by Hayley Long
I’d never been to Ruthie’s student house before and it took the three of us some time to find it. Now I come to think of it, I’d never actually been to Aberystwyth either. Nor had Goose. I can tell you now that Aberystwyth is not at all like Cardiff. It’s a lot smaller for starters – but that doesn’t mean it’s an easy place to whizz round because, frankly, it isn’t. To begin with, it’s got a lot of very hilly streets and I don’t tend to do hilly streets if I can avoid them. I think it’s because of some kind of gravity problem I have. No matter how hard I try to fight against it, whenever I’m walking up a hill or down a hill, I end up waving my arms and legs around and generally walking like one of those weird wooden Thunderbird puppets that are sometimes on TV during the school holidays – and that’s not really an image I’m chasing. Also, as far as I could tell, it’s impossible to walk anywhere in Aberystwyth for more than a few seconds at a time without running into a big group of students who aren’t looking where they’re going and barge you off the pavement. And then, too, there was the fact that we didn’t have a map. I had to ask several people the way to Ruthie’s street and I think the first person I spoke to sent us wandering off in the wrong direction just for the hell of it. Only Gareth seemed confident about finding his way around because he’d visited the town a few times to play rugby. But that didn’t mean he was any help. He kept saying stuff like, ‘Oh I remember where I am now. Definitely. Just round this next corner, there’s this legendary little boozer where we all went out and got totally battered after beating Penweddig School 34–0 . . .’ And then we’d walk around the corner and there’d just be a church or a Scout hut.
Eventually, though, after walking like a Thunderbird puppet for about thirty minutes, I came to a halt at the address that I know off by heart and which happens to be where my sister lives. Goose and Gareth came to a halt too. We were standing in front of a big grey house that looked as if it was made out of concrete and had lots of different-sized dirty windows. Someone had sprayed some fake snow in the corners of the windows but this only made the house look even more tragic. I don’t mean to be rude but I think it was very possibly the ugliest house I’ve ever seen. Loud music could be heard playing inside even though all the odd-sized windows were closed.
‘Is this it then?’ said Gareth, running his hands over his rugby top in what I guessed was a fairly pointless attempt to make himself look smarter. ‘Doesn’t look much of a place, does it?’
‘It’ll be all right inside,’ said Goose brightly. ‘Ring the bell, Lottie. It’s freezing out here.’
I pushed the buzzer.
No one came.
I pushed the buzzer again.
Still no one came.
‘This is definitely the right address,’ I said. ‘Maybe she can’t hear us because of all that crappy music.’
‘Try knocking,’ said Gareth, and then he leaned over my shoulder and hammered on the door himself.
‘Easy, Gaz,’ I said. ‘You don’t wanna break the door down!’
Inside, the music stopped. We heard some laughter and voices and then the sound of feet in noisy heels running down uncarpeted stairs.
‘Must be one of her mates,’ I said knowingly to the other two. ‘Ruthie doesn’t wear girly heels. She’s an archaeology student.’
But, then, as plain as a poppadom, I heard Ruthie’s voice. ‘You’re too early,’ she shouted from behind the heavy wooden front door. ‘The party hasn’t even started yet!’ The door opened inward and my sister’s face peered around it.
‘What the—’ she said, and then stopped abruptly and gazed at me in amazement.
It wasn’t pleased-looking amazement.
I gazed back at her. It was my sister and yet it wasn’t my sister. Not a version of her that I’m familiar with anyway. She was wearing a silky black top with spaghetti straps, skinny jeans and a pair of very pointy, very high heeled shoes. Evidently, she’d recently stepped out of the bathroom because her hair was all hidden in a carefully twisted towel. In one hand, she was holding a large glass of red wine.
‘Lottie, what are you doing here?’ she said. ‘And why have you got grey hair?’
