Hunky Dory (3 page)

“Some history,” said Aaron.

The Herb giggled again. Everything's always a big joke with her; she finds it very difficult to take things seriously. “You never know,” she said, “it could be the scene of a hideous crime. We've got the murder weapon!”

“If you're talking about that penknife,” I said, “it wouldn't go in deep enough.” I know about these things; I've studied them.

“All right, then!” She snatched up the bottle. “Poison!”

It was all they needed. Next thing I know, they're both going mad with their trowels, showering earth in all directions. I told them quite sharply to stop.

“This is not the way you're supposed to do it! You're ruining the site!”

Aaron panted, “We're looking for a body!”

“You've got to admit, bodies would be interesting,” said the Herb. “More interesting than bits of broken china.”

I had to be very stern with them. I mean, yes, OK, body parts would be great. Teeth, or skulls, or thigh
bones. I'd like to discover body parts just as much as anyone else, but it's
not the way that it's done
.

“If you're going to help, then help properly,” I said. “Just try to be a little bit professional.”

The Herb mumbled “Professional, professional,” and stroked an imaginary beard, while Aaron went into exaggerated slow motion with his trowel. I said, “That's better. You're worse than the dogs!”

Dad has erected a special wire netting enclosure for the hole. He did it so that Mum, in her daffy way, wouldn't go trundling down the garden with a barrow full of used cat litter and fall into it, but it also serves to keep the Russells at bay. I do love the Russells, but I sometimes can't help wishing Mum had developed a passion for a more useful breed of dog. Dogs that could fetch, or carry, or herd. If the Russells got into the hole it would be total chaos. As it is, they all sit on the other side of the netting and whinge.

“Dunno why you don't let 'em in,” said Aaron. “Get the job done far quicker.”

“Wouldn't be professional,” said the Herb. “Hey, I just thought of a joke! Is it OK to tell jokes?”

I think I must have hesitated, cos she said, “It's all right, it's a professional joke…it's a
dinosaur
joke.”

“Yeah, yeah, go on!” said Aaron. “Tell it!”

“Right. What's a dinosaur that's had its bottom smacked?”

“I don't know,” said Aaron. “What is a dinosaur that's had its bottom smacked?”

The Herb said, “A dino
sore-
arse!” She looked at me, triumphantly. “Funny?”

“Your mum wouldn't think so,” I said. “She'd say you were being vulgar.”

The Herb gave one of her cackles. “Rude, rude, Mum's a prude!”

“I reckon it's pretty good,” said Aaron. “Here!” He gave me a nudge. “You tell the Herb about Amy Wilkerson?”

Herb said, “Ooh, another joke?”

“She fancies him,” said Aaron.

“
Amy Wilkerson
?”

“Yeah, she went and sat next to him and started breathing over him.”

“Yuck, yuck,
yuck
!” said the Herb. She turned, and made vomiting noises. “Amy Wilkerson…
puke
!”

“She's not that bad,” said Aaron. “I've seen worse.”

“OK then, you have her,” I said.

“Yes, you have her,” said the Herb. “Amy Wilkerson…
bluurgh
!”

I really wish I'd never mentioned it. I'm certainly not going to say anything about the Microdot and her gang of gigglers. It's funny, though, I never knew the Herb had it in for Amy Wilkerson.

When we went back in for tea I found Wee Scots doing things with mothballs. Threading string through them and tying knots.

“She's making necklaces,” said Will. “To go round trees.”

I said, “What do trees want necklaces for?”

Wee Scots cried, “Mothball necklaces, laddie!”

I screwed up my nose and looked at Will. Solemnly, he said, “It's to stop the dogs using them as toilets.”

And the Microdot says
I'm
weird?

She said to draw a house and garden. I drew a house and garden. She looked at it and said, “That's supposed to be a
house
?” I said yes. I have never claimed to be any good at drawing.

She told me that I'd done it the wrong way round. She said, “Look at it! It's back to front.”

Sometimes she is just totally illogical. How can a house be back to front? I explained that it was simply seen from the rear. She said, “So who draws a house seen from the rear? Honestly! It's so anti-social. It's like
turning your back on people.”

I said, “That is just your opinion.”

“It isn't an opinion,” she said. “It's
psychology
.”

Huh! I bet she doesn't even know how to spell the word. She says she's going to give me one test a week until she's built up a profile. “Then we shall see!”

I told her she wouldn't see anything if I refused to do them, but she said that was where I was wrong. “If you refuse to do them it'll simply show you're scared.”

I said, “Scared of what?”

She said, “Of having your true self revealed! So whether you do them or whether you don't, we shall still
see
.”

I think this is a form of bullying. I told her so, and she said, “How can I bully you? I'm only ten years old.”

“Which is far too young,” I said, “to know the first thing about psychology.”

“I'm
learning
,” she said. “Ten isn't too young to start learning. Or to fall in love! Poor Linzi is
heartsick.
She's
suffering
. I'm really worried, cos she's my best friend—one of my best friends—and I'm just so frightened for her. If you keep on rejecting her like this—”

I resented that. I said, “I'm not rejecting her!”

