Life According To...Alice B. Lovely

by Karen McCombie

Though we did do a quick and careful high five as soon as he turned away to send her a please-don’t-do-this text back.

  (She replied with an absolutely-no-way-am-I-coming-back message in return.)

  I suddenly hear a rumble of giggles coming from the children’s section of the library – the Saturday afternoon story-time session must be going well.

  Replacing the book in my spying spot, I back away and go over to see what’s got the little guys going, Stan included.

  We arrived once the session had started and every centimetre of carpet space had a bottom on it, which is why he’s at the back, leaning against a display full of picture books.

  From where I’m standing, I can see that he’s as lost in the silly story being told as any of the much younger kids, and I’m really pleased. He does NOT need to see or hear yet another sparring match between our parents, thank you very much. What he needs to hear – and snigger over – is a tale of aliens and their underpants, and anything else that gets a smile on his usually serious, freckly face.

  With Stan happily occupied, I carry my chosen pile of books over to the checking-out desk. Someone up ahead is trying to reserve a book they want. The process seems to be taking a while, so quite a queue has built up.

  I’m not in any hurry (certainly not in a hurry to go back and join Mum and Dad) so I find myself noseying at the noticeboard on the wall beside me.

  On there are cards pinned up offering things for sale, like buggies, Sylvanian Families sets, arguing parents (only joking, sort of).

  Flyers advertise toddler sing-along sessions, photo portraits of your kid, yoga for pregnant women (surely trying to bend with a bump would be as easy as cycling with your legs tied together?).

  Info about various childminders, nannies and babysitters is stuck on there too. I recognize three:

  1)Monique. She didn’t think much of me and Stan simultaneously spilling our glasses of blackcurrant juice over her pile of wedding magazines. But then we didn’t think much of her using our phone and computer to research trashy wedding bands and twee wedding favours when she was meant to be looking after us. And spilling those drinks at the same time was an accident. Honest.

  2) Pauline. She insisted on regular inspections of our rooms for tidiness, homework for neatness and hair for nits. When I caught her arranging the tins in the kitchen cupboard in alphabetical order (beginning with “B” for beans and ending with “T” for tomatoes) I figured she was way too control-freaky for my liking. After that, me and Stan’s rooms became much messier, along with our handwriting. The tins on the shelves regularly got muddled up, and even seemed to flip themselves upside down. Stan showed Frances a hairbrush that was COVERED in nits, which turned out to be innocent grains of cous cous, we realized, after Frances had left (for ever). We have no idea how they got there. Honest.

  3) Vicki. She lasted a week with us, till she left one day, crossing herself and muttering about “devil children”. I have no idea why. I’m sure it had nothing to do with finding the Plasticine model I’d helped Stan make. I mean, yes, it looked a little like her (though if I say so myself, it was fantastically detailed, complete with a ponytail and glasses). And yes, we had stuck cocktail sticks into it. But it wasn’t a REAL voodoo doll. Honest.

  By the way, you know how Mum has that unusual version of a dictionary, where “amiable” means “horrible”? Well, I’ve got one of those too. And if you turn to the definition of “honest” in mine, it reads, “Yeah, right!”…

  And today, amongst the Moniques, Paulines and Vickis, I notice a new ad.

  You couldn’t NOT notice it.

  The rest are neatly printed on small rectangles of tidy white paper, but this one is handwritten – with each squiggly word a different colour – on a tatty yellow, heart-shaped Post-it.

  With (how girly-girly is this) diamante stickers splodged around the edge…

  I lean across to read the minuscule writing on this nuts-looking ad.

  AM I WHO YOU’RE LOOKING FOR?

  Need after-school childcare? You need ME!!

  Please, please call Alice B. Lovely on…

  I mean to stop reading when it comes to the phone number. I’ve seen enough to know this person is either mad or desperate or both.

  But when I glance away and see that the book-reserving saga is continuing, I let my eyes drift back to the sparkles of diamante and reread the Post-it.

  The hand-squiggled “y”s; the tails end in curlicues, I notice, like something a little kid would do.

