Lou Out of Luck Read online

  “Right, gather round!” Dad gets his bossy voice on and we obediently cluster into a semicircle around him. “We are cleaning all the surfaces, removing all dainty ornaments, dusting the robust ones and sponging down the walls – brightening the whole place up. But then and only then do we clean the floor – LOUISE, ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME? STOP LOOKING AT YOUR PHONE! – and we go room by room. Door closed means: Not done yet. Open door means: Behold my achievements! Anything you find that you think will be suitable set-dressing for the prom, pile it in the conservatory. This includes beautiful things or hilariously ugly things, nothing too expensive because teenagers will destroy them like wild pigs. OK? Gooooooo…”

  Dad puts his hand in the middle of our semicircle. I frown at it. No one moves.

  “Please,” says Dad. Oh fine. We all put our hands on his hand and yell, “GOOOOOO, TEAM!!” then shoot our hands in the air. I think Dad has picked this up from the football club. I’m glad Cammie, Melia and Nicole aren’t here to see it. They’re helping Melia’s family with the catering. Apparently, they have a huge draughty lock-up just out of town and the Prom Committee are there all weekend getting a crash course in hospitality. Whatever that means.

  Everyone branches off to find a room to clean. I can hear Dad relaying instructions somewhere in the house, and I follow his voice. Which is hard as the house is so big it actually has an echo. I’m roaming around for ages, uncovering room after room. Each with the same familiar musty smell.

  I can hear worrying sparking noises coming from the second living room. Mum’s cousins are doing the electrics. According to her they know what they’re doing, but I’m not so sure – I can hear them playing YouTube tutorial videos.

  Dad is now in a bedroom putting forth a controversial idea. He wants to nail shut all the rooms we don’t want prom attendees to go in. Aggy isn’t sure.

  “Aggy, listen to me. They’re teenagers. Basically, undomesticated animals with push-up bras and a sense of entitlement.”

  “Dad.” Lavender emerges from a nearby room with a sponge in hand. “I am RIGHT here.”

  “I know you don’t have a sense of entitlement, pet.” Dad pats her on the head. “We haven’t got the money.”

  If he makes it to the end of the day without getting a slap, I’ll be amazed.

  I leave Dad and Gabe hammering planks to one of the bedroom doorframes so the door can’t be opened. I hope I’m within earshot when they realize they’re blocking themselves in.

  Half of us are splashing soapy water around, the other half are doing electrics. It’s a high-risk combination, so we agree to start at different ends of the house and meet in the middle. With a big electrical fire and lots of screaming.

  Aggy is such a magpie. She’s gathered loads of weird and wonderful stuff over the years from house clearances and travelling. The whole first floor is full of amazing things like suits of armour and velvet chaises longues. (I know what they are now.)

  Hannah tries to “tidy away” Aggy’s gnomes, but it turns her from gentle oddball to steely-eyed negotiator in seconds.

  “There’s one with no arms and legs and a crack in his nose,” says Hannah. “Can I get rid of that one at least?”

  “No! He’s my favourite – he has character!”

  I carry some seriously old fashion magazines out to the recycling, just in time to see Dad clambering gingerly out of a bedroom window and shuffling along the roof. For a project manager he really doesn’t think ahead.

  Later, with dust in my hair and aches in my bones, I wander to the kitchen to find Aggy and Dermot cooking pasta sauce in a pot so big I could get in it and invite a friend.

  “Where did you get the pot?” I ask, taking a seat at the kitchen table.

  “Robin, Dermot’s dad, brought it back from a jazz tour in Spain.”

  “Did you go?” I ask Dermot and he nods.

  “I’d be onstage in a papoose,” he says.

  “Do you remember that?” Angie says, surprised.

  “No,” he admits and his mum drops a kiss on his arm.

  This tender moment is ruined by my dad, very much alive and back in the house, screaming, “YOU DON’T SCARE ME!” a few floors above.

  “I think he found a spider,” I tell them and chop onions to be helpful. Which makes us all cry, but I think Aggy was heading that way anyway.

