Hunky Dory

by Jean Ure

“Well?”

  I said, “Well…” I was being careful here; I didn’t want her getting ratty. “Well, I…”

  “All you’ve got to do is just say,” said the Microdot. “You don’t have to stop and think about it.”

  “What if I get it wrong?”

  “You can’t get it wrong. There isn’t any wrong. Just look at the splotches and say what you think is happening.”

  “OK. It’s someone being chased…someone trying to get away.”

  The Microdot went, “Hah!” And then she gave this derisive snort and said it again. “Hah!”

  “What?” I said. “What?”

  “I might have known!”

  “Known what?”

  “That that’s what you’d say!”

  By now, I might as well admit, I was becoming considerably annoyed. Even when she told me I couldn’t get it wrong, she still wouldn’t let me get it right.

  “See, there’s two different types,” she said. “There’s friendly types and there’s unfriendly types. The friendly types say it’s someone running towards people, and the unfriendly types say it’s someone running away from people. You’re one of the unfriendly types. You can’t help it, it’s not your fault. It’s just the way you’re made,” she said, kindly.

  The fact she said it kindly made me even more annoyed.

  “This is such a load of crap,” I said.

  “It’s not crap, it’s psychology! And you know you’re not allowed to use that word…crap.”

  I said, “Crap, crap, double crap!” She gets me like that. “I suppose you’re one of the friendly types?”

  “Well, I am friendly,” she said. “I like people.”

  “I like people!”

  “You don’t like Linzi.”

  I shouted, “I never said I didn’t like her!”

  “Yes, you did, and don’t shout!”

  I said, “I am NOT SHOUTING!”

  “You are, you’re deafening me.”

  “Well, you deafen me all the time, and I didn’t say I didn’t like her. When did I say I didn’t like her? I’m the one that’s supposed to be rescuing her from beetles!”

  She tossed her head. One of her most irritating habits. “Supposed to be.”

  “I’d do it,” I said, “if I had to. The opportunity, however, has not yet arisen.” I thought that was rather good: the opportunity has not yet arisen.

  Her lip curled. “Don’t see how it can when you still haven’t even asked her out.”

  Asked her out??? She actually thought I was going to ask her out?

  “Go figure!” said the Microdot.

  I have just got it. I have just twigged. I might have known she had some ulterior motive, giving me all that guff about being better-looking than Brendan Fraser. That girl is just so devious. Talk about low cunning! It’s the last time I let her engage me in conversation.

  I wish I knew how she curled her lip like that. Hers goes right up in a hoop; mine just kind of twitches. She must have very prehensile lips. Yeah, and a very prehensile brain! What can I say that would get my geeky brother to date my best mate? The answer to which is: nothing! Absolutely nothing! I’d have to be desperate before I went out with anyone the Microdot was friends with.

  Tuesday

  Something very horrific happened at school today: I got shut in the gym cupboard with Janine Edwards. I still can’t work out how the door came to close on us. Or what Janine was doing there in the first place, considering she was supposed to be in the sports hall with the rest of the girls. And how come the light went out? I guess she must have panicked and knocked against the switch cos suddenly we were in darkness and she started screaming. Next minute she’s hurling herself at me with such force I’m staggering backwards into a bunch of string bags containing netballs, and before I know it I’m down on the floor, struggling to get up, being smothered by string bags and this great lumping girl. Not meaning to be sexist or anything, but Janine Edwards is big. I honestly thought she’d gone mad and was trying to strangle me. You hear of these things.

  It was Mr Hoskiss that wrenched the door open. He is not as a rule my favourite person, being this hideous sports fanatic that makes us all run mindlessly round muddy fields in pouring rain and force ten gales, but for once I was quite relieved to see his big beefy figure towering there. Another minute squashed beneath Janine Edwards and I might not have been alive to tell the tale. Unfortunately, as well as Mr Hoskiss, half of 7S were there. The male half. All standing gawping. They seemed to find it very amusing, me being trapped in a cupboard with a girl on top of me. Aaron and the others, later, made some quite uncalled-for remarks which I do not intend to record as I am doing my best to forget them.

