks awful. “Mom, what is it? What’s UP?”

  The paramedics say that she was found collapsed at home. She had been trying to light the flame-effect gas fire in the living room when she keeled over and fainted. Her hair and eyebrows are all singed, but she’s telling me not to worry.

  “Mother,” I say, “you look like something out of Tom and Jerry. Seriously, you don’t want to look in a mirror.”

  Mr. Ainsworth from next door appears. “I called the ambulance,” he said. “It was that dog of yours.”

  Oh God above—what’s Simon done now?

  Dad emerges carrying Phoebe and looking dazed. “That dog is a total and utter …” I screw my face up in pain like I’ve just stubbed my toe, “… SUPERSTAR,” he declares, getting into the ambulance. “He was with your mom when she fainted. He jumped over the wall into the Ainsworths’ garden and wouldn’t stop barking until they followed him back into the house. God knows what could have happened if he hadn’t been there.”

  There are a million things I could say here. But this is not a time for smug told-you-so’s.

  I climb into the ambulance. Sod it. “I told you so,” I say smugly.

  I think I’ll rename him Saint Simon.

  6 p.m.

  It turns out that Mom is severely anemic, which is quite common in pregnancy, and that’s what’s been making her so tired and pale. The baby takes all your body’s iron, the doctor said, and it makes you faint. So babies are basically just thieves.

  The good news is that Witch Wendy should have been monitoring this for weeks but she has clearly been too busy obsessing over my dog instead. Apparently she’ll get into trouble for this. Yippee.

  The doctor gives Mom massive iron tablets. “These might cause constipation and piles,” he says.

  I remember the Anusol in Tesco and for what feels like the first time in days, I laugh.

  Mom is changing midwives.

  She’s also found out that she’s having … a boy. I hope his feet don’t stink like Rick’s.

  Thursday

  Dad buys Simon two steak-and-kidney pies.

  Friday

  Mom says Simon can have the Ugg boots forever. “Aaaaaaah,” says Phoebe, clutching her hands to her chest. “Now they can get married!”

  Saturday

  This is unbelievable.

  Rick has just come back from taking Simon for a walk—and guess what? When he was at the Memorial Gardens there was another boy there, about 18 years old, who Simon kept running up to, then running away, then running back up to him and running away, like he does when he’s found a dead bird. The boy seemed confused until he suddenly said, “That dog’s not Shrek, is it?”

  Rick was about to say, “No—Shrek is a cartoon ogre and this is a mongrel dog, you great numpty,” but then the boy said, “It is, it is!”

  Oh my God—it turns out that this boy, Aidan, used to be Simon’s owner before we got him from the shelter! Except that they called him Shrek.

  But this isn’t the best of it. Oh no. Aidan’s mom is … big drum roll … Witch Wendy! She is like the serpent, that woman.

  It was her that wanted rid of the dog, not Aidan, and she kept “forgetting” to buy Shrek food. One day Aidan came home from school and she said Shrek had ripped up her best cushion (quite possibly true, given his past form) and that she’d taken him to the rescue shelter. Except really she’d just tied him up outside Asda thinking that someone else would do it.

  Rick told Aidan what had happened and he was furious but said his mom has always been weird. Weird? She needs to be put in a padded ce
ll.

  I don’t think she realized Simon used to be her dog when she came to our house. He’s a lot fatter for a start. She just hates all dogs. But Simon knew her, which is why he growled at her …

  This feels like the end of an episode of Scooby-Doo.

  Sunday

  Neil is letting me copy his math homework. I go around to his to collect it. Sean is there. I tell him about the Simon/Aidan/Witch Wendy triangle. Sean says he’s going to find out where she lives and let Mitzy do a poo on her front step.

  Wish I’d thought of that.

  Monday

  Teacher gives me a pep talk about my “attitude” after I get a C plus in French. “You’re so quick-witted, Danni,” she says. “I just wish you’d use it for your schoolwork instead of making smart-ass remarks all the time.”

  Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah. A teacher said “ass.” I’m going to tell.

  Tuesday

  Damian keeps looking at me again. You know when you just know that someone’s staring and you can feel the side of your head prickling but when you look at them they look away and start scratching their nose? Like that. He did that four times in biology. Of course he could be staring at the pus-filled pimple on my forehead which is the size of Phoebe’s space hopper and which I’ve tried to cover up with my fringe.

  He’s still wearing her stupid bracelet. Damn. My Damian obsession is returning to max.

  What am I going to wear for the school Christmas Disco? That’s what I’d like to know. There is only a week to go. My mother SO owes me.

  Wednesday

  7 p.m.

  Quelle result. Mom and Dad gave me £20 because of all I’ve been through, and Gran gave me £10, although she said I wasn’t to tell Rick or Phoebe because on her pension she can’t be giving out tenners willy-nilly and it’s shocking what old people have to live on in this day and age and have I seen the price of gas, until I passed out with boredom on the sofa.

  Saturday

  Operation minidress. I’m in town with Amber. Mission: to buy a minidress that will blow Treasure Cavendish out of the water. Have found the perfect one on the internet. It’s made of pale blue lace, which I feel will bring out the color of my eyes and make Damian gaze into them and realize what a fool he has been.

  Get to shop. There’s only one left. It’s a size too small but I’m determined to get into it anyway.

  “It’s too small,” says Amber, sitting on the floor of the changing room. “The seams are straining across your bum.”

  Does she want to live to see her next birthday?

  Question: Can you go down a dress size in three days? Course you can.

  I buy the dress.

  I will eat only yogurt between now and Tuesday.

  7 p.m.

  I’m starving and everyone’s watching The X Factor and eating fish and chips, including Gran, who keeps saying how delicious they are. I make a play of not wanting any because I’m on a diet, then rush into the kitchen and steal fries off Phoebe’s plate when she’s not looking.

  8 p.m.

  I am starving. Now I know how Kate Moss feels.

  Sunday

  Still starving. Cannot resist a fried-egg sandwich for breakfast. Gran says, “Fried food will make that huge pimple on your head even bigger. And it will play havoc with your packet.”

  What’s the jail sentence for murdering your gran?

  Tuesday

  Day of the School Christmas Disco

  8 a.m.

  Poo, poo and triple poo. Gran was right. The pimple on my forehead has had babies. My tete is now an acne community center.

  Also I have lost … no weight.

  Mom, who’s still being nice, says I can borrow some of her Benefit concealer tonight. Thank God.

  9:30 a.m.

  Treasure comes over before geography. She’s actually smiling at me! “Are all of you coming to the disco tonight?” she asks, super-friendly.

  “All who?” I say.

  “You and the 27 boils on your head,” she says. All her nasty Klingons erupt into laughter.

  “Well, at least my head’s full of something other than fresh air—airhead,” I reply. It’s a lame riposte, but she’s hurt me and it’s the best I can think of.

  Then she leans forward and hisses, “Stay away from Damian, Clampett.”

  “Why should I,” I say?

  “Because one, he’s way out of your league. and two—”

  “Ooh, ooh!” I say. “Give the girl a sticker. Treasure can count to two!”

  Oh yes. I think that shut her up.

  6 p.m.

  This is going to be hell. I am going head to head with Treasure for Damian and she’ll have a new outfit and look like a supermodel, whereas my skin is like pink semolina pudding. But I am ready for my fate. Weirdly I feel quite relaxed, as if I’ve taken a chill pill. I am wearing:

  1. My lace minidress, £29.99

  2. My 1960s beret, which my mom says makes me look like Twiggy—whoever he is.

  3. Some tinsel around my neck. It’s ironic—OK?

  I look pretty good, despite the skin and the fact this dress is so tight I can hardly speak.

  The doorbell goes. Megan is here! She is wearing … eugh, a prom-type dress in pink and white silk. Does she realize we are not extras in Grease, the Musical?

