Hunky Dory

by Jean Ure

  “There isn’t any such programme as Secrets of a Sewage Farm, and if it was it would be disgusting!”

  I said, “Pardon me, that is just your interpretation.”

  “What about maggot pie? Are you trying to tell me that’s not disgusting? And what’s this stupid Flamingo thing? I’ve never heard of a band called that. You just made it up!”

  I said, “How do you know? You don’t know the name of every band there’s ever been.”

  Witheringly she said that nobody would call a band anything that stupid. “It’s just about the stupidest name I ever heard!”

  I told her that that was the fifth time she’d used the word stupid. I said, “You ought to get a bit more vocabulary.”

  She screeched, “Yes, and you ought to get a life! You know what this shows, don’t you?” She snatched up the questionnaire and waved it at me. “It shows that you’re repressed.”

  I said, “Yeah?” I don’t think she even knows what the word means.

  She said, “Yeah! It shows you’re too scared to reveal your true self…you have to hide behind being stupid.”

  “That makes the sixth time,” I said.

  “Sixth time what?”

  “Sixth time you’ve used that word.”

  “That’s cos it’s the only one that describes you!”

  All because I treated her silly little questionnaire as a joke. I bet even if I’d taken it seriously she’d still have said it showed there was something weird about me. She’s always saying I’m weird. She told me the other day I was like a human hermit crab.

  “Skulking in your shell!”

  If I’m like a hermit crab, she’s like a hornet, all angry and buzzing. Zzz, zzz, zzz! You’re stupid, you’re weird!

  I’m not like a hermit crab; I don’t skulk. She just can’t bear it when other people don’t share her interests. Shopping, and shrieking, and giggling. I reckon she ought to learn to be a bit more tolerant.

  Now she’s threatening to give me more of her idiotic tests. She gets them out of girly mags. Ten Ways to Tell if a Boy’s Interested in You. (Like any boy ever would be, the way she carries on.) Check your Popularity. Check your Street Cred. It’s all rubbish! She’d better not try any of them on me. She tried one on Dad the other day. Something about hair. What your Latest Hair Style reveals about You. Dad practically hasn’t got any hair. Will said, “What it reveals is that Dad is going bald.” She didn’t have a go at him. She didn’t accuse him of being stupid. It’s just me she’s got it in for. Her and her tests!

  If she gives me that one about Check your Popularity I shall refuse to answer it. I don’t see why, just because she’s my sister, she should be allowed to humiliate me.

  Friday

  Aaron came back to school today; he said he’d been off with earache. I told him what had happened with Amy Wilkerson, parking herself next to me and breathing over me. He drew in his breath and said, “I’d keep an eye on her, if I were you. Gobbles boys up for breakfast, that one. Obviously fancies you. It’s what they do, they come and breathe over you, and touch you…did she touch you?”

  I said, “She kept nudging me with her knee.”

  “See, this is what I mean,” said Aaron. “She fancies you! She’s got her sights set on you…donk!” He shot out the first two fingers of both hands, straight into my face. “It’s like smoke signals, you gotta be aware of the signs. You gotta know how to respond.”

  I said, “I don’t want to respond!”

  “No, but if you did.”

  “I don’t!”

  “Can’t say I blame you,” said Aaron. He sucked in his cheeks. “Amy Wilkerson! Have to be careful with that one.”

  I wish now that I hadn’t mentioned it to him. Aaron is one of those people, he always claims to know everything about everything. But you can’t actually rely on him. Like the time he told me that a prendergast was someone that molested children, and for ages I believed him and wouldn’t go into the newspaper shop cos of the lady in there being called Mrs Prendergast, until in the end Mum wanted to know what the problem was, so I told her, and she laughed and laughed and explained that Prendergast was just a perfectly ordinary surname like Smith or Jones and nothing whatsoever to do with molesting children. Aaron had got hold of the wrong end of the stick. As usual. It was very embarrassing.

