The Parent Problem (5 page)

Not that Milly can comment on what other people wear. She is usually covered in cat hair from her thirteen cats. Pongo always goes crazy when she comes round. It is so embarrassing. Milly, of course, doesn’t like Pongo because, as she says, she is ‘not a dog person’.

Mum’s smile fades and she opens her mouth to speak. Then the phone rings, so she simply shakes her head and goes next door to her bedroom to answer it.

‘Oh, hellooooo, Milly!’ I hear her say in her talking-to-batty-old-cat-people voice. ‘Awwwww. Awwwwww. Really? Awwwwwww, noooo! That
is
a shame.’

What’s this, I wonder? Sounds as though there’s a problem. Most likely a cat-related one, as Milly only ever talks about her cats. But why is she phoning to tell Mum when she was supposed to be coming round here in a bit to ‘babysit’ me and Harris?

Mum comes back into my room. She is frowning and her face has gone pink. ‘That was Milly,’ she says.

‘Yes,’ says Harris. ‘We heard you say “Hello, Milly”. Then we heard you say “Awwwww” a lot of times. What’s wrong?’

Mum sighed. ‘She can’t babysit because Fluffball, or whatever his name is, has got a poorly tummy so she has to take him to the emergency vet clinic.’

‘Oh no!’ Harris cries. ‘Not Fluffball! He’s the white one with the pink nose and the black splodge on his tail.’

‘You mean the one that’s so fat and so fluffy that he looks like a huge ball of fluff?’ I add.

Mum and Harris look at me as though I am the idiot. ‘Obviously,’ they say in unison.

‘So I guess this means I can’t go ballroom dancing,’ Mum says. She pulls at her swishy skirt and stares down at her shoes.

At this, I feel even more sorry for her than I did when was thinking about her wearing second-hand clothes. She looks likes Cinderella being told she can’t go to the ball: she must have been looking forward to this evening more than I had thought.

Then I remember what Aubrey said about babysitting earlier.

‘I could babysit instead,’ I say, beaming. ‘I am nearly thirteen, after all. It’s Harris that needs the babysitting, not me. And it’s not as if Milly ever does anything when she comes round. She just spends all evening trying to get Gollum to sit on her lap and eats all the best biscuits and tells Harris what a lovely boy he is and makes me go to bed at eight o’clock.’

Mum looks at me with a thoughtful expression. ‘Hmm,’ she says. ‘I don’t know, Skye, you are still very young. What if you and Harris started fighting?’

‘Of course we won’t fight. If you
pay
me to be a responsible babysitter, I will do the job to perfection.’ I say.

I watch Mum’s mouth twitch into a smile.

Was it cheeky of me to ask to be paid? So what? If you don’t ask, you don’t get.

‘PAY YOU?’ Mum explodes into laughter. ‘You must be joking!’

Turns out you still don’t get, even if you do ask.

‘But you would have been paying Milly—!’ I begin.

Mum holds up a hand to stop me and I can see that babysitting money slipping through my fingers when . . .

BRRRIIING!

The doorbell goes.

Mum fixes me with a patronizing look and says, ‘Looks like I’ve been saved by the bell. Good try, Skye.’

Mum goes down to answer the door, her skirt billowing out behind her like a ship in full sail. I can see through the wobbly glass that there are two people standing outside. Which means that two random people are about to see my mum in a too-tight sequinned top and a shiny purple skirt. Which means I wish the ground would open up and swallow me whole.

Mum opens the door, and for a moment she is blocking my view, so all I can see is the top of a man’s head.

‘Hi,’ he says. ‘I hope I’m not disturbing anything . . .’

‘Oh no!’ Mum says. Her voice is high-pitched and ultra-cheery.

No, you’re not disturbing us, I think. This is just a regular evening in our looney-tune household.

‘Right, er . . .’ I can sense the man taking in Mum’s outfit. I am torn between wanting to creep up the stairs to see who he is and wishing that I had my own Invisibility Cloak so that I cannot be seen to be linked to Mum in any shape or form.

Mum gives a little giggle. ‘So, do you want to come in?’ she asks him.

