Tag: fiction
Christmas at Sycamore Avenue
It’s only a month until Christmas, so let’s have a heartwarming seasonal tale. This story is a year in the making- I was supposed to put it up last Christmas, but then my laptop abruptly decided that it didn’t want to upload anything. Probably just as well, to be honest- I doubt I’d have got it finished in under a month. As it is, I’m only a week and a half ahead on colouring.
From now until Christmas Eve, I’ll be posting a page a day (two pages starting on the 21st), both here and on DeviantArt. I hope you like it!
(P.S.- It occurs to me that, between this, “Alan Sugar May Not Approve,” and the thing I’m planning next, I’m going to be doing three stories in a row set in secondary schools. Luckily, they’re all quite different plot- and character-wise, but I’m definitely going to have to avoid that setting for a while afterwards.)
Alan Sugar May Not Approve (part four)
Thursday
Later on, Harry said that they should have known how it was going to go when they saw that all their alien posters had been torn down. Initially, they’d assumed that one of the teachers had taken them down because they were in the way of something important. It was only after everything went wrong that they noticed a couple of them, screwed up and torn in half, in one of the bins.
For the first half-hour, though, things were fairly peaceful. Gwen had retired her sash and her basket after yesterday, so she was able to sit around with Amber and Harry, talking about how awful the morning presentation had been.
“Marketing is everything,” said Gwen, in a state of awe.
“We know, Gwen,” said Harry, “We were there.” About halfway through the PowerPoint presentation, Mrs Denham had got weirdly passionate. It had been a strange thing to behold.
“But didn’t you hear, Harry? Marketing is everything.”
“Make yourself useful and count out our earnings from yesterday.”
“Marketing is love. Marketing is life.”
“Gwen…”
A few stalls to their right, Ben West was arranging his stock, and doing his best to ignore one of Kayleigh Collier’s friends, who was sitting on the end of his table and giving a monologue. “Hey, Ben? Ben? Why do you have, like, a family of spots on your forehead? Ben? Why don’t you wash your face to get rid of them? Ben? Don’t you wash? Why don’t you, like, throw hydrochloric acid in your face to dissolve them? Ben?”
Harry nodded towards them. “I wonder what that’s called?” he asked Amber and Gwen, “Scoping out the competition?”
“Aggressive sales tactics?” suggested Amber.
If they’d looked around, they might have seen the group of Year Eight boys whispering in the corner, pointing at their stall and snickering. But even if they had, they probably wouldn’t have been able to do anything about it. In the end, they just moved too fast.
“If you ask me,” said Gwen, “Mrs Denham wants them to…” And then an empty Coke bottle hit her on the side if the head.
Soon they were under a barrage of rubbish. A scrunched-up can hit Harry on the chin. A full packet of crisps burst on Amber’s chest and went down the front of her shirt. The Year Eights advanced, hurling food packets and screwed-up bits of paper, until they got right up to the stall and got hold of the things that Amber’s group been selling. The ceramic figurines they just threw, laughing at the crunching sound as they bounced off their targets and shattered on the floor, but once they got to the shampoo and perfume, it went everywhere. They opened up every bottle they could get their hands on and poured the contents all over the table and on the floor. One of them spun in circles, a bottle of alien shampoo in each hand, as green liquid sprayed and splattered around him like a deranged fountain.
“What on Earth is going on here!” came a voice, and, in an instant, the Year Eights scattered. It was probably the first time Amber had ever been pleased to see Mrs Denham.
She finally got up and looked at the table. It was a mess- most of the products they were meant to be selling were gone, and the ones that were left were covered in sticky gunk and completely ruined. And, as she looked at the corner nearest the wall, her heart sank even further. Their box of Denham Dollars had gone. With all their earnings from the last four days in it.
Amber glanced to the right, and saw Kayleigh Collier trying very hard not to laugh.
*
“So what happened?” asked Cousin Hope that evening.
Amber brushed the front of her T-shirt. She’d changed her clothes and had a shower, but she was still pretty sure she could feel the crisp crumbs itching away. “Mrs Denham got hold of most of them. We got the box back, but all the Denham Dollars were gone. They said they couldn’t remember where they threw them.” They were all getting a week’s detention, but it was hard for Amber to find that very satisfying.
