Goldfish

by Nat Luurtsema

  I stare at her. “OK, Debs, only winners welcome in here. I get it.” I stand up to leave, really slowly, giving her time to yell, “Lou! I didn’t mean it to sound like that! Of course I don’t care if you win or lose; we’re pals. I was just being tough love with you because I care and I want to help you get over this.”

  I bend down and tie my shoelaces in silence, then retie them because emotional outbursts can’t be rushed. Especially from a woman with the tenderness of a rock. I finally look up and realize that she’s not teetering on the edge of anything emotional—she’s just checking her email again.

  Well, this first week at school has sucked, but it has taught me many things:

  1. I have no friends.

  2. This probably won’t change, as no one in my class likes me, except as a tampon dartboard.

  3. I am basically uneducated.

  4. I’m really good at pretending I’m not about to cry.

  I put number four into practice as I leave Debs’s office. I don’t want to enter my homeroom with a wobbling chin and blotchy eyes—“Damn this early autumn hay fever, right?” I don’t want to go home and worry Mom, and I don’t want to cry in public. That just leaves the one place that still makes me feel safe.

  I scoot along the corridor to the pool, head down, hoping no adult will stop me and question my loose interpretation of the school rules. I’m glad to hear nothing from the locker rooms and there’s no one in the pool, so I’m left in peace to sit on one of the poolside benches and watch the steam floating over the top of the water.

  I start to cry, and it very quickly turns into one of those enjoyable sessions. When it’s a relief to let it all out and you feel so much better. I think of every sad thing that’s ever happened to me and wallow in self-pity.

  Once I reach our dog, Mr. Hughes, who died peacefully of fat old age five years ago, it’s clear I’ve run out of things to cry about.

  After a while I subside into hiccups and dry my eyes. I root around in my bag for a tissue and find an old bathing suit, zipped up in an internal pocket and forgotten. Oh well, I think, it’s not like I’ll be using this again. So I blow my nose in it.

  I feel much better, though I can tell that my face has already gone puffy. I’m such an ugly crier. I look like boiled ham glazed in snot.

  I hear a noise across the pool and I freeze, holding the bathing suit/hankie to my streaming nose. Pete is lounging in the open doorway of the swimming pool. I think he’s flicking away a cigarette.

  I don’t want him to see me covered in snot. (Admittedly, who would you want to parade your snotty face in front of?)

  Cammie appears out of the changing room; she must’ve had extra training. She gives him an approving look.

  “Waiting for me?” she asks, flirty and confident.

  “Nope,” he says. She smiles; he’s obviously joking.

  But he looks around as if the person he wants to see isn’t there, and heads off down the sloping field to the parking lot.

  Cammie looks outraged. She obviously can’t believe he was that rude to her. I wonder how much angrier she’d be if she knew I’d seen that. I sit very still. Please don’t look back.

  My phone vibrates with a text, and her head whips around to me. She looks embarrassed but quickly recovers. If she were a cat, she’d be popping her claws out.

  “Oh my god, are you sitting here crying over the swimming pool?” she asks with an incredulous smile. I grab my bag and scramble for the door Pete left through.

  It’s undignified to run away from Cammie, but I can’t bear the thought of being laughed at. I stumble through the door and run down the muddy slope, picking up speed as I approach the parking lot.

  I’m running so fast now that I couldn’t stop if I wanted to, which is a real shame, because suddenly a car swings toward me as it pulls out of the lot. I try to jump out of the way but fall onto the hood of the car, sliding all the way across it and landing on my feet on the other side.

  I’m OK! I half laugh, half gasp in shock, and look back at the driver. It’s Pete. His mouth is hanging open, there’s a muddy smear across his hood thanks to Yours Truly’s butt, and I think he’s going to yell at me. I do the only thing I can think of: I run away.

  chapter 6

  Weeeez, did you get my last email? Have you fallen down a well or have you forgotten about me? I miss you so much. I’m sorry, I don’t know what to say. I wish we’d both got in. It’s cool here, but there’s no one like you. They talk about swimming ALL THE TIME. If I’m saying that, think how bad they must be. I’m like—let’s just look at a fox in some wellies and chillax guys?! Email me back!

