“Dinner’s ready,” called Mum the instant I opened the front door. “Larissa and Beth are off to an end-of-school party so just set the table for the three of us.”
“Can I make a super quick phone call first? Pleasepleaseplease?” I was busting to tell Maz about Josh coming into Say Cheese and to get her opinion on the whole did-he-need-change-or-was-it-an-excuse-to-talk-to-me situation.
Mum was unmoved by my grovelling. “You can call Maryanne after we eat. Your dad’s starving and if this chook stays in the oven any longer it’ll have third-degree burns.”
I started eating the moment my plate hit the table, determined to finish fast so I could call Maz. Mum put down her knife and fork and made the don’t-mind-me-it’s-only-cancer sigh she reserves for when she thinks I’m being (her words) a selfish brat.
“Al,” said Dad. “Your mum’s gone to a lot of trouble to make a nice dinner for us after a long day at work. You could at least chew it.”
I was about to point out the irony of him making the comment while I was, in fact, chewing, but Larrie chose that moment to make her grand entrance. Beth hovered behind her.
Dad whistled through his teeth. “You two look gorgeous.”
And of course Larrie did. She was wearing a sixties-style minidress that showed off her long, slim legs, and loads of black eyeliner. Beth, on the other hand, was channelling the love child of Pugsley Addams and Velma from Scooby-Doo – complete with knee socks. I wondered whether the real reason Larrie hung around with her was to appear even more stunning by comparison.
Mum wrinkled her nose. “Is that dress second-hand?”
“It’s vintage, Mum. We found it in an amazing little op shop in the city this afternoon. Don’t you love it?”
“This afternoon?” Mum’s nose reached maximum wrinkle density. “You mean you haven’t even washed it?”
“Relax, Colette,” said Dad. “I’m sure the shop washes everything before they sell it. And it really suits you, Larrie. Goes perfectly with the Twiggy haircut.”
Now it was Dad’s turn to score a tight-lipped glare from Mum, who still hadn’t forgiven Larrie for cutting her waist-length hair into a short, pixyish style without consulting her. She turned back to Larrie. “What’s wrong with the wardrobe full of clothes you never wear any more?”
And they were off. While Larrie told Mum that she had her own style these days, and Mum said that she didn’t want people to think that Larrie had to buy second-hand stuff, and Dad kept his eyes on his plate so he couldn’t be accused of taking sides, and Beth looked like she wanted the floor to open up and swallow her, I shovelled the last of my salad into my mouth, muttered, “May I be excused?” under my breath and headed for my room, taking the cordless phone with me.
I pushed a pile of clothes off the bed to make room to lie down. My now-solid school uniform landed with a thunk on a pile of old magazines I’d used for a collage assignment a couple of weeks ago, and sent the empty cup that had been perched on top of them flying. Personally, I don’t subscribe to Mum’s “tidy room, tidy mind” theory. If you ask me, people who keep their rooms immaculate do it because a) they’re avoiding something they don’t want to do and cleaning is an acceptable form of procrastination, or b) they’ve got nothing else to occupy their time because they have no life. Besides, I do enough cleaning in the rest of the house; I should be allowed to keep my own space how I want it. That’s not how Mum sees it though, especially if she comes into my bedroom straight after being in Larrie’s, with its alphabetised bookshelf and spotless desk.
Maz answered on the second ring. “What took you so long? I’ve been waiting hours to hear what happened this afternoon!”
“Well,” I said, wanting to string her along for a while before getting to the exciting bit. “It was a pretty typical tasting: the usual middle-aged mums stuffing their faces and whingeing to each other about their cellulite, and their husbands talking smugly about how much the Kingston property market went up in the last quarter. Oh, and Josh Turner came in to get–”
“Not at work, after school! Don’t tell me you’ve already forgotten being set upon by a gang of wild youths?”
“Oh. That. It was just Mitch.”
“I know!” Maz gushed. “I saw it from the detention room. I wanted to rescue you, but Morales wouldn’t let me come down until I’d finished my essay on why punctuality is the cornerstone of civilisation.”
“If you already know then what are you waiting for me to tell you?”
“Come on, Al! If I was the centre of a muck-up day prank by the hottest group of guys in school, I’d share all of the gory details with you. That’s what friends do.”
She had a point. But after the excitement of my encounter with Josh, Mitch and Co. seemed like a distant memory, and not nearly as interesting.
“There’s not much to tell. They sprayed me with water pistols and threw flour at me. It lasted about five seconds and then Larrie came along and pulled her school-president act. You’d think she’d take it down a notch on her last day of school, but no.”
“Look on the bright side,” said Maz, who claims there’s a bright side to everything, “in four more weeks Larrie’s out of Whitlam forever.”
“Three weeks and six days,” I corrected her. “And then I can stop being Larrie’s little sister once and for all.”
The sound of the front door slamming told me that Larrie had stormed out in her usual melodramatic fashion. There’d been so much door slamming in our house since she started Year Twelve that some of the hinges were coming loose. I took the phone to the window and watched her and Beth walk down the driveway. From the way she was stabbing the air with her finger, I figured Larrie was on a bender about Mum. Beth’s long-suffering expression was not unlike the one Mitch used to get when Larrie was moaning to him about how bad she had it.
“Allison, come and clear the table. Right now!” screeched Mum from the other side of my closed door.
“Sounds like trouble’s brewing at the Old Miller Place,” said Maz. “You’d better go before that vein above your mum’s left eye starts throbbing.”
Three weeks and six days, I repeated to myself as I stacked the dishwasher.
Al Miller is counting down to freedom.