WHAT? She is asking a strange man into our house and she doesn’t CARE that she looks like a bag of recycled wrapping paper?

‘Erm, OK,’ says the man.

Mum steps back to let him in – and a boy who, it turns out, is standing just slightly behind him.

They are, of course, our new neighbours.

I am sure I see the man look Mum up and down in a surreptitious way as he steps inside. That’s it. He thinks she is a weirdo. We haven’t even properly met our new neighbours yet, and already they have made up their minds about us.

Mum is wittering on about Pongo, who has rushed out of the kitchen and is trying to shove his nose at the boy in the MOST embarrassing place, and Harris is shouting ‘Down, Pongo, down!’ and jumping around as much as the dog, which of course makes the dog even more excited. Gollum meanwhile has sensibly retreated upstairs and is hissing at everyone through the banisters. I am tempted to join her.

‘So, er, hi!’ the man says, edging around Pongo and Harris. ‘I’m Rob Parker and this is my son, Finn. We’ve just moved in next door—’

‘Of
course
!’ Mum says, flapping her hands and giggling again. ‘I thought I recognized you. Not that I have been spying on you,’ she added, which made it sound as though she totally had.

‘Skye has!’ Harris pipes up. ‘I have seen her looking out of the window at you.’

Cheek! He’s the one who’s been looking over the garden fence.

‘Harris,’ I hiss. I pinch him on the back.

‘Ow! Wha’-you-do-tha’-for?’ he whines.

‘Stop it, you two,’ Mum says, fixing her features into a scary, toothy grin. She laughs again and blushes, then, holding out a hand, says, ‘I’m Hellie Green, and this is Skye and Harris. And you’ve met Pongo!’

Rob shakes Mum’s hand.

‘Skye Green,’ says Finn, and sniggers.

I scowl at him while Mum twitters, ‘Oh yes. Ha ha. We didn’t really think that one through when we named her, did we?’

‘Finn,’ says Rob, eyeballing him with a warning look.

Mum has started on my whole life story of how I was named after a Scottish island. She seems to have forgotten about going to ballroom-dancing classes. This would be a good thing if we weren’t standing in the hall with two people we don’t know, listening to stories about me.

I wonder how far into my life she will get before she thinks of offering anyone a cup of tea. Oh help, I really hope she doesn’t offer anyone a cup of tea. At this rate we’ll end up spending the rest of the evening listening to the highlights of my life. I have to stop her before she says something really embarrassing.

‘Mu-um!’ I cut in. ‘I don’t think they want to know everything about me. Especially not the whole Scottish island thing?’ I plead.

The boy sniggers again.

I take a good look at him: now that I am not having to try and get a glimpse from an upstairs window, I may as well see what Aubrey thinks is so ‘hot’ about him. Also, it is a fact that all writers observe people closely: you never know when you might be able to use something you have noticed in a story. A person’s appearance can tell you a lot about them, if you pay attention to detail.

Finn is taller than me. He is standing with his hands in his back pockets in a way that seems to say he thinks he’s really cool. He is wearing black skinny jeans and a faded black T-shirt with some kind of band logo on. So maybe Aubrey is right and he will want to be in the school band. Oh please no. Aubrey will go crazy when she finds that out.

I pray that he is
not
going to be coming to our school. Maybe he goes to the school in the next town and he’s going to stay there even though he’s moved. Maybe his dad is really rich and he goes to some posh place I’ve never heard of. Maybe – oh boy, Mum has actually mentioned the T-word. Suddenly the prospect of her having to go to ballroom-dancing class is way more inviting than having to spend the evening drinking tea with this boy and his dad.

‘Sorry about the chaos, Rob,’ Mum is saying as she leads the way into the kitchen. ‘The thing is, I was about to go out tonight – to a ballroom-dancing class, hence the outfit,’ she says.

WHY did she have to tell him that?

Rob raises his eyebrows and gives a tight smile the way people do when really they are thinking, ‘You are a mad person and I need to find a way to escape.’

‘In that case, we won’t keep you,’ Rob says. ‘We just thought we should introduce ourselves. We’ve been a bit tied up getting Finn ready for his new school and so on . . .’

