Stuff

by Jeremy Strong

  Anyhow, Pete’s aunt wasn’t laughing and she didn’t look all that glamorous either. She stood in front of him, looking at me questioningly.

  ‘Stuff?’ (She never called me Simon. She was the only adult I knew who called me Stuff. I suppose it was because that was what Pete called me most of the time.)

  ‘Hi.’

  ‘What do you want?’

  I smiled and tugged on my bag strap. ‘Pete and I were talking the other day and I was telling him about how things are at my house.’

  Pete was gesticulating at me from behind his aunt. He looked as if he was trying to cut his throat. He’d make his eyes big and then go cross-eyed. What was that supposed to mean?

  ‘Yes? So?’ Aunt Polly raised her eyebrows questioningly.

  ‘Yeah, and Pete said …’

  Pete was jumping up and down behind her and mouthing something at me. I couldn’t make out what it was. His aunt caught me staring at him and swung round to see what was going on. He immediately stopped and pretended he was smoothing his hair and when she turned back he started all over again, pulling stupid faces.

  ‘And Pete said it would be OK for me to stay here.’

  At which point Pete’s tongue came right out, his eyes rolled up, his head fell to one side and stayed there. Evidently he was dead.

  Pete was wrong,’ said Aunt Polly. ‘You can’t.’

  ‘Oh.’ I looked at Pete, but he was still dead. I took a step back from the front door. ‘I’ll go home, then,’ I said.

  ‘Good idea,’ said Aunt Polly, and her last bit of glamour faded away. ‘Goodbye.’

  I gave a little nod and set off back home. And, funnily enough, it took me all the way back to when I was five. I felt the same then: a strange mix of disappointment and relief. I hadn’t made it but, on the other hand, I was going back to what I knew best. Not knowing what’s in store for you can be a bit nerve-racking.

  When I got home I hurried up to my room. I was putting Buffy back on the wall when my mobile went.

  ‘I tried to warn you,’ Pete said.

  ‘Yeah. I worked that out – afterwards. You said it would be OK. I felt such a gobbersaurus.’

  ‘That’s because you are a gobbersaurus. Couldn’t you see what I was trying to say?’

  ‘If I had, I wouldn’t have made such a fool of myself, would I?’

  ‘She’s bust up with toy boy. He told her she was too old for him. She’s spitting mad. She’s making my life a misery now. You think you’ve got problems? I tell you, Stuff, if you’re going to leg it, I reckon I should come with you.’

  ‘Yeah?

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Serious?’

  ‘Serious.’

  ‘Deal?’

  ‘Deal.’

  I killed the phone, lay back on my bed and grinned madly at the ceiling. Result!

  11

  Shock! Horror!

  When the Titanic sank, more than 500 kilograms of marmalade went down with her. As if drowning the sausages wasn’t enough. Five hundred kilograms! That’s well over 1,000 jars. What a waste. I like marmalade. And sausages.

  But, and here’s a question, have you ever wondered how things like marmalade were invented? I mean, what kind of person goes around thinking, I know what I’m going to do this morning: I’m going to get some oranges, peel them, stew them, slice the peel and pop that in, add some sugar, shove it in jars and call it marmalade? I mean, somebody had to think of that.

  And another thing. Why did they call it marmalade? What made them shove it in a jar, stare at it and announce, ‘Behold, I have made a Thing to Eat, and it is a Good Thing, and it shall be called Marmalade for all Time, from Now until Eternity.’

  Why didn’t they just say, ‘Oh, look, I’ve made some jollopy orange stuff.’

  Anyhow, jollopy orange stuff – I like it. Small comforts are often the most important, so marmalade was near the top of my list of What I Need To Take With Me When I Go.

  And I am going. Definitely. If yesterday wasn’t the last straw, then today was. Dad and Sherry Trifle called a Family Conference. Family? Ha! A dad with a son, a mum with a daughter, but the mum and the dad aren’t married to each other but to other people, and the son and the daughter aren’t brother and sister. Some family.

  There we are, all four of us sitting at the dining table, and Dad’s looking at La Trifle du Jour and she’s smiling and looking at him and they’re holding hands across the table – urr, finger-down-throat. Tasha’s giving me the Evil Eye, which is actually normal for her, and Pankhurst is out in the kitchen honing her claws on the knife sharpener.

