Hunky Dory

by Jean Ure

  Five

  Sunday

  She said, “Doodle!” and thrust a pencil and a sheet of paper at me. I really don’t know why I let her keep bullying me like this. It’s a kind of blackmail. If I don’t do what she wants she’ll say I’ve got something to hide, and accuse me of being mad, and weird, and anti-social. Except that she accuses me of that anyway! It’s very demeaning, being dictated to by a ten year old. I wish now that I’d told her to go and chuck herself out with the rubbish.

  “Well, go on!” she said. “Don’t think about it, just doodle.”

  I tried to do something strong and manly, to show her that I wasn’t intimidated by her and her nonsense, but it’s very difficult when someone tells you to just doodle; you can never be sure what’s going to come out.

  “Let’s have a look!” She snatched the paper away and sat there, frowning. “Hm,” she said, at last. “Very interesting.”

  I said, “So what’s it show? Does it show I’m going to come sleepwalking into your room one night and smother you with a pillow?”

  She put her head on one side, considering. “Is that what you think it shows?”

  I said, “Don’t ask me! You’re supposed to be the expert.”

  She liked that; me calling her the expert.

  “I shall have to study it,” she said. “It’s not that easy. After all, I’m only ten years old. I’m still learning!”

  “Yeah,” I said, “I noticed.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll work at it! I’ll find out for you.”

  “Can’t wait,” I muttered.

  “Would you like to know what Linzi’s showed?”

  I said, “No, thank you very much.” But she told me anyway.

  “Showed she’s really suffering. All because of you! I don’t know why you’re so against girls.”

  I tried to protest that I wasn’t, but before I could say anything the Microdot had gone rushing on.

  “Your friend Aaron likes them OK. I saw him the other night with Sophy Timms.”

  I said, “Aaron and Sophy Timms? You’ve gotta be joking!”

  “I’m not joking, I saw them…coming out the park. That night Linzi was here and you were so horrible to her. Night you went and dug your hole.”

  The night Aaron was supposed to come and help and didn’t turn up. But Aaron wouldn’t go out with Sophy Timms! He wouldn’t go out with any girl. He was the one who said girls were no good for you. Best kept away from.

  “It was when we were taking Linzi back, we drove past the park, and I saw them. We both saw them. They were holding hands. It really upset poor Linzi! I mean, considering you won’t even talk to her. And there’s your best friend actually holding hands?”

  “Must have been someone else,” I said. “Can’t have been Aaron.”

  “It was, too! Ask him, if you don’t believe me. He’s not against girls!”

  I really resent that. I’m not against girls! I just don’t like it when they get silly. Boys don’t get silly. Me and Aaron wouldn’t go and sit next to a girl and start breathing over her, and beaming at her, and treading on her foot underneath the desk. I don’t care what the Microdot says! Aaron wouldn’t go out with Sophy Timms.

  “What is so odd,” said the Microdot, “you don’t seem to object to the Herb.”

  I said, “That’s different. The Herb’s all right…she’s as good as a boy.”

  I knew at once that I’d said the wrong thing. The Microdot’s eyes narrowed to slits. She can look really mean when she narrows her eyes.

  “Say that again?” she said.

  “Say what again?”

  “What you just said! About the Herb.”

  “Said she’s as good as a boy,” I mumbled.

  “You sexist PIG!”

  I sidestepped, nervously, before she could swipe me. “I didn’t mean anything by it! I just meant…she doesn’t get silly like other girls.”

  “Silly?” said the Microdot. “SILLY?” she shrieked.

  “Like—you know! Giggling, and—breathing, and—”

  “So now we’re not supposed to breathe?”

  “Over people. Breathing over people.”

  “What people?”

  “Well—boys,” I said. “Girls coming and breathing over boys.”

  Now she was staring at me like I was some kind of lunatic. “You’ve been breathed over?”

  I said, “Yes. I have.”

  “By a girl?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, wow!” The Microdot clutched at herself in mock horror. “What a terrible experience! How did you survive? He was breathed over!”

  “It wasn’t funny,” I said.

  “No,” shrieked the Microdot, “and neither are you! You are just so antisocial it’s unbelievable. You ought to have an abso put on you!”

