The Money, Stan, Big Lauren, and Me

by Joanna Nadin

  And I knew that my last thought was c) and it was the right answer and that I had to do it, I had to take it back. So after tea I put the envelope in a plastic bag and I said I needed to post something, it was another competition from a magazine. Mum said, ‘As long as it’s not for more hair dye, Billy. If I ever see hair dye again I think I will die – only with an I, not a Y.’ And I said, ‘It’s not hair dye,’ which wasn’t even a lie.

  And I meant to do it. I walked to the corner and past the clothes which were all gone now, but the concrete and car were still there, and through Kyle’s gate which isn’t an actual gate because that fell off two years ago it’s just a gap, and I walked up the path and I was looking at the letterbox, just wondering if the envelope would fit, when the door opened and it was Kyle. He said, ‘I thought I told you to piss off yesterday.’ I said, ‘I did.’ And then a voice came from the house and it was Mrs Perry saying, ‘Is that him? Because you can tell him what I told him yesterday – to go back to hers and bloody stay there this time, we don’t want him.’ And I knew she didn’t mean me. She meant Mr Perry. And I knew then that he was gone. And that if he was gone then I couldn’t give the money back. So I said, ‘Sorry, Kyle’ and I went before he could say piss off again, or ask why I was standing there with a Discount Deals bag.

  And when I got in I took the Discount Deals bag and what was in it back up to my room and I got into bed and I didn’t need to count any glow stars or say Dogger or Fisher or Fastnet because I had done it. I had made my fortune. And now all I had to do was spend it.

  It’s not as easy as you think spending £5,540. Not when it’s Easter Sunday and you’ve got Nan and Mr Feinstein coming round for lunch and you’re only allowed out for half an hour or the roast chicken will be dry. And Nan will complain because her chicken is never dry, even though she hasn’t cooked a chicken for four years since Grandpa Stokes died, she only does boil in the bag or ready meals.

  So I went to Mr Patel’s and I bought eggs for everyone. Not chicken eggs because Mr Feinstein is allergic, i.e. if he has an egg he goes red and his throat closes and he can’t breathe and someone has to inject him, but chocolate ones. I got Dairy Milk for Dave and Nan and Mr Feinstein and a Bounty one for Mum because it’s the baby’s favourite and Hannah Montana for Stan because it came in a mug with Miley Cyrus on it and Miley Cyrus is Stan’s second favourite after Lady Gaga. I got four Creme Eggs for Big Lauren too for when she gets back, because she will have withdrawal symptoms like when she went to Swansea to see her cousin who got hit on the head and she had withdrawal symptoms from the chips at Fishcoteque. It cost £23.75 altogether which means I still have more than £5,516 left.

  Mum asked where I got the money and I could feel my face getting red and hot then, but Nan said I’d probably saved Christmas money plus she gave me some money for grooming Tammy a couple of weeks ago which is true. And anyway Dave said, ‘It doesn’t matter where he got it, the point is he got you an egg, Jeanie.’ And then Stan got upset because he hadn’t got anyone eggs. Nan said it didn’t matter because he was being good, but he said she was always saying being good was its own reward, so what was the point in that anyway? Dave said why didn’t I do the ‘Pokerface’ song to show Nan, and Stan could be Big Lauren, and I was so happy at being excellent for buying eggs I said yes, and Stan was so happy to be allowed to be Lady Gaga he said yes too. And it turned out Stan is quite good at being Lady Gaga because he can make his voice go really high and really low and he knows all the dance moves and everything. Dave said it was actually quite funny and we should definitely audition for Britain’s Got Talent and he could drive us to Bristol if we wanted. But I said Big Lauren can’t do it because of being in Florida, so Stan said he would be Big Lauren but Mum said he can’t be Big Lauren because it’s Arthur Malik’s Pirates of the Caribbean birthday party next Saturday, and besides Dave shouldn’t encourage us. But Dave said, ‘It’s just some fun, Jeanie. I’ve always fancied being on telly, me.’ But I said, ‘It’s all right because I don’t want to do it on my own, thanks anyway.’

  Because now I don’t need to win. Not that, nor the £10,000 or the year’s supply of baby wipes or the romantic holiday for two. Because now I can buy everything I want.

  Because I’m rich.

  There are hardly any shops open on a bank holiday so Dave took me to Petworld on the ring road and I got a plastic hamster house shaped like a castle and a bag of monkey nuts. I’ll get better things tomorrow though.

