The Parent Problem (12 page)

I take a deep, shuddering breath and focus on not letting the tears that are hovering behind my eyeballs spill out on to my cheeks. There is no way I am going to give these three witches the satisfaction of seeing me cry.

Luckily the thought ‘these three witches’ makes me think of the witches in
Macbeth
, dancing around their cauldron and throwing in eyes of newts and toes of frogs. The image is enough to stop me from blubbing outright, and I focus on that, mentally adding a few warts and gnarled bony fingers to the scene in my head, as I turn my back on my best friend and head into the library where I am soon hidden behind a bookshelf.

And there, my face safely shielded by a huge atlas, I give in to my feelings, and I cry silently, my shoulders heaving.

Saturday. At last. Usually I would be spending it hanging out at Aubrey’s or she would come here. That is not going to happen, though. I doubt it will happen ever again.

Aubrey has not replied to a single text and hasn’t spoken to me at all after the Alex Rider Incident: otherwise known as ‘hashtag Skye-FALL’, of course. Not that I have seen it. I am not going to torture myself by watching all those clips and photos the VTs have uploaded. I have checked my phone for texts at least a million times, though. I am even beginning to imagine the ping that lets me know she has texted. I think I am going insane.

Things got worse yesterday afternoon. Livvy clearly thought her joke was so genius she had to share it with everyone. That particular photo got over 300 likes, according to one of the VTs’ groupies, who couldn’t wait to let me know. I can’t really blame Aubrey for not wanting to hang out with me: it would result in social suicide.

I can’t bear to think about this any more. If I do I will end up blubbing, and then Mum will hear and she’ll come into my room and want to know what the matter is. I am so not telling her what’s going on, because she would only go and ring Aubrey’s mum to try and get us to talk and fix things. That’s what she used to do when we had the kind of tiny fights little kids have, like: ‘She took the My Little Pony from my Happy Meal so we are never going to be friends ever again.’

I would kill for a fight like that. Those sort of fights were usually solved with a sleepover with Disney DVDs and ice cream. Somehow I don’t think that’s going to work this time. Which is a shame, as I still love Disney DVDs and ice cream.

I bet Aubrey does too. When her new best friends aren’t looking.

So this weekend I reckon I am going to spend as much time as I can in my room, reading (and writing, of course). Once I am deep into a book, I can make the world around me disappear. Although it is harder these days, what with the RACKET from Finn’s drumming coming through the walls. He has been practising more and more since he joined The Hogs, and I guess it is only going to get worse as they prepare for their next gig.

Luckily I am reading a fantastic book called
I Capture the Castle
, which is so good I find it easier than ever to shut out my surroundings when I am ‘in’ it. It is by Dodie Smith who also wrote
The Hundred and One Dalmatians
, but personally I think
I Capture the Castle
is even better.

It is about a very intelligent girl called Cassandra who lives in a mad house with a family who doesn’t understand her. She keeps a diary in which she writes about how frustrated she is with her life. I feel that we have a lot in common.

I think I am going to sit on the windowsill and write today. This is the kind of thing Cassandra does, except that she lives in a romantic, tumbledown castle in the middle of the countryside with a dad who is a writer and a stepmother who is a bohemian artist, whereas I live in a boring town house in a cul-de-sac with a mum who is a nutter and a brother who likes to dress up and sleep in the dog’s bed.

(Maybe we don’t have too much in common on the surface, Cassandra and I, but our view on life is pretty similar, let me tell you.)

Actually I think I might give up writing for today and read instead. It is very comfy up here. The windowsill is just about wide enough for me to sit on. I’ll fetch a cushion to sit on, to stop my bum going numb, then I’ll snuggle down. Peace at last.

The peace doesn’t last for long. I am deep into the story (I have just got to the bit where the bohemian stepmum, Topaz – epic name! – dyes everyone’s clothes green) when there is a racket outside my room and Harris comes crashing in.

‘Skye, look! Look at this!’ He is dressed from top to toe in what looks like silver foil. He is whirling round and round so fast I can’t take him in properly, so I am not sure exactly what he is wearing. He appears to be holding on to something which looks as though it is also covered in silver foil. All his movements are accompanied by a loud rustling and crunching noise.

Gollum, who has been curled up on my bed, shoots in the air at the noise, hissing and spitting, before wisely scurrying under my bed to hide. I wish I could fit under there with her.

‘Go away!’ I have to raise my voice to be heard above the cacophony. ‘Harris? HARRIS!’

Harris stops abruptly and is evidently very dizzy as he lands, with a heavy thud, on to the floor.

‘Raaaoooowwf!’

That is when I notice that the silver thing that Harris has been holding on to was in fact Pongo.

‘What are you
doing
, you insane child?’ I ask, hands on hips.

Harris gets up, saying ‘Ow’ and rubbing his bottom, while Pongo does his best to extricate himself from sheets and sheets of silver foil.

‘You do realize this is cruelty to animals?’ I say, pointing at the poor pooch. ‘I could report you to the RSPCA for this.’

Why that animal puts up with my brother, I do not know. I look at Pongo who is now eating some of the foil. Actually I think I
do
know why the dog puts up with Harris: it is because he has about as much brain as my brother. Pongo looks at me as if he knows I am thinking about him. He wags his tail and sends shreds of foil up into the air.