  I refuse to let him embarrass me again! When it comes to girls, I’m not convinced he knows what he’s talking about. I don’t believe that Amy Wilkerson fancies me. Why should she? I’ve hardly ever spoken to her. I reckon she was just, like, doing it for a joke. I bet what it was, her friend Sharleen had dared her. I bet that’s what it was! Like the Microdot getting all her friends to hang about at the gates and giggle. Just to upset me.

  On the other hand, who told Janine Edwards to keep beaming? There can’t be two of them that fancy me! I don’t want to be fancied; I just want to be left alone!

  I’m really glad it’s Friday; I am beginning to feel persecuted.

  Wee Scots is coming tomorrow. That should be liven things up.

  Saturday

  Wee Scots arrived this morning, bright red as usual with the usquebaugh. Mum went to fetch her from the bus station. As they came through the front door Dad said, “Watch out, here she is, Hell’s Granny!” Wee Scots bashed him with her handbag and cried, “Och, awa’ wi’ ye!” They have a really good relationship.

  After lunch, while me and the Microdot were doing the washing up, which is one of the tedious tasks we have to perform in order to get any pocket money, the Microdot said she’d got a secret to tell me. She said, “You know my friend Linzi?”

  I didn’t, but I didn’t bother to say so; I just grunted. The Microdot has so many friends I can’t keep up with them. Last year for her birthday she invited twenty people. Boys, as well as girls. She claimed they were “all my friends”. I can’t understand why she’s so popular; she is very bed-tempered.

  “My friend Linzi?” She snatched a plate out of my hand before I’d even had time to put it on the draining board. She always treats washing up like it’s some kind of competition. “The one with the plaits?”

  When she said that, I had this faint uneasy feeling come over me. I’d noticed a girl with plaits in the middle of the gigglers. She’d been giggling along with the rest, but more in a sort of embarrassed way. Grudgingly I said, “What about her?”

  “She’s got a crush on you.”

  “What?” I was so alarmed I let a glass go slipping through my fingers on to the kitchen floor.

  “Now look what you’ve done,” said the Microdot. “You’ve gone and broken it.” Like I needed her to tell me? “That was Granny’s favourite usquebaugh glass.” I said, “It’s not an usquebaugh glass. She uses tumblers for usquebaugh. This is a water glass.”

  “It’s still broken.”

  “I can see that, thank you very much!”

  “Yes, well, anyway. Like I was saying…about Linzi. She’s got this massive crush on you.”

  I said, “What d’you mean, crush?”

  “Crush! Like she wants to crrrrrrush you!”

  Before I knew what was happening, the Microdot had flung both arms round me and was squeezing me to a pulp. I said, “Geddoff!”

  “I’m just showing you what she’d like to do to you. She’d like to hug you! And kiss you. Aaaah…it’s so sweet!”

  “Why don’t you just shut up?” I said.

  “Cos I want you to know how she feels. She’s in love with you! Only she’s too shy to tell you, so I thought I would.”

  I said, “Is that what all the stupid giggling was about?”

  “Yes. It’s really pathetic! They’ve all got crushes on you…they think you’re so cute!” She gave this great cackle, like she was inviting me to join in. “But poor Linzi, she’s got it worse than anyone. She is totally gone. She is, like, demented. She’s written your name all over, everywhere! I’ve told her what you’re like, but she just can’t stop herself. I feel sooo sorry for her.”


  Crawling round the floor with the dustpan and brush, keeping my face hidden because I just knew I’d gone bright beetroot, I said, “So what did you tell her I was like?”

  “Well, like you are…peculiar! Anyone that spends their time digging holes in the back garden and playing about in the mud…where’s the sense in having a crush on someone like that?”

  This is what I mean about my family, and the difficulties I face. Scorn and derision at every turn. I don’t play in the mud and I’m not just digging a hole, I am excavating. It is serious work. They know this perfectly well; I’ve told them over and over. It is an archaeological dig. But the Microdot still treats me like I’m some kind of geek. Even Mum and Dad have a secret giggle—well, not all that secret, either, cos I heard them the other day telling someone about “Dory’s hole”, like it was just totally hilarious. It is an uphill struggle, in this house, trying to make something of yourself. One day when I’m Sir Dorian, and famous for my work on dinosaurs, they’ll look back and feel ashamed of the way they treated me.