  Dave said, ‘Blimey, your nan pays well. Maybe I should quit my job and start working for her instead. I bet she’s not as miserable as the Sister of No Mercy, either,’ who is his boss and is Ward Sister Hawkins and who has a moustache. But I said he wouldn’t like it that much because he would have to brush Tammy’s bottom and he is a dog person, not a cat person. Plus then he would find out that Nan only pays me a pound and he would start wondering where the money came from. That’s when I started feeling sick. I asked Dave to open the windows and he said, ‘Too many eggs then, Billy boy?’ and I nodded.

  But it wasn’t the eggs. It was the money.

  When I got back me and Stan played with Lady and showed her her new house and fed her stuff, e.g. the monkey nuts but also a Discount Deals custard cream. Then she tried to eat a Vashta Nerada Top Trump, but that was OK because a Dalek will always beat it. Stan said Lady could be on Britain’s Got Talent because she really will eat anything maybe even Simon Cowell, but I said I didn’t think hamsters would be allowed because how would the Queen see her on the big stage when she does her act on the Royal Variety Show for instance. He is right that she will eat anything though because when he went upstairs for a wee I gave her a twenty-pound note and she ate it all, which is quite a useful skill for hiding evidence. I didn’t give her any more though, because I don’t want to hide any evidence. I want to spend it. And then the sick feeling in my stomach turned to warm. Because I knew that when I got to secondary school I wouldn’t get my head flushed down the toilet because I would have the right trainers, and that if anyone came round to tea our beans wouldn’t be Discount Deals any more they would be real ones, and we wouldn’t have to watch just Tracy Beaker we could watch Mythbusters because now I can afford to buy Sky TV again.

  And best of all, I don’t need to count glow stars any more.

  Because I can count money instead. £5482.

  And that is the warmest feeling of all.

  I didn’t mean to buy all the stuff. It just sort of happened. Because Mum didn’t want to go out because the baby had been kicking all night so she wanted to lie on the sofa and watch This Morning and Stan wanted to lie in with her because he likes the bit when they do the makeovers and transform people from ordinary mums into celebrities just with new haircuts and some make-up. So I said I was going round the corner to the park and maybe to Mr Patel’s to get another Bounty and maybe a Mars bar. Mum said, ‘Fine. But don’t go spending a fortune, Billy.’ I said, ‘I won’t.’ And it wasn’t a lie, because I didn’t spend a fortune. Only £268.91.

  Because I didn’t go to the park, or to Mr Patel’s. I went into town. And I’m not really supposed to go on my own, not till secondary school, but I did my Green Cross Code and I didn’t talk to any strangers. I just went straight to Pemberton Games to get some new Top Trumps because Lady has eaten three now but then I noticed a DS and I thought I have to get one of those. Kyle Perry and Stephen Warren both have them and they are always going on about how awesome they are. And I remembered that Stephen Warren had got Sonic Super Collection so I got that too. And then it was like my brain and hands had been taken over by aliens because I got an MP3 player and some headphones like Sean Hawkes. And I bought Monopoly, which is a game where you buy roads in London with pretend money and then other people land on them and have to pay you rent. I always want to get Mayfair and Stan always wants Liverpool Street Station. Only we don’t have Monopoly any more because Stan lost the metal iron and dog that go round the board, so we gave it to the charity shop. And last I got
a radio shaped like a penguin only that is for Stan. And then I was hungry from all the shopping so I went to McDonald’s which we are never allowed normally because it’s expensive according to Mum, and is killing the world because of all the cows which are farting and causing global warming according to Dave. But Mum wasn’t there and nor was Dave but Jake Palmer-Thomas was in there with his dad. He was getting a cheeseburger Happy Meal with a chocolate milkshake so I got the same because I was happy only I didn’t drink all the milkshake because it’s so thick you can’t actually suck it up the straw without making your ears pop which I did four times and I got a free Smurfette which I don’t even like but Stan does. Then I was so full with all the food inside me I could hardly carry the bags so I got a bus home even though Park Road, which is where McDonald’s is, is only 724 metres away from our front door. Me and Big Lauren measured it once for a school project.

  Mrs Peason from Peason’s Bakery and also from Beasley Street got on at the stop after me and she was going to sit next to me only there was no room, because of the bags, so she sat behind me instead. She said, ‘Win the Lottery, did you, Billy?’ and I said, ‘No because I am not allowed to play the Lottery until I am sixteen, it’s the law.’ And she said, ‘Oh, right. Well, you learn a new thing every day.’ And at the time I was thinking that probably isn’t true, because what if you were ill for instance and you just lay in bed and didn’t watch telly or use the computer or read a book. So you wouldn’t learn anything new, not even if a thousand bees can lift a laptop. But now I think maybe she was right after all. Because when I got home I did learn something new and that thing was hamsters do not eat twenty-pound notes after all.

