Half an hour later, Dad tells me it’s time to leave the house. Mum can sneak off once we’ve gone, after we’ve made anyone watching the house follow us instead of her.
I feel a bit sick. What if I mess it up and the enemy spies realise I’m not really my mum? What if I put her into even more danger? What if these high heels cut off the circulation in my feet and I’m never able to play football again?
At the door, Dad hands me a tiny pink tube.
‘What’s that?’ I ask the question even though I know the answer because he can’t be serious.
‘Your mum doesn’t wear much make-up but she does wear lip gloss,’ Dad says. ‘So you have to too.’
I stare at the pink tube in my hand.
‘Come on, we need to get on the road,’ Dad says. ‘Your mum needs us to be seen out and about so that attention’s drawn off her own trip.’
I take a deep breath and decide to count what I’m about to do as Mum’s birthday present – for the next twenty years. I unscrew the cap and pull out the little stick with the sponge on the end that’s covered with nasty, gloopy, pink goo. I raise it to my mouth and shudder as I smear it across my lips.
‘Ew, it smells of strawberries!’ I put the stick back in the tube as fast as I can and hand it back to my dad. ‘It’s disgusting.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Dad laughs. ‘You love strawberries!’
‘Not mashed up and slimed all over my mouth I don’t,’ I tell him.
Dad shakes his head. ‘Here, put on the Voice Over, it’s time to go.’ He hands me the necklace.
I slip it around my neck, deciding that I’m going to be really, really quiet until this is over.
‘And don’t forget this,’ Dad says, picking up a handbag like Mum’s from the floor and dropping the lip gloss into it.
I forget my resolve not to speak. ‘Do I have to carry that?’ my mum’s voice says.
Dad sighs. ‘Look, Josie, I know this isn’t fun for you, but it really is important.’
I nod. I know it’s important.
It’s also hideous.
* * *
It’s one thing walking across a room in high heels. It’s something else completely trying to do it outside. For one thing, our living room floor is completely flat but the path outside our house isn’t. There are little holes and uneven stones everywhere. It’s like trying to walk on stilts across a giant slice of Swiss cheese.
I can’t believe grown-up women wear these things all the time! It should be against the law to put your feet in this much pain.
I manage to make it to the car without falling over by walking really, really slowly. I start to open the rear door when Dad clears his throat loudly. ‘Ah, where are you going, Zelia?’
Oops. I forgot Mum doesn’t sit in the back. I move round to the front passenger seat and get inside. The visor is down and I catch sight of my mouth in the mirror – ugh.
Dad starts the car. ‘Just sit up straight and keep calm and this will go fine,’ he says.
That’s easy for him to say. He’s not wearing a padded bra and toe-torturing heels. He hasn’t got Strawberry Eww Gunk all over his mouth. And he’s not holding a HANDBAG.
Fifteen minutes later we pull up outside the supermarket.
‘What are we stopping for? I thought we were just going to drive around a bit?’
Dad pulls at his ear. ‘Um, yeah. Afraid there’s been a change of plan.’
‘What change?’
Dad jumps, as if it really is Mum speaking. I guess the Voice Over gadget has some uses. I can make Dad nervous by sounding like Mum when she’s really cross!
‘HQ want to make sure that if we are being watched, we keep the enemy spies off your mum’s tail for as long as possible,’ Dad says. ‘So they wanted us to take our time about getting back and be seen doing unsuspicious things. Like shopping.’
Oh great. Not only have I been put into the universe’s worst spy disguise ever, but now I have to hike around in these heels looking at vegetables.
‘It’ll be simple,’ Dad says. ‘We’ll do a quick walk round the supermarket, buy some bread and milk and then we’ll go home.’
‘Quick’ and ‘walk’ are not words that go together when you’re wearing heels. In these things it’s more like ‘slow’ and ‘hobble’.
‘Remember,’ Dad goes on, ‘Stay calm and try not to draw too much attention to yourself. We want to be noted, not noticed.’
‘Right.’ I’ve decided to keep to one-word answers as much as possible while I’m wearing the Voice Over. That should keep me out of trouble.