  And the name: no one has a dumb name like “Alice B. Lovely”, unless they’re maybe the daughter of an A-list celebrity.

  Come to think of it, this might be the phoniest thing I’ve come across all week. It’s as if someone is trying to sound cutesy and appealing to every gushy, overprotective mum going. It’s a wonder this “Alice B. Lovely” person doesn’t have a photo of herself hugging adorable babies while blowing bubbles…

  Blat!

  Mum’s hand lands star-shaped beside the Post-it heart.

  “Don’t,” I say firmly, certain I know what’s coming next, “even think about this one…”

  I do not need some BFP nanny who had the mental age of a kitten telling me (and Stan) what to do.

  “But Edie, darling, look at the note. She might be quite a fun sort of person!”

  “Look at the note again,” I answer her. “She might be a psychopath.”

  And Mum might be desperate. She’d never have been tempted by something so home-made, unprofessional and ridiculous before. But then I guess me and Stan have been through just about every nanny within a ten-mile radius of here (and broken them all).

  “Well, I wouldn’t say it was psychopathic,” Mum says, though she’s squinting a bit more dubiously at the Post-it, I’m pleased to see.

  “The person who did that is loopy, and not safe to be left with children,” I announce. “It’s a known fact that adults who write in this childlike way have serious mental health issues. We did it in psychology. Honest!”

  Mum’s mouth twitches with uncertainty, her desperation clashing with my unwanted truths/lies.

  “OK, OK,” Mum mutters, giving up on Alice B. Lovely.

  Or so I think.

  The time is three minutes past three, and three things are happening simultaneously…

  1)The queue to the check-out desk moves forward at last.

  2) Mum secretively taps something into her phone.

  3) I get a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.

  (Please don’t let her be doing what I think she’s doing…)

  It’s been a really nice afternoon.

  No, really.

  Not a shred of sarcasm meant, not this once.

  I came out of after-school club with Tash, and there was Stan, waving his arms like a windmill gone bonkers. And beside him was no unknown nanny; it was Mum, smiling in her sensible navy suit, her bulging leather sack-bag hanging heavy on her shoulder.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked in surprise, while Tash showed Stan the latest photos of Max on her phone. (Max chewing a bone, Max chasing pigeons, Max chewing a pigeon. Only joking…)

  Before she’d dropped us at our breakfast clubs this morning, Mum had been scanning some local mums’ website or other for emergency nannies. Obviously she hadn’t had any luck. As Stan would say, “Yessssss!”

  (And I was thinking “Yessssss!” ’cause that also meant Mum hadn’t taken the cutesy yellow Post-it note and its owner seriously yesterday.)

  “My boss was fine about me coming home early today,” she explained.

  “Really?” I said incredulously.

  Mum’s boss at Indigo Dove (nice name, horrible “casual” clothes for middle-aged women) is in her twenties, with no children, and thinks everyone should work every waking hour, and possibly a little bit more, or they’re slacking.
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  The idea that she was “fine” about Mum sloping off to meet us from school sounded about as likely as my parents having a laugh and a joke together.

  “Yes, really!” Mum nodded. “I just thought, hey, let’s not stress about getting some last-minute childcare sorted today. I’ll bunk off early and hang out with my gorgeous kids!”

  I eyed Mum suspiciously for telltale signs of lying. Nothing. Either she was fantastically good at fibs (like me) or she was telling the truth.

  “Fancy coming back for tea with us?” she asked Tash. “Fish and chips? With a stop-off for an ice lolly on the way?”

  Tash said yes, all giddily giggly.

  And then I got a bit giddy, to be honest (I mean really honest, not weird dictionary honest). It's just that Mum hadn’t sounded so upbeat and, well, old-skool Mum for months. I think I’d become so used to the tight-lipped, tense version of her that I’d forgotten this one existed.

  And so we bought ice lollies, and Mum didn’t even mind when a bit of her Magnum glooped on her expensive suit.

  The four of us talked and giggled all the way home, taking turns to throw the hand-burningly hot bundle of fish and chips to each other, like an edible, vinegary rugby ball.