  I was upstairs hiding the stuff. I had put the Top Trumps next to my bed because Mum will not ask where they came from because they are only £3.99. Also she isn’t interested in Doctor Who. I put the DS and Sonic and headphones and Monopoly and MP3 player at the back of the cupboard, which she doesn’t open because she says it’s like an explosion in a toy factory and last time a Ninja Turtle fell on her and poked her in the eye with his plastic claw. I put the rest of the money back under the mattress, and I was just wondering where I was going to hide a penguin-shaped radio when Mum shouted. She said, ‘Billy Grimshaw-Jones, get down here this instant.’ And I thought maybe she had X-ray eyes and had seen through the wall when I was running upstairs with the bags, or that she could see through the ceiling right now with me trying to put the penguin inside one of my shoes. But when I got into the front room it wasn’t X-ray eyes. It was Lady.

  Mum said, ‘What the flaming hell is this?’ And I said, ‘I don’t know’ because I didn’t know because it just looked like chewed-up paper. And Stan said, ‘It’s Lady’s bed’ because he had run downstairs too because of the shouting. And Mum said, ‘I know that but what is it MADE of?’ And she said the word ‘made’ really loudly like it was in capital letters because it was so important. And I looked and I saw why it was in capitals because the bed wasn’t made of just bits of kitchen roll and some old computer paper where Dave had tried to print out WarRaiders cheats but the ink had run out. It was made of Doctor Who Top Trumps.

  And money.

  Stan said, ‘Oh. My. God,’ because saying ‘Oh. My. God,’ is big in Year 2 at the moment. But I didn’t say that. Because I am Year 6. And because Mum had told Stan to stop saying it. And because I knew I had to say something else fast before I went red and gave it away so I said, ‘It’s fake, Mum. It’s from Monopoly.’ So Mum said, ‘What Monopoly?’ And I said, ‘I got it in town, the other day,’ which is only half a lie. And Mum said, ‘Jesus, Billy. How much was that? Twenty quid?’ And I said no it was £15.99 which isn’t a lie at all. But Mum didn’t care about that. She cared about the money. She said this wasn’t a time to be spending money on board games and if I wanted it that bad I could have borrowed it off Dave 2 or even Big Lauren. But I said Big Lauren has Coronation Street Monopoly and that’s not the same, which it isn’t because who wants to own Roy’s Rolls for instance? And also it’s good that Lady wasn’t chewing up real money. But Mum didn’t agree. She said, ‘You’re spending a fortune on junk, Billy, and I’ve barely got a tenner in my purse. This has to stop. Any money left over from Christmas or whatever you save up you use for something important. Do you understand me? Do you?’ And I nodded and she said good, and she went upstairs to her room with the chewed-up twenty-pound note still in her hand and shut the door.

  And Stan said ‘Ace’ because then he got to watch Tracy Beaker instead of Escape to the Country. But I didn’t feel like it. Not today. Because I had to do something. I had to count the money.

  I counted it four times and each time it was the same amount, i.e. £5,213 because I had put all the small coins in the charity dog outside Mr Patel’s. And then I thought that Mum was right about something which is that it’s mad I am spending money on toys when there is important stuff to buy. Only I’m not sure what that is yet. So then I thought well she can decide, i.e. I can put the money into her purse. Not all of it. Because it won’t fit. And also because she will be suspicious. But if I just put a small amount in at a time then she will just think it’s her going mad from the baby, e.g. last week she forgot it was even Wednesday, so she will think she just forgot she had it in the first place.

  So I did it. I put twenty pounds in in two ten pound notes. Because that’s enough to go shopping at Sainsbury’s. And enough to buy some Bounties. And enough to make the coldness inside me turn into warm.

  And that’s when I knew Nan was wrong when she said money couldn’t make you happy. Because I knew it could. It could make me happy and it could make Mum happy. And I was going to make sure it did.

  The money didn’t make Mum happy. It made her and Dave have a row.