  So, we’re round this table and there are lightning bolts of hate zagging between Tasha and me, while puddles of love ooze across the table between Dad and La Trifle. Neither of them notices, of course. Too busy squelching in the puddles.

  ‘Tracey and I want to tell you something,’ said Dad, smiling broadly at everyone.

  Oh my God, they’re going to get married.

  ‘It might come as a bit of a shock.’

  Budgie’s buttocks! They want me to be a bridesmaid!!

  ‘Tracey’s expecting a baby.’

  ! ! ! ! !

  ‘Say something, then.’

  ‘Congratulations, Mum,’ said Tasha, with an unusually bright smile.

  ‘Thank you, darling. Simon?’

  ‘Interesting,’ was all I could manage, in a kind of I’m being crushed by six pythons voice.

  ‘Interesting?’ queried Dad.

  I nodded and got up. ‘I need some time to think about it.’

  ‘That’s fine,’ said La Trifle coldly. ‘You’ve got about eight months to get used to it.’

  I went to my room, shut the door and died.

  I lay on my bed and stayed dead for about an hour, I guess. A baby, a little half-brother or half-sister for our half-family. Dad and La Trifle were starting again, making their own family. Evidently Natasha thought it was wonderful. I didn’t.

  Dad knocked and came in. He looked sheepish. Baaaa. I turned to the wall.

  ‘It came as a shock to me too,’ he said.

  ‘Really? Do you want me to tell you where babies come from?’

  ‘Simon!’

  ‘It’s OK, Dad,’ I grunted. ‘I’ll get used to it.’

  And he left. But I won’t get used to it and I was thinking that I had no option but to leave and start again, somewhere else. Seemed like nothing was going for me at all – except, strangely enough, the comic strip. According to Secret Agent Kovak, it was going down a storm. Apparently the kids couldn’t get enough of it, including the sixth formers! She’d even seen it in the staffroom. Mr Hanson reckoned it was the best thing the school had produced. ‘It’s honest,’ he told her. ‘I’ve always known rabbits were full of evil intent.’

  So that made me feel better inside. Just a pity it didn’t make me feel better enough. I went to see Pete.

  ‘Is your aunt in?’ I asked.

  He grinned. ‘No. Got a new boyfriend.’

  ‘That was quick. How does she do it?’

  ‘She just asks them, straight out. She doesn’t hang about, my aunt. She says, “Time waits for no man and I’m not waiting for a man either. If you want one you have to go out and get one.” Her words, not mine.’

  ‘What do you do if you want a woman, not a man?’

  Pete gave me a quick glance. ‘Anyone in particular?’

  ‘No.’

  What a great big whoppa-doppa. Mind you, it was hardly likely that I was going to tell Pete about Sky. That’s who I was thinking of. Most of the time. But I didn’t think I had any chance of getting anywhere with her and a tiny bit of me kept muttering: Stick with Delfine. You know where you are with Delfine.

  That was half the problem. I knew only too well where I was with Delfine. Going nowhere. The last time we’d been out together I’d tried kissing her in a special way. I’d read it in a book. OK, it was a girlie book. Tasha had left it lying around and every time I’d seen her reading it she was l
aughing. I wondered what was so funny about it and, when she wasn’t looking, I picked it up and read a bit.

  It was all about lip-nibbling. Apparently girls like it if you nibble their lips. They do! Apparently – according to this book. I thought I’d try it with Delfine. She leaped away from me as if I’d just bitten her. (Well, I had, sort of.)

  ‘What are you doing?!’

  ‘Lip-nibbling.’

  ‘It’s horrid!’

  ‘It’s supposed to be nice. You’re supposed to like it.’ I told her about the book.

  ‘That’s disgusting,’ she said.

  ‘It says girls like it in the book.’

  ‘You shouldn’t read things like that. You read too much. If you didn’t read so much, you wouldn’t be like you are.’

  ‘How do you mean, “be like you are”? What am I, then?’

  ‘Weird,’ said Delfine, clamping her arms across her chest.

  Long silence.

