My Family and Other Freaks

by Carol Midgley

  10 p.m.

  Dad is tipsy. He has put his name down for the karaoke. Mom, because she has no shame, seems OK with this, but his three children, the fruit of his loins, are not. Phoebe is whining, “Please no, Daddy,” while Rick and I are just disgusted. But it’s too late. He’s going up to the stage to do “Let Me Entertain You.” This is a man who’s 45, with the beginnings of a bald patch, who genuinely thinks he can pass for Robbie Williams.

  Everyone’s cheering, but his three children are, as ever, stony-faced.

  When I get married to Damian we are never ever coming to a campground for our holidays.

  Monday

  12 noon

  There is a vile child about five years old in next door’s camper. He’s called Jake and keeps coming over to Simon to hit him with a stick while saying, “Bad doggy.”

  What I’d like to do is strangle the little brat, but instead I say, “Don’t hit doggy. Doggy might get cross and bite.”

  “Yes!” says Phoebe, delighted to have an older kid to tell off. “Bite your HEAD OFF.”

  Jake stares at us, then runs away, but he’s back two minutes later with a fishing net on a pole which he uses to poke Simon in the eyes. Simon yelps, then, quite understandably, growls.

  “Do NOT hurt the doggy, you little horror,” I say angrily, snatching the fishing rod and “accidentally” snapping it in two over my knee. The horror screams. His mother, who’s got tattoos on her arms and is a bit scary tbh, comes over.

  “Wassgoinon?” she says.

  “Shebustedmaaaaane-e-e-t,” wails the hell-child, pointing at the broken net. People in this family clearly cannot separate their words.

  “It, er, snapped,” I say as casually as I can manage. “He was hurting the dog.”

  The woman gives me evils and leads her vile brat away.

  Mom calls me and Phoebe in to help get the lunch plates out. Do you note the sexism here? She asks us, her daughters, not darling son Rick. As I’m wiping the ants off the side plates there’s a huge scream.

  Outside, Devil Boy is holding up his arm and crying while Simon has slunk under the camper with his ears down. “HE BITTED ME!” he’s shrieking.

  Then, as if in slow motion, all hell breaks loose. Devil Boy’s parents are running over, Mom is shouting, “He’s bleeding! Has he had his tetanus injection?,” Devil Boy screams even louder at the sight of his own blood trickling down his chubby arm, and I go wading in saying, “It was his own fault. The little brat was poking Simon in the eyes!”

  “I’m phoning the police,” says DB’s father, glaring at me. “That dog needs putting down.”

  “It’s your brat that needs putting down,” I shriek back, outraged. “He’s a trainee serial killer.”

  Mom tells me to shut up in a really furious, hissing voice, then goes to get her first-aid box out and dabs the wound on the boy’s arm with some pink liquid. “Get Simon away from here,” she hisses at me. “Take him for a walk, quick.”

  The injustice of it.

  12:45 p.m.

  Walking along the cliffs, Simon’s subdued because he knows he’s done bad. My legs are shaking with fear. What if the police take Simon away? Surely they won’t if I explain what happened. I have Phoebe as a witness!

  1:15 p.m.

  When I get back everything is quiet. I open the camper door slowly and Mom and Dad are sitting at the teeny table waiting for me. Their faces are like thunder. I gulp.

  “Do you realize how very, very, VERY serious that was?” says Mom in a scary controlled-fury voice. “We cannot have a dog in the house that bites children. End of.”

  I wail and bellow that Simon was being tortured, but Mom and Dad are weirdly pokerfaced about it.

  Turns out that Dad went over to Devil Boy’s camper and calmed them down. It was only a little nip on the fat of his arm, and the father wasn’t that keen on calling the police because the registration sticker on his car has run out. But we are going home tomorrow and they say Simon’s got to sleep in a kennel in the yard because he might nip Phoebe. What an utter pile of rubbish. He’d never harm Phoebe. He thinks it’s his job to protect her. He loves her nearly as much as his Ugg-boots girlfriend.

  “No chance,” I say.