  What happened was that we had just picked up Stan from Arthur Malik’s and we were driving down Mason Road when Mum said, ‘That’s odd.’ And I said ‘What’s odd?’ and she said, ‘The red light’s on,’ which is the warning light. I said she had better go to Broadley Mechanics which is the garage on the ring road and Mum said, ‘This is all I need, a hundred pounds on the flaming car.’ And I said it might not be a hundred pounds it might only be forty for instance but Mum said nothing was ever only forty pounds when it came to cars. And she was right. Because we did go to Broadley Mechanics and a man whose name was Chas, which I know because it was sewn on his overall in a patch, said it was the filter and it would be at least a hundred pounds and no we couldn’t just drive the car because what if it blew up with kids in it. So Mum said, ‘Fine,’ only then we were stuck on the ring road which is 4.5 miles from home. So I said we could get a taxi and she said we couldn’t, because we didn’t have enough money, and I said we might. She said, ‘For God’s sake, Billy, that’s enough. I’ll just call Dave, he’s due off in a minute anyway.’ And so she did and Dave came to get us and he was cross because the Sister of No Mercy was cross. He said, ‘Couldn’t you have just called a cab?’ And Mum said no because she didn’t have any cash and I said she did. And she said, ‘No I flaming don’t.’ And she got out her purse to prove it only she couldn’t prove it because there was two ten-pound notes.

  And so she said, ‘What the hell is this?’ And Dave said, ‘It’s twenty quid. Jesus. I’ve just pissed off the Sister of No Mercy because I was supposed to be doing overtime and you had twenty quid all along.’ And Mum said, ‘But it’s not mine.’ And Dave said, ‘Well, whose is it, then? The Queen of Flaming Sheba’s?’ And Mum said, ‘Did you put this in here?’ And Dave said, ‘Yes, because I’m just made of money. I just go round hiding it in your purse. There’s probably fifty in your make-up bag and another hundred in your knicker drawer. Christ.’ And then no one said anything else until we got home, which is when Dave said, ‘We might as well sell the car anyway. No point keeping it now you’re not working.’ And Mum didn’t say, ‘No because how am I going to take Billy to the swimming pool or Stan to Arthur Malik’s and anyway what about when I get a new job, e.g. at the new multiplex wh
ich is 7.8 miles away according to Google.’ She just said, ‘Fine,’ and went up to the bedroom and Dave went back out again, but not in the car this time just on his feet.

  He didn’t come back for five hours and forty-one minutes which I know because I was lying in bed and looking at the time on my glow-in-the-dark watch. And I heard Mum say, ‘Where have you been?’ And Dave said, ‘Don’t start, Jeanie.’ And then I heard Mum come back up the stairs. I know it was her not Dave because she takes twenty-five seconds on average because of the baby and Dave takes ten and I timed it. And also because the TV went on downstairs and it was Top Gear and Mum doesn’t like Top Gear because she says the men are all show-offs.

  And then I thought what if my money doesn’t buy happiness after all? What if my money is cursed like the tomb of Tutankhamun and all it can buy is BAD?

  And I counted it again. I counted it five times. And each time there was £5,193 which is still a fortune.

  But I didn’t feel warm this time. I felt cold and scared. Because £5,193 could buy a whole lot of BAD.

  Three more BAD things happened today.

  Stan moved into my room.

  Mum found the penguin radio.

  There has been a robbery.

  It started at breakfast. Dave and Mum were having another row, only not about the money this time but about why Dave hadn’t done any of the things on his list of things to do which is stuck on the fridge with a magnet shaped like a melon. He was supposed to Clear out the garage and Sell exercise bike (because no one exercises on it except Stan when he is pretending to be ET on the bicycle) and Paint nursery, i.e. Stan’s room. Dave said give him a chance because he’d only just got up and yesterday he’d been at work and then ferrying us back from the mechanics and the day before that he’d had to cover Dave 2’s shift because he had been at an Ultimate Frisbee match in Cardiff. Mum said, ‘There’s always an excuse.’ And Dave said, ‘They’re not excuses, they’re reasons. It’s not the same.’ And I checked on Google and he is right, but Mum didn’t think so, which is why Dave moved the bed into my room before he went to work. This is why Mum found the penguin because it was under my bed but not under the mattress, and she was checking for pants. She said, ‘Where the hell did you get this?’ And I said, ‘I swapped it.’ And Mum said,‘What for?’ And I said my piece of quartz from Wookey Hole, which isn’t true because Big Lauren has it because she says crystals have healing powers and so all celebrities have crystals, but Mum believed it anyway because Stan swapped his Optimus Prime for a packet of Rolos with Arthur Malik yesterday and she said we were a pair of eejits with no concept of the value of money. But I didn’t say, ‘Actually I’m not and there is a DS and a game and an MP3 player and Monopoly at the back of the cupboard and £5193 under my mattress.’ I said, ‘Can I go round Nan’s? It’s bingo,’ and Mum said yes and to take Stan because she was sick of us getting under her feet, so I did.