  ‘Look,’ I said, ‘think of it as an experiment. If you don’t try, you won’t know what it’s like. You’ll never know if you like it or not. It’s the same as ravioli.’

  ‘What? What’s ravioli?’

  ‘It’s a kind of pasta – you know, spaghetti, lasagne, macaroni? There are loads of different kinds of pasta. Penne – that’s another one.’

  ‘I don’t like pasta,’ Delfine said.

  ‘I’m not giving you pasta! I’m asking you to use your imagination for a moment. Suppose you’re in a restaurant and the waiter comes up and asks if you’d like some ravioli?’

  ‘That’s pasta, isn’t it? You said.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I nodded.

  Delphine shook her head emphatically ‘Don’t like it,’ she said.

  ‘How do you know? You’ve never tried ravioli.’

  ‘It’s pasta. Don’t like pasta.’

  Another long silence. Trying to argue sensibly with Delfine was like attempting to reach the centre of a maze that had no centre. I tried to give her a cuddle.

  Are you going to do that nibbling thing again?’ she asked, backing off. She made it sound as if I was trying to remove all the fillings in her teeth with a blunt tablespoon.

  ‘I think I’ll go home,’ I said. And I did.

  12

  Very Useful Lists

  So, there I was at Pete’s, thinking about Sky. Couldn’t stop thinking about her. Why not? OK, she was stunning. But that was purely coincidental. Purely. There was more to it than that.

  So, when Pete asked if I had some particular girl in mind, I clammed up. I’d seen the way he looked at her. Pete and I were best mates, but he went through girls like, I dunno: a hurricane, boa constrictor, cocktail stick? Whatever. I knew he had his eye on Sky, so I thought it best to keep quiet for the time being. Apart from anything else, I had no idea how to deal with Sky myself. So far there was nothing between us at all and no sign from Sky that she thought it might ever be any different. In fact, since that episode in the art room, she’d been positively cool with me. Maybe I’d embarrassed her so much she was avoiding me.

  When Pete had told me what his aunt said about not hanging around – you know, just go out and make it happen – I thought that’s what I should do. I should go to Sky and say: ‘Will you go out with me?’ It was the only way to find out. Simple.

  On the other hand (and it was a giant hand, so to speak), the whole business had just been cocked up by Dad and the Pregnant Trifle. I spilled the beans to Pete.

  ‘It’s going to be awful.’

  Pete sat on his bed, nodding. ‘Yeah. How’s that?’

  ‘A baby, Pete. Not even my brother or sister – only half.’

  ‘Hey, I’ve got an idea. You wait until the baby is born, then you stand over the cot and point at the baby very severely and you say the magic words.’

  ‘What magic words?’

  ‘You point VERY severely and you say, “I refute you, thus!” Then throw the cot out of the window.’

  ‘Pete!’

  ‘Only trying to help. It’s like the cucumber. You could put salt and pepper on the baby first, if you wanted.’

  ‘Pete! This is serious. I feel like I’ve been snatched from my real family and found myself being fostered by strangers. I’ve got to get out. Are you serious about coming with me?’

  ‘What? Oh yeah. Too right, I am.’

  ‘I thought maybe things were better with your aunt now she has a new boyfriend.’

  ‘They are, but you never know how long it’ll last. She’s up and down all the time. I never know what to expect. You know what women are like.’

  I smiled and nodded but I was thinking: No, I don’t know what women are like at all. I really wish I did. I’d love to know what women are like. Well, girls, at any rate. Especially Sky. And I wished I was Pete. He knew so much. He had so much experience. Sometimes I felt like a ten-year-old when I was with him.

  ‘OK, if we’re going to go away, we need a plan and we need to think about what to take with us.’

  ‘Money’ said Pete.

  ‘Make a list,’ I suggested, so he swung round to the processor and began work.

  ESSENTIALS

  • Loads of dosh

  • Clothes, shoes, jacket

  • Rope, crampons, ice axe (Pete reckoned we might head for Scotland)

  • Matches, batteries, multi-tool knife, cooking gear, pans, plates

  These last items got us thinking about the sort of things we might cook.

  ‘Scrambled eggs is easy,’ Pete said. ‘And sausages. Fried bread, eggy-bread, fried egg, baked beans, bacon – they’re all easy. I’ve had to do those when Aunt Polly’s been out.’