Harris laughs. ‘Pongo is making that confetti stuff that they have on the dancing programmes.’ He scoops up a handful of silver and throws it over his head and begins spinning again, whooping with joy.

‘HARRIS!’ I yell.

My brother stops in mid-spin and falls over. ‘Do you like my outfit?’ he asks, sticking his head up from a mountain of silver foil. ‘Pongo and I are practising our routine.’

‘What in the name of normal are you talking about?’ I say.

Harris frowns. ‘The dancing competition, of course,’ he replies. ‘Haven’t you been listening to Mum? She’s entered a competition and so she needs to practise and I’ve said I’ll help her – and Pongo too, of course. I’ve been training him.’ He turns to the dog and commands: ‘Pongo, up!’

At the sound of his name, our silly dog stands on his hind legs and holds his front paws up as though he is begging. Even I have to admit he looks cute, but I am not going to give my idiot brother the benefit of the doubt.

‘It’s ridiculous that Mum’s entering a competition,’ I say. ‘She’s never going to be good enough for a competition, however many lessons she has. She’d better not be expecting us to go and watch her,’ I mutter.

Fact: I would rather eat spiders.

‘Of
course
we are going to watch her. And she is going to win because we are going to help her,’ says Harris. ‘Come on, Pongo!’ He takes the dog by his front paws and drags him out on to the landing while singing some random song in a high-pitched tuneless voice. Pongo joins in, yapping and panting.

Turns out Britain Has Not Got Talent in this house.

I listen as the cacophony fades into the distance. Once I am sure they are not going to come crashing in again, I get comfy with my book and soon I am worrying with Cassandra about leaking roofs and batty stepmothers, and I have forgotten all about my own worse-than-batty family when . . .

BRRRRRIIIIIING!

The sound of the doorbell jolts me back to reality.

I hear Harris yell, ‘I’ll get it,’ then the sounds of the door opening to the accompaniment of much silver-paper rustling.

The next thing I hear is far from welcome news.

‘YAY! It’s Finn! Hi, Finn, come in! SKYE, IT’S FINN! MU-UM . . .’ And Pongo starts barking, joining my brother in his frenzied greeting.

Nonononono. This is the last thing I want – Finn coming round, no doubt to brag about being in the band. Harris will love him even more. In fact he will probably be so excited he will insist on showing him his bonkers silver-foil dance and then Finn will tell everyone at school that not only am I a walking disaster area but I also have a brother who is one sandwich short of a picnic. He might even film Harris and post it online to add to the ever-growing collection of Greatest Hits currently doing the rounds.

I can’t face another moment of humiliation in my life.

Without thinking, I run into the bathroom and slam and bolt the door. I intend on staying in here and reading until Finn gets the message that I don’t want him in my house.

I am about to get comfortable with my back to the radiator and my bum on a couple of towels when I realize I have left my book in my room. Sighing, I go to unbolt the door.

Except that I can’t. Something has happened to the bolt. It is wedged shut.

I can’t move it.

I rattle it and jostle it and rattle it again, but it won’t budge. This is crazy. I must be doing something wrong. This has never happened before.

I tell myself to breathe, and have another go.

I try easing the bolt carefully back, forcing myself to slow down, to concentrate, not to worry.

It’s no good. The bolt is stuck.

My chest is fizzing with sharp little bubbles of panic. I let my head fall forward as I take deep breaths and tell myself to think. And then I see that a screw has fallen to the floor. I pick it up and inspect it, looking at the bolt more closely, and I see that the screw must have been holding the bolt in place. Now that it has come loose, the bolt is wedged at a slight angle in the locked position. I try to ease the fixture back to its original position, but it just slips down again with the bolt securely stuck in ‘locked’ mode.

I bang on the door and shout, ‘Can someone come and help me? I’m . . .’ And then I stop.

I can’t yell out that I am stuck in the bathroom because Finn will hear. I can just imagine what he will do with this knowledge once we are back at school. He would probably film this as well. Then the VTs could add it to their Classic Compendium of Comedy Clips. This would get even more ‘likes’ than the Skye-FALL video.

The Day Skye Green Got Stuck In The Loo. Sounds like the title for a really bad film. I can see it now. Boy, will they have fun thinking of things to Tippex on my locker after this.

WHY is this happening to me?
Why
did he have to come round?

Tears well up in me just like they did yesterday in the library. I won’t cry. I ram the heels of my fists into my eye sockets. What if they do come and get me out and I am covered in snot and tears and my face is bright red? I will look even more of a baby than I already do – locking myself in the loo, crying for my mummy to come and get me out.

I slide down to the floor with my back against the door and sit, my knees drawn up to my chest. As I do so, I feel my phone sticking into me. I pull it out of my front pocket and see that Aubrey has messaged me. More than once. I have had my phone on silent while I have been reading, so I didn’t notice the texts come through.

What if she is texting to say how much she hates me?

But why would she bother doing that?

Maybe she is texting to apologize?

Doh! I can’t sit here, locked in the loo, just staring at my phone like this. I may as well read the texts. If the first one is mean, I can just go through and delete the lot without reading the rest.

I hold my breath and open the first one.

OK so far, I guess. Although ‘Sorry for being mean yesterday’ might have been a better opener. Still, beggars can’t be choosers, as they say. I read on.