I said, ‘So they weren’t that bad,’ because I wanted to talk about them.
Anna said, ‘Keith is enterprising. The rest are goons.’
Keith is Hallowe’en Boy. It’s a pity she doesn’t like David Leydon, but actually it’s not that much of a pity.
MONDAY SEPTEMBER 28TH
Uh-oh. Just had a fight. Have been sent up to my room. Like a five-year-old! Am SEETHING!
What happened was I was called down for dinner and when I got there it was pizza.
I said, ‘Oh-hh pizza!’ and my mum said, ‘Something wrong with pizza?’ It was her warning voice, and really I suppose I should have been warned, but I wasn’t because a) it is important to speak your mind and not be down-trodden in Life and b) pizza is not so healthy, and it is important for the whole family that we eat more healthily. I wasn’t just thinking of me. I was thinking of Dad and Justine as well!
So I said, ‘Pizza doesn’t have a lot of nutritional value. Not like ostrich.’ But I sat down and was actually ready to eat because a) I like pizza and b) there was salad with it and salad is Healthy.
So if mum had just left it at that like she should have there wouldn’t have been an argument, but she said, ‘Ostrich?’
Her voice was gone from warning to dangerous, and I was scared. I have to admit. She can still scare me. I didn’t say anything. Neither did anyone else. Justine was just staring at her plate.
Mum said, ‘And where did you have ostrich?’
I said, in a very casual voice, not a scared voice, ‘Oh, at Anna’s.’
She said, ‘I see. And it’s now beneath you to eat pizza?’
I said, ‘Well, it’s important to diversify. I think our diet in this house is quite monotonous.’
I was proud of using ‘monotonous’ in the right way and I spoke in a nice, explaining voice, not a bratty one, because maybe Mum didn’t realise how monotonous our diet is. I was trying to help!
But Dad said, ‘Apologise to your mother.’ Just like that, in a heavy, no-argument voice.
I said, ‘But I’m not saying anything wrong. I’m just saying that maybe–’
He cut me off then. ‘Apologise immediately or go upstairs.’ So what choice did I have? I stood up and slammed back my chair and went upstairs, banging the door. And then I burst into tears.
I am so mad. I was trying to help and they treat me like a little kid. Why shouldn’t I be allowed an opinion on what we eat? Is this some kind of insane boarding school where the Headmistress’ word is Law, and you get beaten just for asking questions? At Anna’s house everyone gets to speak their mind freely. Probably if Charlie said he didn’t like his dinner, he wouldn’t have to eat it.
Am very hungry now. Not sure what to do. I need a hidden stash of food in my room. I will find myself apologising when I don’t really mean it just because I’m starving. They are trying to break my spirit through hunger!
WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 30TH
Cows’ farts do destroy the ozone layer! In Geography today we were doing all about the environment and Mrs Finch asked what destroys the ozone layer so I put up my hand and said, ‘Aeroplanes and cars’, and she wrote it on the board.
Then someone else said, ‘CFCs, you know, in fridges’ and she wrote that down, then Anna said, ‘Cows’ farts!’ so we all began to giggle, but Mrs Finch said ‘Yes, unfortunately that is one of the biggest causes. They release methane gas,’ So then she wrote down ‘Methane gas from cows’, which saved her having to write ‘Cows’ farts’.
I should have known Renata couldn’t have got it wrong.
We discussed what to do to cut harmful gases, like using trains and bikes instead of cars, and boats instead of planes. We didn’t work out what to do about the cows though. Nobody said, ‘Slaughter them!’, because nobody is a psychopath like Renata.
I said, ‘Change their diet’ because it is diet that causes farting, but everyone cracked up laughing.
Anna said, ‘Yeah, put them in a concrete jungle!’ so then I got why everyone was laughing.
Admittedly it could be hard to stop cows eating grass in Ireland!
This is a Conundrum.
At break Pierce went up to Charlie Nuttall and took his Mars bar. Just like that! Charlie had just pulled off the wrapper and was about to bite when Pierce appeared (appierced!) and leaned in and took the bar casually and said, ‘Give us some of that!’
Charlie said, ‘Uugh–’ and then changed it to, ‘uugh … Uu … no problem,’ and watched while Pierce bit off an enormous bite – way more than half – and then handed it back to him, all covered with Pierce slobber.