  By the end of the night I’m picking dust out of my eyelashes as I sit on the stairs, exhausted, to catch my breath. I don’t think I’ve worked that hard in a long time. Aggy brings us dinner. It’s delicious, and there’s enough food for everyone but not enough things to eat off, so I have a pint glass of hot tomato pasta and Dad has five dainty teacups full.

  As I eat, I watch Pete mucking around with Roman in the front garden, trying to hit him in the face with a filthy rag. Their breath is puffing out, visible clouds in the cold air. Pete seems in a great mood – it’s like old times again.

  I’m glad Pete is happy. For purely selfish reasons, cos I need to ask him a big favour.

  WORRY DIARY

  Why does NO ONE recognize a terrible idea when it’s staring them in the face?

  My last hope was that Uliol would realize it was emotional masochism to put his class of sensitive artistes in front of a rowdy mob of schoolkids, but…

  “Children!” He beams. “How delightful.”

  “Well…” Dermot begins.

  “Not children,” I inform the class firmly. “Our age. My age.” I gesture at us. “Bigger in some cases, and definitely louder.”

  “I think it’ll be brilliant,” says Patrice, looking enthused.

  Really? Everything I’ve tried for the last five weeks, she’s given me this unimpressed face, but somehow the thought of public humiliation gets her all twinkly-eyed?

  You’re weird, Patrice.

  Uliol is squatting on the floor, legs wide. “OK, let’s brainstorm. Dermot, is there a fee?”

  “Sorry.” Dermot gives me a glance to check, then shakes his head.

  “Fine, no glitter cannon,” says Uliol. “We’ll just have to create entertainment with our bodies and minds. Thankfully, they’re the most powerful things in the world, right, guys?”

  Everyone’s nodding as if they haven’t heard of nuclear bombs or elephants.

  We decide to do a fifteen-minute improv set. I allow myself to start breathing a little. Fifteen minutes, that doesn’t seem so long – that’s like half an episode of TV. Maybe if I wear my hair differently, no one will know it’s me.

  They’ll think it’s that other six-foot fifteen-year-old girl in our school. Terrible idea.

  “I want to perform my latest poem,” says Eli self-importantly. “It’s about the fragility of democracy in a world where media is becoming increasingly untrustworthy.”

  That’ll have the kids dancing, Eli.

  We break away into our usual groups. For all their grumbling, Eli and Patrice have stuck with me, so I can’t be that bad. And today, for the first time, Pete joins us. It’s gone from him refusing to make eye contact with me, to the two of us discussing an imaginary pineapple that I’ve brought to the vet because I think it’s not well.

  “He’s been so listless lately,” I say to Pete, who squeezes the air, miming feeling a pineapple and looking concerned.

  “Are you feeding him anything different?” he asks, seriously.

  “No,” I say, leaving a pause, then adding, “just popcorn.”

  Everyone in the group starts laughing so I demonstrate. “I poke one on each of his spikes.”

  They laugh harder and I love this! But I do wonder if 200 teenagers from school are going to find it quite as funny as we do.

  Eli reads his poem and it’s actually even worse than I thought. Excessively long – and I’m no poetry expert, but it does sound a lot like whingeing. I peek around the room and I can see quite a few people glazing over, clearly thinking about what they’re going to have for dinner but disguising it behind nods and thoughtful fingers-on-lips. Uliol looks thrilled
by it, but enthusiasm is his default mode.

  As we fetch our coats at the end of the session, I put Phase One of my plan into motion. “Hi, Pineapple Vet!” I say to Pete.

  He gives me an unamused look. Fair.

  “Um, ah, could Dermot and I get a lift home? Or, just to your home and we can walk to ours? Aggy can’t pick us up today.”

  (She can’t pick us up because I asked her not to pick us up. Cunning as a weasel, Lou P. Brown.)

  “I don’t have room, I’ve got a load of wood in the car.”

  “Wood? Why?”

  “We’re decking the garden.”

  “Oh, uh.” This isn’t going well. “Can we sit on top of the wood?”

  “No, you’ll bend it.”

  “Can we sit underneath it?”

  “Suit yourself.”

  “Ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow,” Dermot whispers from the back seat.