‘Oh, there’s no need for you to go,’ Mum says, taking a step forward and causing Rob to step back on to Pongo. ‘I can’t go out now, as it happens – our babysitter has let us down.’

Pongo whines and scurries off to his basket.

Rob stumbles as Pongo whisks past. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry!’ he says.

Finn sniggers again.

Is that the only sound he can make, I wonder? Does he not know how to communicate with his fellow humans?

‘Don’t worry, Pongo is used to being tripped over,’ says Mum, which makes us sound like a family of animal-beaters. ‘So, what about that cup of tea?’

‘Um, OK,’ Rob says.

There is an awkward pause in the conversation while Mum fusses with mugs and tea bags and noisily fills the kettle.

Then Rob says, in a rush, ‘I was just thinking, it’s a shame about your babysitter. Tell you what,’ he says, glancing at his son. ‘Finn could hold the fort for you. He’s fourteen and he’s babysat before, haven’t you, mate? I’d be right next door,’ he adds, as if this makes it all OK.

Me, babysat by someone only just a year older? Someone my best friend thinks is ‘hot’? Someone who sniggers instead of speaking? Someone who is a BOY?

‘That won’t be necessary,’ I say, stepping forward. ‘I’m nearly thirteen. I’ve already offered to babysit Harris.’ I fix Rob with a stern look to emphasize
who
exactly is in need of the babysitting around here.

‘Oh, well, in that case,’ Rob says. ‘Looks like you’re all set to go out anyway, Hellie. Let’s leave these good people to their evening, Finn—’

‘Skye, I have told you that you are too young to babysit,’ says Mum. ‘Sorry,’ she adds, turning to Rob. ‘We were having a little . . . discussion about this just before you arrived. Skye and Harris do tend to argue, you see. I am not comfortable with them being left unsupervised.’

Rob nods. ‘Sometimes it’s better to have someone impartial around.’ He pauses and looks uncomfortable.

No one seems to know what to say. Please, just leave, I am thinking, when Rob blurts out: ‘So, Finn? What do you say?’

‘YAY!’ Harris shouts, punching the air in triumph. ‘We can play Mario together! Skye never wants to play Mario, and Milly never lets me anyway cos she always wants to watch those boring programmes on the telly about knitting and old houses.’

Rob and Mum chuckle.

Nonononono.

This is all getting way out of hand.

I pray that Finn feels as bad about the way things are going as I do. But then Mum goes and utters the magic words – words she refused to say to ME.

‘Would five pounds an hour be OK, Finn? It won’t be a late night. I’m only going to the town hall and I’ll easily be back by ten.’

I watch in horror as Finn’s eyes light up. Then he shrugs and says, ‘Guess so.’

Mum’s face goes pink with pleasure. ‘Thank you so much!’ she squeaks. ‘I will make you some popcorn quickly before I go. Oh, Rob, you are a lifesaver!’ she adds, and leans forward to squeeze his arm.

Rob’s face goes pink too, probably from having his arm squeezed by a mad woman in satin and sequins. ‘You’re welcome. Have a great time at the class. Just throw Finn back over the hedge when you’re done with him.’

‘Oh, I doubt we’ll be learning how to do “lifts” in the first lesson,’ says Mum. Then she goes into a completely over-the-top giggling routine as though she has said the most hilarious thing she has ever heard.

Rob’s face goes a deeper shade of pink and he lets out a dry chortle. He definitely thinks she’s insane now. If only she could keep her mouth shut – the outfit is bad enough, but the lame jokes only add more horror to the situation.

‘Yeah, well, you know,’ he mumbles. ‘Just kick him out when you’re ready.’

Harris lets out a ridiculous bellow of a laugh and does a kung-fu kick in the air. ‘Hi-yah!’ he shouts.

Rob shakes his head and smiles. ‘Maybe not quite like that,’ he says. Then he reaches out and ruffles Harris’s hair and Harris wriggles with pleasure.

Seems like everyone is happy about the evening’s arrangements.

Everyone except me.