My Family and Other Freaks (2 page)

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.

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.

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?

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.

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?

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.

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 counseling? 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?

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?

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.

Treasure's got mascara on again, which is against the school rules, actually. Her eyelashes look like tarantulas' legs, all curled upward (must get Mom to buy me some of that). Her skin is even more orange than usual, like one of the Mr. Men. Little Miss Vain. Hahaha. Her mom's obviously taken her to the beauty salon for another St. Tropez spray job (must persuade Mom to take me for one of them). She is gorgeous. No point denying it. Even Amber admits she's pretty, although she says, “Real beauty is not how you look but purity of thought and deed.” Honestly, I worry about that girl.

Treasure is leaning over so her long hair (bleached, I might add) tumbles down on Damian's desk like something from a bleeding shampoo advert and she's showing him something on her phone. He's smiling. He looks amazing when he smiles. Now I've got washing-machine stomach again. Actually, hello? We're not even allowed
to have our phones on in school; I'm telling Miss Judd when she arrives. Why doesn't the woman hurry up?

Treasure must notice me scowling at her because as she walks back to her desk she stage-whispers to me, “I hope you've washed your hands, Dench. Or don't you bother with soap on Planet Clampett?”

Pause while I contain my rage. Treasure always calls my family the Clampetts, which she seems to think is really clever because it's what her mom (big snob) always calls scruffy people. Apparently it's from some program called the
Beverly Hillbillies
, which people used to watch about 100 years ago. Just because there are very tall weeds in our garden and our car hood's a different color to the rest of the car.

A few people sitting nearby heard what she said and are laughing. I want to cry but I decide to return fire instead. “I'd have thought you're more in need of soap than me, Treasure. You know, to
wash off all that fake tan. What shade is it today—Tango or Irn-Bru?”

Hooray—everyone's laughing with me not at me now. Oh, apart from Damian, who's glaring. Why did he have to be the only one who didn't find that funny? He fancies Treasure. It's so obvious. I can see weird Sean O'Connor putting his hand over his face so Damian can't see he's snickering at my rapier wit. Why can't Damian realize how amusing/interesting/quite-good-looking-apart-from-my-nose I am?

Great. Miss Judd was standing behind me and heard what I said. I have to stay behind after class. Treasure is smiling triumphantly. I can practically see my reflection in her whitened teeth.

“Is there a problem between you and Treasure?” she asks at the end of the lesson. “No, miss,” I lie.

“Because I will not tolerate bullying in my
class,” she says. She has pen marks on her jumper. Very sloppy. I know from experience that ink doesn't come out.

“Bullying?” I say. “Don't make me laugh. Lord Voldemort would have his work cut out bullying her.”

“Don't get lippy with me,” says Miss Judd. “You're in detention on Thursday.”

Oh no. I said I'd go and see Phoebe doing a little show in her ballet class at 4:30 p.m. on Thursday. She'll hate me now too. Everything is against me. So no change there.

Rick is in the kitchen teaching Simon to shake hands and roll over. He thumps his tail on the floor when he sees me (Simon not Rick) and wiggles his bum.

“Did you see dream-boy?” says my darling brother, sarcastically but at least not greeting me with a sentence that begins with “go away.”

“If you mean Damian, he's been fine about it—really cool actually,” I lie. “Anyway—why do you care?”

Turns out Rick knows Damian's brother Liam in Year 11. Rick says that Liam says Damian's mom washed the jeans and luckily thought it was hilarious. He also said Damian was a “little pain in the butt” who is always nicking his designer hair wax. I inform him that my Damian does NOT use designer hair wax, although the truth is I did once notice a big clump of it at the back of his head and spent all day wanting to brush it off for him.

“Anyway,” I say, wanting to change the subject, “Simon's MY dog. I should be the one to teach him tricks.”

“Great,” says evil Dad, arriving home from work. “Can one of you teach him to go and play on the railway lines?”

I tell evil Mom that because she made me go to school I am now a) a laughing stock, and b) in detention.

She's not even listening and just stares out the window saying, “Well, it's not the end of the world, love. Just wait until you've got real problems to cope with.” Oh please. As if adults ever have real problems. They don't even have to do homework or exams or face the boy of their dreams every day, who thinks they are Sewer Girl. All adults care about is turning the central heating off and eating broccoli. What I'd give to only have that to worry about. Anyway, she's not the one doing detention with Mr. Biggins, or, to give him his full name, Biggins Bad Breath Causes Instant Death.

Bump into Damian in the dining hall and drop my banana on his foot. He picks it up and hands it back. “Thanks!” I say.

“No worries,” he says.

“Really sorry about the other day,” I say, shaking a little.

“Just forget it,” he says a bit snappily, walking away with Andrew Slater, one of his cool cronies, who's staring over at me like I'm a freakish bearded lady or something. They go and sit at the table the very furthest away from mine. I think he's overreacting a BIT. I mean, I did apologize and offer at the time to get the pants cleaned, but Damian just said, “Yeah, right. I'll just strip off in the park then and walk home in my undies, shall I?”

Still he did just say, “Forget it,” didn't he? AND he gave me back my banana. This is progress. Andrew Slater can boil his head. Anyway, I've noticed from here that he's got a fat neck.

Oh God. I'm doing detention with Mick Taylforth, the school perv/psycho. “Ha, it's Dench
the Stench,” he says. So original, Mickey the Thicky.

There's lots of things I could say here about him being really dumb and his dad being in jail for selling stolen cell phones in the pub (my brother says), but he's too scary. So I just say, “You've got tomato ketchup all down your jumper.”