Pulling the Moves

by Margaret Clark

  About the book

  To Sam the Stud, living with his sister Leanne is bad enough. But when his mother says she’s getting married again - to the town cop! - Sam wishes he was anywhere else.

  You’ve got to be careful what you wish for: you might get it. Someone’s pulling the moves, all right, and suddenly Sam’s on a joyride heading in the opposite direction fast.

  Forget the white dresses, the soppy words and the tissues - this wedding’s burning rubber all the way. And its a cack.

  CONTENTS

  COVER

  ABOUT THE BOOK

  TITLE PAGE

  DEDICATION

  SAM 'THE STUD' STUDLEY (YESSS!)

  LEANNE

  SAM

  LEANNE

  SAM

  LEANNE

  SAM

  LEANNE

  SAM

  LEANNE

  SAM

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  OTHER BOOKS ABOUT THE STUDLEYS

  OTHER BOOKS BY MARGARET CLARK

  COPYRIGHT PAGE

  MORE AT RANDOM HOUSE AUSTRALIA

  To Louise, Mina, Eva, Duane, Chris, Nerida, Marg

  and Katrina, my friends and former colleagues.

  SAM ‘THE STUD’ STUDLEY (YESSS!)

  It hasn’t been easy living in a family of women: my mum and my sister Leanne. Now Mum’s finally going to marry this cop Steve she met on the highway when he was going to give her a speeding ticket. The highway of love, that’s what Leanne says. And because Steve’s going to move into our house, it won’t be a family of women any more. It’ll be Even Steven (joke).

  Leanne’s a year older than me which was bad planning on Mum’s part. I should’ve been born first, then I wouldn’t have to live a life of serious misery being bossed round by Leanne. The only time she wasn’t bossy and kind of mellowed out was when she was going with this guy, Danny; that was after she’d run away from home looking for Dad. Looking for Dad and finding Danny the Koori guy she’s hot for: maybe D’s her lucky initial.

  Danny’s gone up north to talk with the Aboriginal elders and get his act together, and that leaves Leanne available again. She’s got five guys trying to click onto her and she loves it. They all need brain transplants if you ask me. Okay, she’s a spunk rat to look at, but a rat to live with. But of course guys don’t know that. They don’t live with Leanne.

  I walk through the back door, up the passage to my room and dump my school bag on the floor. Then I flick on my TV and sprawl on my bed to watch. This house is a seething mass of emotion right now because the wedding’s in two days’ time.

  ‘Sam,’ bellows Mum from the kitchen. ‘Get in here.’

  Now what does she want? She’s been like a snake without a tail lately. Strict dieting and living on carrot cubes and celery sticks isn’t helping her temper. She’s trying to lose weight to fit into her old wedding dress. Ever heard of anything so weird? Who gets married for the second time in their first wedding dress? Bad luck if you ask me. It didn’t bring good luck the first time, did it? Dad zapped off with the lollipop school crossing lady and he lives in Noosa with her now: they’ve even got a kid.

  ‘SAM!’

  ‘Yeah, yeah. Coming.’

  I’ve just remembered. It’s Thursday and we’re going to the dressmaker’s for the final fitting of the wedding gear.

  I go into the kitchen where Mum and Leanne are waiting for me. I look at Mum. The only bit that’s got skinny is her face. Her bum’s still as big as a hot air balloon. But with a hot air balloon, once you let out the air, it shrinks. Mum’s permanently pumped up, and how she’s going to squash herself into that wedding dress is beyond me. She’s built short to the ground, and chunky, with the same dark hair and blue eyes that she passed onto me. But I’m not short and chunky. I’m medium height and I like to think I’ve got muscles.

  ‘Get in the car,’ says Mum. ‘We were supposed to be there five minutes ago.’

  ‘I don’t see why I have to come. I’ve been fitted. I haven’t grown any more since last Tuesday.’

  ‘It’s a package,’ says Mum. ‘For the first time we’ll all be dressed together. We can see what the effect will be.’

  ‘I can tell you,’ drawls Leanne. ‘We’re gonna look like a friggin’ circus.’

  ‘Don’t use that language. Leanne, I’m warning you,’ snaps Mum.

  ‘Warn away,’ says Leanne, yawning. ‘It’s a free country. I’ll say what I like, when I like, to whoever I like, and …’

  ‘Just get in the car!’