  “It’s that or the police station,” says Mom. I don’t push it because I’m confident they’ll get over it in a few days.

  Tuesday

  Back home. Mom doesn’t realize I have just put the spare 15-tog duvet in Simon’s kennel to keep him warm. Ha. Serves her right. Phoebe has made some curtains out of pink crêpe paper and stuck them up in the kennel to make it nice for him. We are both sniffling a bit.

  Midnight

  It is raining heavily. Simon is howling outside. I can’t bear it. He can’t understand why he’s not lying on my bed. In his little doggy mind he feels he’s been abandoned by his own family. I put the pillow over my head. I hate my parents even more.

  Wednesday

  6 a.m.

  Phoebe comes in to wake me up. She’s holding a towel. “Poor Simon. He’s wet,” she wails.

  We tiptoe down. Simon has his head on his paws looking forlornly out of his kennel prison. We run to him and he goes mad with joy, licking our faces and doing little happy whimpers. We let him in the house and I open one of Dad’s favorite Fray Bentos steak-and-kidney pies for him. Ha! You’ll pay for your cruelty, Father.

  9 a.m.

  I am mainly ignoring Mom and Dad, not that they seem to care. Beta child’s distress is as nothing to them.

  12 noon

  Take Simon and go and meet Amber in the park. She is outraged by the treatment Simon is receiving and says we should start a Justice for Simon campaign. She’s been talking to Nerdy Neil on Facebook and he knows someone who can get T-shirts printed with any slogan you want.

  “Mmm, that explains the ‘Lean green recycling machine,’” I snicker. “Maybe he could get another saying, ‘A blind butcher cut my hair!’”

  Amber doesn’t laugh as much as I expected at this. Is it the law that if you care about the environment you must have NO SENSE OF HUMOR?

  2 p.m.

  We buy fries for Simon from the park cafe. He seems to have perked up a bit, because he runs off and cocks his leg on someone’s wicker picnic basket. Me and Amber hide behind a tree convulsed with giggles. Then we tiptoe out through the park gates with Simon running behind. Hooray—I don’t think the picnic people realized he was with us.

  11 p.m.

  Simon is howling in his kennel again. Dad shouts, “Shut up, mutt!” which makes him cry even more. I put the pillow over my head because I just can’t bear it. Phoebe comes and gets into my bed.

  She has drawn a picture of Mom and Dad in jail. “Bad Mommy and Daddy,” she says.

  Good girl, you’re learning.

  Thursday

  Progress. Mom says Simon can sleep in the kitchen because the neighbors have complained he’s keeping them awake with his howling. She is weakening. He’ll be back in my bed by the weekend.

  Friday

  Megan texts me to say that she saw Treasure shopping with her mom in town. She’s back from Sicily with a tan to die for. She’s also had her hair braided and had a henna tattoo on her arm. That’s against school rules, actually. I’m going to tell.

  “Did she mention Damian?” I ask, as the sick feeling rises in my stomach.

  “Only about 450 times,” Megan texts back.

  Saturday

  Sneaked Simon into my bed. Maybe the crisis is over.

  Monday

  The crisis is not over. Mom’s just found the spare duvet in Simon’s kennel. She goes so absolutely ballistic that Dad actually has to tell her to calm down. “Things are going to have to change around here young lady,” he says to me, shaking the dog-hair-covered duvet at me.

  Rick and two of his lanky new band friends walk in right in the middle of the screaming match. Rick looks at us with contempt. “Sorry, dudes,” he says to his friends. “My family are idiots.”

  Dudes
? What a loser.

  Tuesday

  Mom has bought Phoebe a sticky glitter pack as a reward for being a good girl at nursery. She is trying to give Simon a makeover with it and wants me and Rick to hold him down so he can’t escape. Rick won’t because he’s just got ready to go out and is waiting for the lanky boys to call so they can go out together and make more rubbish music with their rubbish band.

