When I get home, Mum still isn’t back from the big weekly Saturday shop. Gary is cleaning the toaster and telling it off for hoarding little bits of bread. This is normal. He has a feud with the toaster. He says it’s a bad design. The toaster feels the same way about Gary but cannot talk.
Actually, I don’t think Gary is speaking to me after I damaged his robotic true love. He looks up when I come in but then goes back to cleaning. Who spends their weekend doing that? Someone with no friends who likes telling things off. Worryingly, there is no sign of McWhirter.
I go upstairs to my bedroom, and Dave comes and joins me. We are refugees from Gary “Neat Freak” Woolton’s Democratic Republic of Clean. I create crumbs. Dave sheds hair. We are the enemy.
I keep thinking about what Mum is going to say when I tell her about Dad’s. I can’t decide if she’ll be relieved or calm or …
She’s going to be cross. Who am I kidding? I try to take my mind off things. What will my new video thumbnail be? A screenshot of something I’ve watched? A photo I’ve taken? Mum’s furious, sobbing face?
Finally, I hear her coming through the front door. I take Dave downstairs. Mum is in the kitchen, flustered, and loaded with bags from Sainsbury’s. A soggy baguette is poking out of one of them, and wet carbs always put her in a REALLY foul mood.
I know I should probably wait for her to take her coat off and try to have a proper, sensible chat, but ALL the feelings EVER are rushing up from deep inside of me. I end up yelling at her so loudly that Dave the cat leaps into the air—so high that, if I’d been filming it, the video would have been a YouTube sensation: “SuperCat Scales a Building!”
“Mum! I want to go and live with Dad.”
Mum just carries on unpacking. She must have heard, but I try again just in case.
“Mum—I want to go and live with Dad! At Granddad’s house. It’s a REAL place. It has a roof. It’s FINE!”
This has been building up all summer, so surely it can’t come as a surprise.
Mum wraps the soggy baguette in a tea towel, hands it to Gary, and says, very calmly, “Of course you do, Mills. It’s like the Wild West over at your granddad’s. Your granddad tries, but you know what your dad is like. And don’t get me started on Teresa. You’d be able to do what you like, but you’re perfectly okay here. I know you think some of my rules are over the top, but turning the Wi-Fi off at night means your brain gets a rest! I’m looking after you! Protecting you! Now, stop being silly and tell me what’s really wrong.”
This makes me cross. How could she not have noticed how unhappy Gary has been making me? I try to take a deep breath, but my brain goes on heavy-rain-flood mode and my mouth gushes out all sorts of horror.
“Because, Mum, eating a custard cream in this house has become a five-stage process involving a dustpan and brush. And you DO NOT need a side plate to eat a banana! A banana is a big, solid mass. It has its own neat little container—its actual skin! It’s the most interior design–friendly fruit known to man. It loves being clean. Why are we even discussing how tidy food naturally is? See what Gary’s done to us?! And stop staring at my hand.”
I realize I’ve picked up a banana and am banging it up and down to back up every point I’m making. Fruit torture is not a good look.
Mum says, “You’re going to bruise that, Millie.”
Gary is already brandishing a newspaper just in case I make the banana fully mushy and he has to wrap it up for the bin. He can’t help himself. He then starts pretending this argument is not happening and begins what he would call a “light clean” of the kitchen units.
I don’t care. I am on a serious rant.
“Mum, I didn’t mind your study schedules or your stupid rules. Mostly, I can put up with them! BUT NO ONE CAN LIVE LIKE THIS. We used to have great times together. Now we NEVER do. You’ve changed. And you’ve always said, ‘Don’t change for anyone. Don’t change for a man.’ But that is exactly what you’ve done. You call yourself a feminist? You’re actually a sappy-dappy cheeseball love lady. You’re not my mum anymore. You’re HIS gooey girlfriend!” I point at Gary, who has frozen midpolish. “And you don’t let me decide stuff for myself, like when I do my homework or how late I stay at Lauren’s, even though I never do anything wrong. I don’t ever get to do anything my way. It always has to be your way, and it isn’t fair.”
All this is terrible, but it’s how I feel.
Gary “Neat Freak” Woolton, who is NOT my dad, shouts, “Go to your room!”
Mum, who is still my mum, says quietly, “What’s happened to my lovely, sensible, clever girl?”
I yell, “She’s in a … a coma of really fed-up!” Which is a totally rubbish response, but I’m really angry.
When I storm out of the room, I trip over McWhirter, who is probably trying to escape all the noise. It completely ruins my exit, but at least he is still alive. My aunty Teresa would call this karma. I call it further evidence of my life being ruined by cleaning equipment—vacuum sabotage. I bet Gary programmed him that way.