  Hxxxxx

  I’m being unfair to Hannah. We usually email or text every single day. But I hate hearing about the High Performance Training Camp. I know I’m selfish, but whenever she messages, I feel a jealous, sicky surge in my stomach.

  I want to be a better friend than that, so on Saturday morning I write a long email back. I don’t tell her how crappy I’m feeling. I don’t want her to feel guilty that she’s not here, so I keep it all a bit vague and bland.

  The weekend passes so quickly. How does time move so slowly at school and then whiz past on Saturday and Sunday? I wish I had friends to hang out with. I try not to think about what everyone else is up to or it’ll make me feel too sad.

  I help Dad in the yard, and Mom offers to take me shopping, but I don’t want to bump into girls from school out with my mom. I’d feel like a social reject. Lav’s stuck at home too, since she’s grounded, so she’s reading in her room for most of the weekend and slathering some foul-smelling muck into her hair to “bring out the shine.”

  Out from where?

  Dad makes her sit in the backyard so she doesn’t stink up the house, and she sulks on the patio for about an hour while it “sinks into her follicles.” She and Dad get snappy with each other, and then she says if she had a decent allowance, she could just go to the salon, like her friends do.

  Ouch. Dad’s sensitive about money. I try to give Lav a “shut uuup” look underneath her crusty hair muck, but it’s too late. Dad disappears into the shed, and the sounds of talk radio come wafting out.

  All too soon I get that Sunday-night feeling, and Lav and I are watching a wildlife documentary in the living room, in which loads of little worms are darting in and out of holes on the seabed.

  “Beau Michaels,” Lav says to me unexpectedly.

  I frown at her, mystified, until she pokes her tongue out in tentative, jerky little movements.

  Ew! I hit her with a pillow. Lav makes kissing sound like a fight between teeth and spit where no one wins.

  Mom is watching us with narrowed eyes, so we go back to watching the Beau Michaels worms, stifling our smirks. I wish I were an adult and I could just stay in the house, where I feel safe, instead of having to drag myself to school five days a week.

  I’m brooding on this five-out-of-seven ratio when there’s a crashing noise from the kitchen. Lav and I jump. The back door has swollen in the heat, so the only way to come through it is dramatically loud and fast. If we had a cat, it would have a flat nose by now.

  Dad marches into the living room, brushing cobwebs off his shoulders. I didn’t realize how long he’d been out there. He smells like Uncle Vinnie, which is a polite way of saying drunk.

  It’s not polite to Uncle Vinnie, obvs.

  “Have you been in the shed all this time?” Lav asks.

  “Yes,” he says.

  “Doing what?”

  “Working.”

  She opens her mouth to say “On what?” but he leaps in before she can.

  “Well, everything in the house is bloody broken, isn’t it? I’m run bloody ragged trying to fix everything because you all live in squalor!” The three of us look around the spotless living room, then at each other. We have no idea what he’s talking about.

  “Uh, I’m sorry?” says Mom cautiously. “I just find, you know, what with breeding fight dogs in the kitchen and all my dr
ug dealing at the strip joint, housework does get past me.”

  I try not to laugh. I know Dad’s going through a tough time, but yelling at us won’t help. And I did give him my bedroom so he could have his own space and I could live squashed between Lav’s millions of bras and shoes, so, you know, a thank-you might be nice?

  “The lamp in the kitchen was broken!” he says accusingly. “I had to take it apart.”

  “Oh, is it fixed? Thanks,” says Lav, to make peace.

  There’s a pause. “No,” Dad says eventually. “It’s in bits now, isn’t it? Now I have to put it together again, haven’t I?”

  He seems to be waiting for something.

  “Thank you?” I offer.

  He stomps back to the shed.

  “Hide your valuables,” Mom advises. “When Granny went into a home, he dismantled the TV and we never got it back together. It’s how he copes.”

  I scroll around on my phone. Nothing back from Hannah. Good—I don’t want to hear any more exciting tales of Training Camp tonight, especially now that the mood in the house has gone so sour.

