Lou Out of Luck

by Nat Luurtsema

  I’m delighted when Pete takes a wet sweet out of his mouth and chucks it in Ro’s hair.

  I’d much rather listen to Pete and Roman argue – it’s a familiar, almost soothing sound. They settle down after a few minutes.

  “You should do your hair like that,” Ro says to Lav, nodding at a girl on the screen. She has long dark hair with bright rainbow-coloured streaks at the bottom.

  “I dunno,” Pete says. “I don’t think it’ll flatter my cheekbones.”

  “Ha ha.” Ro nudges Lavender with his shoulder as she’s not answering him. “Don’t you think that’d look great on you?”

  “Um. Not really,” she says. “It’s a bit – you know – LOOK AT MY HEAD.”

  “That’s what I mean. It’s cool.”

  “I like it how it is,” she says mildly. “Brown.”

  “Fiiiine,” he says. “But it would look amazing on you.”

  Roman loves people noticing him. To be fair, when you’re that tall and handsome, if you didn’t like being stared at, life would be hell. Lavender is just as beautiful, but it’s not the sort of beauty that people gawp at across the street.

  Gabe interrupts my thoughts. “I saved you all the black ones,” he says, tipping a load of wine gums into my hand. Which is worth a hundred gross nibbly kisses because those are my favourite. Pete leans over and steals half of them before I can stop him.

  “How’s college?” I ask and he shrugs.

  “It’s OK. It’s just… I don’t know.”

  “Just…?”

  “You know.”

  No, Pete, I really don’t. Getting in his head is like trying to prise apart Lego with wet hands.

  “Don’t like the course?” I ask.

  “The people?” Lav guesses.

  “All the girls are … hairy?” Roman suggests and the conversation turns to arm hair.

  We carry on watching the film – there’s a lot of axes thudding into heads and brains falling out. Whenever there’s a particularly gory scene, I look down and sort carefully through my identical black wine gums – but subtly so no one realizes I’m such a wimp.

  “Want to go to the cinema tomorrow?” Roman asks the room.

  “Can’t afford it,” Lav tells him, honestly.

  “I’ll pay!” he says, but she squirms and makes uncomfortable noises.

  “Let’s just go for a walk,” she says.

  “A walk? That sounds horrible. Are you mad?”

  “His hair goes frizzy in the rain,” I pipe up. Which is mean but we all know it’s true. Pete laughs till he chokes on a sweet and I feel proud of myself.

  “I’ve joined this new debating team,” Gabe tells me. “So I’m going to be busy at the weekends. You could sign up too if you want? You need to audition but—”

  “If I wanted to spend my weekends discussing big issues with people cleverer than me, I’d come round here,” I say. His parents are very clever and like debating ideas, whereas my family only argue if they need to, like when someone ate the last packet of crisps. Back when we had crisps.

  We all have our eyes fixed on the screen as we talk. The film is terrible and yet we’re somehow compelled to keep watching. Just as the teenage hero is creeping down the stairs to the basement to investigate the zombie-ish noises (“IT’S CLEARLY A ZOMBIE, THERE’S NO NEED TO CHECK!” Gabe is pleading with the screen) Lav makes me jump by yelping.

  “What?” I snap.

  “Check your phone. It’s Dad.”

  Will you be horny later? X

  Eh?

  “It’s…” says Lavender.

  “Don’t even say it!” I interrupt her. “It would warp my mind and I would become strange and have to go and live in the woods.”

  “It must be for Mum,” she says, ignoring my fragile mental health. “A sexy text for Mum.”

  I’ll start packing for the woods now. Lots of thick socks.

  Pete takes my phone off me and reads the message. He starts laughing.

  “That’s awful!” he crows.

  “Shut up!” I tell him.

  The film is now completely forgotten.

  Another text.

  HORNY!!!

  “STOP. IT!” The five of us shout at my phone.

  Gabe looks traumatized. “I can never look your dad in the eye again.”

  “Trust me,” Lav says. “It’s worse for us.”

  One more text.

  H. U. N. G. R. Y!

  Stupid autocorrect.

  I’m roasting cauliflower.

