Now, I have to admit, by the time Mum has carried all my stuff up to my room, I’m feeling a bit cross. I’ve only been here for one night and Mum is already checking up on me.
I bet I know why she’s here. Mum reckoned I’d be ready to come home after one night. I used to hate sleepovers when I was little. So Mum thought I’d get panicky almost immediately and go back to her house in no time. Her plan has failed! I am stronger than she thinks!
I can tell that she is worried, though. She keeps walking around my new room, picking things up and putting them down again, opening and closing her mouth without a word. She looks like a music video on mute.
She tries to be nice. “Millie. If you’re going to live here, you’re going to have to make some little changes. They’re ones that you deserve! The front door needs a proper lock. You need somewhere to hang your clothes and a desk for homework. And someone needs to remove that garden gnome that’s doing you-know-what from the porch.”
I know which one she means, but I say, “I haven’t noticed it. What I have noticed is how I can walk around this house without being attacked by a mop!”
“Well,” Mum continues, “that’s partly why I’m here. After you left last night, I had a chat with Gary. He has agreed to ONLY get McWhir—the robot vacuum cleaner—out every other day. So I want you to know that he is prepared to meet you halfway on the issue that maybe, perhaps he is over-cleaning.”
“I’m not meeting anyone halfway!” I shout. Mum has ALWAYS told me that a strong woman doesn’t give in. She fights for more. So I say, “Mum. I would like to see a complete cess … cess—”
Mum interrupts me and helps me with the word: cessation.
“Yes,” I continue in, frankly, a very professional, almost-bossing-the-entire-situation way. “A complete cessation of the robot-hoover issue.”
Mum looks sadly at me. “Well, Millie, that’s not going to happen. Nor should it. Gary is trying. I’m trying. So should you. That’s what ADULTS do.”
The old Millie would have just shut up and done as she was told. But this is not old Millie. This is NEW Millie. Independent Millie. RESURGENT Millie (stole that from a film). RESURGENT MILLIE AHOY! And THIS Millie can fight back.…
“Well, MUM. I AM in a house full of adults, and THEY actually act like grown-ups rather than supercontrolling crazed people!”
At that moment, we both hear Dad shout from the kitchen, “Teresa! We cannot start using paper plates just because you don’t want to spoil your Halloween nails by doing the washing-up. I don’t care how long it took to do the vampire bat. Anyway, it’s SEPTEMBER! It’s TOO EARLY. Even for YOU!”
Mum only has to look at me and say, “You’ll always have a room at my house, Millie. Come home.”
It’s scary and annoying. Mum can read me like a psychic. She can see that all this Dad-based chaos is actually quite hard to deal with.
Mum flounces out in a dazzle of Lycra. My mum rocks gym gear. She rocks everything.
She is totally magnificent and everything I would like to be. I can’t tell her that, though. I’m too upset.
Downstairs, things have escalated. Teresa is claiming that you can scrub the bath by just having a bath when you are already clean and “rolling about a bit.”
Wherever I live, cleaning causes problems.
I put some TV on and doze. It’s all been a bit much. Too much emotional stuff makes me sleepy. Especially if I’m wearing a duvet.
When I wake up, I check my phone and squeal loud enough to make a dog deaf.