“And I suppose there’s no way to prove that Kayleigh Collier put them up to it?”
“I don’t even know for sure that she did,” said Amber, but even as she said it, she knew it wasn’t true. That look on Kayleigh’s face afterwards had said it all. “The boys all said they just did it for a laugh.”
Cousin Hope sighed. “Well, you wanted to be honest, and Kayleigh Collier threw it right back in your face.” She squeezed Amber’s shoulder. “It’s not too late to go back to my original plan, you know.”
Amber thought about it, then nodded. “Do you think you could get two hundred Denham Dollars printed off by tomorrow morning?”
“For you, honey, anything.”
(TO BE CONCLUDED.)
An Epic Literary Romance
(Or, why I don’t borrow books from my mother anymore)
Dave is angry. I don’t know when he became angry. Maybe he became angry at ten past five, or maybe at quarter past five. He’s not saying anything, but I know he’s angry. I wish the sun was out. “I like the sun,” I say to Dave, but he doesn’t say anything in response. Maybe the sun makes him angry. He says something, but I don’t hear it. Why does the sun make him angry? The sun is nice. I remember being a child, playing with the snails on the pavement. The snails were slimy and sticky. I liked the snails. I like the sun. Dave is angry.
Dave has ragged nails. They look like the edge of a saw. The French word for “nails” is “ongles.” I tell Dave this, and he gives me a funny look. Dave is angry. Last night I had a dream that Dave’s nails turned into saws and broke free to slice up anything they liked. I tell Dave this, and he doesn’t say anything. And then I remember that Dave has actually been dead for twenty years. Fancy me forgetting that!
Alan Sugar May Not Approve (part three)
Wednesday
This time, it was Kayleigh Collier herself who’d got Mrs Denham. She stood to the side as the confrontation started, hungry for blood.
Mrs Denham glowered. “Gwen Braithwaite, what on Earth do you think you’re doing?”
Gwen stood there in her purple sash (actually a dressing-gown belt borrowed from Hope’s friend Lizzie) and beamed. “It’s like you said in the presentation this morning, miss- you’ve got to spend money to make money.” And then she, Amber and Harry all held their breath and waited to see whether or not Mrs Denham bought it.
They’d known all along that this would be a difficult thing to explain. Gwen had spent the last hour or so wandering around the hall with her sash and her basket of Denham Dollars, challenging Year Eights to answer three questions. Anyone who answered the questions correctly got five free Dollars. The trick had been to track down all the girls Tessa Collier had conned money out of yesterday and give them questions like “What is the capital of France?” while the other kids had got “What is the square root of 167?” or something. The latter group had included Tessa herself, who’d then followed Gwen around for ages insisting that since she’d got one question right, she should get two tickets, or whatever one third of five was. Then she’d disappeared, most likely to complain to her sister, which was probably how Mrs Denham had come to know about it.
“You’re giving away your Denham Dollars?” demanded Mrs Denham, gesturing to Gwen’s basket.
“Only a few,” said Gwen, holding up the basket so that Mrs Denham could see the ten Dollars floating around inside. It was just as well that Mrs Denham had only come sniffing around now- they’d started out with fifty. That would have been a lot harder to explain. “We’re making an investment in the community. We’re taking a risk and giving up a few of our Denham Dollars to spread goodwill and good word of mouth. If we’re lucky, we’ll get it back about ten times over.”
Mrs Denham nodded. She almost looked impressed (as well she might- that was most of her presentation on Monday that Gwen had just regurgitated.)
Kayleigh glanced at Mrs Denham, and let out an angry huff. She stretched out an arm to point at Gwen. “Ask her why she gave Denham Dollars to all the Year Eights except my sister and her friends!”
Gwen shrugged. “They got the questions wrong.”
“You’re cheating! You’re just bribing the Year Eights to come to your stall instead of anyone else’s!”
Mrs Denham turned to look at Kayleigh. “Why would they bribe the Year Eights to give them back their own money?”
