As I flick through the channels I can smell Nan’s homemade sourdough bread in the toaster. I’m tossing up whether to do a Disney Channel comedy marathon or watch every Iron Man movie back-to-back. I can hear Nan out in the kitchen, whistling while she poaches two eggs for me, slightly runny with a single twist of salt from the grinder, just the way I like them.
Life doesn’t get much better than this.
Meanwhile, Jack and Lewis and all the other suckers in my class are in the middle of another soul-crushing, hour-long Friday morning maths exam.
I turned in an Oscar-worthy performance this morning. Mum didn’t even question whether I had a stomach-ache or not. Usually she knows I’m faking right away, but I swear my acting is getting better all the time. I should run workshops for other kids.
Nan is padding down the hall in her slippers. She appears at the lounge room doorway, carrying a large tray. She’s thin and small but very strong. She beats me every time we thumb wrestle.
‘There you go, love,’ she says, resting my tray on the coffee table. ‘Sorry it took me so long. How are you feeling?’
‘I’m okay, Nan,’ I croak.
‘Oh, you brave soldier.’
I’ve found over the years that it’s much better to say that you’re okay – just battling on, trying not to bother anyone – rather than complaining about how sick you are all the time.
There is a large glass of freshly squeezed orange juice beside my hot buttered toast and perfectly poached eggs. I have an appetite the size of a buffalo. I had to skip breakfast at home so that Mum would believe I was sick. Next time I might have to fake a cold so that it doesn’t interfere with my meals.
‘How’s your temperature?’ she asks, resting her hand on my forehead.
I give her my best puppy-dog eyes.
‘Not too bad,’ she says, ‘but you take it easy. I don’t like it when you’re unwell. You watch your movie and eat up your breakfast. That’ll make you big and strong.’
Fake sick days are made even better when Nan speaks to me like I’m four years old and uses words like ‘big and strong’ and ‘brave soldier’. I also like it when she says ‘tummy’ and ‘blankie’.
I sit up slowly and swing my legs off the couch with a groan, but not too loud.
‘Thanks, Nan,’ I say, my throat just a little husky.
I pick up my fork and run my knife across the egg. The yolk spills over Nan’s famous sourdough. She’s watching me so I chew slowly, carefully, as though I’m not really sure if I can keep it down. She eases herself into her rocking chair. My nan has an actual rocking chair. Like a grandmother in an apple pie ad.
After I eat my eggs and guzzle my juice a little too quickly, I pull my feet back onto the couch. Nan tucks me in with the dirty Humpty Dumpty stuffed toy I used to drag around when I was little. I’m just about to click play on the remote when there’s a knock at the door.
‘Good heavens,’ Nan says.
‘Who is it?’ I ask, a single note of worry tapping the triangle in my heart.
‘I don’t know, love. I … What day is it?’
‘Friday,’ I say. It’s 10.25 now, which makes me feel warm all over, knowing that Jack’s brain is being squished to death by the world’s heaviest maths test.
‘Oh, I forgot about the girls,’ Nan says. ‘Look at the state of me. I haven’t even got my gear on.’
‘What girls?’ I ask. ‘What gear?’
‘Hello-oo!’ says a high-pitched voice from behind the front door.
‘Coming!’ Nan says, patting her hair down and straightening her bright green and orange striped dress.
‘What girls?’ I ask again, already knowing who the ‘girl’ at the front door is but praying for it not to be true.
She twists the deadlock and opens the door.
‘Hello!’ screams Sue Danalis – Jack’s grandmother and Nan’s new best friend. They used to be mortal enemies, but a couple of months ago they discovered yoga at the same time. Now they’re joined at the artificial hip. Sue is very short, very wide (although not quite as wide as she used to be after two months of yoga) and very loud. She squeezes Nan into a bear hug and lifts her off her feet. Then she sees me. My face drops.
‘Who’s that on your couch?’ Sue asks. ‘Is that your boyfriend?’
‘Certainly is,’ Nan says.
Sue calling me Nan’s boyfriend makes me feel a bit uneasy. Nan is 63 years older than me. And she’s my grandmother.
‘He was feeling crook. Had the day off school.’
‘Ooooh, you weren’t faking, were you?’ Sue asks, pointing a long fingernail painted with hideous orange polish at me.
