Don't Even Think About It (2 page)

And then, just when I was beginning to cope with Mam not being there, two really horrible things happened:

1. Dad decided he'd start making porridge for breakfast, like Mam used to.
   
2. Mam told me she was moving back to San Francisco, where she'd been working before she married Dad.
   

Here's how
that
phone call went:

And that was all I heard, because I had just hung up.

Can you believe it? She was planning to go and live in America, leaving her only child behind her, and she had
the cheek to sound excited about it. In case you don't know exactly where San Francisco is, it's right over on the far side of America, about a zillion miles away.

Of course she phoned back, right away. I stood beside the phone feeling mad as hell. I let it ring six times, and then I picked it up and put it down again without even listening. And then I took it off the hook and went straight to the freezer.

After half an hour I put it back, and she called ten minutes later, and I just about managed not to tell her what I thought of her brilliant plan.

I told Dad she was moving, because I thought he should know. It was the first time I mentioned Mam to him since she'd left. Dad just nodded and went on eating Marjorie Maloney's tuna casserole.

I'll get to Marjorie Maloney later.

And now Mam has been in San Francisco for about two months, and she still rings me every day, and her voice still sounds as near as when she was ringing from Granny Daly's house.

But she's not in Granny Daly's house – she's ten hours on a plane away from here, and I have no idea when I'll see her again.

OK, I have to stop for a while now.

The day after Mam's bombshell about San Francisco, the Christmas holidays ended and I went back to school (I'm in sixth, by the way). I couldn't tell anyone what had happened, I just couldn't – except for Bumble, of course. So I told the rest of the class that
Mam had gone off to be a nun in one of those convents where they aren't allowed to talk to anyone from the outside world, which was why Dad and I couldn't visit her.

Naturally, Catherine Eggleston had something to say. She said, ‘Married women aren't allowed to become nuns'. So I said, quick as a flash, ‘Oh, didn't you know? The Pope changed that law two years ago, when there was a shortage of nuns.'

Well, that shut Catherine Eggleston up, and everyone else too, because of course nobody had a clue whether that was true or not. They all looked a bit sorry for me, and Chloe Nelligan offered me her Penguin bar at break, which I refused – I could see that really impressed them all. I didn't tell them that I hate Penguins, and that I'd been hoping that Tessa Ryan would offer me her mini Bounty bar. I love Bounty bars.

Of course, I'm still hoping like mad that Mam will realise that she made a terrible mistake and come home. I try to pray for it to happen, but I'm not very good at praying. Whenever I try, I can't stop other things jumping into my head, like whether I remembered to bring home my maths copy, or how many days left to my birthday, things like that.

But I really, really hope she comes back.

I wonder if Dad misses her as much as I do. No, of course he doesn't.

God, I am SO starving right now. I could eat a slice of stale bread that fell on a carpet, buttery side up. I
wouldn't even pick off the bits of hair and stuff – I'd just cram it all into my mouth.

This must be what it's like to go on hunger strike. Oh God, I smell food. It can't be coming from downstairs – he never cooks anything that smells this good. Must be the Wallace's lunch next door. Smells like melting cheese – oh God, I think I'm going to start dribbling.

My stomach is making incredibly loud gurgly noises. When I get out of here I'm going to look up the Childline number in the phone book and report my father for starving his only child.

OK, he just knocked on the door after I wrote that last bit and told me he was leaving my lunch on a tray outside. I didn't bother answering him. He must be dreaming if he thinks I'm going anywhere near it.

I am SO starving though. Bugger, bugger, bugger.

Listen, the only reason I ate it was because I thought there was a really strong chance that I was going to collapse with starvation, which would mean never seeing Mam again. Imagine how she'd feel if she came back from America and found me dead.

I did it for her, not for me.

It turned out to be a pizza, one of those frozen ones. Simple enough for even my dad to cook. Boy, was it good. I nearly licked the plate.

OK, I did lick the plate.

Not that it lets him off though. No way. He's still a grouch who cooks warty porridge and then tortures people by starving them.

Now I'm really thirsty. Maybe I'll take the can of Coke I was planning to leave outside the door. Look, he probably wouldn't even notice if I left it there – and anyway, he doesn't drink Coke, so if I don't have it, I'll be just letting it go to waste, which I'm pretty sure is a sin.

OK, Dad just knocked again and said I can come out if I apologise. I was tempted to tell him to get stuffed, but then I remembered that I wanted to change my library books, so I said I'd think about it. He gave a kind of a snort and went away. I'll make him wait ten minutes before I go downstairs.

Today I got into trouble at school. Again. Another visit to Smelly Nelly's office – and a note for Dad, which I'll get to later.

