‘We’ll just let him roam about,’ I said, ‘and we can carry on in my room.’
We spent the next few hours adding the finishing touches to my room. A dark turquoise duvet cover with lavender cushions, to which we added one purple cushion for a splash of deeper colour. My poster of the Drunken Popes, my favourite boy band. Photos of Chaz, Mum and me at Christmas and one of Mum wearing a crazy bathing cap with plastic flowers stuck on the side. My pale pink rug on the floor. My fave books on the bookshelf under the window. A few glossy mags that Pia had brought over from her mum. The scented candle. With my familiar things around, it was beginning to feel more like home.
‘Looks fanbloomingtastic,’ said Pia, when we had finished and flopped down on the bed. ‘Très chic.’
‘Where’s Dave?’ I said, suddenly realising that I hadn’t seen him since we’d had a break for lunch over an hour ago.
‘Under the bed?’ Pia suggested.
I got down on my knees and had a look. No Dave. ‘I’d better check no-one left a window open,’ I said as sudden panic gripped me. I checked downstairs first. All the windows were shut. Then Charlie’s room. Also safe.
‘So where could he be?’ asked Pia.
‘Dad’s room?’ I suggested and we both went to look.
A horrible smell hit us as soon as we got there.
‘Oh NO!’ cried Pia. She pointed to the bed where a small pile of poo and a yellow stain lay right in the middle of the duvet.
‘He’s pooed on the bed! Dave, where are you?’ I looked around the room. Dave’s head appeared from under the bed. He hopped up onto the covers and stood next to his deposit with a smug look on his face. ‘Naughty cat! Why did you do that?’
Pia picked him up and cuddled him. ‘Don’t be cross. Cats do it when they’re upset and, let’s face it, he has every reason to be. I remember my aunt had cats and one of them always peed on the bed whenever they had guests or builders in.’
Dave didn’t look in the slightest bit upset. In fact, he looked very pleased with himself. I couldn’t be cross with him, though. It couldn’t have been nice for him being cooped up in the summerhouse on his own and I understood that this was his way of making his objections known. I looked at my watch. ‘Oh hell, it’s three o’clock. I’ve got an hour before Gran gets here. I have to get this cleaned up.’ I raced into the bathroom and got a roll of toilet paper.
‘Yuck,’ I said as I wrapped up Dave’s small gift to Dad, then flushed it away down the loo.
Back in Dad’s room, Pia pulled the duvet cover off and then the sheets. ‘Oh no, Jess. It’s gone right through to the mattress.’
I looked where she was pointing. She was right. The stain had gone all the way through and, boy, it stank. I ran down the stairs to the kitchen and found the bucket under the sink, filled it with hot water then looked for all the cleaning products that I could find.
Back upstairs, Dave was still looking well smug.
‘Take that look off your face, mister, you’re in the doghouse,’ I said.
Pia cracked up laughing.
‘Not funny,’ I said as I liberally sprayed cleaner on the mattress then began to scrub.
‘Tis,’ said Pia. ‘Doghouse.’
Twenty minutes later, the room smelt of disinfectant and cleaning products. The bed, however, was soaked. There was no way I was going to get it dry before Gran came and she was bound to want to have a look around to see what we had done since her previous visit.
‘Hairdryer,’ suggested Pia.
‘Brilliant,’ I said. ‘Oh, except I haven’t got a hairdryer. Only hair straighteners.’
Pia cracked up again. ‘Get them,’ she said, when she’d stopped laughing. ‘They’re better than nothing.’
‘Well, I’m glad someone is finding this so amusing,’ I said.
‘OK. Iron,’ said Pia. I could see she was still having a hard time not laughing. I gave her a dirty look and she attempted to look serious.
‘The straighteners are in my bedroom,’ I said. ‘You get them and plug them in.’
I raced back down the stairs and got the iron – back up the stairs, plugged it in, let it get hot then applied it to the mattress, as Pia got busy with the duvet cover and the hair straighteners. A little of the dampness disappeared on the bed but there was still a great big wet patch.
‘And the cover sheet,’ Pia reminded me as she looked at it draped over a chair.
‘Oh God, Dad is going to kill me,’ I said. ‘What am I going to say?’