  At least the old Falcon starts now without me having to dong the terminals with a spanner. Steve’s dropped a second-hand engine in it and it goes like stink when Mum’s foot’s flat to the boards. She drives like the original Bat out of Hell. It seems weird that Supercop Steve hotted up the Falcon for her: what did he think she’d do, drive like a turtle-granny just because she’s in lur-ve with him?

  Mum and Leanne argue all the way to the dressmaker’s. We do a screech stop at the tailor’s place to pick up my suit. I’ve been praying all week that the tailor’s would get vandalised, or burn to the ground (‘Oh, what a shame, your beautiful suit, Sam’) but I don’t have much luck with prayers. The tailor’s still there.

  Mum beeps the horn twice. The tailor runs out with my suit, wrapped in plastic, and puts it onto the seat next to me. I glare at it. I’m going to look a total idiot. Mum laid the calls for the colours. My suit’s a sort of dark purple, with a pale purple cummerbund and shirt. (She calls it “mauve”.) I look like an out-of-date prune in it.

  We get to the dressmaker’s. It hasn’t burnt down, either. Someone up there hates me.

  ‘I tell you,’ says Leanne, ‘I’m not wearin’ that friggin’ dress.’

  ‘And I’ve told you, you are,’ says Mum. ‘And if you don’t stop swearing I’ll wash your mouth out with soap.’

  ‘Yeah? You and what army?’ goes Leanne, looking bored.

  ‘LEANNE!’

  ‘Stress not, mother dear. It’s your special day. I’ll behave. Only if that dumb dressmaker’s put a mauve ruffle round the hem I’m outa here.’

  ‘Why purple?’ I say for the thousandth time.

  ‘I’ve told you, it’s Steve’s favourite colour. And it’s not purple, it’s grape.’

  ‘Cop Blue’d be better,’ I mutter darkly, but they’re out of the car and cruising up to the dressmaker’s door. I grab the suit and follow.

  The dressmaker’s this dumpy little woman who looks at you like she’s checking you out.

  ‘Go and change in there,’ she says to Leanne. ‘I’ve just got a final adjustment to make to your mother’s dress.’

  Yeah, like letting it out metres.

  Leanne takes about two seconds to change. She comes slouching out chewing a fistful of fingernails and scowling.

  I’ve got to admit that Leanne looks drop-dead gorgeous in the dress, but then she’d look fantastic in a potato sack. It’s a disaster of a dress, a shiny prune material and there’s the same mauve as my cummerbund as a sort of wide belt thing. But Leanne’s stacked up front, if you know what I mean, and makes it a good look.

  She always acts like she’s got cotton wool for brains, that’s Leanne. Excepting she has got brains, heaps. She’s got major intelligence but she doesn’t want anyone to know. It’s a national secret. She reckons guys don’t like babes with brains. Somehow she ended up with brains and long straight blonde hair which she gets permed in a wild frizz that adds to her dumb look. She did have spiked red hair at one stage, but she’s back to blonde again.

  Leanne looks in the mirror and pulls a face.

  ‘I’m not wearing this dumb sash,’ she snarls, and rips it off.

  Then she pulls the sleeves down low from her shoulders
so that she looks like Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With the Wind, only she’s Purple O’Hara, and there’s no wind round here except Mum popping off from an overload of raw vegies.

  ‘Mum!’

  I hold my nose. I hope Steve doesn’t sleep with his head under the bedclothes. Well, if he does, he won’t be any more.

  ‘Leanne. Stop messing about with that dress,’ snaps Mum, pulling up the neckline to Leanne’s chin. ‘Sam, put on your suit.’

  ‘Do I have to?’

  ‘YES.’

  When Mum says “yes” like that there’s no arguing. I go into the dressmaker’s bedroom and put on the shirt, the trousers, the tie, the jacket. I look in the mirror. This gross eggplant with toothpick arms and legs stares back. How am I going to face the crew? They’re all coming to the wedding. My mates, Cooja, Boxie, Tosca, Brownie, Rad, Dodgy, and also Mike and Ant, the guys from Strapper Surf Shop where I do ding repairs on Thursday and Friday nights and Saturdays, excepting I’ve got time off for this fitting. I’d rather be shaping surfboards.