‘No,’ I gasp, but my eyes tell a different story, and Sue knows it.
She clicks her tongue and shakes her head. ‘I had four boys of my own, and I know when a boy is telling porky-pies, believe you me.’
I smile in a sickly way and turn to the TV. I really don’t like the way she saw right through me. Best not to look at her. I hit the play button on Iron Man and turn up the volume. The warning comes up: ‘Do not copy movie or you’ll be poached in molten lava.’
‘Now, you give your Aunty Sue a kiss,’ she says, heading across the lounge room towards me. She places what can only be a broccoli quiche on the coffee table. It may also have carrot in it. I can spot concealed vegetables from 20 paces.
‘No,’ I say. ‘I can’t. I’m sick. I don’t want to make you –’ But it’s too late. She’s leaning down towards me. I can see my reflection in her spectacles. I really do look sick now – and terrified.
‘I know how much you love a kiss from your Aunty Sue,’ she says.
(Can I just say, for the record, that that is not true.)
I try turning my head away but it’s no good. Those big, red, lipsticky lips are like heat-seeking missiles locked on target. I swear she has more hair on the mole on her chin than I have on my head. I let out a little squeal as she plants a big fat kiss right on the corner of my mouth. It’s terrible. It’s ghastly. I have a flashback of Stella Holling kissing me in the playground. But I’d rather kiss Stella a thousand times than be kissed on the corner of the mouth by Sue again. Then I think of the Friday morning maths test, and I’d probably rather kiss Sue a thousand times than do that.
‘Good morning!’ another voice chirps. Sue stands and we both turn to the open front door, where three more elderly women are entering the house. That makes five ladies crowded into Nan’s lounge room. They are all wearing colourful tracksuits and squawking in extremely loud voices over the top of one another, like a flock of rosellas – three conversations at once. I can’t follow any of it, but I’m pretty sure I hear the words ‘ingrown toenail’, ‘frozen wart’ and ‘bowel movements’.
I turn the TV up so I don’t hear anything that will scar me for life. This makes all the ladies notice me, and the three of them who have just arrived shriek my name and shuffle over. They gather around the couch, looking down at me. It’s Sandra Wingett from the cake shop, Fay Crabtree who used to own the newsagency, and a woman named Julie who lives at the nursing home. Julie has hair so white you could ski down it, and thick, black-rimmed glasses.
‘Heavens above. Look at you, Thomas Weekly,’ she says. ‘You were knee-high to a grasshopper last time I saw you!’
‘How’s school going?’ Sandra asks.
‘What’s your favourite subject?’ Fay wades in.
‘Do you like your teacher?’ Julie says.
‘How’s your mum?’
‘And that rascal Bando?’
‘You’re not still friends with that hooligan, Jack, are you?’ Jack’s nan asks.
They don’t even wait for me to answer before the next question rolls in.
‘Is your sister enjoying high school?’
‘Do you have a girlfriend? I bet she’s pretty.’
‘What’s her name?’
‘You look just like my grandson, Rex. Is he in your class? He’s in year two.’
I take this last
one as a personal insult. I’m short, but I’m not that short.
‘Do you feel okay?’ Julie asks.
I want to say, Not anymore. And it’s true. I actually do feel a bit queasy.
‘Let’s leave him to rest,’ Sue says, pulling up my blanket. ‘The poor boy is soooo sick.’ She does a big fake wink and cackles.
‘Leave him alone, Sue,’ Nan says.
The other ladies place their casserole dishes and big pots of soup on the coffee table. The place now reeks – a sickening mix of cauliflower, broccoli, sweet potato, stinky cheese, lentils and perfume.
‘Nancy, where’s your VHS player?’ Sandra asks, ferreting around in the cabinet under the TV.
‘I was watching something!’ I say, but she doesn’t seem to hear me.
‘Just under the record player on top of the TV,’ Nan calls back.
Fay pops the old videotape in and the opening credits of a show called Yoga Oz-Style start to play. The picture is scratchy and it jumps all over the place. The show looks like it was recorded in 1932.
‘C’mon, girls, let’s get this over with so we can have some food,’ Sue says. ‘I could eat the bum out of a low-flying duck.’