Pia shrugged. ‘Um, a pipe burst?’
I looked around. There were no pipes anywhere to be seen. I had an idea.
‘Pia, you’re my friend, yeah?’
‘Er . . . yeah?’
‘You once said that you’d do anything for me . . .’
‘Um . . . yeah...’
‘We could say that you came in here and spilt some water.’
‘Right in the middle of the bed? Why would I be in here? And why all the disinfectant if it was only water?’
‘Yes, good point? Um, OK, maybe not, then. Maybe I could say Charlie did it. Um, spilt coffee.’
‘But your dad knows Charlie is out all day.’
‘OK, OK, I could say I did it, then. My room still smelt of paint and so I came in here with a cup of coffee and it spilt.’
‘Perfect,’ said Pia. ‘He can’t be mad about that.’
‘In the meantime, we have to get everything immaculate,’ I said. I picked up the iron in one hand and the hair straighteners in the other and held them aloft as if they were weapons. ‘Captain Muckremover here and his trusty assistant. We go where most people fear to tread.’
Pia laughed and picked up a hairbrush and a bottle of aftershave from the cabinet by the bed. She sprayed a little of the scent into the room.
I started to do a rap dance. ‘Me and Pia, we are the crew, don’t call us, we’ll call you.’
Pia joined in, singing her own verse, ‘Me and Jess, we are the crew, we fight the muck, remove cat poo.’
That set us off laughing and we couldn’t stop. The whole situation seemed suddenly hilarious. We tried to do a bit more drying but neither of us could focus and kept cracking up. The sight of Pia on the floor with her bum in the air desperately trying to dry my dad’s bed cover with my hair straighteners struck me as the funniest thing I’d ever seen. When Dave leapt up onto the bed and looked for a moment like he was going to do it again, Pia fell over, crying tears of laughter. At that moment, we heard a noise down below, then footsteps coming up the stairs.
‘Oh God, who’s that?’ I gasped. Pia and I looked at each other and the wet sheets and duvet and Dave sitting there proud as anything on the bed.
‘Quick, under the bed,’ I said. ‘It might be Charlie come back for something.’
We grabbed Dave and dived under the bed just as the door opened.
It wasn’t Charlie. It was Dad.
Oops.
10
Doghouse
I am in the doghouse. Or in the shitola – the cat shitola, as Pia said, before she made a quick exit leaving me to face Dad and Gran, who turned up ten minutes later. Pia’s shoulders were still shaking with laughter as she left. Dad told me to wait upstairs while he talked to Gran, and from an upstairs window, I watched Pia make her way towards the staff gate. Henry was just coming in. He stopped and said something to her. She’d be well pleased that she’d got to talk to him. I watched them chat for a few minutes, then she clearly told him what had happened because I saw him crack up, then glance over at the house. Pia said something else and he cracked up again. I am going to kill her next time I see her.
I could still hear Dad and Gran’s voices below, so I went and waited on the landing to listen in as they argued about how I should be punished. I could tell that Dad was really mad.
‘Losing her cat is enough, Michael,’ I heard Gran say.
‘Yes, but she crossed the line,’ I heard Dad reply. ‘I have to set boundaries.’
I stroked
Dave who was on my knee. ‘Looks like you might have to go after all, pal,’ I said as I buried my face in his fur.
Five minutes later, Dad called me down.
Gran came over and put her arm around me, while Dad hovered anxiously.
‘I’ve decided that you’re to be grounded, Jess,’ he said.
‘Grounded?’
Dad nodded. ‘You go to school, then you come straight back. For a week.’
‘A week? But Dad, I have to practise my swimming, you know how important the competition at the end of term is! Either before school or after – and Friday night is the fundraiser. I can’t miss that. I can’t. Only a few of us have been invited to represent the school.’
Gran glanced at Dad.
Dad shook his head. ‘You’ll have to miss the fundraiser. This is what happens when you overstep the mark. You miss out on things. I’m sorry, Jess, but that’s my final word.’
‘Mum would have let me go. She’d have been proud of me. Only fifty people have been selected from the whole school,’ I said. I could tell my response had hit the mark because Dad looked pained. He glanced at Gran, who slightly tilted her head as if to say, Get out of this one, matey.