  I know that I vowed in my Pact with God not to do any more Simon makeovers, but God hasn’t exactly delivered the Damian goods, has He? I get Simon on his back and put a knee on either side, holding his head while he tries to kick me off. Phoebe is painting his floppy ears with glitter paint. Just then the doorbell rings so Simon is barking, while trying to kick me off, while Phoebe paints his ears. When I look up, standing in front of me is Damian.

  Hold on—DAMIAN!? In our smelly living room with the vomit carpet?

  “You don’t mind if my little brother comes along with us, do you?” one lanky boy is saying to Rick. “Mom can’t pick him up for an hour.”

  You mean the boy that’s been visiting our house these past three weeks is Luke, Damian’s older brother?? For God’s sake, why didn’t Rick say??

  Damian is silent. He is just staring at me straddling a struggling mongrel on my knees while a four-year-old paints its ears sparkly blue “because he’s a boy!”

  They all leave. I stare at the door with my mouth in a perfect O shape.

  Will he tell Treasure? That is the question.

  Wednesday

  Go for a sleepover at Amber’s house. Can you believe her mom and dad only let her watch one hour of TV a day? That is what I call a deprived childhood. They only had one child, Amber, because they believe the world is overpopulated as it is. Tell that to the woman down our road who’s got nine kids.

  Amber’s mom makes grilled organic chicken, steamed broccoli, organic mashed potatoes and peas. Amber has forgotten to tell her mother I’m a vegetarian but says I can probably still eat it because the chicken was organic and thus had a happy life. I think she has a point. Plus, I’m starving.

  8 p.m.

  Amber gets a text from Nerdy Neil asking her to suggest to me that we all meet up again.

  “Oh, this is terrible,” I say.

  “What is?” says Amber.

  “Well, it’s obvious—the Nerdmeister FANCIES me.” I sigh.

  “Of course he doesn’t fancy you. Don’t be silly,” says Amber a bit sulkily.

  Look—it’s hardly my fault if weird boys find me irresistible, is it?

  September

  Thursday

  12 noon

  In my bedroom painting my toenails Scarlet Lady red and doing my face-workout exercises to ensure I never get wrinkles. It involves doing a lion face like a roaring beast and sticking your tongue out to your chin as far as you can with your eyes wide open. If Damian saw me now, he’d never marry me.

  1 p.m.

  Four days until school starts again. Suppose I’d better start reading My Family and Other Animals.

  1:05 p.m.

  On second thoughts, I could just get Amber to tell me what it’s about. Busy people don’t have time for books.

  Feel a wave of sickness at the idea of starting school. Mental torture will resume. Plus Mom has bought me some hideous new pleated school skirts from ASDA! I bet Treasure’s school skirts aren’t from Asda. It’ll be John Lewis or Marks & Spencer or more likely Harrods.

  1:30 p.m.

  The house is spookily quiet. Rick has taken Simon out and Phoebe is at Gran’s. Hold on, what’s that noise? It’s Mom and Dad whispering. I listen at the bedroom door. What’s Dad saying? Something about a hospital appointment? Who’s going to hospital? “Tomorrow at two,” says Mom. “I’m scared, Dave.” Then she starts whimpering like a child while he makes shushing noises.

  Oh my God, she’s ill. She’s really ill. And it’s my fault. The stress of being my mother is killing her.

  Maybe it’s Alzheimer’s. Or cancer. Oh dear lord, is it cancer? I fling myself down on my bed with a boulder in my throat. I do love her, even though I’m her third-favorite child and she never does the shopping. We couldn’t manage without her. Dad doesn’t even know how to bleach a toilet. Or switch on the washing machine (which has been broken for three weeks, by the way).

  I hear her snuffling in the bathroom. I go in and put my arm around her and this for some reason makes her cry even more. My heart is beating really fast. This is scary.

  “It’s OK, love, I’m just feeling a bit poorly,” she says.

  “Poorly with … cancer?” I blurt out, and I start blubbing.

  Mom looks amazed, then sad, then a bit sheepish. “Is that what you’ve been thinking all these weeks?” she says, giving me a hug. “My poor little lamb.”