  And there’s this crew of girls coming to the wedding. Girls love weddings. There’s Cathy, Belinda (my old ex, Bin), Mel, Chani, and Cate-with-a-C. Danny’s been invited but we don’t know if he’ll show: he mightn’t have got the invite seeing as Leanne wasn’t sure of his address.

  Then there’s a platoon of Leanne’s friends, including of course Fernita, her best friend. I think Fernita’s the boringest babe on the planet: I don’t get what Leanne sees in her at all.

  Mum’s invited her old girlfriend Paula, and Bin’s mum and dad who own the hot bread shop where Mum and Leanne work part-time. We’ve got a few aunts, uncles and cousins. And of course Grandpa. He’s allowed out of Binella Nursing Home for the occasion with extra Kimbies. He wets his jocks all the time. It’s called incontsistence or something, but there’s nothing inconsistent about it; it’s constant if you ask me. He smells like a urinal. There’s no way I’m sitting next to Grandpa.

  Then there’s Steve’s lot. A few rellies. His mum. She’s in a nursing home, too. Maybe she and Gramps’ll click on to each, swap false teeth or something.

  There’s a crew of cops coming, too. If I was a robber I’d do a heap of TABs and banks on Saturday: all the cops’ll be at The Wedding of the Year.

  I’m gonna look cool, not, in front of a million people. Why couldn’t Mum elope like anyone normal? Leanne and I offered to hold the ladder but no, she wants to get married in church in her old wedding dress because her grandmother wore it, and we’ve got to wear purple. Sorry, grape.

  I go into the room. Leanne’s sitting on the floor with her dress scrunched up round her knees, shoes off, picking her toenails.

  Then Mum rolls in wearing The Dress, her eyes waiting for our approval. She looks like a huge white salami. The dressmaker’s put in an extra piece at the back so Mum can squash into the dress. If it was black she’d look like the Michelin tyre man. But it’s this shiny white material (well, sort of dirty white), with bits of lace here and there and a long thing at the back which she says is a train. The new extension’s covered by a veil hanging off her hat so you can’t see it.

  ‘Well?’ says Mum.

  She’s taught me not to lie. If she looks in my eyes she’ll know I’m lying: she can always tell. My eyeballs must roll a certain way or something. I stare at a spot over her head and try not to think she looks like a Virtual Reality Flying Nun.

  ‘You look beautiful, Mum.’

  ‘Yeah. Beee-oo-teee-ful,’ goes Leanne.

  ‘Right. Stand over here so we get the Big Picture,’ says the dressmaker.

  Big Picture? It’s huge, man! Leanne stands next to Mum; I stand on the other side. We must look like a mouldy rye bread and white turkey meat sandwich. It’s totally gross.

  Leanne’s the bridesmaid and I’m giving Mum away.

  ‘Is that legal?’ I’d said when she told me. ‘I’ve only just turned fifteen.’

  ‘I can do what I like, and I want you to give me away, Sam.’

  ‘Great.’

  Every kid’s dream, to give away their parent! Yesss! But did I want to give Mum away to Steve the Supercop? It was weird, giving your own mother away. Excepting that she wasn’t going anywhere. Like I said, we’re all still going to live in our house. Mum and Steve had wanted to move to a posh area of town, but Leanne had kicked up such a stink that they’d caved in. Leanne’s nightmare in life (apart from her boobs shrinking and her hair falling out) is that she’ll be forced to change schools and lose her friends. And she hates posh. I wouldn’t mind a bit of it.

  Our house is a shit box, although it does look a bit better now that Steve and I have painted it and done the garden. But it looks like what it is: a three bedroom joint in the down side of town. Maybe I’m a snob, but I’d like to live in a two storey place with a spa and sauna and gym, a pool room, and a swimming pool in the backyard. All we’ve got in our backyard is weeds mowed into a lawn, a Hills hoist and a dog dish of water instead of a pool.

  I think Mum and Steve are hoping that Leanne’ll change her mind once they’re married. But I know Leanne’s mind. She injects her brain with liquid cement every morning, because she never, ever changes her mind. It’s set in concrete, except the bit that processes guys. That bit’s mush.

  ‘You look gorgeous,’ coos the dressmaker.

  She needs her eyes tested. I stare in the mirror. Leanne stares back and pulls a face. We look like The Family from Planet X.

  ‘We do look lovely, don’t we?’ says Mum.