The tarmac covering the car park at least makes walking to the supermarket a bit easier than walking to the car at home was. But as soon as we’re in through the doors, I have the opposite problem – the supermarket floor is so smooth it’s like an ice rink!
As we’re walking past the celery, my right foot makes a bid for freedom and slides forward. I reach out to grab something and clutch the first thing I reach – an onion. But the onion is at the bottom of the pile and now all the other onions decide they’re coming along for the ride. There’s kind of an onion avalanche.
So now I’m doing the semi-splits in a pile of escaped vegetables.
I think people might be noticing me.
But Dad’s not a top trained spy for nothing. He swoops down with a trolley and puts my hands on top of the bar. ‘Go,’ he hisses.
I use the trolley to get my balance back and steer a course through the onions.
Dad waves a supermarket assistant over as I move away. ‘Sorry! I seem to have upset your lovely vegetable display. Huge apologies.’
The assistant looks a bit annoyed but comes over and starts picking up the onions.
‘I’d help but my wife and I are on quite a tight schedule,’ Dad says.
My wife – he means me!
I push faster with the trolley. The sooner we’re out of here and back home the better. I never thought I’d feel impatient to get back to being Josie, but being Mum is about a thousand times worse.
Dad catches up to me as I turn into the confectionary aisle. ‘We definitely need to get you more walking practice,’ he says quietly.
‘I’m not going to have to do this a lot, am I?’ I stop pushing the trolley. He’s talking like this disguise is going to be long-term. There is no way I’m doing this on a regular basis!
‘No, no,’ Dad says quickly. ‘But we can’t afford any kind of drama when we do go out.’
‘Sorry,’ I tell him.
I can’t help wondering if messing up my Mum Disguise will make HQ reconsider letting me go back to being a boy. I’m so stressed that I start reaching for a family-sized pack of my favourite chocolate.
‘You don’t like chocolate, remember, Zelia?’ Dad puts his hand on the bag and shoots me a warning look.
‘Yes, but Josie does, remember?’ I tell him, giving him my best impression of Mum’s laser stare.
Dad takes his hand off the bag of chocolate. ‘Oh yes, so she does.’
‘I think Josie deserves a treat, don’t you?’ I say.
Dad nods slowly. ‘Yes, okay then. As long as she doesn’t overdo it.’
‘She won’t,’ I say, putting the chocolate into the trolley. What does Dad expect? There has to be some kind of perk for putting me through this.
We manage to get round the rest of the aisles without me either:
1. Falling over
2. Making anything else fall over.
But at the checkout, there’s a big stack of magazines and I completely forget who I am – or who I’m supposed to be.
‘Footballer’s Weekly! With a feature on Santos!’ I grab the magazine and hold it out to Dad. ‘Can I get it, Da–’ I break off as I see the expression on Dad’s face. I nearly called him ‘Dad’! I’m supposed to be Mum! Quick, think!
‘Uh, can I get it, dear? For Josie? You know how she loves Santos …’
Dad takes the magazine and puts it on the rack. ‘I think Josie’s had enough treats for one day, dear. We don’t want her forgetting what she’s supposed to be concentrating on, do we?’
‘No,’ I say. ‘I guess not.’
Though there’s not really much fear of me forgetting what I’m supposed to be concentrating on for more than a second when my feet are in AGONY.
We finally get back home without any more slip-ups and I’m out of the Mum Disguise in seconds. I flip the heels off my feet and wince over to the sofa, flinging the Voice Over down onto the cushions.
‘Thank goodness that’s off,’ I say.
‘Be careful not to break it,’ Dad says, rushing over and picking up the Voice Over carefully as if it’s a precious relic. ‘Remember that you’ve got another stint as your mum tomorrow after school and you might have to speak. The disguise won’t work if you sound like you.’
‘I might sound like me anyway,’ I say, thinking of how I’d nearly called him ‘Dad’ in the supermarket. ‘I’m rubbish at being Mum.’
‘Don’t worry, you’ll get better at it,’ Dad says.
I’m not sure getting better at pretending to be my mum is one of my life goals.