  Arrived home this afternoon to find that the Microdot had brought the Linzi person back with her. She is a little pink podgy thing like a beachball. Mum and Wee Scots can’t stop cooing over her; they say she’s “a real wee cutie”. The Microdot looks at me, very hard, as she introduces us.

  “Linzi, this is my brother, Dory. Dory, this is my friend Linzi.”

  Linzi goes bright purple and so do I. I can’t think of anything to say to her. She obviously can’t think of anything to say to me, either. We sit in silence, at the tea table. I can feel her eyes on me, but every time I risk a glance she quickly swivels them away in the opposite direction, while the Microdot, for some reason best known to herself, keeps kicking at me and sticking her elbow in my ribs.

  I escape as soon as I can, down to the hole to do some digging. The Herb arrives half an hour later, but Aaron, who is supposed to be joining us, fails to turn up. He is becoming very unreliable. Me and the Herb dig for a while in silence. The Herb seems preoccupied, and I’m still brooding over the incident in the gym cupboard. It’s very unnerving, having a great hefty girl walloping about on top of you, squeezing all the breath out of you. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it gives me post traumatic stress disorder.

  I’m just wondering if I should unburden myself and tell the Herb about it, when quite suddenly, out of the blue, she says, “You know Sheri Stringer?”

  For a minute I don’t think I do, and then I remember. “Girl in your class? One with all the hair?”

  The Herb says, “Yes. The one with all the hair.”

  “What about her?”

  “Do you think she’s pretty?”

  Do I think Sheri Stringer is pretty? I say that I don’t know. “Why?”

  “Cos I’m asking you! And don’t say you don’t know. You’ve got to have an opinion one way or the other.”

  I say that I can’t have an opinion as I haven’t ever thought about it.

  The Herb says, “So think!”

  “OK.” I give it a few seconds, to show that I’m thinking. What does she want me to say? Yes, or no? I have to be careful here. I don’t want to upset her.

  The Herb, like the Microdot, is quite an impatient sort of person. “Well, come on!” she says. “Don’t take all day. Is she or isn’t she?”

  Cautiously, I say, “I suppose she might be…quite.”

  “How many marks out of ten?”

  “Um…seven? Eight?”

  The Herb goes, “Huh!”

  Obviously I’ve gone and got it wrong. Again. Girls can be very difficult at times! Even the Herb. Trying to make amends I say that maybe seven or eight is too high. “Maybe more like…four or five. What d’you reckon?”

  “No use asking me,” says the Herb. “What’s it matter what I think?”

  I tell her that it does matter. I say that I value her opinion. I ask her, does she think Sheri Stringer is pretty? To which she says, “Yes, I suppose…if you like sickly sweet and airbrushed.” Then she hunches down and starts shovelling earth as hard as she can go, great clumps of it whizzing past my ear. I want to tell her to stop, but I can’t quite summon up the courage; not the mood she’s in. I dunno what the matter is. Why is she so hung up about Sheri Stringer?

  To take her mind off the subject I try and interest her in the Mi
crodot’s paint splotch test, which I’ve brought with me, but she hardly even glances at it. Just goes on shovelling earth and every now and then giving short barks of laughter like she’s really amused by something. Except I don’t think she is amused.

  It’s all very odd, but we go on digging till almost seven o’clock, when the Herb says she’s got to get back and do her homework. Aaron still hasn’t put in an appearance. I wouldn’t mind, except he did actually promise. He knows Dad wants his hole back by the end of the month!

  When I get in, the Linzi person has gone. Mum says again that she’s a real cutie, and the Microdot gives me this meaningful glare. I ignore her and go upstairs, where I find that a pink envelope has been pushed under my bedroom door. I pick it up, distastefully. I don’t trust pink! Inside is a sheet of paper—more pink—with teddy bears printed on it. On the paper are the words, YOU ROCK! I tear out of my room and collar the Microdot at the top of the stairs. I wave the sheet of paper at her. I snarl, “Did you put her up to this?”