  Dad’s had a rubbish phone for years but his Jobcentre advisor told him he needed to get to grips with new tech and he’s started using an old smartphone. It’s not going well – as you can see. But he is trying.

  “Are you OK?” Lav finds me in Gabe’s hallway, half into my coat and doing deep breathing exercises.

  I nod, too dizzy to talk. I started compiling a list in my head of ways to help Mum and Dad, which made me feel overwhelmed and panicky, so I started doing what I could remember of Hari’s breathing exercises. The ringing in my ears says I’ve remembered wrong. I think I did the one that’s for childbirth.

  Roman drops us home, and there’s an awkward moment where two people are kissing two other people goodbye. Lav and Roman kiss for longer than me and Gabe. Ours is a proper kiss, but obviously I’m not going mad with tongues in someone else’s car on my parents’ driveway.

  I’m not.

  Lav clearly isn’t so worried.

  *Judgey face*

  Lav and I bundle into the house, start taking our coats off and then, on second thoughts, put them back on. The house is freezing – I can see my own breath in the hallway.

  “Mum?” Lav calls and we exchange a concerned look.

  “Dad?”

  “Boo!” Dad leaps out at us from the living room and we both scream. I blame the film – my nerves are wrecked. Lav slaps him and he laughs at us.

  “What’s going on, Dad?” I ask.

  “Well,” he says, dropping his voice but keeping a cheery smile on his face – it’s not reassuring. “Your mum is having a bit of a … wobble, shall we say. So I’ve turned all the heating and lights off to cheer her up.”

  “Does she like being cold and sitting in the dark?”

  “No! She was just worried about bills and—”

  “Hi, girls, it’s all right,” Mum calls from the living room. Her voice sounds hoarse and snotty as if she’s been crying.

  “Why don’t you grab your mum a glass of water?” Dad suggests and I head to the kitchen, determined to make her a glass of water that will cheer her right up.

  I use my favourite glass, blue and owl-shaped. But it’s still not special enough and water is très bland. So I rummage in the fridge for a lemon, a lime at a push. I find nothing but a banana. Can you put banana in water? I mean, I know you can, but should you?

  I prepare a refreshing delicious banana water and bring it into the living room, where Mum is sitting on the sofa, pretending she hasn’t been crying. She’s all puffy with a broad fake grin on her face. She looks like a clown balloon.

  I sit close to her and put my head on her shoulder. I’m not used to seeing her like this. She’s usually busy and confident and perfume-smelling, dashing in and out of the house with a sense of purpose and a big shoulder bag full of essays.

  “Did you drop a banana in her water?” Lavender asks. “I can fish it out with a fork.”

  “There wasn’t any lemon,” I say.

  “Right, obviously.”

  Dad nudges Lav.

  “Good job, champ,” she says. “Banana water.”

  “Um,” Dad begins hesitantly. “Did you get my texts?”

  We turn and look at him. That’s all the answer he needs.

  “Did you show the boys?”

  “Of course,” Lav says.

  “We were traumatized!” I inform him.

  “Oh, girls, don’t embarrass your dad,” says Mum, with a proper grin now.

  We scoff at that. Dad
has embarrassed us so many times, from giving us lifts in his pyjamas, to saying to a boy’s parents, “Is your son the handsome one that Lavender always goes on about?” And once he pulled a muscle in his groin on Sports Day and spent the afternoon clutching his privates. Finally some payback!

  “I’ll dish up dinner,” he says. “You all relax and watch TV.”

  “Before we have to pawn it,” Mum mutters.

  “No!” It bursts out of me before I realize. “Sorry,” I say. But I do love the TV. It’s been around my whole childhood, like a family dog that has loads of films in it.

  Dinner is a challenge. Even though I am – of course – hard as nails, I have watched a lot of pale zombie brains splatter this evening. So when Dad lifts the lid to reveal a whole roast cauliflower, I flinch.

  “What?” Dad demands. “It’s nutritious, cheap … and big.”

  “Yes,” I say, trying not to look at it. “Yum, yum, yum. Big. Pale.”

  Dad spears the cauliflower with his fork and dumps it on the plate in the middle of the table. Mum, Lavender and I grab at the side dishes, hastily spooning potatoes and beans onto our plates to leave as little space as we can for the main dish.