  (Well, no, actually, mother. First I thought Dad was having a bit on the side and then that you were having a bit on the side and then that we were moving to Scotland and it’s only today that I thought of cancer, but I want to milk this sympathy for all I can get.) So I just nod silently with big, red eyes.

  “No, I promise I haven’t got cancer,” she says, then shouts to Dad “Dave, we’re really going to have to talk to these kids. But not until tomorrow.”

  Tomorrow? Oh, lovely. Prolong the agony, why don’t you?

  Still, she hasn’t got cancer. Hooray! I’m not going to take things for granted anymore. I’m going to change. Because I totally love my mom.

  Friday

  3 p.m.

  Can I just say that I totally hate my mom?

  She is a disgrace.

  None of us can look at her, except for Dad, who keeps patting her tummy proudly and saying, “Sharp shooter, eh?” Whatever that means.

  They called us all into a room—me, Rick and Phoebe—and then said, in nervous fluttery voices, “We’ve got some very, erm, big news.”

  My mother, age 44—practically a pensioner—is PREGNANT. Again! Can you believe it? She’ll be 103 by the time she gives birth to this one. She’ll be on the front page of the papers and there will be TV crews camped in the garden doing stories on Britain’s Oldest Mother and then we will probably be taken into care because our parents clearly cannot control themselves.

  Gran is appalled. The phone has just rung and I picked it up and it was Gran saying, “Have they told you? Have they told you?” She says if my other grandma was alive she’d be appalled too, but as she’s been dead six years it probably won’t bother her very much.

  Gran says my dad should have more self-control at his age (my thoughts exactly, Grandmama) and she can’t imagine what they’ll say down at the One O’Clock Club. She says we can’t afford another mouth to feed and she hopes they don’t expect her to babysit. Much as I agree, I know that my Gran will be cooing over this baby like a mother pigeon just like she was with Phoebe, so I can’t really be bothered discussing it with her.

  Mom went for a scan yesterday to check everything was OK with the baby. They couldn’t be too sure at her age apparently, and she was petrified. But it seems fine. I’m astonished it hasn’t got three heads. They showed us a picture of the scan where you can just make out a white blob.

  Phoebe saw it and started crying, saying, “Mommy’s eaten a SLUG. Quick, get doctor.”

  The baby is due in December, just in time to ruin everyone’s Christmas. Well, isn’t life turning out just peachy?

  11 p.m.

  What are we going to do? Rick says we should leave home ASAP because there’ll be no room for us soon and the place will stink of baby sick again. He’s gone out to lose himself in Fast Track.

  I’m more worried about what Treasure will say when she finds out. The Clampetts have really done it this time.

  Saturday

  Phoebe now seems pleased about the baby and has given Mom all her Baby Annabel clothes. This made Mom cry like a banshee and rock Phoebe on her knee, saying, “Mommy’s lovely little baby.”

  Enjoy it while it lasts, Pheebs. Soon you’ll be joining the igno
red-middle-children club.

  Sunday

  Unbelievable. Mom is actually looking quite happy about being pregnant now. She literally has no shame. And Dad keeps singing “Isn’t She Lovely?” and kissing her in front of her disgusted children. “What would I do without you, Dave?” she says to my dad.

  “Dunno,” says Rick. “Not get knocked up at the age of 44?” Dad didn’t laugh at that.

  Text Amber and say I need an emergency summit meeting.

  4 p.m.

  Amber’s bedroom. Summit meeting.

  Amber stares at me with her mouth in one of the shapes in the Face Workout book when I tell her. I make her swear not to tell anyone, not even Megan, who can be very gossipy, to be honest. I was hoping Amber would join in agreeing what selfish, embarrassing parents they are, but she went all nerdy scientist on me, saying, “Well, that’s interesting actually, because it shows how incredible human biology is.”

  “WHAT?” I said.

  “Well, women’s fertility drops quite sharply in their thirties, as does men’s,” she said. “Both your mom and dad must be quite—”

  “All right, all riiiiiight,” I say, covering my ears and feeling that I really might be sick at any moment. Too much information—unless you want vommed Monster Munch all over your shoes.