  “Dunno what you’re talking about,” says the Microdot; and she wriggles out of my grasp and slithers off along the landing. At the door of the bathroom, she turns. “Think yourself lucky I didn’t give her the number of your mobile!” And then she sticks her tongue out and says, “I would have done, if I could remember it!” I feel like strangling her.

  Thursday

  I think Amy Wilkerson may have gone off me. Instead of beaming at me she now totally ignores me; and today in maths, when she could have come and parked her bum next to me, she just sniffed, rather loudly, and went swishing past. It may have something to do with Janine Edwards and the gym cupboard, or maybe it was that thing in science the other day when Janine kept turning round and shooting these secret messages at me. I know Amy noticed cos I saw her scowling and sucking her cheeks in. I don’t really know why it should bother her, but girls are quite odd that way. One minute they’re the biggest best friends of all time, going round in a gaggle, all clamped together, and the next they are scratching each other’s eyes out, crazed with jealousy and half insane with hatred.

  Boys don’t behave like that. Me and Aaron have been mates since Year 3; we don’t bicker and squabble. The Microdot does! She’s had about six best friends since Christmas. I just wish she’d fall out with the Linzi person, then perhaps I’d be left in peace.

  Janine Edwards is my biggest worry at the moment. You’d think she’d be embarrassed, carrying on like that in the gym cupboard. Screaming her head off just because the light went out! But she’s becoming very bold. She’s doing the secret message thing again, flashing her eyes at me across the room whenever Mrs Duncan’s back is turned. I have an uncomfortable feeling she might have tried sitting next to me if I hadn’t very quickly got up and shot across to another desk, next to Stuart Wenham. Stuart gave this goofy grin and said, “That was close!”

  I just don’t know what the matter is with these girls. Why can’t they leave me alone???

  Aaron wasn’t in school for the first two periods as he was at the dentist having a tooth drilled. He arrived in time for break, complaining that his lips had gone big. His lower one was all bulged out and wobbly, so he couldn’t talk properly, but I had no sympathy with him. I asked him where he had been yesterday evening, when he was supposed to be helping us dig, and this shifty look came into his eyes and he mumbled, “Thorry, I frrgot.” He then went on to tell me how the dentist had had to inject him twice.

  “Wunth up here, and wunth down here.” He said, “My nothe ith dead. I can’t feel my nothe!”

  I told him that it served him right. I said in future he should get his mum to make his dentist’s appointments for after school.

  “Otherwise I’m at their mercy!”

  Aaron said, “Hoothe merthy?”

  “All of ’em! Everyone! Specially Janine Edwards.”

  He gave this uncouth cackle and said, “Did she come an’ thkwoth you again?”

  I said, “It’s not funny.”

  “I think it ith,” said Aaron. “I think it’th hilariouth!”

  He is supposed to be my friend. I told him that I hoped all his teeth would drop out.

  Walked home from the bus stop with Will. He’s been picking at his pimples again, but I didn’t say anything as he is very self-conscious and gets easily embarrassed. I know about being embarrassed. I think Dad does, too, which is why he tries to cover up his bald patch by combing what is left of his hair over it. Mum and the Microdot, on the other hand, probably don’t even know what the word means. I guess what it is, the males of this family are simply a bit more sensitive than the females. They are also less talkative. Mum and the Microdot will go rabbiting in for hours, whereas me and Will, and Dad, are more the strong silent types. Still, you have to talk about something or it gets to feel odd. I was trying to think of a suitable topic of conversation when Will said, “So how’s it going?”

  I said, “Yeah, OK.” Then there was a pause, and I said, “Well, apart from girls.”

  “Oh?” Will looked at me. He seemed surprised. “I didn’t know you were into them.”

  I said, “I’m not.”

  “So what’s the problem?”

  “They’re giving me all this hassle!” It came bursting out of me before I could stop it. I hadn’t meant to talk to him about girls.

  Will said, “What kind of hassle?”

  “I dunno! Making nuisances of themselves. Always wanting to come and sit next to you, and beaming at you, and breathing over you. They just won’t leave me alone! Do you have this sort of trouble?”

  Will said, “I should be so lucky!”

  He sounded quite violent about it. Earnestly I assured him that I didn’t invite girls to come and breathe over me.