A couple of the women laugh, and they slip off their jackets and tracksuit pants. Underneath, they reveal tight-fitting exercise outfits. Sue’s is hot-pink, Mrs Wingett’s is a fluorescent yellow onesie, and Fay Crabtree is sporting blinding orange leg warmers with matching sweatbands.
‘Sorry, Tommy, they’ll only be here for a couple of hours,’ Nan calls over the sound of the video. ‘You have a rest.’
‘Maybe I’ll just go into the kitchen …’ I say.
‘No, love, don’t do that. It’s chilly out there. You’ll catch your death. We’ll try not to bother you. I’ll just get my yoga gear on.’
‘But I …’
Nan heads off to her bedroom. The other ladies are all lined up, giggling, limbering up, windmilling arms, marching in place. They watch the yoga lady on the screen and start to exercise. Well, I think that’s what it is. Exercise. They’re certainly moving, and they seem to be watching the TV. It’s just that their movements don’t look anything like what Yoga Lady is doing.
The volume is up so loud my eardrums rattle.
‘Turn it up a bit, will you, Sue,’ Julie calls.
‘Let’s Salute the Sun,’ says Yoga Lady in a calm, soothing voice.
All the oldies bend back as far as they can. Julie falls over and lands on her backside.
‘Are you okay?’ Sue calls as the others touch their toes.
‘Yep,’ Julie says, struggling to her feet and setting her glasses straight.
Now they all lunge forward, bending at the knees, one leg thrust out in front, one behind.
‘Oooo, I think I just pulled a hammy,’ says Sandra, the cake shop lady.
Nan emerges from the bedroom wearing a rainbow-coloured leotard. She looks like an optical illusion. Just the sight of her makes my head pound.
‘We’re Saluting the Sun,’ Sue tells Nan. They all place their hands on the carpet, lie down then push up, bending their backs. Even over the noise of the music I can hear their spines cracking. It sounds like a sumo wrestler dancing on bubble wrap.
Part of me is fascinated that, at their age, they can stretch and twist and bend like this.
‘Let’s explore the Downward Dog pose,’ creepy-calm Yoga Lady says, and the grannies all turn away. They bend over and point their fluorescent lycra-clad bottoms in the air directly at me. It’s quite scary. I’ve never seen so many bottoms at the same time at close range. I feel like I’m under enemy attack. I now know how Pop felt in the war. Hang on, one of the cannons just fired – it was Sue’s, the biggest of them all. I cover my nose but it’s no good. This is nuclear. My eyes water. My skin starts to itch. I wait for sores to bubble up all over me. I have to get out of here.
I stand and am nearly whacked in the face by Sue’s swinging arm as she rises and stretches. ‘Oh, that’s better,’ she says.
I weave between the ladies, closing my eyes to avoid seeing anything else I might regret.
‘Where are you off to, Tommy?’ Nan asks.
‘Just … I’m … I have to go to the toilet!’ I say.
‘Alright, love.’
When she turns around I slip out into the kitchen, press the door closed and lean my back against it. I take three slow, deep breaths – just like Yoga Lady said. How could something so good turn so bad so quickly? I find a blue pen next to the phone and scribble a note on a serviette.
Dear Nan,
Feeling much better. Have gone to school. Thanks for the eggs.
Love, Tom.
I drop the pen and bolt down the hall, out the back door and across Nan’s yard. I jump the fence, hit the footpath and keep right on running. I imagine every step I take is onto a delete button, erasing the memories of the past 30 minutes from my mind, permanently.
I arrive at school just as the bell sounds for the end of recess. I’m so thankful to be back. I leap the fence behind the canteen, slip around the side and fall into step with the kids coming back from the top oval. We head up the stairs into the main building and, moments later, I’m sliding into my comfy orange plastic school chair, safe and sound, without a single pumpkin-soup-making, corner-lip-kissing, cheek-twisting, lycra-wearing old yoga lady in sight.
It’s heaven.
Jack sits next to me. ‘What’s wrong? You look terrible. And is that lipstick on your face?’ I rub my cheek and notice that Jack has what looks like red drink stains at the corners of his mouth.
Miss Norrish arrives. ‘Settle down, please. Exam conditions. Quiet, please!’
She moves around the classroom, handing out papers.