  ‘Yeah. Right,’ says Leanne. ‘Can I take this thing off now?’

  Without waiting for an answer she reefs it over her head. I look at her black lace bra and knickers. Guys’d kill to see this, but I’m used to it, whether she’s in them or not. I’m always getting armfuls of lace undies off the line. I must be the only guy on the planet who’s not turned on by underwear. Mind you, Mum used to wear bras like saucepan lids and knickers like baggy white board shorts: I had to pump iron to lift them off the line. Now she’s into the lacy stuff, too.

  ‘Leanne. Put some clothes on,’ says Mum, scandalised, as the dress falls in a heap round Leanne’s ankles. She steps over it and swans off into the bedroom.

  ‘Do you really like my dress, Sam?’ says Mum, her eyes meeting mine in the mirror. I haven’t got the heart to tell her she looks like a jumbo Mintie.

  ‘Yeah. You look fabulous,’ I go, staring at myself and wishing I could vaporise off the planet. My mates are going to cack themselves laughing. Why couldn’t she have got married in the open air and chosen the beach and we could’ve worn Stussy shirts and board shorts? Once this couple got married on Bird Rock in wetsuits. If I ever get married it’ll be on a rock in a wetsuit.

  Mum towels out to change back into her tracky daks and T-shirt and I junk the suit and stuff it back into its plastic wrap.

  ‘I’m so thrilled with the dresses,’ trills Mum. ‘Now, how much do I owe you?’

  I gasp and look at Leanne when the dressmaker warbles the price. Talk about a rip-off. But Mum calmly writes out a cheque and we waddle out to the car carrying the wedding gear.

  ‘Now the cake,’ says Mum.

  ‘I’ll never get to Strapper at this rate,’ I moan. ‘And when do we eat?’

  ‘Yeah. I’ve gotta go to the hairdresser’s,’ says Leanne.

  ‘What? Again? You were only there a fortnight ago. And you’re getting your hair done on Saturday,’ says Mum.

  ‘Gotta get me ends done, don’t I? That’d be right: you spend hundreds on these dumb dresses and then chuck a schizo when I want me ends done. Well, don’t blame me if me hair falls out and I’m a bald bridesmaid.’

  Mum grinds the gears angrily as we burn rubber down the highway. We turn off into a side street and then into another.

  ‘Mum,’ I say. ‘See these arrows? They’re pointing at us. We’re in a one-way street.’

  ‘Shit,’ says Mum.

  ‘Don’t swear,’ go Leanne and I together, as Mum changes from
fourth to reverse in one swoop. We go boring backwards with an oncoming car’s lights looming up fast. Mum screeches round into the next street, grinds more gears, then charges off up the other way.

  I lean forward, lift up a mane of hair and speak into Leanne’s ear.

  ‘With a bit of luck we might get killed and not have to wear the grape gear,’ I murmur. Mutual agony and embarrassment has made us allies. Temporarily.

  ‘We should be so lucky,’ she says, as Mum whips round a corner and screams to a halt outside the wedding cake-maker’s house.

  We go up the path and knock on the door. The cake-maker opens it. She’s tall and thin with this amazing postbox red hair. Two hyper dogs with bared fangs the size of Jaws II rush out past her and start trying to chew our bodies.

  ‘Buffy. Muffy. SIT!’ the woman yells.

  Buffy and Muffy? They should be called Attack and Destroy. She hauls them away by their collars and tells us to follow her. Shoving the dogs outside she takes us into the dining room where there’s the most amazing creation sitting on the table.

  ‘Here it is,’ she says proudly. ‘It’s the most difficult cake I’ve ever made, but I managed.’

  I look at Leanne. She looks at me. Then we look at Mum. She couldn’t have ordered this disaster. But she’s gazing adoringly at it with stars in her eyes.

  ‘Oh. Steve will just love it,’ she gushes.

  It’s a big white cop car with “Police” written on the front and back in Cop Blue, and these Ken and Barbie clones on the top. One blonde Barbie looks like Leanne, even down to the grape dress, the very same material. The other grape-Ken’s supposed to be me.

  No one makes Barbie dolls that look like Mum. There’s no call on dim sim-shaped dolls with greying hair, so it’s a pretend Mum-Barbie bride, and a Ken-cop doll in a uniform. The bridal party on the roof of the police car is fenced in with squirly Cop Blue and Grape roses.