  I feel so tired. I kiss Mom and head up to bed. Through the landing window I can see Dad’s shed, a patch of light in the darkness of the yard, where now the bushes have become pitch-black, evil-looking shapes.

  In the middle of the evil I can see Dad’s silhouette as he sits in his shed, bent intently over whatever he’s working on.

  Probably peeling apart a blender. It hurts my heart to watch him. He looks vulnerable, and for the first time I realize that he’s getting old.

  I send Han a message.

  X.

  She replies immediately.

  X in your face.

  I do have a friend who cares about me. She’s just, you know, living our dreams while I rot in a double block of physics.

  chapter 7

  The next morning I wake up to the sound of Lav stretching and making agonized noises. She’s so bad at mornings. I have had to put up with this drama every morning since I quit swimming. I wish Mom would just let her have espresso.

  Like she’s got anything to complain about! I have to have another crappy friendless day, then another, then three more, and then it’ll be the weekend and hopefully I can fake my own death or run away or suddenly become eighteen and get a job? PLAN.

  Suddenly I hear a screech from downstairs. Lav and I exchange alarmed looks, then swing our legs out of bed and race from our bedroom, pushing to get through the door first. Lav realizes her pajamas are a bit skimpy and doubles back to make herself decent.

  Mom is bent over the kitchen counter sifting through a pile of soggy junk mail, peeling something off the back of a takeout pizza menu. I hope both my parents haven’t gone crazy. Who’ll raise me? I still need so much parenting.

  “Are you making that noise?” I ask.

  “Yes!” she cries without looking up. “Quickly, get some black clothes on.”

  “Black clothes?” says Lav, who’s inserted herself into her skinny jeans and is now behind me. “Are we going to commit burglary?”

  “Emergency mime?” I suggest. (Pretty pleased with that.)

  “No!” Mom wails. “Your uncle…” She peers closely at the peeled-off piece of wet mail. “… Hamish, no, Harold, died last week. Your auntie just called. The funeral is today—it’s in an hour. Quickly, get dressed!”

  That’s so much information in one sentence. Lav and I are staring at each other, having a long sleepy think when Dad enters the kitchen dressed as if he’s off to work.

  I hate this, but Mom says we have to let him if it makes him feel better.

  “Who’s dead?” he asks.

  “Harold,” says Mom. “Or Hagrid?” She squints at the blotchy ink on the funeral card. Mom has a very big family, and new uncles and cousins-twice-removed regularly crop up out of nowhere. It’s impossible to keep track.

  “I don’t know a Hagrid,” Dad muses.

  “I think you missed your chance,” I point out, which makes him smile and me feel good.

  “Excuse me!” snaps Mom, looking up from her paper mush. “Is anyone listening? We have eight minutes to get out of the house and to this funeral, and I’m not taking you girls in your pajamas. Go, go, go!” She chases us upstairs.

  I rush to the bathroom before Lav can get in there—she has never had a quick shower in her life. As I soap up, I realize that this means a day off school! Thank you, Uncle Hester. We may never have met, but you have done your loving niece a favor.

  Seven minutes later we’re all dressed up, in the car, and heading for a church that Dad can’t find on his phone. Lav and I are trying to dry our hair with the car heater. It’s not working out well, but Mom keeps shoving our heads down in front of the vents, insisting we need five more minutes until we’re funeral-appropriate. My sore neck does not appreciate this, but any minute not spent in school is fine by me.

  Dad is staring at his phone, sweeping it around in big movements. He hits me on the head, but I have bigger problems, leaning between the front seats to get Lav’s secondhand heater air.

  The second time, however, he whacks me on my cold ear and it really hurts.

  “Oi!” I protest. “Don’t hit your kids.”

  “Sorry!” he sighs. “The phone just doesn’t know where we are.”

  “Are the gravestones a hint?” asks Mom acidly, and we both look up to find we’re driving past a graveyard and toward a church. Dad looks sheepish and pockets his phone.

