The reason I didn’t call no one yesterday when I got my results was ’cos to be honest I didn’t want the hassle.
But I get home tonight to find Cava-Sue has organized a special dinner round at our house for the family and invited Nan and Wesley. Cava-Sue even went to the supermarket and got me one of them cakes where they use their computer to stick your face on the front which was proper sweet of her even if she had taken my old school photo from Year Eight where I’ve got my hair scraped back and a big spam forehead going on and a bit of a cross-eye and I look like a mental.
So I walk in the house and Nan and her mate Clement are in the living room drinking tea. Nan and Clement go everywhere together these days since their other mate Gill died proper sudden this year. I reckon they like seeing each other every day to make sure one of them can’t go and cark it when the other one’s not looking. Clement is a well funny old dude. He comes from the West Indies and he has this proper thoughtful way of saying everything like he knows a little bit about everything in the world. He always wears a hat. He’s about eighty or something. He loves cakes. That’s all I know about Clement really.
“So I hear we have a genius in our midst, young Shiraz!” Clement says when he sees me.
“Oh, not really,” I say to him. “I dunno how I did it really. Proper fluke it was I reckon.”
“Don’t be daft!” says my Nan. “She’s always been sharp as a tack this girl! ’Ere, Diane? Do you remember when she tried to donate our Murphy to the school’s swap meet? Oh my life! I laughed and laughed.”
“Nan, I was only seven,” I said.
“Oh, but it was pure comedy,” Nan said proper chuckling. “Your teacher said bring in stuff from home you’re sick of and you don’t want no more! So you tried to give ’em Murphy! You don’t miss a trick, you!”
My mum walked in the living room then, carrying a teapot, still wearing her work uniform, laughing her head off.
“So I gets a call from the school, Clement,” she says. “Saying ’ere Mrs. Wood your Shiraz in Primary Three has got your Murphy out of his Primary One class and she’s sat him on a chair in the assembly hall with a price tag on his neck and he’s doing his nut crying and had an accident in his trousers!! Oh, I shouldn’t laugh but it were funny, bless ’em!”
“I weren’t laughing,” Murphy said proper grumpily ’cos he was trying to watch a Regis and Kelly rerun. Me and Murphy have both heard this story so many times now we could sing it like a song.
In the kitchen Cava-Sue and Lewis were sticking Iceland mini-sausages on sticks and pushing them in a melon to make a porcupine.
Next up my Wesley arrives and he’s only gone and been to Kay in Ilford mall and got me a passing my exams pressie! It was a big gold heart-shaped locket on a chain with room for two photos.
“The woman in the shop says you gotta put me on one side and you on the other side and then when it’s shut we’ll always be kissing, innit,” Wesley told me.
“Aw, isn’t that smashing?” said my mum, looking at it proper jealously.
“Thanks, babe, you’re a star,” I said to Wesley.
I couldn’t stop staring at it ’cos it was well big. Even bigger than Uma Brunton-Fletcher’s clown pendant. Ginormous.
At that point Dad got back from work so we were all allowed to start eating. ’Cept we couldn’t ’cos Cava-Sue wanted to make a speech, ’cos ever since she did that AS-Level in Theater Studies she can’t do nothing without it turning into a big show.
“I just wanted to say on behalf of everyone,” said Cava-Sue, clinking a glass with a spoon, “How proud of our Shiraz we all are that she’s passed so many GCSEs! Shiz, I think you’ve got a really amazing future ahead of you. So here’s to you! Cheers!”
Cava-Sue raised up her glass of Peach Lambrella wine.
“Cheers!” shouted everyone and we clinked our glasses together.
If we’d all just said goodnight then and gone our individual ways then we might have avoided the fight.
“So what’s the plan now, Shiraz, is it next stop Downing Street?” said Clement, who was tucking into a piece of cake with my nose printed on it.
“Oh well, dunno really,” I said to him, though I did know really. I was proper faking it.
“Yeah you do, Shiz,” jumped in Cava-Sue. “You’re going back to Sixth Form!”
“She’s what?” said my mother. “No she ain’t! She’s got a job!”
Cava-Sue tutted well loudly. “Shiraz ain’t got a proper job, Mum! She works at Mr. flaming Yolk!” she said, and she poked me in the arm well hard. “Shiz, have you not told Mother what you’re doing?”
“Well I didn’t know what I was doing!” I moaned.
“Well you do now,” said Cava-Sue. “You’re doing Sixth Form! You can’t just stop now. You wanna get a proper education!”
Murphy and Wesley started to try to leave the room.
“Oh, bleeding wonderful!” said Mum, pointing at me. “Another one of my kids farting about after school instead of earning a living!”
Cava-Sue looked annoyed then.
“I was NOT farting about!” shouted Cava-Sue, “I took bloody AS-Levels in Theater Studies and General Studies. I passed them both too! I was in London when the results came so NO ONE THREW ME A PARTY!”
“Oh well, that may be, Cava-Sue!” shouted Mum, “But I thought you were doing them exams so you’d get an important job afterward and earn some cash! But you ain’t got jack! Just floating about from one thing to the next! I’m still footing the bill!”
“Right! Come on,” said Nan. “We’ve all had a drink! Let’s just pipe down!”
We’d only had bleeding half a bottle of Peach Lambrella between nine of us!
“Me and Lewis are going traveling!” shouted Cava-Sue, pointing at Lewis, who was trying to hide behind the sausage porcupine. “That’s why we’re not starting our careers yet! And to be quite frank, Mother, it ain’t all about getting a proper flashy job anyway. What about education just for education’s sake!? What about just bettering your brain!?”
Mum looked well hacked off now.
“Well, my brain is fine thank you and I didn’t do any of these AS level thingies!” shouted my mum, “I got myself a job the very second I could. I wasn’t even sixteen! I was fifteen! Clive, the manager at Edmund Bosworth Bookies—God rest his mortal soul—had to pay me out of the petty cash float ’cos I was too young to legally work! But I was on the doorstep at 8AM every day and I went there with PRIDE.”
“Oh really, Mother?” sighed Cava-Sue proper snarky like. “Do tell me that again. I’ve only heard it EIGHT MILLION NINE HUNDRED AND TWELVE TIMES since I was born.”
Suddenly, I had to say what was burning up in my head, ’cos it was dying to get out.
“LOOK, EVERYONE! SHUT UP A MINUTE,” I shouted. Everyone shut up and looked at me. “I WANNA GO BACK TO SIXTH FORM, RIGHT! I WANNA DO SOME A-LEVELS!”
No one said anything. They all stared at me with their gobs open. Mum just pursed her lips. My dad gave me a wink. I could see him trying not to smile.
When I got home from Mr. Yolk the next day I went in my room and Dad was fitting together a desk in the corner. It’s only a little one from Target with a fold-up chair, but it’s a proper place for me to study.
Ha! “A proper place for me to study.”
Oh my days, listen to me, I am such a flaming boffin.