  “Asbo,” I said. “The word is asbo. Antisocial behaviour order.”

  “I know what it means!” screeched the Microdot.

  “It’s for people that go round causing vandalism.”

  “You cause vandalism! You wreck people’s lives! Poor Linzi can’t hardly eat because of you. She’ll fade away to nothing, and it’ll be all your fault. You hate her so much you can’t even be bothered to talk to her!”

  I said, “I told you before, I don’t hate her, I just don’t want to encourage her. I think that would be very unkind,” I said, “cos there isn’t any future. And if you were really her friend you’d tell her so!”

  The Microdot ignored this. She always ignores things she doesn’t like or can’t answer. I’ve noticed it before, it’s a ploy of hers. It’s very dishonest; she’s like a politician.

  “I’m going to go now,” she said, “and work out what this doodle means. When I’ve worked it out’”—she looked at me, coldly—“I’ll let you know.”

  Like I said, I can’t wait.

  Monday

  Got hold of Aaron at school this morning and told him what the Microdot had said.

  “Said she saw you coming out the park with Sophy Timms…said you was holding hands.”

  Aaron’s face turned a strange mottled colour. Sort of pink and white, in patches. I could see that I’d seriously embarrassed him. That anyone could think, even for a moment, that he would hold hands with Sophy Timms! I felt sorry I’d ever brought it up.

  “That Microdot,” I said. “I told her it couldn’t be you!”

  “Yeah. Well. Thing is—” Aaron swallowed. I saw his Adam’s apple bob up and down like a ping-pong ball. He’s got a very scrawny neck, has Aaron. “Thing is, I did sort of go up the park with her. Helped her take her dog for a walk. It’s a very big dog. Very strong. Like a cross between a German Shepherd and a Pyrenean mountain dog. Weighs more ‘n she does. I was just kind of helping her, like, control it, sort of thing. Cos she lives in our road, right? Just a few doors away. So when she asks me, could I go with her cos she’s scared the dog might pull her over, I’m, like, what can I do? How can I get out of it? Not wanting to be rude, or anything.”

  “Could’ve said you were s’pposed to be coming and helping me dig.”

  “Yeah. That’s right! I could’ve. Dunno why I didn’t, really. ‘Cept…well! Fact is—” He swallowed again. I saw his Adam’s apple almost bounce right out of his throat. “I’m sort of, like, kind of going out with her!”

  What??? There’s this long silence. I’m in a state of shock. Totally gobsmacked.

  “See, what it is—”

  Aaron? My best mate? Going out with a girl?

  “What it is—”

  Aaron, holding hands?

  “I’m in training!” he says.

  I still can’t get my head round it.

  “Training to be a giggle-o!”

  I pull myself together and say, “What’s a giggle-o?” I’ve never heard of a giggle-o. Aaron says it’s a man that’s looked after by an older woman. I think about it.

  “You mean, like a mum?”

  He says no, like a girlfriend. “‘Cept older. They keep
you, so’s you don’t have to bother going out to work. I read about it in this magazine at the dentist. Reckoned it sounded like a good idea. I mean, just staying at home watching telly or playing on the computer. You know?” He looked at me, hopefully. “Gotta be better than dragging off out to some boring office every day. Just gotta find the right girl.”

  I say, “A girl that’s older.”

  “Yeah, yeah! They’ve gotta be older.”

  I point out that Sophy Timms is the same age as we are.

  “Nah!” Aaron shakes his head, excitedly. “She’s twelve already!”

  I say, “That counts as older?”

  “Well, a few months,” says Aaron. “Gotta start somewhere! Like I said, I’m in training. But it’s all right, I don’t have to train every day. I’ll see if I can take a bit of time off, come round and do some digging for you.”

  I find this all very disturbing. Why can’t things just stay the same as they’ve always been? Life is suddenly full of worrying complications. I can’t believe that Aaron would desert me and the Herb for Sophy Timms! But it’s not just Aaron, it’s life in general. It’s girls in particular.