I bit my lip nervously and, with a small shrug, I said, ‘I don’t know.’ And those three little words were probably among the truest that I’ve ever spoken.
a NOt PartlCuLarLY GreY weDNesDaY MOrNING IN wreXham
I’m back in Wrexham library. I like it here. It’s a good place to sit in peace and think and type. Last night, I didn’t get a spare second to myself because I was babysitting Caradoc while my dad took Sally Frizz out for a drink. I don’t mind though because Caradoc is cute and I don’t get to see him all that often. We played a made-up game called Kill Darth Vader. I was Darth Vader and Caradoc was Luke Skywalker and I had to hide somewhere in the house and breathe really noisily like I had a serious lung disease and then Caradoc would come and find me and kill me with his plastic lightsabre. It was quite an enjoyable game actually but three hours of it was probably too much.
Then, this morning, after Sally had returned from taking Caradoc to school, she said, ‘You can’t monopolize that computer all day again today, Lottie. I need it to see if I’ve had any new orders.’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘I didn’t monopolize it yesterday either. I went into town, remember.’
But I don’t think that Sally heard me properly because she said, ‘That’s a great idea! Why don’t you go and have another look around today.’
It wasn’t a question. I don’t even think it was a suggestion.
‘OK,’ I said. ‘I haven’t got any money though.’
This wasn’t strictly true. I still had seven pounds left over from yesterday. I’d only bought myself a can of Coke and a sandwich all day. I didn’t see why Sally should be able to throw me out of the house free of charge though.
‘Five pounds,’ said Sally, taking a note out of her purse, ‘that’s all I can afford to give you. And make it last, please. I mean . . . you may find that you want to go into town tomorrow as well.’
‘Oh no,’ I said. ‘I think I’d prefer to just stay indoors tomorrow. I’m sure I’ll have been around all the shops pretty thoroughly by the end of today.’
Sally didn’t say anything but just gave me a tight-lipped smile and for a second I wondered if I’d said something wrong. But then she glanced out of the window and said, ‘That stupid man at number fifteen is parking too close to my Micra again,’ and went rushing off outside to moan at him before he disappeared. To be honest, I think Sally is simply one of those people who exist in a permanent state of panic.
So I walked into town again. The sky was the same dark grey colour as yesterday. Nobody else seemed bothered by it though. It was also raining again, but this time, instead of the fat heavy raindrops of yesterday, it was an annoying blanket of drizzle, which got in my face and made my hair turn into frizz. Maybe it’s the rain that has ruined Sally’s hair? Pulling up the hood of Ruthie’s parka, I headed straight for one of the big indoor market halls.
Wrexham has got three of them. The one I went to first and the one I like the best is called the Butchers’ Market. The reason I like it is because it’s just like the market hall in the centre of Cardiff. In fact, it’s so similar that once I was inside I was even able to pretend that Goose and Gareth and my house and my school were just a short bus ride away on the other side of the thick brick walls.
There are a lot of interesting things to look at in that market. Despite being called the Butchers’ Market, it sells absolutely everything – not just hunks of raw meat. In one corner there was a magician who was pulling coins from out of the ears of anyone daft enough to pause for more than half a second in front of his stall. Personally, I don’t like magic tricks or magicians because they give me the shuddery spooks so I hurried past him and made a point of not looking anywhere in his general direction. Another stall sold nothing but brightly coloured covers to snap over your mobile phone. I stood for quite a long while in front of that one. For a
ges, I was torn between buying myself a phone cover decorated with rabbits or one with Jimi Hendrix’s face on it but, just as I was about to get my purse out of my pocket, I remembered that I’d left my phone in Cardiff and I couldn’t be bothered to buy either of them after that.
And then I felt a bit sad for a while. I really miss my phone. I miss it even more than my hair-straighteners and that’s saying something because – as well as being grey – my hair at the moment looks not entirely dissimilar to this:
Looks-wise, it’s fair to say that I’m not at my personal best. Currently, because of my lack of hair-straighteners, it’s very difficult to spot the difference between my hair and my synthetic furry hood. But if I was offered the choice of being reunited with my hair-straighteners or my phone, I’d still rather have my phone. As luck would have it, I’m not actually being offered either.
The thing I really miss is having constant text access to Gareth and Goose because I haven’t heard from either of them since my dad came and collected me from Aberystwyth and I desperately need to talk to them about what happened in the kitchen at Ruthie’s party. Even more than that, I miss being able to speak to my mum whenever I want. I did speak to her briefly on my dad’s phone last night but it was highly awkward. All the time I was talking, Caradoc wouldn’t leave me alone and kept asking me to play Kill Darth Vader with him. I found it very hard to say all the things that I needed to.
