How To Get The Family You Want by Peony Pinker

by Jenny Alexander

  Then I told her about Primrose. ‘She hates him,’ I said. ‘She’s really got it in for him. She’s been pointing her fingers at him like a gun and saying, “One more day, buddy – one more day!” It’s not fair because she winds him up. Otherwise I know he wouldn’t keep going for her.’

  Primrose was definitely not going to let Mum forget that tomorrow was the end of Dennis’s trial period. The only thing that could possibly distract her was if Matt should miraculously walk through the door and fall at her feet in a grateful heap because she had forgiven him. Which was about as likely as a chunk of France floating across the channel and attaching itself to Polgotherick.

  For once in her life, Gran was flummoxed.

  ‘It’d be such a shame if Dennis had to go because he hasn’t had time to get used to Primrose yet. If we could just get him a few more weeks I’m sure he would settle down,’ she said. ‘Still, nothing can happen before you get home from the kennels tomorrow, so we’ve got until lunch-time to think of something.’

  Gran says often her best ideas kind of creep up on her when she isn’t looking, so she changed the subject and we got talking about all sorts of other things, such as her old bones.

  ‘My old bones can’t seem to take this surfing malarkey any more,’ she said. ‘After two hours in the surf, I need another two on the settee to recover. I’m thinking I might have to hang up my wetsuit at the end of this season.’

  ‘If you weren’t working at the surf school we could see you more often,’ I said. ‘You could come up here on my birthday like you used to when I was little.’

  ‘Your birthday!’ said Gran. ‘That’s the solution!’

  Gran said Mum and Dad could no way get rid of Dennis in the run-up to my birthday because they wouldn’t want to spoil the day. Therefore I should start talking about my birthday straight away, so they couldn’t ignore the fact it was only next week.

  ‘And don’t settle for a tea-party or something after school on the day,’ Gran said. ‘Ask for a weekend treat, like the time they took you to Alton Towers or that camping trip to Smugglers’ Cove. Then Dennis will be with you for another whole week and another weekend after that, and by that time this trial period thing will be a distant memory.’

  I wasn’t sure about it. Dennis would be a nightmare in a tent. He’d chew through all the guy-lines and try to burrow out. But Gran said we wouldn’t have to take him with us. He’d be perfectly happy at home. He wasn’t like a dog or cat that would pine and need feeding every day.

  ‘In that way, a rabbit is an ideal pet,’ she said. ‘Remember to mention that fact!’

  So the next day after my shift at the kennels I got stuck in talking about my birthday before Mum had even got the fish and chips out of their wrappings. Mum said she could stop work early on my birthday and we could all go to the open day at Gulhaven Gardens. The wisteria there was world-class, she assured us.

  ‘Peony doesn’t want to visit some boring old garden on her birthday!’ Dad said. ‘Besides, England’s playing that night. She’d much rather go to the pub and watch the match on the big screen with a nice bag of crisps and a glass of lemonade.’

  Primrose said they were outrageously only thinking about themselves. I was a girl and therefore I would obviously want a proper girlie birthday a trip to Beachside Beauty for example. ‘They do hair and nails for forty quid,’ she said. ‘I bet we could get a deal for the whole family.’

  Mum pointed out that nice hair wasn’t that important when you spent your days hacking through brambles.

  ‘And fancy nails aren’t really the thing for a sports reporter,’ said Dad.

  Primrose took the huff. ‘So what are we going to do?’ she said. ‘Because I’m not walking round some smelly old wisteria or sitting in the pub with Dad. That’s just embarrassing!’

  ‘Actually, I was thinking I’d really like a weekend trip this year,’ I said.

  No-one seemed very keen but I ploughed on.

  ‘I’d like to go camping at Smugglers’ Cove again. That was my best birthday ever!’

  Mum said maybe camping wasn’t the best thing to do this year because normally she organised everything and she didn’t have time to do stuff like that right now. It would be up to Dad, and we all knew he had the organisational skills of a potato.

  Dad bristled. How hard could it be to throw a few things in the back of the car? He could do it just as well as Mum and he wouldn’t mind having a chance to prove it! It was actually a good time for him too, because they had a student on work experience at the paper who could cover the weekend matches.