‘No, Jess. I’m sure your mother would have agreed with me. You were out of order, not to mention what that poor cat must have been going through in the summerhouse. I thought you were an animal lover. You know cats need space to roam.’
His last remark got me. I was going to cry. I hadn’t liked having to lock Dave up, not one bit. ‘I’m glad he pooed on your bed,’ I blurted. ‘You asked for it.’
‘Now, Jess, go to your room before either of us says any more. I think we all need to cool down.’ He glanced at his watch and shuffled on his feet. ‘I have to go.’ He looked at Gran. ‘You’re going to be here for a bit, aren’t you?’
Gran nodded and looked at me sympathetically but I didn’t want anyone to be kind or understanding. I felt like having a major three-year-old type tantrum.
‘I hate you,’ I said to Dad. I gathered Dave into my arms, ran up the stairs into my room and slammed the door. ‘ArghARGHHHHHHHHH!’
Dave looked at me with concern as I lay on my bed. No-one understands, I thought. Life is so unfair and I hate everyone. Apart from Dave, and now he’s going to be taken away. The tears came flooding forward and I burst into angry, frustrated sobs.
Ten minutes later, there was a knock at the door. I didn’t answer. I heard the door open and Gran came in with a tray with two mugs and a plate of toast and Marmite on it. She set it down on the bookshelf, then sat on the end of the bed.
I still didn’t say anything.
‘It’s looking nice in here,’ she said as she looked around, and she put her hand on my foot. I sat up, squiggled over to her and buried my head in her lap. She stroked my hair as I cried my eyes out.
When there were no more tears, Gran made me eat some toast and coaxed me downstairs, where she made more tea in the kitchen.
‘You do know Dave has to come with me, don’t you?’ she asked.
I nodded. ‘I knew he wasn’t happy in the summerhouse and . . . and . . .’ I felt myself starting to sob again, ‘I do want what’s best for him.’
‘I know, love,’ said Gran.
‘I’m so used to him sleeping on the end of the bed. We’ve never been apart. Ever.’
‘I know how hard it is for you to let him go, but he knows my house, he’s safe in the garden and you can come and visit whenever you want, every day if you want.’
‘When I’m allowed out again,’ I said.
‘Yes. That. Listen, Jess, you be a really good girl this week and you never know, your dad might soften in time for that fundraiser, at least.’
I shrugged. I doubted it. I’d seen the look on his face when I said that I hated him.
‘I’ll apologise,’ I said. ‘I don’t really hate him. At least not all of the time.’
Gran smiled. ‘I know. You’re a good girl, Jess. And a brave one.’
I felt my eyes fill up with tears again. ‘Don’t be nice to me, Gran. I’m not a nice girl.’
Gran laughed. ‘OK. You’re a bad bad girl, then. Just awful.’
I laughed. Gran reached over and put her hand over mine and I wondered whether to tell her about my secret from the day of Mum’s funeral. I was longing to confide in someone, but somehow I just couldn’t. Gran loved me and I wouldn’t be able to bear it if she thought badly of me. ‘Give it time here, Jess,’ she said. ‘The first few weeks are always the worst in a new situation. Now, tell me everything. How it’s really been. The truth.’
I told her exactly how it had been since we’d moved and she listened without interrupting. After I’d got it all out, she gave me a big hug then we went into the garden and talked about what we could plant and what she’d bring over. I knew she meant well but I couldn’t summon much enthusiasm because I knew what was coming next and all too soon, it was time for her and Dave to go. We looked out Dave’s cat basket and he got into it happily as if he knew the plan and understood.
‘Neither of us belong here,’ I said to the black-and-white furry face looking out at me. ‘At least you get to escape.’
Dave did a silent meow by way of an answer.
After Gran had gone, I went down to the summerhouse and cleared out his cat litter tray, then went back to the house. It was so quiet, the surfaces gleaming in the kitchen where Gran had cleaned, the empty rooms. I went and sat on the bottom stair where I’d held Dave only a few hours earlier and felt like my heart was going to break.
11
Grounded
Diary of a prisoner:
Monday. School. Afterwards, Meg went to her karate class, Pia went to drama and Flo was going to watch a romantic comedy with her cousin. Not fair. I had to come straight home. Homework, supper, then bed. Boring. My life sucks.