My mum is very upset with me.
It’s not something that I wish to deal with right now – here in a public place – so I’m going to return to my description of the Butchers’ Market.
In the Butchers’ Market, there’s also a stall that sells pet products and I hung around it for ages because I love the smell of pet shops. Although it’s probably not to everybody’s taste, I love the furry fustiness and general aroma of petfood pellets and sawdust. I think it’s a very comforting smell. Unfortunately, it also reminded me of Winnie, my elderly pet chinchilla, who I’ve thoughtlessly abandoned in Cardiff This made me feel sad all over again and I spent 75 pence of my money on some forest fruit-flavoured yoghurt drops for him. I’m not sure when he’ll actually get to eat them though.
After that, I found a stall called . . .
. . . which makes total perfect sense because they actually do have every type of T-shirt imaginable. But just in case, they also have a While-U-W8 printing service. I flicked my finger along all the hanging rails and found a T-shirt that I knew at once would make a really good Christmas present for Gareth.
The stallholder was a big man with big sideburns and a smiley face. He reminded me of Elvis Presley a little bit. When I held out the T-shirt to him and asked if I could buy it, he said, ‘Are you sure you want just the one shirt, love? It’s Wonder Bargain Wednesday today. One shirt for a fiver or two for eight quid. You won’t find a better deal than that in the whole of Wales. Tempted?’
‘Yes,’ I said, because I love a bargain.
I went back to the rails again and had another good rummage but this time I couldn’t find anything that properly floated my boat and flipped my ship so I went back to the man to pay for my one T-shirt and then I suddenly had an idea.
‘Does the Wonder Bargain Wednesday offer still apply if I have a T-shirt printed exclusively for me?’
The smiley man with the sideburns said, ‘Not usually, my darling. But seeing as it’s for you and I’m not particularly rushed off my feet, I don’t see why I can’t make an exception just this once.’ And then he handed me a T-shirt-shaped piece of paper and a pencil so that I could draw my own design. When I’d finished, I handed the paper and pencil back to him. It was a serious Type A fashion statement. The smiley man stuck the pencil behind his ear, looked at what I’d written and grinned.
‘It’s just something that cheers me up,’ I said. I think my cheeks had gone a bit red. They certainly felt quite hot.
Smiley sideburn man grinned again. ‘I’m not knocking it, love; I like it. I think I’ll have one of these printed for myself as well. Anyway, it’ll be ready in a couple of hours. OK?’
‘OK,’ I said and shrugged. I wasn’t in any hurry anyway. Sally had told me that four o’clock would be the most convenient time for me to return to the house.
So I went and sat in a little cafe which was tucked alongside one wall of the market and which was called The Good Friends Cafe. It had pea-green bathroom tiles on the walls and white plastic tables covered in red and white chequered tablecloths. On the tables were squeezy ketchup bottles in the shape of giant plastic tomatoes. This really cheered me up because anyone with half a head knows that ketchup always tastes better when it comes from a giant plastic tomato. Apart from me, all the other people who were sitting in there looked like they were at least seventy years old. I took Ruthie’s coat off and sat down. A large lady who had been peeling potatoes behind a counter waddled over to me and said, ‘What you having?’ Considering that it was called The Good Friends Cafe, she wasn’t very friendly. In fact, someone – but not me – should tell her to go and have a good long chat with the smiley sideburn man from the T-shirt stall because he’s very friendly and could teach her a few customer service skills.
I couldn’t see any menus anywhere so I just asked for my favourite drink. ‘Um, I’ll have a double choco-mochaccino with extra cream and marshmallows, please.’
‘No you won’t,’ said the unfriendly woman.
‘Oh,’ I said.
‘You can have tea or coffee. Or at a push, I can make you a Horlicks.’
‘Oh,’ I said again. I didn’t know what a Horlicks was. I still don’t. ‘Can I have a coffee then, please?’ I said.
‘Black or white?’