  ‘What about Dennis?’ goes Primrose. ‘He can’t come camping. Oh, but of course he’ll be gone by next weekend. I mean, he’s had his trial period and – ’

  ‘Dennis can stay at home,’ I interrupted. ‘He doesn’t need lots of attention like a cat or dog. He’s a perfect pet in that way, when you come to think about it.’

  ‘We’ll worry about Dennis later,’ said Mum. ‘I think Peony’s birthday plans are more important right now.’

  Nice try, Primrose, but it looked like game, set and match to Peony. Well, with a little bit of help from Gran!

  Chapter 11

  A Crushed Cake and a Little Bit of Breeze

  Dennis was as good as gold all week. He did scatter a few poos in unlikely places but I swept them up quick-smart before anyone else noticed.

  I couldn’t wait to get home from school every day and see him. As soon as I sat down on the floor he would come over and give me a good sniff. Sometimes he would let me stroke him without running away. I would share my snack with him, a bit of banana or raw carrot, or a corner of toast – without any marge on it, obviously.

  You couldn’t really cuddle Dennis but you could talk to him. He didn’t suddenly leave you hanging in the middle of a sentence because he had more important things to do like Mum, or go nuts over nothing like Primrose, or have one ear on the radio like Dad.

  I wasn’t the only one who liked talking to Dennis either. Dad was always doing it – ‘I’m going to read the paper now, Dennis. Do you want to come out in the yard for a bit?’ Mum said hello to him whenever she passed through the kitchen, and Primrose muttered at him: ‘You need anger management, you do,’ and ‘Your days are numbered, buddy.’

  Dennis still didn’t like Primrose and he often went for her, but that wasn’t surprising because she was in such a grumpy mood all the time. I wouldn’t have minded going for her myself. She stamped and crashed and flopped around.

  It was bad enough, Primrose said, that Matt had knocked back her invitation when she had so graciously forgiven him, and for such a flimsy excuse as having an exam the next day. But that exam was a whole week ago now and he still hadn’t been back in touch.

  ‘He’s putting me in a difficult position,’ she grumbled. ‘That’s twice he’s been horrible – I can’t forgive him again!’

  She didn’t even stop banging on about it on my actual birthday, which was the Thursday. It wasn’t as if I was expecting a full-on birthday tea, what with having a trip at the weekend and everything, but I did think she might take a few hours off to think about someone else on their birthday.

  ‘I mean, what if he just turns up at the door?’ goes Primrose, checking herself in the mirror. Then, checking her phone, ‘What if he texts me and wants to come round?’

  I seriously snapped.

  ‘He isn’t going to come, and he isn’t going to text. I know him.’

  It was true. I knew Matt better than she did, from working at the kennels. But she didn’t want to listen.

  ‘You’re wrong – he really likes me!’

  ‘He really liked you, past tense. Then you had your hissy fit and you haven’t got down off your high horse ever since. It is possible to go off people, you know.’

  I told Primrose that if she wanted Matt back she had to stop worrying about whether to forgive him and ask him to forgive her.

  ‘You’ve been really moody to him. You’re the one who shou
ld say sorry.’

  She took that about as well as those tone-deaf people on The X Factor do when Simon Cowell tells them they can’t sing. But on the upside, it did seem to shut her up, and the good effects lasted right through Friday. She still flounced around looking tragic, but at least she wasn’t bending our ears all the time.

  On Saturday morning Dad had to get up early to take me to the kennels because Becky was still on holiday and Mum was working until lunchtime. The weather was sunny, perfect for camping, and Dad was quite fired up about it.

  He had the whole morning to get everything packed and sorted and as he said, he could virtually do that with his eyes shut, we had been camping in France so many times. He didn’t need Mum around to issue orders!

  By the time he came back to pick me up everything was apparently sorted. He told me he had bought the food and packed the camping stuff into the car. It had indeed been easy peasy lemon squeezy, just as he had expected.

  ‘Your mother will have to take back that rude thing she said about my organisational skills,’ he told me as we walked down the path from the car.