  Thursday

  Sheri Stringer came up to me today. (She’s the one with all the hair. It’s quite frightening, it springs about all over her head like forked lightning. Some kind of secret weapon…get spiked by the hair and psszzzz!

  Fried to a crisp.) Anyway, she kind of sidles up to me when I’m all by myself in the corridor and says, “Hi, Dory!” I go, “Yeah, hi.”

  She asks what class I’m going to, and I say maths, to which she says, “Yuck!” I say that I actually don’t mind maths, what class has she got? She says she’s got PE, so now it’s me going yuck. But I’m hoping she’ll peel off towards the sports hall and leave me alone, cos I don’t like the way she’s doing that flappy thing with her eyelashes. Flip, flap. How do they do that?

  We pass the turn off for the sports hall. I stop and say, “I thought you had PE?”

  She says, “Yes. It’s so gruesome! Do you like the Voice of Man?”

  For a minute I can’t think what she’s talking about, and then I remember it’s this band that Will likes and the Microdot doesn’t cos she says it’s sexist. Anything with the word man in it is sexist, according to the Microdot. She tries to have arguments with Will about it, but he’s too mature to have arguments with a ten year old. I wish I could be that mature!

  Sheri’s still waiting for an answer, so I just kind of mumble at her.

  “I’ve got their latest album,” she says. “Wanna come round some time and hear it?”

  I say no, that’s OK, my brother’s a fan, he’s bound to have it.

  “It’d sound better at my place,” she says.

  Why? Why does she say that? It would sound exactly the same! It doesn’t make any sense.

  “Well, think about it,” she says. “See ya!”

  I say, “Yeah, see ya.”

  Sheri goes off in the direction of the sports hall and I carry on down the corridor, where I find Aaron waiting for me outside the maths room. He has this idiotic grin on his face.

  “Saw who you were talking to,” he says.

  I grunt. A grunt is supposed to discourage. It’s sign language for drop it. But Aaron’s never been one for observing the social niceties (as Big Nan calls them). He’s practically jumping up and down on the spot.

  “So what’d she want? Want you to go out with her? Are you going to?”

  I say, “No, she didn’t, and no I’m not.”

  “Could do a lot worse,” says Aaron. “I mean, Sheri Stringer…” He pulls a face and starts making animal noises. I tell him to shut up.

  “She just wanted me to go round her place and listen to a CD.”

  “Oh, yeah?” says Aaron. “Oh, yeah?”

  “Yeah!”

  I give him a shove and we jostle together into the maths room and head for our usual seats. As we sit down, Aaron leans over and whispers hoarsely in my ear.

  “Reckon you’re on to a good thing there…she obviously fancies you!”

  He says that about everyone. I’m learning not to pay too much attention to Aaron. I really don’t think he knows what he’s talking about.

  He came round this evening to do some digging. He said he could only stay half an hour as he had to go and help Sophy Timms take her dog out again. He explained to the Herb how it was a very big dog.

  “Half bulldog and half German Shepherd.”

  “I thought you said half Pyrenean mountain dog?” I said.

  “Yeah, well. Whatever.”

  “He still has to help her take it out,” said the Herb. “Cos she’s so pathetic and weak she can’t manage it herself.”

  “It’s a very strong dog,” said Aaron. “Almost as big as she is.”

  “Then she ought to have got a tiny little dog to go with her tiny little self. A little tiny lap dog,” said the Herb.

  “She didn’t choose it,” said Aaron. “It’s her mum’s.”

  “Then why doesn’t her mum take it out?”

  Aaron said, “I dunno.”

  I was about to tell the Herb that the dog thing was just a ploy. “He’s training to be a giggle-o.” But before I could say it, Aaron had gone bundling on again.

  “Know Sheri Stringer?” he said. “That girl in your class? I reckon she fancies old Dory!”

  “Oh?” The Herb stopped digging and gave me this look. This look. I don’t know what it is about girls. If they’re not flapping their eyelashes—which the Herb would never do—they’re shrivelling you.

  I told Aaron to be quiet and get on with his digging. “We’ve only got another few days. I haven’t found as much as a trilobite!”

  “Would you expect to find as much as a trilobite?” said the Herb.

  I said, “Well, you never know. I mean, they do turn up.”

