The Parent Problem (7 page)

I can’t help smiling at this one, though, as I can almost hear Aubrey saying it.

Suddenly there is an almighty crash from next door. I jump, startled, and nearly trip over Pongo who is excited by the racket and is hurtling around me in circles.

‘What was—?’

A volley of thuds fills the air: it sounds as though a giant is falling down the stairs. This is swiftly followed by another crash.

Pongo whines and rushes back into the house.

I follow him.

Mum is making a cup of coffee.

‘Did you hear that?’ I ask, pointing back into the garden.

‘Hmm?’ says Mum, sleepily.

Harris hurtles through the door. ‘Finn is practising his drums! I can hear it through the wall. It’s awesome!’ He pulls two wooden spoons from the utensils pot on the work surface and starts drumming the tabletop.

‘HARRIS!’ I yell.

‘You two,’ Mum groans. ‘Not now.’

‘Huh! It’s not me using the table as a drum kit!’ I protest.

Mum takes the spoons from Harris and tells him to sit down.

I grit my teeth and look back at the frenzied messages from Aubrey.

‘So, Finn seems like a lovely boy,’ Mum says. ‘Put your phone down, Skye.’

‘Lovely? More like Draco Malfoy’s uglier and more evil cousin,’ I mutter.

‘He is COOL and AWESOME and AMAAAZING!’ says Harris, bouncing up and down in his chair.

I give him a Paddington-style hard stare.

‘What did you guys do last night?’ Mum asks. ‘I never asked. I said put your phone down, Skye,’ she adds, without pausing for breath.

Of course you didn’t ask! You weren’t thinking about us. Your head was in the clouds after a night of waltzing around ‘meeting people’, I say. In my head. I slam my phone down, grab the cereal, pick up a spoon and then scowl for good measure.

‘Thank you, Skye. Welcome to the Land of the Living,’ says Mum.

She thinks she is so funny.

I open my mouth to speak but Harris is already talking.

‘We played Mario and we ate popcorn,’ he says, doing his best impression of the well-behaved child that he NEVER is.

Mum’s smile broadens. ‘Sounds a lot nicer than an evening with Milly,’ she says. ‘So you won’t mind if I ask him to come again next week?’

I drop my spoon into my cereal bowl with a clatter. ‘WHAT?’

‘That’s one way to get your attention,’ says Mum.

‘I am NOT having him round again,’ I say.

‘It’s Finn or Milly, young lady,’ Mum says, fixing me with her Don’t-mess-with-me expression.

I realize Mum must be serious about this latest hobby. ‘So you are going
back
to the ballroom-dancing class?’ I ask, horrified.

‘You betcha,’ says Mum. She clicks her fingers and waggles her hand down in front of her in what she clearly thinks is a smooth move.

‘Don’t do that,’ I groan.

Mum’s smile fades and she sighs. ‘I had a lot of fun last night, thanks for asking, Skye,’ she says. ‘And it did me good to get out and meet people.’

There she goes again with the whole ‘meeting people’ thing. I narrow my eyes.

‘What “people” did you meet exactly?’ I ask.

‘
Dancing
people of course, stupid!’ says Harris, flicking a spoonful of wet Cheerios at me.

‘Shut
up
!’ I shout. I push my chair back and make a lunge for him, but he is too fast. He bounds from his chair and leaps through the air, then grabs a tea towel from the work surface and begins spinning it around his head. ‘Did you do this dance, Mum?’ he asks, giggling. ‘It’s called the Tangfastic.’

Mum laughs. ‘Actually it’s the tango,’ she corrects him. ‘And no, we didn’t – it’s a very difficult dance. Don’t forget, I’m a beginner.’

‘But you will learn the tango, won’t you?’ Harris asks, dropping the tea towel on Pongo’s head.

The dog shakes it off and then begins another one of his Let’s-chase-Harris games, yapping and jumping and fake-snarling.

As Obi-Wan Kenobi once said, ‘Who’s the more foolish: the fool, or the fool who follows him?’

Mum ignores them.

‘I don’t know about the tango,’ says Mum. ‘I tell you what I
am
going to do, though. I am going to enter the end-of-term competition and then maybe you can come and watch me – if it doesn’t finish too late, that is?’

‘No WAY,’ I say. I have totally had enough of this insanity. I hear my phone ping and see that Aubrey has texted yet again. ‘I am going now,’ I say.

‘Don’t you want a lift?’ says Mum.

I look at her chosen outfit of the day: a fake red flower in her hair, a red jumper with a feathery scoop neckline, and long wide-legged black trousers with embroidered red flowers on, all finished off with red shiny DMs. ‘Er, no, you’re all right,’ I say. ‘I’ll get the bus.’

I walk out of the house to the sound of Harris wittering about how he wants to enter the dance competition too and how he’s going to help Mum with her outfits and practising her dance.