Smelly Nelly is our principal. Her real name is Mrs Nelligan, and her breath always stinks of garlic, so you can see where the name comes from. She has a daughter called Chloe in my class – remember the one with the Penguin bar? – and she's a garlic freak too. Nobody can stand being around her, especially on Mondays. They must spend the weekend eating garlic. No danger of vampires in Nelligans' house, that's for sure.

Anyway, all I did today was pass on a note. I didn't even write the stupid thing. It just landed on my desk, and when I looked around to see who'd thrown it, Catherine Eggleston put a horrible smarmy smile on her face and pointed to Terry McNamara, who was on the other side of me.

Catherine Eggleston doesn't like me, and boy, is the feeling mutual. But I didn't want to leave the note on my desk, and Terry sometimes lets me look into his copy at maths time, so I decided to pass it on.

Of course I had to read it first – well, I was doing them a favour, they owed me – so I held it under the desk and opened it, feeling Catherine's eyes boring into me from behind.

Boy, was it a big disappointment. All it said was:

I had no idea what it meant – except that Catherine Eggleston couldn't spell imagination – so I folded it again and reached across to Terry, and I was just handing it to him when Santa turned around from the blackboard and caught me.

Santa is our teacher. His name is Mr Santorio, even though he's Irish, but his grandfather or someone came from Italy. Santa doesn't look in the least like an Italian man, who as far as I know are all dark and good looking, and probably tall.

Santa is the complete opposite – small with wavy red hair that grows in his ears as well as on his head, and his eyes are blue, not chocolate brown, and they're a bit crossed as well, so you're never quite sure if he's looking at you.

But the fact that he roared out ‘Elizabeth Jackson' gave me a pretty good idea who he was looking at. That's my name, Elizabeth Jackson, although most
people call me Liz. Anyway, Santa made me bring up the note, and my heart sank, because I knew I was off to Smelly's office again.

The last time I was there was only about ten days before, after the dead beetle in Trudy Higgins's cheese sandwich. She nearly ate it too, before she spotted its legs, or something, sticking out. You should have heard the scream she let out – I'd say half the school heard it. And then of course her best buddy, Catherine Eggleston, came running over and screeched her head off too. Talk about drama queens.

I still don't know how they guessed it was me, though. I mean, I hadn't made a big deal out of Trudy laughing at my banana sandwich the day before, just told her to belt up. How was I supposed to know that bananas go black in sandwiches? Mam had always made my lunch – I was just learning what you could and couldn't put into a sandwich:

And of course Santa believed Trudy when she pointed a shaking finger in my direction and whimpered, ‘She did it, I know she did,' and off I went to the office.

So today Smelly gave her usual ‘I'm-
very-disappointed
-in-you' talk, and I did my best to look
sorry – I knew there was no point in telling her I hadn't written the note – and then I was sent back to apologise to Santa.

And just before home time, when I thought it was all over, Smelly called into the class and handed me an envelope to bring home to Dad, and told me to get him to sign the note inside and to bring it back to her tomorrow. Bugger.

I've just opened it – well, Smelly never said I couldn't – and here's what it says:

OK, I've thought about it, and I hate to admit it, but Smelly is right, I
have
been to her office six times since Christmas:

1. The dead beetle.
   
2. The note today, which I didn't even write.
   
3. The encyclopaedia I dropped on the floor, which of course was an accident. (It sure gave Santa a fright though.)
   
4. That drawing I did after our ‘how babies are made' class – just a cartoon, not rude at all really.
   
5. Copying the way Santa stood on tiptoe to reach the top of the blackboard – not exactly a major crime.
   
6. The poem I wrote about Santa, which I thought was very creative.
   

Yes, that does make six times. I should have known Smelly would have her facts right. Bugger.

And I suppose ‘domestic problems' is about Mam leaving – not that that has anything to do with my ending up in Smelly's office. Oh well, I'd better face the music. I still have to show the note to Dad, and I heard him coming in from work a few minutes ago. Wish me luck.

Could have been worse. I'm just forbidden to watch TV for the rest of the week. He's probably forgotten that
this is Thursday. Saturday is the end of the week, right? So that's just three nights. No problem.

And by the way, in case you're wondering, I'm a latchkey kid since Mam left, which means I have to let myself into an empty house every day after school, and wait about two hours till Dad gets home. I have a good mind to report him to Childline for
that
.

Although I must say it's kind of cool to have the house to myself. Mam never used to let me watch telly in the afternoons.

Nearly time for her phone call. Guess what I'm not going to tell her.

Today is my thirteenth birthday. I am the first official teenager in the class. What’s more, I’m a teenager from a broken home.

As Granny Daly would say,
A RECIPE FOR DISASTER.

Granny Daly knows a lot of recipes for disaster.

