My Brilliant Life and Other Disasters

by Catherine Wilkins

  The VanDerks are our next-door neighbours and they … well, how can I put this? They’re better than us. I mean, if you care about having good lawns, and good children and stuff, (which unfortunately my parents do).

  I think we have much better personalities though. And that’s saying something. But my parents aren’t satisfied with that; they keep trying to compete in this petty one-upmanship that they deny exists if you try to talk to them about it.

  The main downside for me is that Harriet VanDerk is in my year at school, she’s a genius at maths and stuff, and she always hands her work in on time. So she gives my parents unhelpful and unrealistic expectations.

  Ryan comes running in. “Hi, Tammy! Mummy, did you know there’s no Kit Kats left?”

  “Hi,” says Tammy, deflated that no one has invited her to continue her story.

  “Yes. And there won’t be any more for a little while, I’m afraid,” says my mum.

  “But we need them!” Ryan seems astonished.

  Not wanting to be sidelined by the necessity or otherwise of Kit Kats, Tammy tries again. “Look. I asked them to sign a petition about pollution and they refused!”

  “I hope you’ve not been upsetting the neighbours,” says my mum.

  “What’s a petition?” asks Ryan.

  “Oh, I’m sorry.” Tammy addresses my mum sarcastically. “Is it an inconvenient time to safeguard the planet? God, you’re as bad as them. Smug Middle England marches on, eh?”

  My dad looks baffled. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Tammy, but we’re about to have dinner,” he says.

  I do love my sister Tammy. But she has tended to be a bit antagonistic lately. It’s not like anyone in our family disagrees with her stance about fighting injustice and looking after the environment and stuff. The conflict mainly arises because my parents would rather do it quietly and (ideally) after the six o’clock news.

  Tammy checks out my dad’s tea-making. “Are you using two tea bags?” she asks. “Way to rip through the world’s resources, guys!”

  “They’re Value tea bags,” I say.

  “What’s a petition?” repeats Ryan.

  “Well then, Value tea bags are a false economy,” snaps Tammy, “which I think perfectly exemplifies this familyʼs love of short-term gains and its refusal to look at the big picture.”

  “Tammy!” shouts Ryan, sick of being ignored.

  Tammy crouches down on one knee so she is level with Ryan. “Sorry, Ry,” she says. “A petition is when lots of people sign a piece of paper to say they agree something should change. If I get enough signatures, the people causing the pollution will have to do something about it. It’s important to take positive action if you believe in something.”

  Ryan nods seriously. “Can I sign it?” he says.

  “No, sorry, you’re too young,” says Tammy, standing up again.

  “Nooo! I want to sign it!” objects Ryan. “I think pollution is bad. Please!”

  “No, Ryan, you’re under eighteen and you can’t vote,” Tammy explains unhelpfully, before turning to my parents. “I need the washing machine,” she says.

  “Well, I need a new wing mirror,” says my mum. “Sometimes we don’t always get what we want.”

  Ryan’s wailing is in danger of becoming full-scale crying. He’s often cranky before a meal.

  “Shhh, Ryan! Hang on,” I say. “Tammy, could you just let him sign it?” I try and do a gesture of inverted commas around the word sign without Ryan seeing. “You know, in pencil?”

  Tammy gets my drift. “Oh, fine,” she sighs. Ryan instantly stops whingeing and delightedly scrawls his name in massive letters across half the page. I’m pretty much a genius at solving problems when they involve Ryan or the Internet. No one thanks me for stopping his noise though.

  Tammy starts loading clothes from her bin liner into our washing machine. “Did we say she could do that?” My dad is addressing my mum.

  “Look,” says Tammy. “Don’t make me go through the whole thing again. Our student washing machine broke and my flatmates replaced it with one from a company that doesn’t pay its UK tax. I refuse to be a part of that. Will you please just support me for once?”

  No one physically stops Tammy from using our washing machine though, so she just carries on. “I might as well stay for dinner, while I’m waiting for it,” she explains, and starts laying the table.