  This was typical Pete – a man of the world. I was feeling ten again. The only thing I could think of was cheese on toast, which happened to be one of my favourites. (Cheese on toast and marmalade and sausages – but not all at once.)

  Pete shook his head. ‘Don’t know the recipe.’

  ‘It’s easy. Get a slice of bread. Get a slice of cheese. Toast bread. Put cheese on top and there you are – cheese on toast.’

  ‘Can’t do toast,’ said Pete. ‘We won’t have a toaster.’

  This was a blow – all that way from home and no cheese on toast. But I saw Pete’s point. We could hardly take a pop-up toaster with us. We’d need miles of electric cable. Then I remembered that you could get wind-up radios. You didn’t have to plug them in anywhere. You wound them up with a handle to generate their own electricity.

  ‘Maybe we could make a wind-up toaster?’ I suggested.

  ‘OK,’ said Pete, and he added it to the list. ‘Beds would be nice too, especially our own beds.’

  ‘Put them on the list,’ I grinned, and after that we just got silly.

  • Wind-up toaster

  • Our own beds, duvets, pillows

  • Toilet on wheels; in fact, why not the whole house?

  • Rest of road, except Mrs Parkinson and her horrible dog

  • Aunt Polly’s car

  • Sky

  ‘You can’t take Sky!’ I protested.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘She wouldn’t go with you.’

  ‘I’ll ask. Time waits for no woman.’

  ‘Dare you!’

  ‘No probs.’

  We eyed each other. Did Pete know what I was thinking? Did I know what Pete was thinking? Did Pete know I thought I knew what he was thinking? Confused? So was I.

  When I got back home Tasha and Pankhurst were prancing round the room to Honzo da Bonzo yet again – not a pretty sight, or sound for that matter. I was going to walk straight past and up the stairs but I was surprised (and annoyed) to see that Tasha was a good dancer, sexy even. (Pankhurst was crap.) Tasha had her eyes closed, dancing in a world of her own. If only she’d go and live there, I thought. Anyhow, she wasn’t aware I’d seen her. I went upstairs before she found out.

  I sat on my bed and began my own list. A proper list. A serious one.

  • Tins of food, cutlery, scissor
s

  • Pots, pans, plates

  • Buttons, needles, thread

  • Torch, candles, matches, batteries

  • First-aid kit, string, torch

  • Fishing line and hooks, sharp knife

  • Compass, mirror, magnifying glass, map

  I studied my list for a while. I thought about Delfine, Natasha, La Trifle and new babies. I thought about Mum, in another town up north with a new man and a new life. I wondered if she’d have a baby. That would make another family I only half belonged to, another half-brother or half-sister.

  I added two more items:

  • Marmalade

  • Sky

  13

  How to Embarrass yourself

  Hail to the King! Miss Kovak thinks I’m a genius. Quite right too. Apparently she had to print off extra copies of Art Works, but only the comic-strip bit.

  ‘The teachers were asking for copies,’ she said. ‘They thought it was funny and well drawn.’

  ‘Did anyone recognize themselves?’

  ‘Apart from Sky who’s a bit obvious, no, but I think some of the staff reckoned they spotted likenesses.’

  Am I in trouble?’ I was already worrying about Baguette.

  ‘No! And I can’t wait for the next instalment.’

  That gave me something to think about. I was beginning to get a good idea of what shape it would take. I remembered what Miss Kovak had said about drawing what was in the world I knew – the world of home and school. There were things going on around me all the time that I could use.

  It’s a strange business, sketching. When you draw something you really focus on it and you start seeing things you’ve never noticed before. Take your eye, for example. Obviously I don’t mean that literally. Leave it in its socket for the time being. Use a mirror, you gormless goat. But look at that eye. Do you see how many little flecks of colour make up your iris? Tiny shards of gold, white, carmine, green … see what I mean?

  Anyhow, I was pretty chuffed that the first episode had been successful. I was dying to tell everyone about it – Pete, Delfine, even Dad – but I couldn’t. It had to be a secret. Have you ever had a secret you couldn’t tell? What a stupid question. That’s exactly what a secret is. But have you? I had this really embarrassing secret when I was younger.