  ‘Oh, there you are Dave,’ said Mum the minute we walked in the door. ‘Where’s the bread?’

  ‘Already packed,’ said Dad.

  ‘And the milk?’

  ‘That’s packed as well.’

  ‘So what are we having for lunch?’ goes Mum.

  The plan had been to have some sandwiches before we left, but Dad must have forgotten.

  ‘I...thought we could wait till we get there?’ tried Dad.

  Mum rolled her eyes and sighed. Primrose crossed her arms over her chest and tapped her foot impatiently. I topped up Dennis’s food and water while they argued it out. It wasn’t a perfect start to the weekend but it did mean things could only get better.

  Smugglers’ Cove is an hour down the coast but it seems much longer when you’re starving hungry. Dad had the radio turned up to stop Mum going on at him and Primrose was fiddling about with her phone. I was playing that game where you try to make a headline from the number-plate letters of passing cars. FDC... Family Deafened in Car! ETP... Elephant Tramples Phone!

  ‘OK, I’ve done it,’ Primrose said. ‘I’ve said sorry. Since you seem to think that’s what he wants.’

  It would have been better if she’d said sorry because she meant it, but whatever.

  ‘When?’

  ‘Just now,’ she said. ‘I’ve just pressed send.’ Then, seeing my face, ‘What?’

  I shrugged.

  She would remember soon enough that there’s no mobile reception at Smugglers’ Cove. Matt couldn’t text her back now even if he wanted to.

  The campsite was nearly full. It’s only small, not much more than a toilet block in a field, but we like it because it’s only one minute’s walk from the beach. The first time I ever went there was with Toby and his family – they know all the little out-of-the-way campsites.

  My other best friend from school, Jess, once looked up why it was called Smugglers’ Cove. She found out it wasn’t proper olden days smugglers with rum and cutlasses and everything, but some people smuggling drugs in on boats thirty years ago. Right up till then it had been called St Keverne’s Cove. Then she looked up St Keverne. She looks everything up.

  When we started to pitch the tent we realised Dad had forgotten to pack the mallet. On the upside he had also forgotten the pegs so there wasn’t anything to hammer in.

  ‘Not to worry,’ he said, cheerfully. ‘We can always borrow some!’

  With that, he went round the whole site asking people if they could spare us a few pegs. So embarrassing! In the meantime, Mum unpacked the food box and discovered we had hardly anything to eat except baked beans, bread and a bought birthday cake.

  ‘We might as well eat all this for lunch,’ she said. ‘Someone will have to go and find a food shop later anyway.’

  Mum lit the stove and cooked the beans while Dad bashed the handful of pegs he’d managed to scrounge into the ground with a stone. We scoffed the beans and then moved on to the cake. It was in a white box from the baker’s shop on Ship Lane. Dad had got them to write ‘Happy Birthday’ on it in red icing, which was nice, but he hadn’t remembered to get any candles.

  It didn’t seem likely we’d be able to scrounge any birthday-cake candles so Mum suggested we stick one of our emergency supply of normal candles in the cake and light that instead.

  The cake looked a lot less pretty with a household candle stuck in the middle of it. It seemed somehow crushed and disappointed with itself. To make things worse, the candle kept blowing out before they finished singing.

  Mum said the fact that the wind was getting up might be bad news for anyone whose tent only had five pegs holding it down.

  ‘It’s just a little bit of breeze,’ goes Dad. ‘It’s nothing to worry about!’

  Chapter 12

  The Dead of the Night and Dennis’s Disappearing Whiskers

  I was dreaming we were all in a boat far out on the open sea. The waves were huge and the boat was pitching up, up, up to the top of each one and then down, down, down into the trough between them. It was like a roller-coaster ride, except it wasn’t fun. My heart was beating so hard I couldn’t breathe.

  I saw this super-massive wave coming towards us. The closer it got, the bigger it looked. It towered over us like a black mountain of water. The boat climbed up, up, up until it was perched on the very top of the enormous wave.

  I looked down at my hands, gripping onto the rail. My knuckles were as white as bone. The wind was whipping up the spray. Everything was soaking wet, my hair, my clothes. I could feel the water streaming down my face and taste the salt on my lips. The boat tipped and started to plunge. I opened my mouth to cry out.