  My parents don’t object to this either, and (possibly because she’s thinking of her washing) Tammy doesn’t start any fights with them over dinner. She doesn’t even mention the rescue dog she keeps trying to make them adopt – which is a shame, as I would love a rescue dog.

  We have a relatively normal (for us) dinner, in fact. I tell my parents about the Year Six Wildlife Project, and how I get to go with Natalie, and how it might be exciting. And Ryan talks about what he thinks the merits of space food are. Before Tammy leaves my parents even sign her petition.

  Look at us, all happy families. Something about it makes me uneasy. Like something must be about to go terribly wrong. Which is crazy. I’ve got to stop being suspicious about everything, just because it’s all going really well at the moment. I am a brilliant cartoonist, Natalie is my partner on the project and we are going to have fun. None of that is asking for trouble. None of it.

  “Hi, Nat, guess what?” I say, bounding into my form room on Thursday morning. “My mum says I can come to your house after school tonight!” I stop mid-gush as I clock Natalie’s unimpressed face and spot Tanya Harris sitting on my desk, waiting for me.

  “There you are, Toons,” says Tanya. “You know it’s the comic meeting today at lunch, don’t you?”

  “Uh, yeah,” I reply uneasily. Why is Natalie frowning?

  “Your mate says you’re working on the wildlife project instead.” Tanya gestures at Nat. Oh, that’s why. Triffic.

  “Oh dear,” says Amelia, eavesdropping. “Not spreading yourself too thin, are you, Jessica?” Stop stirring! I want to shout at her.

  “No,” I respond, and then address Nat. “I’m sorry, Nat. It is the comic meeting today. But I can come to your house tonight after school, so that’s pretty good right?”

  “Yeah, I guess.” Natalie looks like she’s forgetting about being annoyed and unfolds her arms. She smiles at me. “That’s cool.” Phew. Crisis averted. In your face, Amelia!

  “And we’ve got ten minutes till registration. We can have a quick look at it now,” I add, just as Tanya hands me a small pile of Hellfern comics.

  “Right then,” she says. “I need you to sign these.”

  Natalie’s smile vanishes.

  “What?” I say, flummoxed. “Why?”

  “Limited edition, innit,” explains Tanya. “I’m getting all the artists to sign the first ten copies – makes people want them more. More desirable and that.”

  (Ha! How exciting! I’m an artist that needs to sign something…) I mean, Tanya does have a flair for this business malarkey; if she thinks me signing something will make it better, who am I to argue?

  I glance at Nat. She doesn’t look as impressed by how great this is as I’d hoped she would.

  “Oh right,” I say, trying to look contrite.

  “Come on, chop chop,” barks Tanya. I sit at my desk and start signing the comics.

  “Nat, this won’t take a sec,” I say, aware I probably sound way too happy about it. “And then we can talk about what we’re going to do later on the project.”

  “Hey, Jessica,” says Hannah, coming over. “Maybe I should get you to sign the rabbit picture you drew for me as well?”

  “No, no, no,” interjects Tanya. “No freebies. My girl does this for money now.”

  Hannah looks a bit scared.

  “Ha ha! Only joking,” adds Tanya. “Twenty pence. No, I’m joking again. She’s free till she’s famous.”

  “Great.” Hannah smiles, slightly confused but relieved, and passes me her rough book. I grin bashfully. This is unreal. It’s not just Tanya’s pub
licity stunt – someone actually wants my autograph!

  “Uh, do you want me to write anything in particular?” I try to sound casual. This is so exciting! (Am I milking it?)

  “Um.” Hannah pauses in thought. “Put ‘To Hannah’ and then sign your name.”

  “Classic choice,” I hear myself say. Classic choice? Where am I getting this from? And how would I know what counts as a classic choice in the world of autographing? It’s the first time this has ever happened.

  I write as neatly as I can. I want Hannah to be glad I’m signing her rough book. Then I pass it back to her. “How’s that?”

  “Great!” Hannah beams. “Thanks!”