“Excuse me,” said the Microdot, “you walked
straight past
her the other day. You didn't even look at her!”

“Cos I didn't even see her!”

“That's even worse! Not even
seeing
her. Like she's invisible! If I told her that,” said the Microdot, “I dread to think what she might do. She might do something really awful. And if she did,
you'd be the one that was responsible for it
!”

This is definitely getting beyond a joke; it's putting me under a lot of stress. I don't know how much more of it I can take!

This morning at breakfast, in sickly sweet tones that practically oozed a trail of treacle right across the table, the Microdot announced that she was becoming “ever so worried about Dory”. I knew at once that she was up to no good. I glared at her, but she just smirked and wrenched the marmalade away from me. Turning to Mum, still all sweet and sickly, she said, “You don't think he needs his eyes tested, do you?”

Mum, of course, latched on to it immediately. She is such a sucker! She said, “What makes you ask?”

“Well, it's the way he keeps missing things,” said the Microdot.

“What things?”

“
People
,” said the Microdot.

“Och, he jist has his head in the clouds,” said Wee Scots. “He's a bit of a dreamer, aren't ye, laddie?”

“You'd think he'd notice
girls
,” said the Microdot.

Wee Scots gave one of her throaty chuckles. (Mum says it's all the usquebaugh.) “I bet the girls notice him all right! I'd have noticed him when I was a wee lass.”

“Dunno why you'd bother,” said the Microdot.

If Dad had been there, he might have come to my rescue. Will was sitting opposite and I tried to catch his eye so that we could pull faces at each other, but he just went on cramming his mouth with cornflakes and refused to look at me. I think he should have done: after all, he is my brother. We ought to stick together!

Did some digging after tea. Aaron and the Herb came round and I gave them the house and garden test. The Herb said, “Ooh, do we get marked out of ten?” I said I would tell her after she'd done it.

Aaron got a bit stroppy and said he thought we weren't supposed to have time for anything except digging. “Way you were carrying on the other day, all bossy and
got to be professional
.”

I had to soothe him. I said, “These are important psychological tests.”

To be honest I think they are rubbish, but it is very undermining when a person of ten years old keeps telling you that you are weird and peculiar and anti-social. I really needed some kind of reassurance. I'm feeling a lot happier now; now that I've seen what Aaron and the Herb came up with. If I'm weird, they're even weirder. I mean, how's this for whacky: the Herb drew a house with a
face
. She said, “I wanted to make it seem friendly.” Personally I thought it looked a bit
like Humpty Dumpty, but Aaron said it was more like something in a graveyard. He said, “That's morbid, that is.”

He could talk! All he'd drawn was a mound, with antennae and aerials all over it. Not a door or a window to be seen. When I asked him what it was, he said it was an underground bunker for hiding in. The Herb said, “Underground bunker's not a house.”

“Would be,” said Aaron, “if you had to live in it.”

“Why would you have to live in it?”

“Well, like if there was an attack, or something.”

The Herb looked at me and slowly shook her head.

“Means I've got an instinct for self-preservation,” said Aaron.

The Herb said, “Yeah? What about me?”

“You just want to be cosy and make nests.”

The Herb froze. I saw this glint come into her eye. “Are you saying I'm
girly
?”

“Nah!” Aaron backed off, double quick. The Herb can be quite dangerous when anyone accuses her of being girly. “Nah, that's not what I'm saying!”

“So what
are
you saying? Exactly?”

“I'm just saying you're, like…friendly.”

“So what was all this about nests?”

Aaron's nostrils flared. I could almost see the beads of sweat break out on his brow. As team leader, I knew I had to step in.

“Let's just forget about it,” I said, “and get back to work.”

“Yes.” The Herb gave Aaron one last simmering glare. “Let's be
professional.
”

Aaron turned and began digging, frenziedly. I was about to yell at him to slow down when he suddenly cried out in excitement, “Great gobbets of mud!”

I thought for one wild moment he might have uncovered something interesting, but all it was was an old rusty tin.
I told him to do a label for it and put it with the other stuff. He said, “Can I write who found it?”

I said that he could as I believe it is important to encourage people. He was obviously very proud of digging up his tin, especially as the Herb hasn't dug up anything at all so far. He worked really well for the rest of the evening, without any of his usual grumbling. I was quite pleased with him.

All the trees now have little ropes of mothballs hung round them. It kills me!

This morning, as I'm packing my bag for school, I hear Wee Scots' voice calling urgently to Mum: “Sara, Sara, there's a dog on the table!” I meet Mum on the landing. I say, “There's a dog on the table.” Mum says, “I heard.” As we go down the stairs together, Wee Scots runs frantically along the hall.

“Sara, Sara, come quick! There's two dogs on the table!”

By the time we reach the kitchen, they're all on there, walking about amongst the cereal bowls. Polly's got a piece of toast in her mouth, Roly's wrestling with a cereal packet. One of them's knocked a milk carton on the floor, but it's OK, it hasn't burst. Jack's about to

close his mouth over the butter so I zip in, smartish, and wrench it from him. Mum yells at them to get off, and they all scatter.