‘Ta,’ said Pierce, and he gave Charlie’s hair a ruffle, a really patronising ruffle, the way some grown-ups ruffle kids’ hair, but I never would cause nobody likes being patronised, not even four-year-olds. And certainly not Charlie Nuttall. He looked frustrated and embarrassed that everyone had seen this but there was nothing he could do.
Anna said to me in a quiet voice, ‘That’s it. We’re gonna have to get Pierce for lying to us and bullying too … it’s our duty.’
‘A good dose of Karma for him,’ I said enthusiastically, but I was nervous. Pierce is harder to get than Elaine. Maybe he’s outside the Karmic circle. I mean, if Karma was gonna get him for his bad deeds, surely it would have got him by now?
Oh, the pizza fight? Well, it was Resolved.
Dad came to my room and said, ‘Do you not know that when someone makes food for you it is very rude to complain?’
I said, ‘Of course. But mum made it.’ I mean, of course I would never complain about a stranger’s food.
He sighed and said, ‘Denise, you are old enough to realise that your mother isn’t a robot programmed to look after you. If she spends time cooking, it’s the same as if a stranger does. You still have to be polite.’
I was going to argue because a) I am argumentative and b) how can Mum be the same as a stranger? (that’s crazy talk – if you can’t say exactly what you think at home, where can you?) and c) she didn’t actually make the pizza, she just heated it up. But I didn’t argue because a) I was starving and b) Dad looked like he was making an effort to control himself. He looked like one wrong word and he’d explode. He has been pretty bad-tempered recently because he’s working too hard, because of the recession, I guess. He leaves earlier and he comes back later and he looks tired. So this time I read the warning signs.
I said, ‘Okay, sorry’ and then went down to Mum and said, ‘Sorry,’ and then I ate the pizza – and salad. So they did manage to break me through hunger! So now I know I would not be able to hold out long if I was being tortured in a death camp. I would give up all the information I knew after just one day’s starvation. I ate Justine’s remaining pizza too. She left about half of hers. How come she didn’t get into trouble over that?
Just sent Anna a text:
boys darts – what to do?
She wrote back, really fast:
bull ’do
Which translates as: cull ’em. I am impressed how fast she thought of that. And it was good coincidence that ‘bull’ came up for ‘cull’. Because of cows, you know.
FRIDAY OCTOBER 2ND
Went to Anna’s house to make the cake. Her mum wasn’t there. This turned out to be very unfortunate – for the cake, and for us. In fact we would have been better off going to my house like Anna wanted to because Mum makes good cakes, but I didn’t want to so I said Mum wouldn’t be there. This was not exactly a lie because she might have been shopping, but it wasn’t exactly the truth either.
At Anna’s, the only people we had to help us with the cake were Renata and her friend Alva. They were in a very silly mood, I could tell as soon as we went in. They started saying names of cakes back and forth to each other and the names got sillier and sillier:
Renata: ‘Black Forest Gateau’
Alva: ‘Victoria Sponge’
Renata: ‘Lemon Meringue’
Alva: ‘Madeira’
Renata: ‘Battenburg’
Alva: ‘Sticky Toffee Pudding’
Renata: ‘Angel Food Cake’
Alva: ‘Bakewell’
Renata: ‘Tiramisu’
And on and on and on. Really silly, and laughing at us and half showing-off too.
Finally Anna shouted, ‘Shut up! We just want to make a six-year-old’s birthday cake!’
Renata got down a cookery book, opened it and said, ‘There!’
It was a photo of a big chocolate cake with smarties and cream splotches on top.
Anna said, ‘So how do we make it?’
Renata said, ‘Follow the recipe, stoopid.’
Then she and Alva trailed out. As she was leaving Alva said kindly, ‘Beat the mix. Always beat the mix more than you think you need to.’
So we only got one tip and it wasn’t enough … When the cake came out of the oven, everyone was back in the kitchen except Anna’s dad. The cake had sunk. It looked like deflated balloon, all sad and sagging. A big silence greeted our cake. Then Tommy began to laugh. And that set Alva and Renata off in hysterics. Anna pushed her lip out …
Anna’s mum said, ‘Renata!’ and then, ‘It will be fine when you’ve iced it and put on the cream and smarties, you’ll see. I’m sure it tastes delicious.’