  The wood is in big rough planks, and every time Pete takes a corner with his usual reckless speed, it shifts, depositing jagged rows of splinters across my skin. From Dermot’s squeaks, I think we have the same problem.

  Pete seems oblivious to our pain. “Is Lavender looking forward to the awards ceremony?”

  “What?” I say, baffled. “Not particularly. Pete, can I ask you a favour?”

  “Is she nervous she’s not going to win?”

  “No! She doesn’t want to be a model. She never even entered the competition, she only stayed in it because we need the money. Hey, can I ask you a favour?”

  He turns left. Ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow. I think I’ve got a splinter on my forehead. I hope I can get it out in time for prom.

  Pete says, “I thought she’d be excited.”

  “Not really, no. Lav doesn’t like being the centre of attention. That’s more of a Ro thing.”

  “Ha. True.”

  I can see we’re nearly at Pete’s house so I have to ask my favour quickly. “Pete, will you perform with Perf Class at our prom?”

  “No way.”

  “But we need you! You used to be so cool—”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I hadn’t finished,” I say, struggling to explain myself from beneath a pile of planks. “When you were at school, everyone thought you were cool, and now you’re cool in a different way…”

  “Is that right?” he says moodily. “That’s Ro and Gabe you’re thinking of. I’m flunking a college course.”

  “Not everyone can be academic,” comes Dermot’s squashed voice from the back. Pete turns to look at him.

  “Are you academic?” he asks.

  Dermot hesitates. “Um, well…”

  “Exactly. It’s always smart people who say you don’t need to be smart.”

  “Pete,” I tell him, “I’m rubbish at school. If I ever get above a D, my family melts with pride.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. So you and me need to stick together!”

  “You’re being manipulative.”

  “Pleeeaase!!”

  Pete is now hauling planks of wood off me so I can get out of his car, and I’m resorting to desperate begging. I’m convinced that if Pete’s with us, we won’t be humiliated so badly. Everyone still remembers him as the cool guy from sixth form, with the car and the attitude. They won’t dare give us trouble if he’s onstage.

  At the very least, I’m hoping they spend fifteen minutes murmuring “Is that…? No way…? IS it…? It looks like him, but…” before they think to start heckling.

  “Nope!” says Pete cheerfully. “I am not humiliating myself for the sake of your prom.”

  “It’s not MY prom!!” I’m going to have to get that tattooed on my forehead soon.

  “Even less reason to do it,” says Pete with a wolfish grin. It starts to rain and he heads indoors with the wood. “BYE-BYE!” he says pointedly as he bangs the front door shut after him.

  I slump, pull my hood up and start walking home. Dermot catches me up, pulling a splinter out of his face. “Your plan…” he deadpans. “Does it end with you and me walking home in the rain?”

  “I want to say no,” I tell him. “But that would be a lie. I didn’t think it all the way through.”

  As we walk, I get a text from Gabe that cheers me up.

  Do you want me to come to prom with you?

  “Dermot! Steer me while I text?” He helpfully grabs my coat and pulls me away from approaching lampposts.

  It’s OK if you want to do Debating, I reply. Again, so maturely!

  Really?

  Yeah. And I mean it. It’s not like everyone has a date for prom. Hannah doesn’t, Dermot doesn’t.

  Really? You’re not just saying that and then when I don’t come to prom, you’ll be sad?

  No!

  Dots appear. He’s typing. Then they stop. Start again. Dermot pulls me hard left as I’m about to march into a postbox.

  Gabe finally replies.

  I’m thinking of dropping out of Debating Club and using you as an excuse.

  Et two, brutal!

  It’s Et tu, Bruté! You say it when someone’s betrayed you. Which I haven’t!

  Is it from The Simpsons or Shakespeare?

  Oh. My. God.

  What? Well, anyway, that. You. If the sock fits, Bruté. (Sock emoji.)

  Good grief, Lou P.

  So… I text, feigning casualness. Not enjoying Debating Club?

  Hazel’s still being a bit…

  I have to put my phone away at this point, as I’m so tempted to finish that sentence for him with some robust honesty.