Kayleigh spluttered in rage. “Listen, my little sister…”
“Kayleigh, I’ve had quite enough of this. I defended you to Gwen and her friends on Monday, but if you’re trying to pursue some kind of vendetta, then it can stop right now.”
“But Miss!”
“Back to your stall, Kayleigh,” said Mrs Denham, her face taking on that stony look that nobody could argue with. Defeated, Kayleigh headed back.
A few minutes later, after Mrs Denham had gone and Kayleigh and her friends had found something to distract them (going up to Fiona West’s stall, pretending they wanted to ask her something, then burping in her face), Harry whispered to Amber, “Did your cousin really offer to print out a hundred Denham Dollars at first?”
Amber nodded. “She gets carried away sometimes.”
Alan Sugar May Not Approve (part two)
Tuesday
On Tuesday afternoon, Amber put twenty shampoo bottles on the stall. Fifteen of them were the usual golden-brown colour, but the other five were bright green and labelled Limited Edition- Alien Formula.
Mrs Denham, who’d come round to check everyone’s stall before the Year Eights were allowed in, looked at the green shampoo and frowned. “This is not what you were told to sell, Amber.”
Amber, who’d been expecting this, smiled. “We’re developing our brand identity, like you said. We’re trying to stand out from the market.” Amber was really, really proud of her alien idea. Cousin Hope had just wanted to add red food dye so it wouldn’t look as if it had been watered down, but then Amber had seen that they had the green kind left over from Halloween, too. She’d wanted to add it to all the bottles, but Gwen had persuaded her to start with five and see how well they sold. That was probably best.
“Amber, you were given a specific product to sell…”
“It’s the same product,” interrupted Harry Barnes, the third member of Amber and Gwen’s group. He hadn’t been the biggest fan of their idea, mainly because he was worried they’d get into trouble for the watering-things-down aspect, so Amber was pleased to hear him speak up. “The green food dye’s just a marketing gimmick. People can still wash their hair with it, same as before.”
Unable to think of a suitable put-down, Mrs Denham stared at the green bottles for a good twenty seconds. “Just don’t forget what this contest us all about,” she said eventually, “It’s not about how creative you can be; it’s about how much you can sell.” And, with that, she wandered off to annoy somebody else.
Gwen smiled at the others. “Well, that could have gone a lot worse. Thanks for sticking up for us there, Harry.”
Harry folded his arms and made a grumbling sound. “If you get disqualified, so do I, remember.”
Amber glanced over at Kayleigh Collier’s stall, but luckily Kayleigh and her team didn’t seem to have heard any of the alien shampoo discussion. They were too occupied with throwing screwed-up bits of paper at Fiona West and giving themselves points when they hit her on the head (Fiona and her brother Ben were the only people in 9F who’d had to go into a two instead of a three, so they were a bit of a soft target.) They’d find out eventually, especially if the green shampoo turned out to give Amber’s group an edge, but at least they had a head start for now. “Harry?” asked Amber, “If me and Gwen stay here and make a start on the selling, could you dash back to the IT rooms and put together some posters to advertise the alien shampoo?”
Harry brightened up. He’d been complaining all yesterday afternoon about being stuck in the loud, crowded main hall for hours. “I think I could come up with something.”
“Brilliant,” said Gwen, “We’ll hold down the fort while you’re gone.” She looked over at Kayleigh Collier’s table, where they’d started to squabble over who got to throw the paper next, and grinned.
*
Harry took a while to get back, but that was OK. The alien shampoo had started to draw a crowd almost immediately. OK, it was a crowd of Year Eights, who tended to hedge their bets and look at every stall in the main hall before they parted with even one of their Denham Dollars, but still, by the time Harry got back from sticking the posters up around the hall, they’d managed to sell four green bottles and two regular ones.
Kayleigh Collier and her friends had definitely noticed by now. It was hard to miss the crowd that had gathered around Gwen and Amber’s stall. Even the Year Eights that Kayleigh and Paige had jumped in front of and tried to draw in with their rap number (“We’ve got home-wax and shampoo, bracelets galore / If you want to wow your mates, shop at Stall 24!”) had tended to step around them and continue on their way to the stall with the green bottles. As the afternoon wore on, Kayleigh spent more and more time glaring a hole through the back of Amber and Gwen’s heads.