I got a Dunnes jumper and a twenty euro book token from Dad, and luckily he left the tag on the jumper, so I can bring it back after school tomorrow and swap it for something that doesn’t look like it was bought by someone who has NO IDEA what thirteen-year-old girls are wearing these days.

And I might be able to trade the book token for cash with Mary Sullivan, who always has her nose stuck in a book.

Dad’s cooking is as bad as ever. Last night we had potatoes with hard bits in the middle of them, and
burnt fish fingers. Even I can do fish fingers without burning them. Tonight we’re going out for a Chinese, thank goodness.

I wonder if Dad would let me have some wine, now that I’m thirteen. It can’t taste any worse than the sherry I swiped from the sitting-room cabinet last month. God, that was BAD. It must have been past its sell-by-date, or something.

I got half a bottle of White Musk perfume from Bumble – I told him what I wanted and gave him half the money, because it’s a bit dear. Bumble is great at lots of things, but he’s useless at buying presents.

Last year he gave me a yellow Eminem baseball hat, which just goes to show. My best friend since we were four years old, and he gets me a hat in my least favourite colour. I HATE yellow anything – yellow buildings, yellow flowers, yellow cars. The only yellow things I like are the sun and bananas. Oh, and corn on the cob. And the yellow bit of a boiled egg, as long as it’s soft and runny.

Anyway, I had to wear the Eminem hat a few times so Bumble’s feelings wouldn’t be hurt – mostly around the house – and then I pretended that I’d left it in the garden and the Wallaces’ cat next door had peed in it, and I couldn’t bring myself to wear it again after that. He believed me, of course. Bumble’s nice like that.

So this year I was taking no chances. I love White Musk. It makes me feel sexy and dangerous. Pity it makes Bumble want to throw up, but you can’t have everything.

Bumble’s name isn’t really Bumble, of course – it’s
Ben. When he was small someone shortened it to B, and then later someone else changed it to Bumble Bee, and now it’s just Bumble. He doesn’t mind; he’s very easy-going.

Granny Daly sent me a new hairbrush, which I thought was quite a good present for someone with hair that you can actually brush, unlike mine which is too curly for anything except one of those big wooden combs.

By the way, in case you’re wondering, I have reddish brown hair, just longer than my shoulders, and dark blue eyes and zillions of freckles, and a dimple in my chin that I absolutely HATE. I’m 156 centimetres tall and I wear size 38 shoes and my teeth are almost perfectly straight, with a tiny gap between the front two that’s great for spitting through, and I have no boobs yet, and I’m Eminem’s biggest fan, and I can’t bear Britney, and I think Colin Farrell is the sexiest man on the planet.

My favourite food is pizza – but I eat most things – and one of my biggest fears is getting stuck in a lift halfway up a skyscraper. And you’ve already figured that I’m an only child, and my parents are split up. So now you know.

I’ll offer the hairbrush to Bumble’s brother’s girlfriend, whose hair sure could use a bit of brushing. She might trade me one of her bangles for it – they’re really cool, and she has loads.

I got a fiver from Marjorie Maloney, a neighbour across the road, but that’s only because she has her eye on Dad since Mam left. She pestered us the first
month, knocking on the back door at least twice a week with casseroles, and lemon meringue pie, which is one of the few foods I hate, and asking Dad if he’d have a look at her iron – probably broke it on purpose – and offering to take me shopping for clothes and stuff. As if.

A few times we pretended to be out, but she just came back half an hour later, so we gave that up. The Wallaces’ cat next door got a lot of leftover casseroles for a few weeks. He loved the tuna ones, but he turned up his nose at the chicken, probably because Marjorie Maloney put lots of herbs and stuff in, trying to impress Dad.

Honestly, the way she plays with her hair and giggles when Dad says anything makes me want to throw up in her face. As if he’d look at Marjorie Maloney in a million years, with her tight dresses that stretch across her behind and show the line of her knickers, which everyone knows is a fashion disaster.

Her hair is dyed too – it has to be. No way is anyone’s hair that black. And the perfume she wears is strong enough to knock out an elephant, and nowhere near as sexy as White Musk.

Oh, and I got a parcel.

It arrived a day early, which I suppose is OK seeing as how it came all the way from San Francisco. There was nobody here when the Post Office van delivered it, so Mrs Wallace from next door took it in, and her son Damien came around with it when I got home from school.

I haven’t opened it yet. It’s sitting on my desk in front of me, and it’s about twice the size of a shoebox and
fairly heavy. It cost $14.25 to post, and on the back Mam has written her name and address. She lives in a part of San Francisco called The Mission, which she says is a good place to live as she can walk to the downtown area where she works.

It’s the first time she’s ever written to me.

