by Judi Curtin
Alice spoke quietly. ‘Yeah, I know. My school’s OK. The teacher’s nice. And the kids are too. But they all have their own friends, and I know they’re only being nice to me because the teacher asked them to. They’re kind of polite and friendly for a little while, and then they rush back to their old friends, looking kind of pleased with themselves for being so nice to the “new girl.” My uniform is yuck. It’s brown like your dad’s car. And the material is all scratchy. And the tie is the colour of your old fish’s skin before it died. And our apartment is kind of boring. It’s all painted a kind of light creamy colour. Mum says it’s minimalist. I think it looks as if the owner was too mean to buy much furniture. There’s no garden. Just a balcony. When you stand on it all you can see is the car park. I hate it.’
Iwasn’t sure what I should say to that. ‘Do you miss your dad?’
She gave a scornful kind of laugh. ‘Course I do. Wouldn’t you?’
Then I felt kind of stupid. What kind of a daft question was that?
There was a moment’s silence, and then Al spoke again. ‘Hey, Meg, look out quick. Is Dad’s car there? He’s coming up to see me today.’
I went into the front room and looked out of the window. Her dad’s car was gone from its usual place.
‘No, Al. It’s gone.’
‘Great, he’s on his way so. He’s taking me to the zoo. Mum took us there on Monday after school, but I don’t think I should tell Dad that. He thinks it’s going to be a big treat. I’ll have to pretend to be really excited about it, which is a pain. The pandas stink really badly. Almost as badly as Darren Blake’s football boots.’
I giggled. ‘That bad?’
‘Yeah. That bad. And then, after the zoo, we’re going for pizza.’
‘Well,’ I said. ‘You love pizza. So at least that’ll be a treat, won’t it?’
Alice sighed. ‘Not really. We’ve had pizza three times this week already. The delivery boy knows all our names by now., and which kinds of pizzas we like. Mum says that with all the hassle from the move, she hasn’t time to be cooking as well.’
‘Is your dad going to stay with you tonight?’
‘No. Mum said they could be civilised, and he could sleep in Jamie’s room, but Dad said no. So he’s staying with our Uncle John. I wish he’d stay with us.’
I wandered back into my room and lay on my bed. ‘Maybe he’ll stay with you next time.’ I was fairly sure he wouldn’t, but didn’t like to say so. I changed the subject. ‘Have you fixed up your e-mail yet?’
‘No, but Dad’s going to connect up the computer for me tonight.’
She laughed then. ‘Mum tried to connect it, but she couldn’t get it to work. Then she got really mad. She threw the manual on the floor after a while. And then she said all the bad words she won’t let me use. Jamie copied her, and she banned him from sweets for the rest of the day. It wasn’t fair on him, but I wasn’t arguing, not with the mood she was in.’
I laughed. Al was always good at telling stories. I wanted to tell her that I missed her. That things were all different now that she was gone. But I thought that might have sounded kind of stupid. Only girls on the telly got away with saying that kind of thing.
So I told her about Rosie’s new back tooth, and Mum’s new haircut, and how Dad asked if the hairdresser was cross with her, and how they rowed for twenty minutes afterwards.
After a while, Mum tapped on the door and came into my room. She looked like she was still in a bad mood. She pointed to her watch. I held up one finger to show I wanted to talk for one more minute. She nodded and went back out.
‘I have to go soon, Al. When are you coming to Limerick? Will your mum let you come down soon?’
Alice made a sad kind of sighing noise.
‘I don’t think so. She says after all she’s paid up front for my music lessons, I’m only allowed to miss one if I’m nearly dead. I don’t know if I’ll ever be back again.’
I felt like crying, but that would have been too pathetic, so I very quickly said ‘Bye, Al. Talk to you next week.’
Then I hung up.
I lay on my bed and looked at the ceiling. I could see the glow-in-the-dark stickers that Alice had helped me stick up. She had thought of a very clever trick using a sweeping brush and a tiny piece of Blu-Tak. Alice always had great ideas. I really missed her.