  Back at the flat, we sat round the table, passing the ketchup, stealing each other’s chips, chatting about Max and school and Stan’s upcoming homework project (he wants to do it on crocodiles, or Lego, of course).

  So, like I say, it’s been really nice.

  Till now.

  ’Cause the doorbell has just rung, and Mum’s face has gone funny.

  It’s like in a film, where there’s an ominous knock at the door, and the heroine – as well as the viewers – all know the bad guy is standing outside, and he hasn’t come to deliver a pizza.

  “What’s wrong?” I frown at Mum, as she hurriedly squeaks back the chair and gets up.

  “Nothing!” she says extra-brightly, like heroines in movies do, when they’re trying to pretend to their kids that everything is OK, and there’s not really an assassin standing on the front doormat. (Please don’t let there be an assassin standing on our front doormat!)

  As Mum hurries off, I realize Tash and Stan are staring at me.

  “Why did you ask what was wrong?” says Tash.

  Stan doesn’t have to say anything. The familiar look of sheer worry is in his Malteser-brown eyes. I sometimes (but don’t often) forget he looks to me to assure him that our world is all right.

  “It’s nothing. I got muddled. I meant to say, ‘Who could that be?’ but it came out, er, wrong,” I lie quickly, hoping that’ll do for a cover-up.

  Luckily, it does.

  The tension goes out of Stan’s face and he carries on walking a chip up a set of Lego stairs that he’s made and jumps it into his mouth.

  Tash knows better and stays silent, listening, like I am, for whoever’s at the door.

  “Ah, hello!” we hear Mum’s voice say.

  I can’t properly hear what’s being said back, or by who – Mum’s got her iPod on some happy, pop-ish shuffle. I get up and hurry over to the dock, swirling the sound down on Beyoncé.

  As soon as there’s silence (well, nearly silence, if you don’t count Stan’s “One … two … three … WHEEEE!” sound effects, as the chips climb ’n’ jump) I hear footsteps in the hall. Two sets.

  Pleased to meet you, Mr Assassin! (Yes, I’ve been reading too many spies-in-jeopardy novels recently.)

  “…and do you live nearby?” Mum is asking.

  It doesn’t seem like the sort of question you put to a cold-blooded killer.

  “Just the other side of the park,” I hear the whoever answer, in a soft, girly voice.

  It could be a cunning disguise, of course, but it doesn’t sound much like the sort of voice a cold-blooded killer might have. But you can never be sure.

  “Edie? Stan? I’ve got someone I want you to meet,” says Mum, breezing into the kitchen.

  Uh-oh…

  It’s as if the world stops whirling for a moment.

  I picture the sharp, pointy hands of the clock of doom in the hall juddering to a sudden halt.

  Everything feels like it’s turned 4D.

  Mum and Tash and the kitchen are all still here, but fuzzy, fading into the background.

  In this strange fourth dimension, there’s just me, and a small boy with a sauce-dripping chip stopped in mid-air, mid-jump.

  And in front of us, in high definition, is the craziest-looking girl I’ve ever seen.

  She can’t be much older than me. Sixteen, maybe? Seventeen at the oldest? But I’ve never seen anyone like her before.

  Her long fair hair is all one length, parted in the middle, hanging like shiny curtains, with just a hint of an ear peeking through on one side.

  She’s wearing some retro belted tweedy beige jacket with a big furry cream collar that puffs up behind her neck like a fuzzy version of an Elizabethan ruff.

  Her skirt is something scarlet and silky and antique-looking, with a hint of frilly petticoat showing underneath.

  There are fuchsia pink tights and beat-up gold Mary Jane shoes; the sort of shoes you’d see on 1920s flapper girls in vintage black and white movies on the History Channel.

  But it’s not the fact that she looks like she ran into the wardrobe room of a theatre company blindfolded and came out wearing the first things she found.

  It’s her face… She looks like a doll.