  Hurray! I’m awesome. I grin bashfully. I feel like I might not ever be able to stop grinning. I try to make a joke, so I put on a posh accent and say, “Any time, daaahling!” And I wave my hand pretentiously, like I’m some kind of fabulous actress type. Hannah chuckles and walks back over to her desk.

  I look back towards Nat, who is now staring at me slightly incredulously, like she can’t quite believe what she’s seeing.

  “Hey, um, nearly done,” I say, managing to hold eye contact, but only just.

  “Nat, babes, it looks like Jessica might be a while. Do you want to come over to my desk and we can go through the stuff we still need for my sleepover on Saturday?” says Amelia.

  “Yes,” says Nat.

  “Great. It’s going to be brilliant. I so can’t wait for you to meet Scarlett,” trills Amelia as they march off. Urrgh Scarlett. Urrrgh Amelia, come to that.

  I scribble my name over the remaining comics as quickly as I can. Does Nat want me to feel guilty or something? I haven’t done anything wrong. It’s not my fault I have to sign autographs now.

  I’m really glad that people like my cartoons. This is the first time in my life I’ve been good at something that other people vaguely care about. I should be allowed to enjoy it without Nat getting all huffy.

  I finish signing the comics and try to explain this to Nat before the bell goes. “Hey, Nat, don’t be annoyed with me,” I say.

  “I’m not annoyed,” she replies unconvincingly.

  “It’s just,” I falter, “you know … this is what my public expects of me.”

  “What your public expects of you?” Natalie’s eyes bulge kind of wide. “Have you heard yourself lately?”

  “Look––” I try and explain.

  “You know you don’t have a public, right?” says Nat. “You’re in Year Six. You’re eleven.”

  “Look, we’re getting off track. I didn’t say I could even do the wildlife project this lunchtime. You can’t be annoyed with me for that. I’m really busy, so if you want to hang out with me we have to make plans.”

  “Oh, really?” Nat folds her arms. “Well, we didn’t used to.” I’m pretty sure we did used to. But I’m not getting anywhere with this argument, so I give up.

  Maybe Nat’s actually jealous that I’m famous now. Maybe this is really hard for her. Maybe she preferred it last term when I was doing all the running.

  Obviously I have totally forgiven Natalie for the way she behaved to me last term. Obviously. But there is maybe the teeniest, tiniest part of me that feels pleased that, hey, sometimes I’m just too busy signing autographs to hang out with her.

  I feel slightly tense as I trudge into double maths though – and not just because I think maths was invented as a practical joke to torture schoolchildren. I mean, partly that, obviously. But I don’t really like it when Natalie’s annoyed with me. Luckily she seems fine again at break time.

  Then it’s double art, which is a lot more enjoyable. And not just because it’s my favourite lesson of all time, or because I always have loads of fun sitting with Megan, Emily, Fatimah, Joshua and (even) Terry. But because the comic is proving to be a hit! I knew it would be! This is so great.

  “I love the sheep on the front,” says Emily, giggling.

  “That’s so Miss Price,” agrees Megan.

  “It even looks like her,” says Terry.

  “I like the sheep,” says Fatimah. “And Roland. Well, I like all of it. It’s brilliant.”

  Then they keep reading out bits of our fake gossip on the back cover and giggling.

  I’m slightly worried our art teacher, Mrs Cooper, might hear them laughing or see the comic (especially as Terry isn’t exactly known for his subtlety) but somehow we get away with it. And we still manage to draw the seashells that Mrs Cooper has put in the middle of everyone’s tables.

  “Right,” says Tanya at lunchtime. “First meeting since the launch. I think it went well and that. You?”

  Joshua, Lewis and I nod our agreement on the comfy seats outside the library.

  “The signed copies have gone like hot cakes,” Tanya informs us. “Knew that would pay off. I saw it on Cash in the Attic.”

  “Oh, clever,” I say.

  “Of course, they might also have gone like hot cakes because they’re free,” points out Lewis.