Tuesday. School. Tom Robertson said hi on the way out of assembly. I said hi back. Ah, my scintillating love life. Not. Home. Saw Mrs Lewis at the front getting into a car. She stared at me. I felt like putting my hand over my face and saying, ‘No photos, please,’ but it might have got back to Dad and I am being Miss Goodytwoshoes this week. Gran rang. Dave is happy, she said, and I can go and visit when I’m allowed out again. I’m trying to be positive but I feel miffed with everyone. I didn’t ask to come and live here so I feel cross I have to abide by the stupid rules made by Mr Horrible Knight. I feel like my swimming will be suffering through lack of practice. I will lose my race and let the team down. I am turning into a blob already. A bitter, twisted blob. I hate my life. Bed.
Wednesday. School. I’m still being asked by ignorant people about living where I do. Huh. If only they knew the real story. I am locked up. My cat has been taken away. It sucks big time. I apologised to Dad at supper-time and told him I didn’t really hate him. He looked very relieved. He apologised too and said that with all the people moving in, he has been rushed off his feet. I hadn’t realised that more residents had arrived because I wasn’t speaking to Dad for the first part of this week, but apparently the family from Saudi Arabia have moved in with their entourage and so has the art dealer man and his wife and a Russian couple and their children plus a Japanese family and one of their daughters. I haven’t seen them, as I go in and out through the staff area and when I do go into the main block, Yoram always gives me such filthy looks as if to say, Get outta here, and I mean now! On the rare occasions I’ve had to go and find Dad or take a message, there always seems to be something going on – glam people swanning about, men in dark suits in dark glasses talking into their phones, limos out the front dropping people off, all busy busy, living their fabbie dabbie lives. No-one looks very friendly. Round the back at the service lift, near the tradesmen’s entrance, some days it looks like an Aladdin’s cave with packages and boxes from Harrods, Fortnum & Mason’s, racks of fabulous-looking clothes being wheeled into the lift, designer carrier bags, fabulous deliveries of fresh flowers, gorgeous furniture and mirrors being taken up – a
ll sorts of stuff. I’d love to ask who it’s all for, what it is, can I have a look? But I know that I can’t be nosey or Yoram might try to put a hitman onto me.
I still feel bad that I haven’t been able to do my swimming practice. If I am to win the junior championship, I really do have to swim every day. I tried to ‘dry swim’ on the floor in my room to keep my muscles active and Charlie came in and said I’d now confirmed to him that I am totally mad. Flo, Meg and Pia sent me some nice messages on Facebook. Haha. Dad doesn’t realise how much time I spend on there instead of doing my homework. Bed.
Thursday. School. Mr Bennie, our swimming teacher, asked me how my practice was going. I said good because I couldn’t tell him about what had happened on Sunday and why I’d been grounded. He said, ‘Remember the rules, Jess – practise, practise every day.’ I agreed. I made Pia, Meg and Flo laugh at lunchtime by lying on the floor in the corridor outside the library and showing them my ‘dry swimming’ breaststroke technique. Pia and Meg joined in while Flo looked on. She doesn’t do bonkers, she’s too busy being ethereal, and acting mad on the corridor floor would not be the sort of thing an elfin princess would do. Mary Johnson, a prefect in Year Eleven, told Pia, Meg and me to get up, stop being stupid and acting like frogs. I said I wasn’t being a frog, I was practising my swimming. Pia did a ribbit noise. It was pretty impressive, I thought. Mary said we were juvenile and possibly insane. She may be right. I have been driven to it by circumstances. Saw Tom in the corridor outside the library. He smiled at me. He didn’t get it when Pia made her ribbit noise. I pretended I didn’t know her. Tom laughed. Home.
Made some choc-chip cookies for Dad and Charlie after Sheila had gone. Dad didn’t hang around and had to go out to have dinner with Mr Poo Stink Bum Knight. He said he’d be back late. Henry dropped by and we watched a sci-fi film. Not really my thing – seeing people get their heads ripped off and spew green slime. Charlie and Henry loved it, though, but then boys are naturally an alien species. Bed early. Then got out of bed. I’d had an idea.
Million Dollar Mates Page 8