‘It would want to,’ said Renata.
‘You didn’t beat the mix enough,’ said Alva, ‘I told you to beat the mix more than you think you need to.’
‘People who say “I told you so” should be shot,’ said Anna.
SATURDAY OCTOBER 3RD
Back from party. Oh my God! Gonna go play in the traffic …
SUNDAY OCTOBER 4TH
OK. Have recovered from yesterday. I am now supposed to be doing my homework before Sunday dinner. Instead I will write all about the party:
So, we arrived at Mrs Mahony’s in good time, with everything made – the rice crispy buns and the sandwiches and the cake and the Going Home Bags. Mum gave us a lift, and she walked us to the door to help carry the stuff. The door opened before we’d rung the bell, and there was a supermodel.
Well, a mini-supermodel. She was only a kid, but she had a supermodel body (long skinny legs and arms), and supermodel hair (poker straight with a half-fringe over the eyes), supermodel clothes (leggings and ballet pumps and short smock dress), and supermodel eyes – enormous in a very small face. Flick, she tossed her head to the left so her fringe lifted up and came back down over her eyes.
‘Let’s see my cake!’
I looked at Anna, then back at the supermodel, ‘You’re Chloe?’
‘Uh-huh … let’s see my cake.’
Mum began to laugh and said, ‘Let’s bring everything in.’
So we all went through to the kitchen.
I muttered to Anna, ‘It’s a baby supermodel.’
She hissed back, ‘No. A proper supermodel. They’re signing them up young.’
Then we began to giggle. I thought it was in fact very possible that they were signing up six-year-old supermodels, seeing as a) six-year-olds are very skinny, b) they have perfect skin and c) they are good at smiling naturally for the camera.
Chloe looked at the cake. We had iced it that morning and put cream and smarties on it. But nothing could hide the dip in the middle, and the cream just made it look … messier, because cream is not very neat looking.
When Renata saw it iced and creamed, she said, ‘That is the kind of cake that causes food fights. You just wanna pick it up and push it – splotch! – into someone’s face …’
And she’d looked longingly at the cake and at my face, so I’d taken firm hold of the plate, because she would have, she absolutely would have – and ‘Oh, Renata!’ is all she’d have got for doing it.
But the thing is that the cake looked even worse under Chloe’s gaze than it did in Anna’s kitchen. It looked like it was hanging its head in shame. I got ready for Chloe’s sneer. But it never came. Instead her eyes filled with tears. Very slowly. Nothing else in her face changed – her skin didn’t go blotchy, her mouth didn’t tremble, none of the usual signs of crying. Just her big eyes welled up. Supermodel tears.
Anna said impatiently, ‘Look, if you wanted a designer cake, your mum should have ordered one, not got us to make it.’
The tears began to slowly slide down the face, quiver on the chin, then drop to the ballet pumps. I watched fascinated. But I felt sorry for Chloe. Anna didn’t, I knew. She hates girlie girls. Also I was worried Chloe’s mum was about to come in and we’d have a disaster on our hands, so I gave Chloe a hug.
‘It’s cool. Wait until we put the candles on. It’ll look great. Anyway it’s home-made. That means it tastes great. Taste is more important than looks.’
‘It is?’
‘Of course!’
Chloe was only six after all, even if she did look like a supermodel, so she was ready to be persuaded. We got out the candles and put them round and then we put the fat Number 6 in the centre. The cake now looked like a big, messy child’s painting covered in stickers. Or like a teddy left out in the rain with its white stuffing coming through torn stitches. I made sure not to look at Anna. We would have had hysterics.
‘See?’ I said brightly. Chloe looked very unsure.
‘And wait until the candles are lit,’ said Anna, ‘And wait until you taste it.’
The birthday girl began to smile, very uncertainly. It was just a little supermodel upturn of the lips. I quickly grabbed the cake and put it on top of a cupboard.
‘Keep it a surprise till later,’ I said. Just in time because Mrs Mahony came into the kitchen with a little boy. I didn’t want to have to go through the cake fiasco with her yet. Guess she’s harder to persuade than a six-year-old.
Anna said importantly that we wouldn’t put any food out till after the games otherwise the kids would just eat it. She sounded like a pro. I was very impressed at this clever method of postponing the Cake Fiasco.