  We have to run around the church one and a half times before we actually locate the door. We’re not church people, so we have no idea what to do with one. It’s like when I see new swimmers come to my pool and stare at the footbath in confusion. “Is this the pool for nervous swimmers?”

  We find a massive oak door that looks like our best bet. Dad pushes to open it, but nothing moves; he just looks like he’s leaning against it, posing for a catalog. After watching him lean for a while, going redder and redder, we realize he needs help. The door opens slowly, with a haunted-castle-style creak, and we get it open about a foot. Mom and Lav slip through the gap first.

  Dad pats his paunch and waves me through next. On the other side I bump into Mom and Lav, who have frozen in horror because they’ve emerged at the front of the church, next to the priest.

  They stand and smile at him like fans.

  He ignores us, which is kind of weird. Does this happen to him a lot? He must be really good at priesting.

  We’re looking out at a full church—there are like a hundred people here! Uncle Hebrides was popular. I give the room a weak smile and Dad saves the day. Taking Mom and Lav by the arm, he leads his moron family down the aisle, flashing a big charming smile left and right at stony-faced family members while I follow, trying to look like their caregiver.

  Dad spots an empty pew near the back and pushes the three of us toward it. A woman in the row behind shakes her head at us, but I can’t work out if it means “You people are terrible” or “How sad Humphrey is dead” or what. We all slide along the hard wooden bench as the priest continues his sermon.

  Then we realize what that headshake meant: “Don’t sit there—the bench is broken!” She really could’ve made her message clearer. But she didn’t, so now the four of us are basically sitting on a seesaw. Dad shifts slightly, and Mom at the other end of the row wobbles as her side shoots up a foot. We all freeze and do Big Eyes at each other.

  I had automatically propped my feet up on the seat in front, standard practice for a tall person facing teeny legroom, so I take them off and try to plant them on the floor for balance. This makes the bench lurch even more dramatically, and we all grab each other in panic.

  Now Dad’s end of the bench starts sinking; whatever the pew was resting on seems to be buckling at his end. Lav slides down toward him with the little hiss of butt on wood. Despite my best efforts, I begin to follow her. Mom is hanging on to the other end of the pew so she goes nowhere.

  Dad is maintaining an admirably strai
ght face as his bottom sinks lower and his knees move closer to his chin, and he manages to keep his eyes on the priest, nodding occasionally like, “Hmm good point, what is community?”

  Thankfully, we’re so late we’ve missed half the service, so we only have to sit like this for about twenty minutes. As the service comes to an end, the priest tells everyone to kneel and pray, but that is not an option in the Pew of Askew, so we all just duck our heads very slowly, trying to look respectful.

  If I shift my butt, I’ll flick Mom at the priest.

  People are beginning to stare. I’m staring back, and I can’t see anyone I recognize. Mom’s family is so big. The moment the funeral is over, the mourners head for the doors, and we wait for the last person to leave before we attempt to move.

  “OK,” says Dad. “One … two … three … and up!” We all stand together. Success!

  Almost.

  Lav loses her footing, staggers, and falls, dragging me down with her, and I can’t say Mom makes the smoothest dismount either. Dad helps us all up, shaking his head.

  “Right,” says Mom demurely, tucking her blouse in. “I think we should skip the buffet.”

  Dad agrees and we skulk out a side door and into the car. I’m still shutting my door as Mom puts the car into reverse. She’s like a getaway driver.

  We drive home to KISS FM—Lav called radio shotgun. I don’t think that’s a Thing, but Mom said not to squabble on holy ground, so I let I slide.

  “Who was it?” I ask Lav as she flicks through the service pamphlet she picked up on the way out.

  “Hmm?”

  “Who was the funeral for?” I ask, jiggling the pamphlet so she can’t read it until she pays me some attention. “Hugo? Heathcliff? Hubert?”

  She tuts and flicks to the front page.

  “Violet,” she snaps, and pulls it back to read. She looks up a moment later and frowns. “Violet?”

  Dad gives a snort of laughter, but I don’t understand. Lav slaps her hand over her mouth, her big brown eyes horrified. Is this a sex thing?

  It’s usually about sex when everyone gets it except me.