After he’d stuck all the posters up, Harry returned with some news. “Did you know that Kayleigh Collier has a sister in Year Eight?”
Amber cringed. “Uh-oh…”
“She’s called Tessa,” said Harry, “She’s got a gang of friends together, and they’re going round guilting other Year Eight girls into giving her their Denham Dollars.”
“Guilting them?”
“You know…” Harry raised his voice to mimic an annoying Year Eight girl. “Tessa just wants her sister to be happy. Come on, don’t you want Tessa and her sister to be happy? Do you really need shampoo and combs and ceramic frogs that badly? Tessa and her sister have actually had a really hard time lately, and all Tessa wants is for her sister to do well in the competition. You’re taking that away from them just because you want ceramic frogs. And then eventually the other girls give them their Denham Dollars just to shut them up,” Harry concluded, snorting in disgust.
Amber considered this. “Has Kayleigh had a really hard time lately?” she asked.
“Who cares?” muttered Gwen, “We have a really hard time every time we get within a mile of her.”
Harry shrugged. “I don’t know. But I wouldn’t take her sister’s word for it, either way.”
Amber nodded. She looked over at Kayleigh, still glaring at them, then turned back to the others. “I think we might have to go back to Cousin Hope’s first idea.”
Alan Sugar May Not Approve (part one)
Monday
Amber tried to explain that they weren’t allowed outside help, but Cousin Hope wouldn’t listen. She’d got that stubborn look as soon as she’d heard what Kayleigh Collier had done.
“Right,” said Cousin Hope, putting her hands on her hips, “Run this past me again. This week’s Enterprise Week, which means that everyone gets a big bag of crap…”
“It’s not all crap,” Amber’s friend Gwen interjected, “Some people get shampoo and makeup, and some people…”
“Like I said, everyone gets a big bag of crap.” Cousin Hope was twelve years older than Amber and Gwen, so they didn’t argue. “And for the rest of this week, you’ve got to advertise and sell your particular crap to the Year Eights, but they aren’t allowed to give you any actual money. Only… What were they called?”
“Denham Dollars,” said Gwen. She opened up her bag and took out the paltry nine they’d managed to earn today. Most of the other groups had got at least thirty. “Because Mrs Denham’s the head of Business Studies, and it was her idea.”
Cousin Hope picked up one of the Denham Dollars and inspected it. She didn’t look impressed, probably because it looked more like a purple raffle ticket than actual money. “Your dad is not going to like that she called them ‘dollars’ instead of ‘pounds’,” she told Amber.
“She only called them that for the alliteration,” explained Amber, “There isn’t anyone in the Business Studies department whose name begins with P.”
Cousin Hope shrugged, and she handed the Denham Dollar back. “Well, it looks easy enough to forge, whatever it’s called. All we need is a scanner and a pack of purple construction paper.”
Amber frowned.
Cousin Hope raised her eyebrows. “Too unethical?”
“Two wrongs don’t make a right,” mumbled Gwen. She didn’t sound too enthusiastic, but Amber knew she meant it. Winning the contest by printing off hundreds of Denham Dollars just seemed… cheap, somehow. Too easy. It would take all the fun out of it.
“If you say so.” Cousin Hope clasped her hands together and stretched. “But we’ve got to think of something, or Kayleigh Collier and her friends will walk away with the prize and never learn a thing. How many shampoo bottles have you got left?”
They had fifteen. They’d been given twenty this morning, and they’d actually managed to sell two, early on. The other three had been the ones Kayleigh Collier had stolen.
If they’d been allowed to choose for themselves where their stalls were going to go, Amber’s group would have done just about anything to avoid being next to Kayleigh’s. She was one of those people who wasn’t happy unless someone else was miserable. It didn’t seem to matter who it was- she was just as content trying to trip up the boy with the stammer in Maths as she was pouring Dr Pepper all over Paige Williams’ bag for flirting with a boy she liked. If there was a small, subtle way of getting at someone, one that wouldn’t cause a huge amount of trouble but would make their day just a tiny bit worse, Kayleigh was in her element. Amber was pretty sure that Kayleigh did want to win the Enterprise Week contest, but she knew that hadn’t been her only reason for doing what she’d done. Kayleigh did stuff like that just for the sake of it.