  “What, in Warrington Crescent?”

  “Why not?”

  There was this kind of pause; then very politely the Herb said, “What exactly is a trilobite?”

  Aaron let out a howl. “Don’t ask, don’t ask!”

  “I just wanted to know,” said the Herb. “In case we came across one.”

  Aaron groaned. Determinedly, I took no notice. (Following my new rule.) I like it when the Herb shows an interest. I told her how trilobites had lived 300 million years ago, and had gone extinct before the dinosaurs had even come into existence. I added the bit about the dinosaurs so that she could understand just how long ago it really was. It is sometimes difficult for people, if they are not used to thinking in terms of millions. I told her how they were sea creatures; bottom dwellers. Aaron immediately shouted, “Bottom dwellers?”

  I ignored him.

  “They lived in shallow water, and fed on d—”

  “Stuff out of bottoms!”

  “Detritus,” I said.

  “Breakfast?” said Aaron.

  “Do you mind?” said the Herb. “I’m trying to learn something here. Go on, Deeje! What did they look like? How big were they?”

  I told her that they were all different sizes. How the average was probably somewhere between about three centimetres and ten, but the biggest one that had ever been found was nearer seventy.

  “Seventy centimetres! Can you imagine? That’s amazing, for a trilobite.”

  Aaron said, “Yeah, wouldn’t want a thing that big coming at you.”

  “Don’t be such a wimp!” The Herb turned, and whacked at him with her trowel. “Let’s get digging! See if we can find some.”

  I do love the Herb! She is one of my favourite people. She may even be my most favourite people. Person. I just wish Aaron hadn’t gone and told her about Sheri Stringer. I don’t know why he had to do that.

  At five o’clock he went off to help Sophy Timms exercise her mum’s vast enormous dog. “It’s way too big for her to cope on her own.”

  “Yes, cos she is so tiny,” said the Herb.

  “This is it! Could pull her over.”<
br />
  “Oh, screech!” The Herb fell down, dramatically, at the bottom of the hole.

  “‘S all right for you,” said Aaron, as he climbed out. “You’re more like a boy.”

  The Herb scrambled back to her feet. She made a rude gesture with a finger. Then she said a rude word. Her language can be quite bad sometimes.

  “Hey, Deeje,” she said. “Who’s this?” She clasped both hands to her chest. “Poor lickle me! I’m tho thmall, I’m tho tiny, I need a big thtwong boy to help me. Oh, oh, thith twowel ith tho-o-o heavy, I can’t hold it!”

  I said, “Yeah, that does sound a bit like her.”

  “Sounds exactly like her. We call her Barbie, like Barbie doll. Did you know she wears knickers with little pink flowers on them?”

  I shook my head. I wasn’t sure it was something I

  wanted to know.

  “Pink!” said the Herb. “I can’t stand pink. Can you?”

  “It’s a bit girly,” I said.

  “Course, some boys like girls that are girly. They like

  it when they squeak and twitter and say they can’t do things. It’s what some boys want. It makes them feel macho.” The Herb picked up a sieveful of earth and started shaking it, vigorously. “Does it make you feel macho?”

  “M-me?” I said. “N-no!”

  “You can say if it does.”

  “It doesn’t,” I said.

  The Herb went on shaking. “I won’t laugh at you. I know you can’t help it, it’s just the way boys are.”

  I said, “I’m not!”

  “You don’t have to feel guilty. It’s a hormone thing, it—oooh, look!” She suddenly thrust the sieve under my nose. “Is that a trilobite?”

  Unfortunately it wasn’t, but at least the Herb tries, which is more than Aaron does. I’ve felt for the last few days that his mind hasn’t really been on his work. Now I know the reason why: Sophy Timms.

  I just would never have thought it.

  Friday

  I meant to tell the Herb, yesterday, about Aaron training to be a giggle-o, but what with one thing and another, mainly a Russell managing to wriggle its way under the wire netting and get into the hole, then all the others starting to yammer and squabble, and the one that got in doing its best to dig down to Australia before I could grab hold of it—well, what with all that going on I never got around to it. Now I am very glad that I didn’t.