I cried for a little while, but it didn’t make me feel any better, so I got dressed and went downstairs for breakfast.
It was porridge.
As if I didn’t feel quite bad enough already.
Chapter four
On Monday I got an e-mail from Alice. I was really excited. It was the first one I ever got. (Not counting all the ones I got telling me my messages to her were undelivered.) I scrolled really quickly through it, reading as fast as I could.
Dear Meg,
This is my first e-mail. I hope you get it. I had an ok weekend. Dad took me and Jamie lots of places. He never found out that we’d been to the zoo already. I had bribed Jamie with a whole packet of Star-burst, just in case. I knew it would work because as you know, Jamie would do anything for sweets. Dad was kind of sad though. Mum was kind of bubbly, and nice to Dad, but it didn’t help. Actually, I think that made it worse. Yesterday when Dad was going away, Jamie was crying. I felt like crying too, but I thought that would make Dad sadder, so I pretended to be happy. Afterwards I thought he might have been a bit insulted so next week I might try a kind of brave, sad look. When Dad was gone, Mum gave Jamie and me a big bag of sweets each. I know that’s what happens in films. She’s trying to make it up to us because now we’re kids from a broken home. She must be mad if she thinks a bag of sweets will make up for being away from home, and from Dad and from you. I’m a bit old to be so easily fooled. I don’t think Jamie even fell for it. School was a bit better today. A girl called Sophie shared her crisps with me, and we chatted in the yard. Have to go now. Tea’s ready. It’s pizza (again!!!!). I’ll ring you on Saturday.
Al xxx
I was all excited. When I’d finished reading it, I read it again a bit more slowly. Mum was nice and even stopped peeling the potatoes to show me how to reply. When she was safely back in the kitchen, this is what I wrote.
Dear Al
This is my first e-mail too. Well, the first one you might actually get. My weekend was real boring. Yesterday Dad made us go to Cratloe for a real long walk. It was pouring rain, but Dad just kept on saying “a bit of drizzle never hurt anyone, sure isn’t your skin waterproof?” That really annoyed me. We went off the track and got lost. Mum got cross and said ‘what if I had high heels on?’ Dad laughed and said she hadn’t worn high heels since the day she got married. Mum pretended to be even crosser, but I knew she wasn’t. Then they got all smoochy, (yuck) and I had to wheel Rosie’s buggy. That was very hard because the path was all bumpy. In the end Dad had to take over and Mum walked with me. She kept talking about feelings and stuff, so I ran after Dad and pretended I wanted to look for conkers. We didn’t find any, but at least it kept Mum off my back. We had pancakes for tea (yum). School today was still awful. Melissa is as smug as ever. Can’t think of any more to write. Looking forward to talking to you on Saturday.
Meg
At dinnertime, Mum kept going on to Dad about the e-mails. You’d think I’d discovered a cure for cancer or something.
‘Isn’t it great, Donal? Megan and Alice are e-mailing each other. Isn’t that a grand way of keeping in touch? Technology’s great all the same, isn’t it?’
Dad just kept on nodding. I was really cross, though. What good were e-mails? I wanted a real friend. One I could see, and mess around with and laugh with. Not one who existed only on a white screen, and through a telephone. What kind of a friend was that?
I felt like shouting all that out to Mum, when she kept on about the wonders of new technology and stuff, but I didn’t. I hadn’t been Mum’s daughter for twelve years for nothing. I knew she’d be sympathetic, but then I’d be rewarded with hours of s
peeches about feelings and stuff. It wasn’t worth it.
So I tidied up after the dinner, and played with Rosie and waited for bedtime.
When Mum came to tuck me in, I had a great idea. ‘Mum, you know how you think technology is so great?’
She looked at me suspiciously. ‘Yes.’
‘Well, if I had a mobile phone, I could text Alice whenever I liked. It would be a good use of technology, don’t you think?’
Mum laughed. ‘A good use of my money, you mean. Come on Megan. You know I don’t like mobile phones. We still don’t know what they do to your brain. A lot of people might be very sorry in a few years time. Very sorry indeed. I think you’d better just stick to the landline, and the computer.’