Amber had barely turned her back for two seconds, and when she’d looked back round, her stall had two shampoo bottles fewer and Kayleigh’s had two more. And, just in case she hadn’t noticed, Kayleigh had looked away and let out a low, snorting giggle. Gwen had gone straight to Mrs Denham, but she’d been no help. Kayleigh had given her big innocent eyes, and Mrs Denham had told Gwen and Amber that a poor workman blamed his tools. And for the rest of the day, Kayleigh had just grinned at them.
Cousin Hope picked up a shampoo bottle, held it between two fingers, and examined it. “It doesn’t look exactly like the little pots of jellybeans they sell at the corner shop, but it’s close enough.” She reached into her back pockets, fetched out some change, and handed it to Amber. “Go to the shop and get me five loads of jellybeans.” She shook the shampoo bottle. “We’re going to start watering this stuff down.”
The Fountain
On reflection, Charlene didn’t know why she was surprised. This kind of thing happened every time she stayed over at Luce’s.
It was three in the morning, and Charlene and Luce were standing around the fountain in the high street. They were surrounded by closed-up shops and sinister-looking shadows, but the fountain was lit up from underneath and glowing a brilliant blue. Just as well, or those photos Luce was taking would have been a total waste of time. She wasn’t even taking them on her phone- she’d brought out one of her dad’s old Nikon cameras especially. Luce believed in being thorough.
About four metres up, in the pool at the top of the fountain, Charlene’s sister Amber floated on her back, her hair fanning out in the water behind her and her hands crossed over her chest like a corpse in a coffin. And it was still April. Charlene just knew that her parents would blame her if her little sister got pneumonia.
“Do you think I’d get a better angle if I stood on that bench?” asked Luce.
Charlene shrugged. She didn’t know much about camera angles. She also didn’t know what would happen if a police officer or a security guard came along and saw what they were doing. Most likely he’d just move them along and tell them that it was far too late for three nice young ladies to be out on their own, but there was just a chance that there was some obscure by-law that meant that mucking about in the fountain was something they could caution you over. That was the sort of thing that Charlene often worried about when she was out with Luce.
At the top of the fountain, Amber turned slightly towards them. “Sorry?”
“Don’t move your head, Amber!” Luce called back, “We want to keep your hair looking exactly like it does now.” Luce turned her back and climbed on top of the bench.
Luce was right about Amber’s hair- it was spread out around her head in a shiny black semicircle, collecting the occasional petal as she floated from side to side. She was wearing a lacy blue dress that Luce had sworn was hers rather than her mother’s (not that Charlene had ever seen Luce wear any dress, let alone a fancy lacy one), and her lips were painted a dark, wild-cherry shade of red. Luce had spent most of the evening trying to get Amber’s clothes and make-up just right before they set out.
It had all started when Amber had mentioned the book she was reading. Well, no- it had all started when Luce’s parents had decided to go away overnight and Luce had asked Charlene and Amber to stay over and keep her company. But if Amber hadn’t mentioned the book, there was a chance that they would have spent the evening watching films and eating pizza in Luce’s living room. Maybe not a huge chance, because this was still Luce we were talking about, but a chance.
The book was about a community of homeless kids living in a big city, and Amber loved it. She’d spent ages telling Charlene and Luce about how exciting the plot was, how much she identified with the heroine, and how she though everyone should read it. One scene that had particularly captured her imagination involved a character named Jessie, who’d been murdered by a gang of thugs working for the corrupt mayor. Instead of quietly burying or cremating her, Jessie’s friends decided to break into a park in the rich part of town and float her body in the lily pond, so that she would be found first thing in the morning by some of the rich families who preferred to pretend that the homeless kids didn’t exist. Amber’s eyes had lit up as she described Jessie’s body floating along like Ophelia, with lilies in her hair. She’d wondered aloud if someone could try that with the fountain in the high street, which was basically one big oblong on top of a bigger one. And when Luce was around, nothing stayed hypothetical for long, so here they were.
