Don't Even Think About It (6 page)

I am NEVER cooking anything ever again. It was a total and utter
disaster
.

I decided to do Hawaiian Pork Chops, because they sounded dead easy – just chops with pineapple rings sitting on top of them. Except that I bought pineapple pieces instead of rings by mistake, so I tried to join the pieces together to make circles, which was very messy and not all that successful. The chops got a bit burnt too, while I was trying to make swans out of the serviettes. I covered the black parts with pineapple pieces, but it didn’t make them taste any better.

Dad was great. He said it all tasted wonderful, and he ate every bit of his chop, even the fat, which I thought was really nice of him. He ate some of the rice too, even though it was extremely salty because I thought ‘tsp’ meant tablespoon instead of teaspoon.

Dad sure drank loads of water.

At least the dessert was OK – baked apples in the microwave with a dollop of Ben & Jerry’s on top. You can’t really go wrong with dessert as long as Ben & Jerry’s is in there somewhere.

Dad and Marjorie Baloney are going out to dinner tomorrow night, and I suppose whatever they get will be a lot tastier than burnt pork chops with broken pineapple rings on top, but as Granny Daly would say,
IT’S THE THOUGHT THAT COUNTS.

Marjorie gave Dad a silver photo frame for his birthday, which I thought showed very little imagination. I was going to suggest that he put a photo of the family in there – meaning one of him, Mam and me – but then I decided it would be more mature just to ignore it. He hasn’t put anything into it yet anyway, which is a big relief.

I can’t wait till he meets Miss Purtill.

I’m still pretending not to see Marjorie across the street now, although she always waves over at me. She doesn’t even notice that I’m ignoring her. Some people are so unobservant.

Bumble is auditioning for the part of Danny in
Grease
– that’s the Christmas show the Comp is putting on. I’ve offered to help him with his lines, but so far he hasn’t asked me. Imagine I never knew Bumble could sing. Actually I can’t imagine him hip-hopping to ‘Summer Loving’, but I do hope he gets the part – it would be cool to see him onstage at Christmas.

I’m not sure how I feel about Christmas this year. Everything is bound to remind Dad and me of Mam, since she was here for all the other ones. And we always used to hang the decorations on the tree together – it was kind of a family tradition.

We’d wait till Dad got home from work, and I’d do the low down ones and Mam would be in the middle and Dad would do the high bits, and at the end Dad would lift me up and I’d hang the star on top, and then Mam would make hot chocolate with marshmallows, and
we’d play Pictionary while we drank it, and I’d win and Dad would come last. It was always the same, every year.

I can’t believe it’s almost a year since I’ve seen Mam. She hasn’t mentioned coming back to Ireland for Christmas – maybe she’s planning to surprise me.

And of course we won’t have Granny Daly either. She’s been coming to us every Christmas for years, since Grandad Daly died. Surely Mam would want to see her mother at Christmas.

I wish I could pluck up the courage to ask her if she’s coming home, but I can’t. It’s the only thing I can’t talk to her about.

Well, that and Marjorie, of course.

And the shoplifting.

And all the visits to Smelly Nelly’s office.

And the fact that Dad didn’t know I was e-mailing her.

Gee, I didn’t realise there were so many things that I don’t talk to Mam about.

Anyway, back to Christmas. Dad’s parents live in Australia. They emigrated years ago, before I was born, and they’ve only been back twice, both times in the spring. They never fly home at Christmas because it’s too crowded, and the fares are too high.

So it looks like it’ll be just Dad and me for Christmas dinner. I wonder which one of us will cook the turkey – or should I say burn the turkey. We’ll probably do it together, so we can blame each other when it’s a disaster.

It might surprise you to hear that I’ve got quite friendly with Chloe Nelligan at school. She’s actually
not bad, I’ve discovered. Once you get used to the garlic breath, she’s quite funny and clever.

We’re in the same group for a science project, and she’s come up with some really good ideas. Imagine I was in her class for eight years and I never really noticed her. And I suppose she can’t help it if her mother or father, or whoever cooks the dinner in that house, puts garlic into everything.