  “They just do it. I don’t know how to stop them!”

  “Yeah? Like you’re so irresistible?”

  I said, “N-no, I—I just seem to attract them.”

  “Well, poor you,” said Will. “My heart bleeds.”

  “It’s giving me problems,” I said.

  “So go paint yourself green, or something. Go to the joke shop and buy some boils. Stick a zit on your nose. What d’you think you are? The Incredible Hunk?”

  I said, “I can’t understand why they keep doing it.”

  “Well, have I got news for you,” said Will. “Neither can I!”

  It seems like I upset him, though I don’t know how. All I wanted was a bit of advice! I don’t know who else to turn to. Aaron’s my best mate, but we don’t really talk about things like that. In any case, he isn’t any more clued up than I am. Last time we had a conversation on the subject he told me that in his opinion girls were best kept away from. He said it was his motto in life: “Leave ’em alone cos they’re no good for you!” So what help he’d be, I can’t imagine. Joe and Calum aren’t much better. Their idea of a conversation about girls is a series of Neanderthal grunts and sniggers.

  I suppose I could try the Herb. I mean, she’s a girl, sort of. What I mean, she is a girl; just not like other girls. Least, not the ones I know. Still, she probably understands them better than me or Aaron. I think I might ask her. I can’t carry on like this! I need some kind of help.

  While we were having tea, Wee Scots and Mum started up a discussion about this girl they’d seen on television that they thought was disgusting. Mum said she was “shameless” and Wee Scots called her a “brazen huzzy”. I’m not sure what a brazen huzzy is, but obviously something mums and grans disapprove of.

  Mum said, “So ugly. Why do they have to make themselves so ugly?” And then she turned to Will and said, “I suppose you thought she was attractive?”

  Will gave this kind of hollow laugh, like “ha ha” without any gurgle. “Why ask me?” he said. “Ask the Hunk over there. He’s the expert.”

  The Microdot did the curling thing with her lip. She said, “Him? He doesn’t know the first thing! He doesn’t even like girls.”

  “Guess that’s why they’re all after him,” sa
id Will.

  “Och, no!” said Wee Scots. “I’d fancy him myself if I were a few years younger. He’s grown into a right wee hunk!”

  Dad cried, “Hunky Dory!” and he and Mum, and Wee Scots, all laughed, like Dad had said something really funny.

  Afterwards, while we were doing the washing up, the Microdot said, “That was so clever! Calling you Hunky Dory.”

  I said, “Why? What’s clever about it?”

  “Well,” she said, “hunky dory…it’s an expression, stupid! Don’t tell me you’ve never heard it? You’ve never heard hunky dory? I thought everyone had heard it!”

  I said, “Well, I haven’t, so what’s it mean?”

  “Means, like, OK. Everything is hunky dory. Not,” she added, “that I think you’re particularly hunky. But Linzi does. And you just treat her so badly. I can’t think what she sees in you! I can’t think what any of them see in you. It’s not just cos you’re my brother, it’s cos of all these really nerdy things you do, like going off and digging your stupid hole instead of talking to Linzi. That was just so nerdy. It’s what Dad should have called you…not Hunky Dory. Nerdy Dory! Rather dig holes than talk to a girl.”

  This is exactly what I mean about going on. She kept at it the whole time we’re washing up. On, and on, and on. Last thing she said, as we left the kitchen, “I still can’t believe you didn’t know what hunky dory means! I know what it means, and I’m only ten years old. How come I know, and not you?”

  So she knew and I didn’t. So what??? I know all kinds of things that she doesn’t! She doesn’t know that the biggest dinosaur was called an Argentinosaurus and was as tall as a six-storey building. She doesn’t know that the very first dinosaurs lived 230 million years ago. She doesn’t know that back in those days all the continents we have now were one huge great supercontinent called Pangea. I bet she’s never even heard of Pangea!

  She has absolutely nothing to boast about. She couldn’t even tell the difference between a stegosaurus and a triceratops.

  I’ve noticed that most girls aren’t really very interested in dinosaurs; not even the Herb. It’s strange. I can’t understand it.