“You’re doing great, Amber!” called Luce, as the flash went off again and again.
Charlene wondered how long they’d been out here, and how long they were going to stay. It probably wouldn’t be more than about half an hour. Even if Luce didn’t get bored, Amber would probably start complaining about the cold before long. It was just a matter of waiting it out.
Later on, Charlene felt a little guilty for thinking that. If she’d been concentrating less on waiting and more on keeping an eye on her sister, she might have noticed that Amber was floating dangerously close to the edge. As it was, she was looking down at the pavement when she heard Luce say, “Hey, Amber, you might want to… Oh fuck!”
Charlene looked up just in time to see Amber float over the edge and fall, face-first, into the water below.
&&&
In the end, they were lucky. Amber’s nose stopped bleeding after a minute or two, so they didn’t have to go to A&E.
“Well, we managed to get some good photos out of it…” said Luce by way of apology. She’d spent most of the walk home delicately hovering around Charlene and Amber, as if she was worried that getting too close would lead to a kick in the shins. Charlene hadn’t yet decided whether it would or not.
“It would have been OK if we’d had an anchor,” said Amber. She was still wet through. Luce had lent her her jacket for the walk home, at Charlene’s insistence.
“Hmm,” said Charlene. In between checking her sister’s nose for signs of swelling (or anything else their parents might notice), she made a mental note to borrow Amber’s book at some point tonight. If there were chapters later on where the heroine got tied to the railway tracks or set herself on fire, it was best to know while she still had a chance to tear some of the pages out.
Ivy (part four)
My father and stepmother left me alone to climb the stairs to my stepbrothers’ room. Alone, so alone I felt when they snuck into the dining room to argue about whether they could still use their Phantom tickets or not. As I climbed, a small cry escaped my lips. The carpet on the stairs was as thick as the moss on the windowsill of my dear grandfather’s shed, and exactly the same shade of purple. In retrospect, his experiments with the weedkiller had always been a bit worrying. Oh, poor Granddad! If only he could have seen me in a house as wonderful as this! Surely he would have wondered how his beloved shed would hold up in my memory, against such elegance. Surely it must fade away, a dull, shabby thing, not worth remembering at all…
“I don’t care what wonderful things I see in this house!” I cried suddenly, “My heart will always belong to my dear Granddad’s shed, the place where it was formed!”
Just then, the door at the top of the stairs opened, and a boy poked his head out. “Guys?” he asked, turning back into the room, “There’s some psychotic-looking girl out there yelling nonsense about sheds. Do you think we should bar the door so she can’t get in and eat our brains?”
A voice from within said, “Dunno. Is she hot?”
I reared myself up and barged through the door before they could bar it. I reminded myself to be confident- after all, wasn’t I more or less an important member of… Damn it, what was my dad’s last name? I hadn’t thought to ask.
“Who the hell are you?” asked the boy who’d let me in. I could tell by the slender lengths of his legs that he was tall, and by the yellowish hair growing out of his scalp that he was blond. I stared at him, more than puzzled by the unexpected way my body responded just to the sight of him.
I began to tremble, threatened by his unwillingness even to say hello. What would Tamsin do in this situation? Certainly she wouldn’t let this boy intimidate her! But I was….
“Um, I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t let me intimidate her, seeing as how she’s my mum,” said the boy, “Do you realise that you’re talking out loud?”
…but I was just a poor, naïve girl from Pitsea, and as yet I hadn’t yet learned how to be arrogant.
“She’s freaking me out, man,” said another boy from behind him. I turned and saw a very tanned, dark-haired young man with his jawline set in a firm, determined way. My heart fluttered as I met his eyes, those dark blue orbs that seemed to promise a world that I’d never seen…
“Don’t excite yourself, Angus,” said the first boy, and I whirled around to find myself lost in his smile. I saw for the first time how broad his shoulders were, how the definition of his muscles were just visible beneath his thin shirt…
“I bet she’s one of those MI5 agents,” said a third boy. He was short and spotty with bad breath, so I didn’t pay him much attention.