I actually went over to her house the other night to work on the science project, and it was really weird to have Smelly Nelly bringing us milk and biscuits, like she was just a normal mother. I mean, of course she is a normal mother to Chloe, but I couldn’t help still thinking of her as a principal, and remembering all my visits to her office. Not that she mentioned them of course – she just treated me like any friend of Chloe’s and said she loved my hair, and told me that she’d always wanted curly hair when she was a girl.

It was a bit creepy really – and you know what else? I didn’t get any smell of garlic in the house, which was very weird, considering that they must use it by the bucketful. But Chloe’s OK.

Oh, and guess who I saw in town today – Chris Thompson. Remember him, cutest guy in sixth class? He looks just as nice as ever. I didn’t talk to him – he was across the road, so we just waved at each other. I’d forgotten what a gorgeous smile he has.

Well, time for some homework, I suppose. Can’t put it off forever. Only two weeks to the mid term break – not that I’m counting.

Poor Bumble didn’t get the part in
Grease
. He’s just one of Danny’s pals now, with no lines. Maybe if he’d let me help him rehearse for the audition, he might have done better, but of course I didn’t say that. I haven’t seen him for ages, and talking on the phone is just not the same. I miss him.

I’m really glad I’ve got Chloe now though.

And wouldn’t you know – Catherine Eggleston got the part of Sandy, with her blonde hair and her boobs. Naturally, she was the first girl to get boobs in our class. I’m still as flat as a pancake, which I’m sure is perfectly normal for most thirteen-year-olds. Chloe wears a bra, but as far as I can see it’s really just for show.

Oh, and guess what else? Bumble told me it’s all finished between Catherine and Terry McNamara. I’m glad Terry came to his senses at last. And guess who
got the part of Danny? Cute Chris Thompson, which I suppose means that his voice has finally broken – they could hardly have a Danny with a high voice, could they? The songs would sound all wrong.

And more news – Pizza Palace, which Dad and I use all the time, has a new delivery boy, and he really
does
look Italian, not like Santa – remember my old teacher?

This guy has dark brown eyes and long black hair that he wears in a really cool ponytail, and he calls me ‘doll’. He must be at least seventeen, because he rides one of the Pizza Palace motorbikes. I would give ANYTHING to go out with him.

Oh, and I almost forgot – I was at Dad’s office last week. We were going to have an early bird dinner at the Chinese, so I got the bus to his place from school and did my homework while I waited for him – and guess what was on his desk? The silver frame that Marjorie gave him for his birthday.

When I saw it, I was half afraid to look at what he’d put into it, in case it was a photo of her and him, but it turned out to be one of me and Bumble from that day on the beach when I burnt my nose, with Bumble making rabbit ears behind my head.

I thought it was nice of Dad to put that photo in, although it made me sad to think we’ll never have any new ones of Mam and us.

Ruth Wallace told me my new platforms made me walk like a duck. She’s such an idiot.

Two days to mid-term – hurrah! Not that I’m planning anything very exciting, but it’ll be great to have a week off. I can stay in bed till – well, till bedtime, if I like, ha ha.

What a horrible day. It started out OK, but it got horrible very quickly.

Here’s what happened. I got to school as usual, and I was catching up with Chloe’s news, because we were just back after mid-term, and her family had gone to their holiday cottage in Kerry for the week.

Then, right in the middle of her telling me about this gorgeous guy in the next cottage, I got this awful pain, down low in my stomach. It was like something twisting around the wrong way, and it made me double up, it was so bad.

I never felt anything like it before. I thought it was my appendix bursting, and if I hadn’t been in such pain I would have been imagining Dad rushing to the hospital where I was undergoing emergency surgery, and maybe even Mam flying home to be at my bedside.

Anyway, Chloe left me curled up in the yard and ran
to get a teacher because she was sure I was dying, and by the time she came back with Mrs O’Keefe who teaches maths and geography I was able to stand up a bit, but I still felt pretty gross, and my back was starting to hurt too.