She kissed me, and went out of the room.
I snuggled under the blankets, and sighed. I love my mum, but she’s such a dinosaur it’s totally embarrassing. I was sure I lived in the most backward house in Ireland. If a huge volcano, like the one in Pompeii, erupted in our back garden, and covered our house with lava, it would surely fool the archaeologists in a million years time. They’d have awful trouble trying to decide when it happened.
They’d scrunch up their faces. ‘Hmm. Carbon dating says twenty-first century, and we have found a computer, but that couldn’t be right.’
The others would chorus. ‘No microwave oven.’
‘No mobile phones.’
‘No tumble drier.’
‘No pizza packets.’
‘No Playstation.’
‘No video.’
And then they’d go home and write their papers and decide we lived in the 1950s or some ancient time like that.
It’s just not fair.
Chapter five
I give out a lot about my mum. I can’t help it really. All the other mums (except for Alice’s of course) seem to be kinder, and easier, and just more fun. It’s not fair. How come I got stuck with the crazy mum? The one who is on a permanent crusade? When all the other mums are fussing about their hair and their clothes, my mumis busy trying to save the world, or the universe. She always thinks she’s right, and maybe she is, but I don’t care, I just wish she’d chill out and relax a bit.
Anyway, one Friday a few weeks later, she was her usual bossy self, and it seemed that she had found yet another way to make me seem like a total loser. Then, on the Saturday, she did something which was so completely and wonderfully out of character that I thought for a while that I’d died, and been reborn into a normal family.
Anyway, this is what happened. On Friday, when I got home from school, Mum was ranting and raving because there was a piece in the paper saying that someone is planning to build a new housing estate which will take a big chunk out of the park. Her face was all red, she was so cross.
‘Can you believe it, Megan? Can you?’
I shrugged. I didn’t care much either way. I’m too big for parks.
‘They are going to steal our park, our only green area from us. How can we stand by and let them do this?’
She stopped and I realized that she was waiting for an answer. I made a big mistake.
‘Well, you always say the park is full of druggies. You never let me go there. Wouldn’t it be better if it was turned into a housing estate?’
Now Mum’s face nearly went purple. She actually hit her head with her hand.
‘My own daughter!What kind of a child have I raised? How can you suggest that we just concrete over our problems instead of dealing with them properly?’
I spoke in a small voice. ‘I was joking, Mum.’ I hadn’t been joking of course, but I thought that might calm her down. She didn’t even hear me though. She ran into the playroom and got one of Rosie’s old paintings. On the back she drew a plan of how the park could look if the wild areas were cleared, and if a keeper was employed to maintain it and scare the druggies away. By now she had that fiery glint in her eyes that always makes me very, very nervous indeed. Then she ran to the computer and started printing out petition sheets. I started to feel sick. She was going to wave these around in public, and humiliate me one more time.
I went and stood behind her. ‘Mum, you can’t. I mean you wouldn’t…You wouldn’t go out and ask people to sign these? Would you?’
She gave me a scary kind of smile. ‘No, darling. I’m not going to go out to ask people to sign these. You are.’
I argued – of course I did. I argued for a long time. But it didn’t do me much good. Sometimes Mum just can’t be stopped, and it’s easier to give in than to argue any more. And so, some time later I found myself standing outside the local shop, clutching a clipboard.
It was the most embarrassing half hour of my entire life. A few mad old ladies came and signed in faint spidery writing. (They thought it was a petition against bin charges, and I didn’t bother to explain that they were wrong.) I didn’t get many signatures after that, maybe because I spent most of the time with the clipboard under my coat. Just my luck though, when I did have it out, Melissa passed by, and even though I pulled my hat down over my eyes, she still saw me and came over with a big, false show of interest. She grabbed the clipboard from me, and gave her evil, loud laugh when she saw what it was. For a moment, I considered begging her not to tell anyone at school. Then I got sense. She’d just listen to the begging and then tell everybody anyway. You can’t appeal to the better nature of someone who doesn’t have one. I wished that Alice was there. Alice would have known what to do. But I just stood there with a stupid big red face, saying nothing, In the end, Melissa went away, but I could hear her laughing even after she went around the corner.