  “You look like a giant trifle,” says my dad as I kick him under the table. He is SO rude. Megan looks a bit chinned until my father hastily adds, “I meant that you look scrumptious.”

  “You look, er, amazing,” I wheeze in my tight dress.

  “Are you OK?” says Megan. “Your face looks a bit purple.”

  The doorbell rings again. Amber is here! She is wearing …

  … erm, green cords. Again.

  But she looks quite pretty, with her hair tied up and a red top on instead of the usual dreary black boys’ T-shirt. “I’m probably only staying an hour,” she says. Sigh.

  Amber tells me I must promise not to cry tonight, whatever happens. As if.

  7 p.m.

  Dad drops us off at school. “Be good—and if you can’t be good, be careful,” he says, for the four-millionth time in his life. I don’t say anything because I can’t seem to breathe.

  “That dress is going to split if you’re not careful,” says Amber, ever the ray of sunshine.

  Biggins Bad Breath is minding the door. Wearing sneakers. I’ll say it again—he’s wearing SNEAKERS. Teachers should not be allowed to wear normal people’s clothes. It makes them look like they’re one item short of a meal deal.

  Oh, look. They’ve put balloons and a big inflatable Father Christmas in a net hanging from the ceiling. Hello? Do they think we are all still wearing pull-up pants? Still, at least there’s a DJ and the music is loud, loud, loud … We walk in all casual, but my head is swiveling, scanning the room like a meerkat for D and T. They aren’t here yet.

  I swing my hair a bit.

  “You look nice,” says Sean, suddenly apparating like Harry Potter.

  WHAT did he say? I look nice? Does he even notice such things? “Thanks, so do you,” I say, because my mom says that you should always return a compliment. Actually he does look quite nice in a boring white-T-shirt-and-jeans way, not like a big square in the short sleeved pale blue shirt he usually wears for school.

  The girls and me ask for three Dr. Peppers from the bar. “Bad Romance” comes on so we go and dance. One of the boys is doing quite funny Lady Gaga impressions on the dance floor. This is quite a laugh. No, it isn’t. Treasure and Damian have just walked in and she looks A.M.A.Z.I.N.G. Every head in the room turns to look at her like they do on films. She has had her hair put in rollers and blow dried so it’s mega curly, and she is dressed in a red dress, red hairband, red cardigan and red sparkly shoes. I don’t hate her. I loathe and despise her. Damian looks his usual miserable self.

  “Hi, Danni” says Treasure. “Brave of you to come—and in one of your little sister’s dresses. You look like 10 pounds of potatoes in a 5-pound sack.
”

  Yes, I definitely loathe her.

  8:30 p.m.

  Some boy from Year 10 is doing the DJ-ing and a load of girls from our year are hovering around him like giggly flies. He’s playing “I Just Can’t Get You Out of My Head” by Kylie. This is a bit retro, but at least it’s not a… oh no. Now it’s George Michael’s “Last Christmas”—a slowie. Just what I was dreading.

  Treasure has her head resting on Damian’s shoulder like a big, wet limpet, but her eyes are open and scanning the room like a basilisk to make sure I’m watching.

  Damian, I’m delighted to say, looks as stiff as a Topshop dummy. Where is Amber when you need her? Oh, look, she’s sitting with Neil, probably discussing how to save the two-headed natterjack or something. She looks over and gives me a shrug which says, It’s crap that they are slow dancing in front of your very eyes—but, hey, what can you do?

  Smack Treasure over the head for starters.

  I go and pull Amber out of her seat. “Let’s go and play pool in the other room with some of the lads,” I say with a frozen smile on my face. I must be breezy. I MUST BE BREEZY.

  Amber looks a bit grumpy. Hello? I thought best friends were supposed to be supportive.

  Someone touches my shoulder. It’s Sean again. For some reason he is holding a balloon, which makes him look a bit, you know, simple. “I know you’re feeling sad, but it’s really not worth worrying about,” he says.