  Not some knowing, mascara’d Bratz doll, I mean. More like the slightly spooky porcelain one that used to be in the glass china cabinet at Nana’s old house; the kind of precious, delicate doll that grannies and great-grannies had as children and were never allowed to play with because they’d break. (Same goes for grandchildren.)

  Milk-pale, round-faced dolls with rosebud mouths, dainty penny-sized flushes of pink on their cheeks and wide, weird glassy gazes staring at you.

  One of those wide, weird glassy gazes is staring at me now. The most unbelievable eyelashes surround eyes that are the most unusual sea green. The lashes are long, black and sparkling, radiating the tiniest sprinkles of light, as if this girl has minuscule shards of mirrorball glued to the tips.

  Chime!

  The clock of doom springs back into life, letting us know that it’s quarter past six.

  “And this,” I hear Mum’s voice say, as the dimensions shift back into something approaching normal, “is Alice B. Lovely.”

  BOING!!

  That’s the sound of a frying pan of obviousness hitting the side of my head.

  Mum didn’t just decide to quit work early on a whim.

  She had it all planned.

  She was contacting this Alice B. Lovely person on her email this morning, not searching internet mums’ sites for last-minute nannies.

  She’s come home early so we could all be here, so we could all meet Alice B. Lovely together.

  How lovely.

  Honestly.

  (You can guess which version of honestly I mean here…)

  My turn for kisses.

  “Night, night, then!” I say to Stan, as I tuck him and Arthur in and remove the knobbly Lego armadillo that he’s tried to take to bed.

  “Night, night, Edie!” says Stan, as I plonk a smacker on his forehead.

  “Light on, or off?” asks Mum, with a hand on the Arsenal table lamp on top of his chest of drawers.

  My brother used to demand pitch-blackness before he could get to sleep. But he’s been more nervy lately, more prone to bad dreams (head-twisting stuff like finding teeth in an apple and white bird feathers in his pockets).

  “On,” he insists.

  “See you in the morning, love,” says Mum, as she drifts out.

  “Yeah, see you, Stan,” I say, about to turn and go.

  “Edie! Edie!” Stan whispe
rs urgently, grabbing hold of the bottom of my shirt.

  “Uh-huh?” I murmur. I don’t mind staying and chatting for a bit with Stan. It puts off going to the living room and having to chat to Mum (no guesses what she’ll want to talk about).

  “That girl today …” he begins.

  So he wants to talk about her too. I was hoping we could pretend that Alice B. Lovely and her crazy, phoney false eyelashes was just a figment of our imaginations.

  “… what … what was she?”

  “A freak,” I reply, matter-of-factly.

  “Oh,” says Stan, sounding a little disappointed.

  “What’s the ‘Oh’ for, buddy?” I ask my brother more gently, using one of Dad’s many nicknames for him.

  “I just thought … maybe … she was sort of special.”

  “Special?” I snap, my gentleness instantly evaporating. “Why exactly?”

  In the twenty minutes Alice B. Lovely had sat and had a juice and cake with us, I’d found out several things:

  1)She is sixteen, i.e. three years older than me.

  2) She has never done any after-school “childcare” before – just babysat a bunch of neighbours’ kids when they were fast asleep (which isn’t so much babysitting as watching telly in someone else’s house, as far as I’m concerned).

  3) She said “please” and “thank you” so much to my mother that I felt like vomiting. She’s either so nice it’s untrue, or it really is untrue and she’s a BFP out to spoof my mum into giving her a job.

  There is no way I want an inexperienced BFP who is practically my age looking after me. Specially one dressed like an explosion in a fancy dress shop.

  “I liked her eyes and her eyelashes,” Stan carries on dreamily. “And her hair was all silky. And so was her skirt. And did you see her shoes? They were gold! Have you ever seen gold shoes, Edie?”

  “No, but—”

  “And best of all, I liked the way she made me a diving board!”

  Mum had done all the talking really, explaining the hours and the wages and the fact that if she accepted the job, Alice B. Lovely would have to take us to Dad’s as well this week, till he sorted himself out with more childcare help in the absence of Cheryl.