‘White,’ I said.
‘Instant or frothy?’
‘Er . . . frothy.’ I wasn’t totally sure what she was on about. We don’t have this sort of coffee in Cardiff. In Cardiff, it’s a lot more straightforward – we only have lattes, cappuccinos, skinny lattes, skinny cappuccinos and double choco-mochaccinos. With extra cream and marshmallows, if desired.
‘Sugar, saccharin or nothing?’
‘Er . . . nothing,’ I said. I didn’t know what saccharin was. I still don’t. And I could see the sugar bowl from where I was sitting. It was on the counter and it wasn’t a bowl so much as it was a tub. A discoloured yellowing tub with the faded word SUGAR taped on to the lid. I could feel myself losing weight just by looking at it.
But when my un-sugared frothy coffee arrived, it was actually really nice. I sipped it ever so slowly so that it would last for ages and while I sat there, I watched the people of Wrexham as they rushed around the market doing their shopping. And when I got bored of doing that I had a good look around The Good Friends Cafe, and pinned on to the wall I saw some words that were printed on a tea towel and said this:
The unfriendly large lady had put down her potato peeler and was now wiping some tables with a damp cloth. She moved over to where I was sitting and swooshed her cloth over my table – which still had somebody else’s stray baked bean on it. ‘I see you’re looking at those words of wisdom over there,’ she said to me.
‘Mmm,’ I said. I didn’t really want to talk to her but I was too frightened not to answer. And anyway, that would have been totally rude.
‘Don’t believe a single blinking word of it,’ she said, nodding her head at the tea towel. ‘If your life turns out to be half as fascinating as mine, you’ll soon see that there aren’t any big ships or small ships. Just nothin’ but hardships and a whole string of useless bloody relationships.’
And then she sniffed and waddled off to wipe the next table. I frowned and stared down at the surface of my table. The stray baked bean was now gone but had been replaced instead by a small pool of water with a single long hair floating in the middle of it.
I finished my frothy coffee quickly after that. Leaving The Good Friends Cafe, I went to the loo in the market hall, sat under the hand dryer for a while to get myself warmed up and then had another wander aroun
d the shopping streets of Wrexham. It’s not like Cardiff. It doesn’t even have a small branch of Maxi Style – let alone the four floors of fashion at cost-cutting prices that we have in Cardiff. Somehow, though, I managed to waste an hour and a quarter and then I went back to see the man on the T-shirt stall.
He looked at his watch and said, ‘You’re an early bird.’
‘I know, I always catch the worm,’ I said. I was just making small talk to be honest. But also I wanted to check that my voice still worked. I hadn’t used it for ages.
‘Well, you’re lucky I’m so organized. Your T-shirt looks cracking,’ he said and handed it to me in a stripy red polythene bag. ‘Have a good rest of the day now, kiddo. Doing anything nice?’
‘I doubt it,’ I said. ‘But thanks for asking.’
And then I took the stripy bag, tucked it inside the one with Gareth’s T-shirt in, and wandered slowly over here to the library. And this is where I’m going to stay until it’s almost four o’clock and safe to go back to the house.
what haPPeNeD IN the kltCheN at the PartY23
‘And this . . .’ said my sister Ruthie, waving her finger around the kitchen, ‘. . . is where you’re all going to stay until the party’s over.’
‘In the kitchen?’ said Gareth. ‘All night?’
Ruthie glared at him. ‘I mean it! The three of you are to stay in here where I can keep an eye on you.’ Then she looked straight at me and said, ‘Seriously, Lottie, you’ve put me in a really impossible position. Your timing is unflipping-believable!’
‘It’s a Sunday,’ I said. ‘What kind of maniac has a party on a Sunday?’
Ruthie just shook her head at me in amazement. ‘Oh, get with it, sis. Sunday is the new Saturday. I thought anyone with a slice of style knew that.’ Then she looked all annoyed again and added, ‘And me and my housemates have been planning this party for weeks and now you’ve rocked up with your kiddy-mates and none of you are even sixteen! What the heck will Mum say if anything bad happens? In the eyes of the law, I’m responsible for all of you. I’m your legal guardian!’