  “Hey,” Dad protests. “Stop it.”

  “Sorry,” I say, grabbing one last potato.

  “Right, so shall I carve it or slice it like a pie?”

  We all think about this, considering the cauliflower from various angles.

  “Mash it and spoon it out?”

  “We could pass it around and take bites out like an apple?”

  “Spear it and lick it like a lolly?”

  “Slice?” Mum says, and we all agree, because she’s got enough problems without an argument over cauliflower.

  Dad delicately slides a couple of slices onto my plate, where they steam, white and shiny.

  “Do you think I should’ve put seasoning on it?” he asks, with a flicker of self-doubt.

  “No, no,” Lav reassures him. “Let the natural cauliflower … ah … flavour come out.”

  I reach for the salt.

  Mum and Dad want to hear about school – it’s honestly worrying that I have nothing interesting to tell them. I can see Lavender struggling too.

  “Oh, wait!” I remember and tell them about prom.

  “Would they like me to help?” Dad asks, his eyes lighting up.

  “Because you’re a prom expert with a degree in Party Animalism from the College of YOLO?” Lav asks.

  “Because,” he protests over our giggles, “I’m a project manager, and a prom is a project to be managed?”

  “That sounds so boring,” I tell him. Mum dings my knuckles with her fork.

  “Fine,” he says loftily. “Don’t come crying to me when your prom is an unmanaged mess that can’t meet its targets.”

  “It’s not MY prom. And it doesn’t have any targets.”

  “No targets? Well…” He shakes his head at his plate. “Oh wow. Good luck with that.”

  “Anyway,” I tell them, moodily, “I’m not on the Prom Committee, only Hannah.”

  “Good!” says Mum brightly. “It’ll be good for you girls to do things separately. Maybe you’ll make new friends. Like Dermot.”

  “You’re only saying that cos you don’t like Hannah’s parents and you want to hang out with nicer ones,” I say.

  “Eat your cauliflower,” she says.

  I’m on my second slice of pale, flabby vegetable matter when Dad’s phone rings and he answers it, swivelling in his chair away from us. Lavender turns to Mum with a slice of cauliflower on her fork and nods at Mum’s handbag. Mum shakes her head – no, she will not let Lav hide it in there.

  Terrible parenting.

  We keep eating in utter silence. The cauliflower is so soft that I can’t hear anyone chewing.

  “No, I’ve not found any work yet,” Dad is telling the person on the other end. He sounds defeated. I pat his shoulder as the closest thing to me.

  “Yeah.” Dad forces a laugh. “That’s not exactly my… No. You’re right. Take what I can get, till I’m back on my feet. Thanks, Vinnie.”

  “Vinnie?” Mum says when he’s off the phone. “My brother?”

  “Yeah,” Dad says. “He might have work for me, just part-time sort of – but still, work!”

  “Legal?” Lav asks. “Not something dodgy?”

  “Yes! I mean no, not, you know.” Dad is being vague.We all give him stern looks. “Part-time.”

  Part-time criminal work? Brilliant, maybe he’ll only get part-time prison. That’s one for the newly unearthed Worry Diary.

  Dad changes the subject. “He offered me his season tickets for tomorrow.”

  “Football?” Mum is bemused.

  “I know. I don’t know anything about it,” Dad says. “Lou, will you come with me and explain? You’re so good with sport.”

  I glow a little, because no one is immune to compliments. And hey, he’d probably get nicer food in prison.

  “This is horrible,” Dad says, looking glumly at his plate, and we all nod but keep going. Cos we should take what we can get. Until we’re back on our feet.

  Mum has some good news, though: “People are bidding on the items we put on eBay, we should have a bundle to post out next week. Although…” She pauses. “People are creepy.”

  So apparently, the photos of Lav got attention, not from good-hearted potential jumper-buyers but from creeps wanting to know how old she is and where she lives. Oh, sure, internet creeps – here’s all her information. Stranger Danger’s just a rhyme! Duh.

  Mum had a satisfying afternoon telling them all to get stuffed. She has a huge vocabulary, and is an experienced creative writer. I bet she kicked arse. It’s a shame Being Scathing Online isn’t a job.