  Of course I might be famous as a Crime Scene Investigator. That’s another career I’m thinking of pursuing. I reckon I’d be good at it, as I find it most interesting on television when they examine the contents of people’s stomachs or collect maggots and bugs that have taken up residence inside dead bodies. The Microdot says I am gruesome. She says it is totally disgusting and would make any normal person feel sick, but that is just her point of view. Mine happens to be different.

  Anyway, if I’m peculiar so is she. She screamed her head off the other day, all because there was a spider walking across her bedroom ceiling. She screeched, “Get rid of it, get rid of it!”

  I’ve told her about a hundred times that spiders are perfectly pleasant and harmless creatures, just going about their business.

  “What d’you think they’re going to do, bite you?”

  She screeched that they might fall on top of her while she was in bed. They might even get into the bed.

  “They could get down my nightdress!”

  How peculiar is that? Fantasising about spiders getting down her nightdress. What makes her think any self-respecting spider would want to? I can’t understand it when girls start freaking out at the sight of anything with multiple legs. The Herb came across a centipede the other day; she didn’t freak. But then the Herb is different.

  I spent the whole afternoon excavating. I’ve only got till the end of the month, then the builders are coming in to build Dad’s new workshop, so I’m trying to get as much done as I can. Aaron and the Herb are helping me: they are my official assistants. I am doing my best to train them, but I have to say it is uphill work. They don’t seem able to grasp the fact that there is more to excavating than simply picking up a trowel and digging as fast as you can. I’ve told them, you have to dig slowly. You have to dig carefully. You have to sift. Then if you find anything, you have to label it, and say where

  it was, like how far down, and how far in. The Herb asked me today exactly what it was we were hoping to discover. Before I could give a more scholarly reply, Aaron had jumped in and yelled, “Dinosaur bones!”

  “What, in Warrington Crescent?” said the Herb.

  Aaron said why not. They’d have stamped about in Warrington Crescent same as they did anywhere else.

  “In the back garden?”

  “You gotta remember,” said Aaron, “it was all primeval swamp in them days. That’s what it still is, deep down. Then the bones kind of work their way up. Prob’ly quite near the surface, some of ’em. I wouldn’t be surprised if we came across the odd one now and again.”

  I said, “I would.” This is exactly what I mean about Aaron always claiming to know everything when in fact he knows nothing. I said, “I’d be very surprised.”

  “So what are we searching for?” demanded the Herb.

  I had to explain that it wasn’t dinosaur bones, which in any case would be fossils by now, but just whatever turned up. So far I have discovered:

  An old coin dating from 1936 A piece of broken china (a shard, as we professionals call it) A small blue bottle (probably contained poison) A rusty penknife, almost certainly antique.

  They are all cleaned up and properly labelled. I showed them to my assistants, thinking they would be impressed—thinking they might actually learn something—but the Herb just giggled and Aaron said, “Is that it?”

  I said, “This is history, this is.”

  “Some history,” said Aaron.

  The Herb giggled again. Everything’s always a big joke with her; she finds it very difficult to take things seriously. “You never know,” she said, “it could be the scene of a hideous crime. We’ve got the murder weapon!”

  “If you’re talking about that penknife,” I said, “it wouldn’t go in deep enough.” I know about these things; I’ve studied them.

  “All right, then!” She snatched up the bottle. “Poison!”

  It was all they needed. Next thing I know, they’re both going mad with their trowels, showering earth in all directions. I told them quite sharply to stop.

  “This is not the way you’re supposed to do it! You’re ruining the site!”

  Aaron panted, “We’re looking for a body!”

  “You’ve got to admit, bodies would be interesting,” said the Herb. “More interesting than bits of broken china.”

  I had to be very stern with them. I mean, yes, OK, body parts would be great. Teeth, or skulls, or thigh bones. I’d like to discover body parts just as much as anyone else, but it’s not the way that it’s done.

  “If you’re going to help, then help properly,” I said. “Just try to be a little bit professional.”