  ‘Wake up, Peony!’ Mum was shaking my shoulder. ‘Wake up!’

  The nightmare faded away but then I seemed to wake up in another one. It was pitch dark and there was a storm-force gale howling round the tent, pushing right up under the groundsheet, prising it up from the ground like a giant peeling off a sticker.

  ‘We’re all going to die!’ cried Primrose. Mum stopped shaking me and shone the torch towards her.

  ‘We’re not going to die, Primrose. We’re going to keep calm, that’s what we’re going to do.’

  The living-room end suddenly lifted clean off the ground. The cooker toppled over and a pile of plastic cups and plates came cascading into the bedroom area. The groundsheet settled back for a few seconds but then another gust got underneath and the box with all the food in it fell over.

  ‘Where’s Dad?’ I yelled above the howling of the wind.

  ‘Outside attaching the guy-lines.’

  ‘What’s he attaching them to? We haven’t got any pegs!’

  ‘The roof rack on the car, next door’s towhook, the post with the pitch number on... I don’t know, Peony. Just anything he can find.’

  Mum said while Dad was fixing the guy-lines we three should pack everything up ready to empty the tent out.

  ‘When he thinks it will hold, we’ll shift everything into the car,’ she said.

  ‘But what if–?’ Primrose began.

  ‘Before we get into “what ifs”, have you got a better plan?’

  Primrose was shivering so hard she could barely shake her head.

  ‘Well, then,’ said Mum.

  We pulled our coats on over our pj’s and started stuffing things into bags and boxes. The wind, pushing under the groundsheet, brought it up in big bubbles around our feet. It tugged at the roof, sucking it this way and that. It flung things across the tent and drowned our voices with its rushing noise.

  Dad came round to the front and opened the zip a few inches. The door was on the lee-side so nothing terrible happened and he opened it right up.

  ‘It should be OK now,’ he said. ‘But let’s be quick!’

  We’d only got half the stuff out when the tent suddenly lifted and several guy-lines pinged off.

  ‘It’s getting away!
’ yelled Dad. ‘Primrose, Peony – grab a corner!’

  The three of us clung on to the tent while Mum got the last few things out, then we released the poles and collapsed it down. As soon as it was flat on the ground it stopped flapping and gave up trying to get away.

  We rolled the tent up and bundled it into the car. Then we piled in after it. Dad switched the engine on so we could get the heater going. He didn’t drive off straight away but waited, as if there was another choice except giving up and going home.

  We sat there in the dark car, no-one saying anything. Dad drove slowly down the bumpy track and out onto the lane. It may be only an hour up the road from Smugglers’ Cove to home but it feels a lot longer in the dead of the night, when you’re freezing cold and fed up.

  At times like these the last thing you want is to have to leave your car at the top of the hill and walk down the steep zig-zag path to your house. The second-to-last thing you want is to get to your house and find your next-door neighbour, Mr Kaminski, outside in his dressing-gown peering in the front window.

  ‘You home!’ he cried. ‘Thank goodness heavens!’

  ‘Whatever is the matter, Mr Kaminski?’ goes Mum.

  ‘Are you all right?’ goes Dad.

  ‘I all right yes, but I hear big bang. I don’t know what is. I try to see inside.’

  Mum said she was sure everything was fine, and perhaps he had been dreaming? Dad unlocked the front door and flicked the light switch. Nothing happened. He felt his way across to the light above the sink and tried that one. Again, nothing.

  ‘We seem to have blown a fuse,’ he said. He found the emergency torch and switched that on.

  ‘Something else seems different,’ said Mum.

  We huddled in the doorway, spooked by the darkness, while Dad fiddled about in the fuse box.

  ‘The fridge light!’ Mum exclaimed. ‘It’s off and it should always be on.’

  Dad fixed the fuse and the lights came on, but the little red light on the fridge was still off.

  ‘It’s probably the fuse in the plug then,’ he said, pulling the fridge out from under the work-top to have a look. He stopped pulling and gave a low whistle.