It’s the first time she hasn’t been here for my birthday.

I’m wondering why it’s so hard to open the box.

She’s sharing an apartment with a couple called Enda and George. She still tells me she misses me every time she phones, and she hopes I’m eating properly. I don’t mention the pizzas, or the Coke. She asks me about school, and Bumble, and how my painting is coming along, and she never, ever mentions Dad.

It’s easier now, talking to her on the phone, even if she’s still the one doing most of the talking. Dad always gets out of the way, which is nice of him. It still makes me sad that she’s so far away, of course, and I hate the time right after I hang up. I usually make straight for the freezer. I’m getting through a tub and a half of Ben & Jerry’s every week.

And now it’s getting near time to go out to dinner, and I heard Dad coming home a while ago, and I’m sitting in my room looking at the box on my desk, trying to pluck up the courage to open it.

You’d swear there was a bomb inside it.

I couldn’t think about anything else all day. For once, Santa didn’t have to give out to me for anything. And at break, Bumble asked me why I was so quiet. He’d just given me the White Musk, and I’d dabbed it on my
wrists, and I could see him breathing through his mouth to stop himself from throwing up.

And for once, I couldn’t tell him. Even though he’s the only person I told about Mam walking out on us, I just couldn’t mention the box. I muttered something about missing Mam, and he nodded, and spent the rest of the break trying to cheer me up with his awful jokes, and I smiled to keep him happy.

And now I can’t put it off any more, so here goes.

Dad was brilliant. He didn’t say anything, which was exactly what I wanted, just put down the newspaper and held out his arms when I came into the sitting room, and held me until I was totally out of tears. And that took a while, believe me.

When I finally dried up, Dad said, ‘What about doing the Chinese meal tomorrow night instead?’ and when I nodded, he went into the kitchen and came back with a tub of Ben & Jerry’s New York Super Fudge Chunk that was only half-empty, and two spoons. And while we ate it, he told me that he knew how hard it was for me without Mam being here, and that he thought I was coping brilliantly, and that he was really proud of me.

It was the first time he talked to me as if I was a grown-up, which was what I’d been waiting for forever.

And guess what? All I wanted was to be five years old again, so I didn’t have to face all this horrible grown-up stuff.

I asked him why Mam had left, why they couldn’t have sorted it out, whatever it was, and he shook his head
and said that some things just couldn’t be sorted out.

And then, without thinking, I said, ‘Well then, why couldn’t she have taken me with her?’ And straight away I was sorry I asked that, because Dad’s face kind of crumpled a bit, and I knew I’d hurt him. But he thought about it for a bit, and then he said, ‘Maybe because she didn’t want me to be left with nobody.’ And I thought how much I would have missed him, if Mam
had
taken me with her.

I was really afraid then that he’d ask me if I’d rather have gone and lived with Mam, which would have been impossible to answer. I mean, I think I probably
would
rather be with her, if I absolutely had to choose – maybe because Mam and I are both females – but whoever I lived with, I’d end up missing the other one terribly.

He didn’t ask me, though. Maybe he already knew the answer. Maybe parents know more than we think.

The phone rang when we were almost finished the ice cream, and I put down my spoon and walked out to the hall. I knew if I didn’t answer it she’d just call back later.

It was awful. As soon as I heard her voice, I wanted to cry again. I had to pinch my arm hard all the way through, while I was trying to sound happy, and thank her for the presents, and tell her the other presents I’d got.

In the end, I said dinner was ready and I had to go. I suppose she knew something was up, but she said nothing. What was there to say?

I took a few deep breaths and went into the kitchen, where I found Dad scrambling some eggs, which
sounds strange right after a load of ice cream, but I ate every bit. I suppose it was just dinner the wrong way around. And soon after that I came upstairs again.

My face is hot, and my cheeks feel tight from all the salty water they’ve had to put up with, and my nose is sore from blowing it so much, but in some kind of a funny way, I feel lighter. I had no idea tears could weigh anything at all. Dad’s jumper must be pretty heavy right now, with all the ones I left in it earlier.

Things in the box:

1. A birthday card with a letter folded up inside

2. A box of chocolates called See’s Candies

3. A blue t-shirt with a giant ice cream cone on it

4. A pair of green and blue check pyjama bottoms

5. A set of three lipsticks

6. A silver neck chain with a heart on it.

There’s a verse on the inside of the card. It reads:

And here’s the letter that fell out of the card:

The card has a picture of a girl with long straight brown hair, wearing a pink t-shirt and blue jeans and platform shoes, and balancing a load of shopping in one hand. She’s holding a leash in her other hand, and there’s a little dog at the end of it with a pink bow in his hair.

I think I’ll go to bed now.