As Aubrey might say: ‘I think they need to go to the Life Shop.’

I glance at her most recent text as I walk to the bus stop:

I sigh and text back:

It’s a lie of course. I read all those books years ago. But it was the first thing that popped into my head.

The bus pulls up as a little thought bubble appears on the screen which means that Aubrey is reading my text. She’s either writing a really long response or she’s thinking hard about what to say.

I get on the bus waiting for her to answer. Once I have found a seat I check my phone again.

I grin as I text back. Aubrey is back on form. I can tell her everything and things will be OK.

I walk through the school gates and immediately spot Aubrey standing by the netball courts. She sees me and waves. I feel a fizz of happiness. Skye and Aubrey – Aubrey and Skye: Best Friends Forever (BFF, as we used to say).

‘Hey!’ she calls as I make my way towards her. ‘I was beginning to worry that you’d been swallowed up by a wormhole and spirited away into a parallel universe or something.’

I grin, feeling sheepish. ‘Yeah, sorry – you know what I’m like when I’m in book-hermit-mode. I just kind of hibernated last night. Wasn’t looking forward to coming back to this place for starters.’

Aubrey threads one arm through mine. ‘’S’OK. Talking of “modes”: Mum was in super-organizational-mode last night, making me pack my school bag under her prison-guard-style supervision. AND – get this – she told me I have a
dentist
appointment after school today!’ She makes a disgusted noise. ‘I HATE my dentist. He has the hairiest nose you’ve ever seen. “Hashtag GROSS”!’

‘Eeuw!’

‘I know. And there’s no way I can avoid looking up it while he is staring into my mouth,’ she goes on.

This is a game we sometimes play – seeing who can gross the other one out the most. The bell goes and we shriek and giggle and think up things that are even more disgusting than Aubrey’s dentist’s hairy nostrils as we follow the hordes into the building. We are walking down the Year 8 corridor, completely unaware of anyone else around us as we laugh and joke. I am feeling fantastic.

Until I hear someone come up behind us and say, ‘Hey, Orrrbreeeee-and-Skye,’ in a sneery voice.

It is Izzy, one half of the Voldemort Twins.

Aubrey whirls round and squares up to them. Her expression hardens and I think she must be about to tell her to get lost, but instead she says, ‘Oh, hey, Izzy. Whassup?’

Whassup?
This is Izzy Voldemort she is talking to. We do not say ‘Whassup?’ to Izzy Voldemort.

I am about to pull Aubrey away and ask her what the flip she thinks she is doing when Izzy steps closer to me, ignoring Aubrey, and says, ‘So how were the holidays, Hermione? Play much Quidditch, did you?’ She simpers. ‘Or were you too busy
reading
and being a general all-out
nerd
?’ She shoots me a nasty, slit-eyed, snaky smile. ‘We missed you at the cinema last week, didn’t we, Aubrey?’

There is a cackle as Livvy appears at her side (no doubt by some kind of evil Summoning Charm).

‘Looks like you guys had an awesome holiday,’ says Aubrey, letting go of my arm. I swear she even gives me a little shove out the way.

‘What was that about the cinema?’ I want to ask Aubrey, but I can’t form the words. I watch in horror as she flicks her hair and mirrors the twins’ body language: hands on hips, superior smile on lips. What is she doing?

‘I saw the pictures you posted, Livvy,’ she goes on. ‘Good times.’

‘Yeah, I noticed you stalking me,’ says Livvy, her smile turning sour enough to curdle milk. ‘You “liked” every single thing I posted – even the photo of the display board at the airport showing how delayed our return flight was.’

‘Yeah. Not very
supportive
,’ says Izzy. ‘Surprised you have time to look at our posts. Weren’t you too busy playing make-believe games and writing
stories
with your little chum here?’ she adds, nodding to me.

Aubrey opens her mouth to respond, but the Voldemort Twins cackle in unison and link arms, turning to go. They always have to have the last word. Part of me is relieved that they are being mean: I must have misread Aubrey’s body language just now.

‘Leave it, Aubrey,’ I say, laying a hand on her arm. ‘You know what they are like.’

Aubrey nods and blinks hard. ‘Let’s go,’ she says.

I can see she is upset. Those twins are such stirrers. Why did they even say that thing about the cinema? A nagging little voice in my head reminds me that Aubrey did go to the disco without me. Maybe she went to the cinema without me too?

No, the VTs were just winding me up. As usual. Aubrey would never hang out with the Voldemort Twins. I link arms firmly with my best friend and we head to our lockers.

The atmosphere between us is a lot less relaxed as we start unpacking our bags. I am trying to think of something to say to cheer Aubrey up when I see my locker door. Oh great. Someone has kindly Tippexed ‘Skye Diver’ all over it. I touch the white letters – still wet. No prizes for guessing who did this. I look around for the Voldemort Twins, but they have clearly used the Dark Arts to transport themselves elsewhere.