I felt like crying. I wanted to go home, but I knew Mum would kill me for having done so badly. She’d probably have insisted on coming back down with me, and started jumping around and shouting, drawing attention to us, making things even worse.
Just then, Sandra, the nice woman who works in the shop, came out. She looked at the clipboard and smiled at me. ‘Has your mum asked you to do this?’
I nodded miserably.
‘Why don’t you leave this with me, and go for a walk for twenty minutes?’
She took the clipboard from me, and went back into the shop. I didn’t know what she was at, but by then I didn’t care, so I did what she said anyway. I walked ten times around the block, and when I came back, Sandra had collected three pages of signatures. I felt like hugging her, but resisted – just in case Melissa was still hanging around. Things were bad enough without being seen hugging nice shopkeepers in public.
When I got home, Mum was really pleased. She kept going on and on about how good it made her feel that I worked so hard to improve my environment, and that she felt like she was a success as a mother for having raised such a good, environmentally aware daughter, and how sorry she was for being cross with me earlier. She went on so long that I felt like throwing up. In the end her gushing did dry up, and I escaped to my room. Awhile later I could hear Mum on the phone in the hall. I figured she was phoning Dad to tell him the wonderful news about his daughter who was going to save the world. I turned up my radio, and drowned out Mum’s voice.
Ten minutes later she tapped on the door. For a moment I felt like hiding under the bed, but I knew she’d track me down anyway, so I just sat there, and said ‘come in’ in as unwelcoming a voice as I could manage.
She came in and sat beside me, and put one arm around my shoulder. I braced myself for more praise, but she just said, ‘Megan, you’ve been so good that I’ve decided to treat you. Dad will mind Rosie tomorrow, and you and I are going to have a great day out.’
It was hard to be enthusiastic. Mum’s idea of a great day out wasn’t likely to be much fun for me. She was probably going to take me to a compost-making workshop or something. Still, it was only polite to ask.
‘Where are we going?’
She just gave me a huge grin and said. ‘Wait and see, Megan. Just you wait and see.’
It almost sounded like a threat.
Chapter six
Next morning, Mum called me at some horribly early hour. It was dark outside, and it felt like it was still the middle of the night.
She tapped me on the shoulder. ‘Come on, Megan, get up. We’re going on our trip.’
I moaned and turned over. ‘Aw, Mum. I’m tired. Can’t we go later?’ (Or maybe never.)
She laughed. ‘No, Megan, we can’t go later. Now get up and get dressed quickly, if you don’t hurry we’ll miss the train.’
Suddenly I didn’t feel tired any more. I sat up in bed. Mum’s ‘special trips’ usually involved walking, or bikes, or once even a canoe journey. Mention of a train was good news. Maybe we were going to visit my cousins in Mallow. Or maybe she was going to take me to Cork and buy me some vaguely fashionable clothes.
I got dressed as quickly as possible, and ate all my porridge without complaining.
When we were driving to the station, I kept asking, but Mum still wouldn’t tell me where we were going, and it was only when we got to the ticket window that I heard the magic words ‘An adult and a child day return to Dublin.’
I didn’t dare to hope. ‘Mum, could I…? I mean….. Are we…?’
She didn’t answer. She spent ages putting her change in her purse, and checking that her bag was zipped up safely, and then she turned to me with a big smile. ‘Are we what?’
I was so excited I could hardly get the words out. ‘Are we going to see Alice?’
She shook her head and the hopes I hadn’t dared to hope vanished into the cold, diesel-scented air. Then Mum continued. ‘No, we aren’t going to see Alice. But you are. I’m going shopping, and you get to spend the day with Alice.’
I still didn’t want to hope. This had to be too good to be true. ‘But…. what about her music lessons, and her dad? Isn’t she spending the day with him? What if she’s not even there? She might be gone out somewhere.’