‘It’s 11.00,’ I whisper to Jack. ‘You’ve already done the exam.’
‘No, we haven’t.’
‘It was on at 9.30,’ I say.
‘It’s Sophie’s birthday. Her mum brought in cake from the patisserie, so we had that and creaming soda under the fig tree. It was sooo good. We’re doing the exam now.’
‘No way,’ I say.
‘Yes way,’ Jack replies with a sugary, cake-smelling burp.
Miss Norrish drops the ten-page maths test on my desk in front of me.
‘Where were you this morning, anyway?’ Jack whispers.
‘Sick,’ I say.
‘Yeah, you look kind of sweaty and jumpy,’ he tells me. ‘Why’d you come back to school? Man, you must really love exams.’
Jack laughs.
I cry.
* * *
My friend Anjali is super-funny. She’s 11 years old and one of those people who stuff always happens to. At her last school, she had a disastrous toffee incident, and I asked her to write a story about it. This is what happened …
* * *
I used to believe, until yesterday, that toffee was yummy, fun and delicious – an absolute dee-light to the senses.
Now, I’m not so sure.
Look, I hadn’t eaten a lot of toffee before. My family are clean-living, sugar-avoiding vegetarians. Our idea of a treat is a green smoothie and a tofu-and-goji-berry cookie. Yummmmmmy!
So, yesterday …
It all started innocently enough. There I was at the year five get-together after school. Our teacher, Miss Green, who is perfectly nice and yet the most dreadfully nervous and uptight woman you’ll ever meet, thinks we should ‘get together’ weekly because (as she recites A LOT), ‘Class harmony is assisted by extra-curricular student–parent social interaction.’
Really? Isn’t six hours all day, every day, enough? Normally our get-togethers are at the park, but it was raining so we were stuck on the classroom veranda. It was noisy – really, really, REALLLLLLY NOISYYYYYYYY! My classmates were generally misbehaving like mad, manic monkeys and sounding like badly tuned violins mixed with squeaky, un-oiled trumpets. Meanwhile, the parents were forced to chat loudly above the noise of this crazy kid orchestra about the behavioural issues of other people
’s children and the nutritional quality of other children’s ‘snacks to share’.
Our class has a healthy eating policy but, there, among the fruit kebabs, the dips and crackers, the vegetable crudités and the sugar/dairy/wheat-free kale muffins, was the most yummy and enticing thing ever. It was honey-golden and wildly sprinkled with hundreds and thousands, and glinted temptingly into my eyes, making my mouth water.
The parents were absolutely horrified, wondering who had dared to bring this toffee. One father quivered with rage: ‘Why did I send my child to this school if you feed them such rubbish?’ He flopped onto the wet, bindi-covered ground, splattering his organic bamboo yoga clothes with mud. He pounded his hands on the ground, sobbing, ‘This is poison! I made my specialty – a triple-soaked activated almond, brussels sprout, turnip and asparagus cheesecake. I did it all myself. Who made this sugary toffee MUCK?’ Tears rolling in torrents down his cheeks, he went to swipe the toffees clean off the table – but he was too late.
I yelled ‘TOFFEE!’ and there was a mad rush. Kids pounced from all sides. I grabbed a piece and ran towards the far corner of the playground. As I scurried across the grass I could hear adults yelling and kids being forced to give back their toffees. NO WAY that was going to happen to me. I tucked in behind a fig tree over near the creek. I slid down and sat, looking at my precious golden treasure glistening in the late afternoon light.
Then … I licked it. Yum! I took a tiny bite – a little sticky but still delicious. I loved it so much that I forced the whole piece into my mouth and bit down hard, expecting the toffee to shatter and dissolve on my tongue. But the toffee did not smash into smithereens; no, my teeth barely made a dent. I tried to open my mouth to chew but I couldn’t. My jaw was jammed. The toffee had turned on me. My teeth were stuck like cement!
I stood and walked quickly back across the playground, feeling embarrassed and finding it slightly difficult to breathe. I climbed onto the veranda and tapped my dad on the shoulder. He was agreeing with Miss Green about the dangers of television on young minds, saying, ‘We threw ours out years ago.’ (Which is totally not true. We watch Family Feud every night, without fail.)
My Life and Other Weaponised Muffins Page 4