Wee Scots goes, “Dogs on the table!” like she can't believe it. Mum remains unflustered, probably because she's used to dogs on the table. They haven't always done it, and I cannot now remember when they started.

When Jack came, probably. He wasn't with us last time Wee Scots paid us a visit. But it's definitely not normal, five Jack Russells on the breakfast table, no matter what Mum seems to think.

Suddenly, in that moment, I have a blinding revelation: it is the women in this family who are weird! Not the men. The
women
. What with Mum thinking it's
OK for dogs to be on the table, and Wee Scots hanging mothballs round the trees, and the Microdot—

I turn to look at the Microdot. She's dumped a shiny pink plastic case on the table and is lovingly poring over the contents. They are
all pink.
Nothing but pink! It's what she's spent her pocket money on. Little fiddly bits to put in her hair. Little dangly bits. Little glittery bits. Clips, combs. Bangles, bracelets. Everything
PINK.

She catches me watching her and says, “What's your problem?”

I tell her that I haven't got a problem. “It's just come to me… I'm not the one that's weird, it's you. I mean, look at all that junk!”

She says angrily that it's not junk. “It's stuff I need!”

“It's
pink
.”

“So what?”

I say that pink's girly. You wouldn't catch the Herb wearing pink! Not that I say that bit to her. The Microdot instantly goes into shrieking mode. She wants to know what's wrong with being girly.

“I am a girl, in case you hadn't noticed! Least, I thought I was. Maybe I'm not, and no one's told me. Maybe I'm a stupid
boy
. D'you think I'm a boy?”

I say no, I'm sure she's not a boy. “Boys wouldn't waste their money on that sort of crap!”

She shrieks, “It's not crap, you sexist pig!”

By now, all the dogs are barking excitedly and running to and fro across the kitchen floor. Wee Scots cries out that we're doing her head in. Mum bawls at us to shut up.

“Just stop it, the pair of you! Dory, leave your sister alone. Anna, stop screeching!”

The Microdot screeches that she's not screeching. She then picks up a pink thing and hurls it at me.

“Sexist
pig
!”

She is definitely not normal.

Tried to do a bit of digging after school today with Aaron and the Herb, but Aaron was in a silly sort of mood and just wanted to mess about and tell stupid jokes like, “What do you call a man with a shovel?” To which the answer, apparently, is Doug. Which I didn't get and the Herb had to explain.

“D-U-G.
Dug
.”

That's supposed to be funny???

“What do you call a man without a shovel?
Douglas
!”

“Dug-
less
,” said the Herb. “Geddit?”

I said, “What's to get?” “It's a play on words,” said the Herb. “Listen, I've got one, I've got one! What do you call a girl with slates on her head?” “I don't know,” said Aaron. “What do you call a girl with slates on her head?”

“Ruth!”

“OK, what do you call a man under a pile of leaves?”

“I don't know, tell me!”

“
Russell
.”

They went on like that the whole time. I'm not surprised at Aaron, cos he's got the brain of a flea, it hops about all over the place, but I was disappointed in
the Herb. I thought she knew better. She is becoming very frivolous just lately.

And I have just worked out that one about the girl with slates on her head.
Roof
. I still don't think it's funny.

I have been ambushed! I was talking to Aaron, on our way out of school—actually I was telling him about the Argentinosaurus, which is the largest dinosaur known to man—when we heard this strange, high-pitched squeaking like a colony of bats. Aaron immediately stopped and said, “Wossatt?” I told him not worry about it. I already had bad feelings.

“Wot is it?”

It was coming from behind some big shrubby things which cluster by the gate.

“There's a load of girls,” said Aaron.

I said yeah, it was where they hung out, and gave him a shove. I was about to explain to him how the Argentinosaurus was the height of a four-storey building and the length of two school buses, which are the sort of facts I should think anyone would be glad to know, when suddenly, from out of nowhere, jet-propelled, a body came hurtling towards us and
threw itself on the ground in front of me.

I am glad to report that I didn't hesitate: I simply stepped right over it.

“Twelve metres,” I said. “
Twelve metres
. You've got to admit, that's pretty damn tall! And twenty-three
metres long. That'd stretch from here to about…I dunno! As far as the traffic lights, maybe?”

Aaron said, “Yeah…maybe.”

“Maybe even further. Maybe right down's far as the High Street.” I jerked at his arm. “What d'you reckon?”

He said, “Yeah. I dunno. Maybe. What d'you think she did that for?”

I said, “Who knows? Just felt like it, I s'ppose.”

I managed to drag him away, but it was a nasty moment.

What cheek! What utter nerve! The Microdot has just had a go at me. She says I'm heartless and unfeeling.

“Poor Linzi faints at your feet and you just leave her
lying
there!”

I said, “She didn't faint, she chucked herself down on purpose.”

“She fainted! She has a
crush
on you. This is the sort of thing that happens when people have crushes on people. You'd think you'd be
grateful.
I've never heard of anything so cruel…just walking on and leaving her! She could have had a heart attack. She could have
died
.”

I said, “Yeah, and so could I. I could have tripped over and broken my neck. And don't tell me you didn't
put her up to it cos I know perfectly well that you did!”