  We reach the end of Dermot’s road. I wave him goodbye and then head to mine at a run, with my hands in my pockets because it is so cold! I don’t know how Dermot survives in his retro threads. I’m freezing in layers of practical knits.

  I get home to find Dad in full project management mode, taking Mum through his daily chart now we’re down to what he’s calling Crunch Point. I close the front door quietly and go hide in my room to finish my chat with Gabe.

  Difficult is the word he finally came up with.

  Yeah, I reply, wondering if my sarcasm is obvious.

  Manipulative.

  Keep ’em coming.

  Bit mean?

  Dresses like she lost a bet.

  Lou!

  Sorrynotsorry.

  So I can come to prom? If you’d still like me there.

  Sometimes words are not enough. So I send him a gif of a dog delighted by snow. Because I’m going to prom with my boyfriend! And also: I WAS RIGHT ABOUT HAZEL.

  I wander into the living room, where Mum is watching Dad dancing. Is it more or less weird that he’s in his bee costume?

  “I feel like the penultimate spin needs to—”

  “That one?” He demonstrates.

  “No, the one that starts low and – look.” She stands next to him and does a spin. “That one, I feel it could move more seamlessly into the next move? If you went anti-clockwise, your weight would be on the other foot, which would help.”

  Dad grooves slowly, pacing out his dance moves. “You know –” he takes his bee head off and twinkles at Mum – “there’s a spare costume. I could sew a little bow on it and you could—”

  “No, Mark.”

  “No, Dad,” I add from the doorway. He looks up, surprised to see me.

  “We’re on track, Lou!” he says. “With your prom.”

  “It’s not my prom!” I say for the hundredth time since Cammie turned up on our doorstep. “They’re so lucky you’re helping them.”

  Dad waves a big insect mitt at me. “I don’t do it for thanks.”

  “That’s good,” I tell him. “Cos you won’t get it. They’re very rude.”

  “Right.” Dad is now hopping around to get out of his bee trousers. Is he wearing a pair of Mum’s thick tights underneath? Actually, I don’t want to know. “I need to get to the football grounds nice and early to meet some fans,” he adds.

  He drops that in like it’s nothing.r />
  “Have you got fans, Dad?”

  “Oh it’s nothing, really. It’s more Monty than me.”

  Monty? I mouth at Mum.

  “Monty the bee,” she whispers. “He has a Facebook fan page.”

  Dad hurries out of the house. “Tomorrow, Lou, I want to talk the last week of pre-prom planning!”

  We sit watching rubbish TV together for a couple of hours. I know it’s not a great way to spend a Saturday night, but it’s hailing outside. Once your parents can’t afford to drive you places and you have to walk everywhere, you get very picky about what social plans you make.

  Two drag queens twirl around on TV. “That reminds me,” Mum says. “Aggy invited you and Lavender to try on dresses tomorrow? You have to PROMISE not to damage them, though, Lou. She needs to sell them on afterwards.”

  I think my face says how I feel about that because she gives my foot a squeeze. “We’ll pick out something dark.”

  I do the guns at her in an impression of Dad. She shakes her head. “He’s having such a nice time. Good thing your Prom Committee is…”

  “Rubbish?”

  “Yeah. Will you see if Lav wants to come tomorrow?”

  “Lav!” I call upstairs. Nothing. “I’ll go up.”

  I creep upstairs, as if I’m sneaking up on a dragon having a nap. Standing outside Lavender’s room, I give myself a little mental blow on my coach whistle. Come on, Lou. Don’t be a wimp.

  I knock on the door. I can hear her inside but she’s not answering. I poke my head in and come face-to-face with my sister, arm drawn back as if she’s about to attack me.

  “AARRGH!” I shout and she yelps the same back at me and pulls her headphones out.

  “What are you DOING?” I demand.

  “Teach Yourself Tai-Chi.”

  “Fairy nuff.” I wait for my heart to stop hammering against my ribs. “Listen, do you want to go to Aggy’s and try on some of her old dresses tomorrow? Vintage, I mean – not her old personal dresses.”

  “Yeah, I’d love to.” She winds her headphones around her phone and puts it away. “Was that Dermot’s idea? I guess you’re friends now.”