Then Chloe said, ‘Did you bring me a present?’
The little boy turned his eyes on us too.
‘And me?’
He was about four. He looked like a squashed football, not like a supermodel, bad luck for him!
Mrs Mahony said, ‘Oh Chloe, they’re here to organise your party. I told you! Not to bring you presents. And Jake, it’s Chloe’s birthday, not yours – she’s getting the presents.’
So I took a look at Chloe and sure enough the big eyes which had just emptied were beginning to fill up with tears all over again. Then I heard a nasty squawk like a cat makes if you tread on its paw, and it was Jake. He was screeching. The exact opposite to his sister’s silent tears. Maybe he was adopted? Maybe Mrs Mahony changed husbands in between children? Where was Mr Mahony anyway?
Anna said quickly, ‘Let’s go hide sweets in the garden before everyone comes!’
In the garden – as we directed Chloe to put the sweets in the flower beds and Mrs Mahony totally contradicted us by directing Chloe not to go near the flower beds – I sidled up to Anna, ‘The Birthday Girl is a bit weepy …’
‘That’s why her eyes are so big. She bulks them out with water …’
‘Take a bet on how many times she weeps today?’
‘Twenty,’ said Anna, ‘Twenty euro on twenty times.’
Well, this was a good estimate! Because Chloe’s eyes filled up when:
1) 3pm. None of her friends have arrived: ‘They’re not coming …’
2) 3.17pm. She opens a present of a book: ‘I’ve already got a book.’ (‘It’s okay,’ says Anna soothingly, ‘books are like dresses, you can have more than one.’ – ‘You can?’ – ‘Yes, look, they all have different covers …’)
3) 3.33pm. Chloe is rushing round grabbing all the sweets in the garden. She knows where they are because she helped hide them. I suggest, very very gently: ‘Maybe you should let your guests find some sweets …’
4) 3.36pm. Not Chloe’s tears this time. Her mother’s: ‘They’re ruining the flower beds.’ Her eyes, though not big and supermodelly li
ke Chloe’s, definitely look a bit weepy. Anna calls off the sweet-hunt.
5) 3.45pm. Pass the Parcel. The parcel doesn’t land on Chloe …
6) 3.55pm. Musical Statues. Chloe moves. Everyone sees her move …
7) 4.10pm. Musical Chairs. Chloe misses the chair …
8) 4.18pm. Pin the Tail on the Donkey. Chloe pins it on his ear …
9) 4.20pm. Aleesha pins the tail, bang, on the donkey’s bum. Aleesha also won the Parcel and Musical Statues. Aleesha is an adorable girl with red pigtails and red freckles like Pippi Longstocking. Suspect Anna cheated to help her win the parcel. Chloe: ‘She wins everything!’
10) 4.30pm. Chloe wins Musical Statues Mark 2. Musical Statues Mark 2 hastily improvised because we had no games left, but Chloe needs to win a prize (Mrs Mahony says so). In Musical Statues Mark 2, the prize is for the Most Interesting Statue. Aleesha contorts herself into a hideous and Most Interesting Statue like a Troll. Chloe stands straight and vacant like supermodel on the end of the runway. Chloe gets the prize. Mutterings of discontent (‘her statue wasn’t interesting!’ – ‘yeah, it was rubbish!’) No prizes left so we had to improvise a prize of some sweets which were left over from the hunt. Chloe not impressed with prize …
11) 4.38pm. Tea-time! Chloe is elbowed off the head of the table by Karen. Karen has short, black hair and demands to be addressed as Carl. (Aleesha saves the day: ‘It’s Chloe’s birthday, Karen, she has to sit at head of table!’ All the other little girls: ‘Yeah, Karen, it’s Chloe’s birthday!’ Luckily, little girls are a) do-gooders and b) nerdy about rules).
12) 4.54pm. Cake appears. Karen: ‘That’s a rubbish cake!’ Chloe …
13) 4.56pm. Bedlam! Something about our cake has unleashed the demons within the nerds. Karen started by digging her hand into cake and flipping a splotchy bit at Aleesha … Everyone froze. Then everyone went mad flinging cake! Except Chloe …
The Bad Karma Diaries Page 4