The first boy sighed. His golden hair curled around his earls like some beautiful pieces of macaroni. “Look, do you want to sit down? We’ve ordered a pizza- you can share it if you want.”
“We’re watching Shaft,” added his brother, those beautiful eyes glinting in the dim light.
My eyes filled with tears as I sat down. Annabelle and I used to order pizza and watch 70s Blaxploitation movies every Friday night. Maybe now, in this strange place, I had finally found a little piece of home.
“You’re sitting on my leg…” said the third boy. I shrugged and stole his share of the garlic bread.
Ivy (part three)
We drove up to my father’s estate just as the sun was setting. Despite my trepidations, I tried to face it with my head held high and a smile on my face. I’d always been an eternal cockeyed optimist, searching for a rainbow after every sorrowful storm, and that guitar-shaped swimming pool I’d just spotted in the corner of the garden would do nicely, thanks. He was loaded!
A strikingly handsome couple appeared at the door. The husband, a dark-haired man with long, strong, beautiful legs and firm, round buttocks, smiled down at me. “You must be Ivy,” he said, before glancing up at my mother. “Hello, Gigi. It’s been a while.”
“Yeah, and it’s going to be a while longer if I have anything to do with it,” said Mama, her hands on her hips, “Now, look, I’ve spent the last fifteen years raising your kid, and it’s worn me out. Time for you to do your bit, sunshine. You can give her back when she’s thirty.”
The wife, an elegant beauty in a camel-fur coat, scowled down at us. “She can’t stay tonight,” she snapped, her face twisting into a grotesque parody of a smile, “We have plans. Clive and I have tickets to the opera tonight- we’ve been planning it for months.”
“Now, Tamsin,” said my father, his smile small and pleased, “Love Never Dies isn’t exactly an opera, per se…”
“We’re going, Clive! I’m getting my Phantom fix, or somebody’s getting hurt, you hear me?”
“Tough titties, blondie,” said Mama, flicking V’s at her, “She’s on your doorstep now, and she’s your problem.” And before Tamsin could say anything in response, she jumped back into Abelard Cephalopod’s Mini and the two of them drove off.
To lift myself above the despair I felt at her departure, I gazed with interest at that awesome pool I’d seen earlier. I watched the pet dolphins they kept in the deep end perform a perfect dance routine to “Don’t Stop Believing,” and, for a moment, I felt less alone.
My stepmother let out a long, resigned sigh. “I guess you’d better come in. Damn it.”
As soon as I got through the door, I turned in slow circles, my breath caught, my eyes wide, staring, staring, until I got too dizzy and collapsed on the floor. My stepmother prodded me with her shoe until I got up.
“I’ve never seen a house as beautiful as this,” I breathed in wonder.
“Nobody has,” said my father happily, “My parents had it built to their exact specifications back in the Seventies. When I was a boy, I used to think there wasn’t a house anywhere in the world as fine as the one where I lived.”
“None with cocaine dispensers built into all the bathrooms, anyway,” grumbled my stepmother. She turned on me like a vicious tiger protecting her young. “Now, look here, missy. If you’re going to be staying here, there’s a few things you need to understand. I don’t want you telling anyone you’re Clive’s daughter. It’s embarrassing enough to have everyone know he used to go out with that slapper Gigi Pratt, let alone that there’s some kid of hers knocking about.”
Oh! How those cruel words tore at my heart! No sooner had I been reunited with my father, the kind, handsome daddy I had longed for all my childhood, than…
“We’ll just have to tell everyone you’re a visiting MI5 agent,” she added, “They stay with us from time to time.”
Oh. Actually, that sounded really cool.
“Well, I’m glad that’s settled,” said my father, with a hearty laugh, “Now come through and meet your stepbrothers. I’m sure you’ll get along famously.”
Stepbrothers! My heart fluttered in delight. How I’d longed for a brother as a child! The happy days we’d share… the walks in the park… the games of “fetch” and the trips to the vet…
“You’re thinking of a labrador,” said my father, “Brothers are different.” But I was so enraptured that I barely heard him.
camelwithout 