Mrs O’Keefe said I looked very pale, and wondered if it was something I’d eaten, and asked me what I’d had for dinner the night before. I told her bacon and cabbage, because I was too embarrassed to say lamb korma with potato bhajis and naan bread.

Then the pain in my stomach got bad again, and Mrs O’Keefe sent Chloe in to the secretary’s office to get her to phone Dad at work and tell him to come and get me. I was doubled up again like an old woman. Everyone around me was staring. I would have been mortified, if I wasn’t too busy trying not to die.

When I could move a bit, Mrs O’Keefe helped me into the lobby and sat me on a couch to wait for Dad. I had to sit crouched over with my arms wrapped around my middle, and my face was cold and felt sweaty, and that awful twisting feeling kept coming and going in my stomach.

The secretary made me a cup of tea, which I tried really hard to drink so I wouldn’t hurt her feelings, but it was weak and milky and not half sweet enough, and the most I could manage was two or three sips.

You’ll get an idea of how rotten I felt, when I tell you that the thought of missing double history, which was first thing after break on Monday, did nothing to cheer me up.

By the time Dad arrived I was feeling a tiny bit better,
so we decided that he’d bring me home and we’d wait a while to see if I needed the doctor. It was only when I got home and went to the bathroom that I discovered what was wrong. At least I was glad it wasn’t my appendix about to burst all over the place.

I knew all about periods since fifth class. A woman came to the school one day and took the girls and boys off in separate groups, and showed us some seriously embarrassing posters, and packs of sanitary towels and stuff.

And the boys sure were quiet when they came back from
their
talk, which made a pleasant change.

So I understood what was happening, but now I had a pretty big problem, because I had no stuff. I hadn’t bought any sanitary towels, and of course Dad hadn’t either. That was definitely the kind of thing mams did. So I managed the best I could with some toilet paper and then I went downstairs, still holding on to my stomach, which was twisting away like mad again, and I told Dad that I needed him to go and get me some sanitary towels.

I was totally mortified – could hardly look at him – but I had to tell someone, and he was all I had. And I’m sure he was just as mortified.

He swallowed a bit and sort of mumbled, ‘OK, go and lie down and I’ll sort it out.’ So I hobbled back upstairs and just waited, curled up with my arms wrapped around my legs because that was the only position that I could bear. I was sorry I hadn’t filled a hot water bottle when I was downstairs, but it seemed like too much trouble to go down again.

And about twenty minutes later there was a knock at the door, and when I said, ‘Come in,’ the door opened and in walked Marjorie Baloney.

And I have to be totally honest here and say that I was kind of glad to see her.

Only because she was female, of course, and because this was the kind of thing that really needed a female.

She looked at me with a kind of worried smile on her face, and said, ‘You poor thing,’ and then she pulled a packet of sanitary towels out of a bag she was carrying. I just took them and legged it to the bathroom, and when I came back to my room a few minutes later she was gone.

But there was a hot water bottle in my bed, and in the bag she left behind I found a bunch of magazines, a big bar of Dairy Milk, a packet of Tylenol and two cans of ginger ale. Oh, and a bar of White Musk soap. How did she know I liked White Musk?

So now I’m sitting in bed with the hot water bottle pressed to my stomach, which has calmed down a lot. I do feel a bit sick, but that’s probably because I’ve eaten three-quarters of the bar of Dairy Milk and drunk all the ginger ale.

When I’ve finished reading the magazines, I’ll be able to trade them at school.

Maybe I won’t call her Marjorie Baloney any more. That was kind of nice, what she did today. And I suppose I’ll have to stop pretending not to see her across the road.

But she is still not getting my Dad – no way. The parent-teacher meetings are on next week, and I’m
pretty sure Dad and Miss Purtill will like each other.

Not that I want him to end up with
her
either, though – I just don’t want him to get stuck with the same friend all the time. It’s good for him to get out of the house now and again, and if he took turns with Marjorie and Miss Purtill, then neither of them could get the wrong idea.

My stomach has just started cramping again. Being a woman sucks. Maybe if I finish off the chocolate it’ll help.

Bet Ruth Wallace hasn’t started her period yet. She’s such a baby.