  “That’s next on the agenda, Lewis, me old mucker,” says Tanya. “Shall we start charging? Say it was free to start with, then charge 20p for the next one?”

  This causes much debate. So much in fact that we don’t really discuss anything else about the next issue and by the end we still haven’t resolved if we’re charging or not. We do discuss our plans for world domination a bit (mainly build up an audience and portfolio here at school, then try and sell it in a comic shop and online, and then…

  It goes viral).

  But you know, we probably need to get a few more issues under our belts first. I mean, we’re not quite ready for that yet. It’s not like we’re not realistic.

  I don’t get a chance to tell them about my awesome idea for the bee and the wasp having an argument.

  The price is kind of irrelevant anyway, as far as I’m concerned. As I said before, the comic is being made on Lewis’s dad’s computer and printed on his fancy printer for free (well, unknown to him). So itʼs not as if we actually pay for production or anything.

  “You all right?” asks Joshua as we pack up our stuff at the end of lunch and start heading back to our form rooms.

  “Yeah, why?” I ask.

  “You were a bit quiet in the meeting. You didn’t keep chipping in and making us listen to your latest brilliant ideas for the comic, like you normally do.” He looks amused.

  “Am I really annoying about the comic?” I ask then. I mean, Nat’s been annoyed; Cherry and Shantair have previously been forced to actually tell me to shut up. Is there a pattern forming here?

  “No, you’re funny,” says Joshua, looking slightly surprised.

  So I explain to Joshua about how Nat got annoyed when I had to sign the comics this morning and I put on a posh accent, but I was joking. “And I tried to explain to her that it’s what our public expect of us,” I finish.

  “Our … what now?”

  “Public,” I repeat.

  “Um, I think I might have isolated the problem,” says Joshua drily.

  “All right, all right, so that might have made me sound big-headed.” I start to see the funny side. Joshua is chuckling.

  “Look, it’s OK if you’re a bit big-headed,” he says. “Your cartoons are really good, and funny. But you know, don’t get carried away.”

  “Good plan,” I reply.

  Natalie and I make some progress on our project at her house after school. It’s good reading all the literature together because I think that actually I might have trouble understanding some of it on my own. But when there are two of us, we kind of keep each other going. And sometimes if I don’t get something, Nat can explain it, and sometimes if Nat doesn’t get something, I can explain it.

  We don’t finish reading everything. It’s not the sort of thing you can just read overnight, no matter how keen Nat is to do this, and she makes me promise to have a look through the rest of it myself later on.

  I get dropped off home by Lisa, Natalie’s mum, and enter my kitchen to find
Ryan and my parents in the middle of another argument about Kit Kats.

  “Really, Ryan,” says my dad, surprisingly crossly, “the Super Saver Value chocolate-covered wafer biscuits are practically the same thing. I don’t understand what your problem is.”

  “But they’re not the same!” insists Ryan.

  “Hi, gang,” I say. “I take it you all missed me loads.”

  “Yes, of course.” My mum pats me affectionately on the head, though she looks tired.

  “It’s been terrible,” says Ryan sombrely. I repress a smile at how serious he seems. I’m a pretty excellent big sister most of the time. So it’s understandable that it would be terrible when I’m not here to make things awesome.

  “But,” says Ryan to Dad. “You said the economy drive was over.”

  “It is, now we are tightening our belts,” says my dad. “End of discussion.”

  “Well, tightening our belts is really just a euphemism for economy drive though,” I say helpfully.

  I don’t know why my dad isn’t more aware of this. He’s got into trouble with euphemisms before.

  Once when my Auntie Joan (my mum’s sister) came to stay my dad said to her, “You look really well, Joan!” And Joan got quite irate and said, “Oh, I look well, do I? Is that a euphemism for fat, Bert?” And my dad got quite flustered and said it wasn’t.

  “We have to cut back on certain things, Ryan,” says my dad firmly. “That’s just the way it is. As I said, end of discussion.”

  “But why can’t we cut back on other things?” whines Ryan, not picking up on the end of discussion vibe my dad is trying to give out.