  The Herb mumbled “Professional, professional,” and stroked an imaginary beard, while Aaron went into exaggerated slow motion with his trowel. I said, “That’s better. You’re worse than the dogs!”

  Dad has erected a special wire netting enclosure for the hole. He did it so that Mum, in her daffy way, wouldn’t go trundling down the garden with a barrow full of used cat litter and fall into it, but it also serves to keep the Russells at bay. I do love the Russells, but I sometimes can’t help wishing Mum had developed a passion for a more useful breed of dog. Dogs that could fetch, or carry, or herd. If the Russells got into the hole it would be total chaos. As it is, they all sit on the other side of the netting and whinge.

  “Dunno why you don’t let ’em in,” said Aaron. “Get the job done far quicker.”

  “Wouldn’t be professional,” said the Herb. “Hey, I just thought of a joke! Is it OK to tell jokes?”

  I think I must have hesitated, cos she said, “It’s all right, it’s a professional joke…it’s a dinosaur joke.”

  “Yeah, yeah, go on!” said Aaron. “Tell it!”

  “Right. What’s a dinosaur that’s had its bottom smacked?”

  “I don’t know,” said Aaron. “What is a dinosaur that’s had its bottom smacked?”

  The Herb said, “A dinosore-arse!” She looked at me, triumphantly. “Funny?”

  “Your mum wouldn’t think so,” I said. “She’d say you were being vulgar.”

  The Herb gave one of her cackles. “Rude, rude, Mum’s a prude!”

  “I reckon it’s pretty good,” said Aaron. “Here!” He gave me a nudge. “You tell the Herb about Amy Wilkerson?”

  Herb said, “Ooh, another joke?”

  “She fancies him,” said Aaron.

  “Amy Wilkerson?”

  “Yeah, she went and sat next to him and started breathing over him.”

  “Yuck, yuck, yuck!” said the Herb. She turned, and made vomiting noises. “Amy Wilkerson…puke!”

  “She’s not that bad,” said Aaron. “I’ve seen worse.”

  “OK then, you have her,” I said.

  “Yes, you have her,” said the Herb. “Amy Wilkerson…bluurgh!”

  I really wish I’d never mentioned it. I’m certainly not going to say anything about the Microdot and her gang of gigglers.
It’s funny, though, I never knew the Herb had it in for Amy Wilkerson.

  When we went back in for tea I found Wee Scots doing things with mothballs. Threading string through them and tying knots.

  “She’s making necklaces,” said Will. “To go round trees.”

  I said, “What do trees want necklaces for?”

  Wee Scots cried, “Mothball necklaces, laddie!”

  I screwed up my nose and looked at Will. Solemnly, he said, “It’s to stop the dogs using them as toilets.”

  And the Microdot says I’m weird?

  Three

  Sunday

  She said to draw a house and garden. I drew a house and garden. She looked at it and said, “That’s supposed to be a house?” I said yes. I have never claimed to be any good at drawing.

  She told me that I’d done it the wrong way round. She said, “Look at it! It’s back to front.”

  Sometimes she is just totally illogical. How can a house be back to front? I explained that it was simply seen from the rear. She said, “So who draws a house seen from the rear? Honestly! It’s so anti-social. It’s like turning your back on people.”

  I said, “That is just your opinion.”

  “It isn’t an opinion,” she said. “It’s psychology.”

  Huh! I bet she doesn’t even know how to spell the word. She says she’s going to give me one test a week until she’s built up a profile. “Then we shall see!”

  I told her she wouldn’t see anything if I refused to do them, but she said that was where I was wrong. “If you refuse to do them it’ll simply show you’re scared.”

  I said, “Scared of what?”

  She said, “Of having your true self revealed! So whether you do them or whether you don’t, we shall still see.”

  I think this is a form of bullying. I told her so, and she said, “How can I bully you? I’m only ten years old.”

  “Which is far too young,” I said, “to know the first thing about psychology.”

  “I’m learning,” she said. “Ten isn’t too young to start learning. Or to fall in love! Poor Linzi is heartsick. She’s suffering. I’m really worried, cos she’s my best friend—one of my best friends—and I’m just so frightened for her. If you keep on rejecting her like this—”