  This house is so cold I may lose fingers.

  I put my hands back under the duvet. I think I’ll just dress under here this morning. I’ll be standing outside with hundreds of football fans, probably next to a hot dog stand. If ever there was a day to skip a shower and get away with it, it’s today! “Pee-yoo,” I’ll whisper, discreetly holding my nose. “Don’t think the guy next to me showered thoroughly today – if at all!”

  The perfect crime.

  I go back to sleep for a couple of hours before I have to get ready. Dad’s monitoring the hot water so closely he definitely knows I haven’t washed, but it saves money, so he’s not going to snitch on me. We’re both bundled up in about eight thick layers. And there’s a football scarf poking through the letterbox – Uncle Vinnie must have dropped it off as he passed this morning. I’m swaying slightly from the weight of clothing and decline this extra layer, so Dad winds the scarf delicately around his head like a cherry on a cake.

  He opens the door and we step out, braced to freeze.

  Huh. We turn and look back.

  “It’s actually,” Dad marvels, “colder in the house than out here.”

  “We might as well live in the park.”

  “Never say never,” he says grimly.

  “Oh, great.”

  “Joking. Just wait for your mum to get her first Jobseeker’s payment and she’ll let us put the heating back on.”

  Lav opens her window and waves us goodbye as we stumble down the drive. “So glad I’m not going with you,” she calls after us.

  “She’s jealous really,” Dad assures me.

  It’s only a twenty-minute walk along the main road to the football stadium, and people in football scarfs keep joining us en route until we feel like a big gang. This is quite fun.

  I link arms with Dad. “Why have we never done this before?” I ask.

  Twenty-five minutes later, we’re in a massive unmoving wodge of people. I guess it’s a queue but it’s as wide as it is long. Someone near me has bad breath, so I tuck my face into my scarf to filter out the cabbage smell.

  It starts to rain.

  “I know why we’ve never done this before, it’s rubbish,” Dad grumbles and I have to agree. The crowd moves forw
ard so, so slowly. A delicious smell of onions wafts over and I perk up a bit. We’re passing a fast food stand.

  “Want something?” Dad asks, casually, and I so nearly say yes then I glance at him and realize he just asked out of habit.

  “No, I’m fine thanks,” I say, glad he can’t hear my rumbling stomach over hundreds of people saying “Wet, isn’t it?” and “Sorry, that’s my foot you’re on?”

  “Sure?” He looks relieved.

  “Yeah yeah.”

  “I packed some sandwiches,” he says in a stage whisper and I give him a wink.

  Having no money pinches all over and you don’t realize how many times a day you give yourself a little treat until they stop.

  My phone vibrates with a text that immediately pushes money from my mind. I show it to Dad and he starts laughing. Lav and Mum have got to go and see Evil Grandma today.

  So even though it’s raining, even though I’m crushed in between Bad Breath Dude and Man Who Thinks Lou’s Ribs Are a Nice Place to Rest His Elbow, I am determined to have a lovely time.

  It’s a pretty good game although the home team gets “annihilated” according to the melodramatic fans behind me.

  “Good effort! Lovely running!” Dad yells. I don’t think the people around us find him as funny as he finds himself. But I force myself to not shush him. He’s going through a stressful time, and if he enjoys embarrassing me, then let him have his fun!

  (Also, quick scan of crowd. No one from school is here.)

  I have to keep pointing out what’s going on in the game because Dad doesn’t seem to be watching the players; his attention is elsewhere. I’m watching him suspiciously. What work has Uncle Vinnie offered him? I know Dad is a good person: he has morals – even if whenever we stay in a hotel he steals everything in the room. But that’s an ethical grey area, we all agree as he drags his bulging suitcase through the lobby.

  I don’t trust Uncle Vinnie, though. He’s always up to something and I’m scared about what he’s going to drag Dad into. Dad’s so desperate to bring home money that he might do something illegal. I know if I voice any worries, Dad will say, “It’s fine, don’t worry, everything’s fine!” Which will just make me worry more because he’s said that about everything from arguments between him and Mum (divorce when I was six) to my Key Stage 3 exams (RUBBISH results) and our ill dog, Mr Hughes (died two days later).