OH MY GOSH. Carrie has been chucked out of Mayflower Sixth Form Center of Excellence.
Mr. Bumbleclot has finally snapped and terminated her pupil contract. He simply refuses to believe Carrie was off on Thursday and Friday due to the Ministry of Agriculture running tests to see if her sore throat was the human strain of Taiwanese bird flu.
“A laughable history of preposterous lies and excuses”—that’s how our headmaster described Carrie’s general attendance in his letter to Barney Draper. (It’s harsh, but sort of true.)
Well, Barney Draper has hit the bloody roof. He’s gone totally 110 percent radio-rental-mental-shouting-and-screaming-kkkkrrraazy. He’s gone that sort of mental your mum and dad go when you know if they could actually get away with walloping you they’d just bloody do it, ’cos you’ve pushed them so far that they’re just standing there shouting like loonies and they’re not even making sense at times and their eyes are so big you actually think “crapping hell they’re going to have a heart attack and I don’t know any first aid.”
That sort of mental.
My mum used to get like that all the time with Cava-Sue. Well, until Cava-Sue started living 5,000 miles away and then all of a sudden my mother rewrites history with Cava-Sue as some sort of saint, and not someone who is basically getting drunk in bars across Australia and passing it off as “world exploration.”
So anyway, Carrie calls me this morning at 8:30AM crying her eyes out going, “That pig Bamblebury has chucked me out of Sixth Form! My dad is doing his nut! Come over and save me!” So I pull on my hoodie and my jeans and get over to Draperville and the electric gates are stood open for some reason so I wander in and right away I hear ONE HELLUVA bloody fight going on and I follow the noise round to the swimming pool and there’s Maria Draper standing on the terrace wearing a beige velour tracksuit and pink flip flops with Alexis their chihuahua under her arm, shouting, “Will the two of you bloody get inside now! The neighbors can hear every word!”
So I look over by the pool and there’s Carrie in her nightie standing on top of a patio table underneath the pool cabana screaming at Barney Draper, “I hate you! I hate you! I wish I’d never been born! You don’t know who I am! You think you do but you don’t! Get away from me, you bloody pig!” And Barney is there in his work clothes: trackie bottoms, old Lacoste T-shirt, and tool belt, shouting, “And you can get down off that table too before you break it! You spoiled little brat! Where do you think this all comes from? Do you think it grows on trees! No, I work day and night! Day and bloody night! And I built this whole place up from scratch! I had nothing when I was your age! NOTHING! Not a bloody pot to piss in! I’ve worked my arse off for TWENTY BLOODY YEARS for you and your mother! Now look at you, you lazy little brat! You could have all of this on a plate! But you don’t want it! Oh no! All you had to do was get some qualifications then it was yours! But you don’t want to work! You make me sick!”
Then Carrie, whose face is bright red, shouts, “OH, SHUT UP! Shut up! You stupid bloody man! I hate you! I don’t want any of this! I didn’t ask for any of this! And I’m not bloody interested in running a Jacuzzi installation bloody business! I don’t want it! It’s boring! You can’t make me be something you want me to be, you bloody headbending, brainwashing weirdo! I should get social services on you! You won’t let me be who I want to be! I just want to be me! I don’t need you and your head-control!”
So Barney’s laughing now, but not funny laughing, angry laughing, ‘Oh, you don’t want none of this, do you?!” he’s shouting. “Do you!?? You don’t want your allowance? You don’t want the widescreen TV in your room and your iPod and your gym membership and that running tab I keep settling at Cheeky’s Vertical Tanning Salon and the bags full of designer outfits I seem to keep paying for! You don’t want me being your bloody ATM, do you!? I should get a fizzing key-pad fitted to my chest! You’re a little leech! If you don’t want none of this then pack your bags! Go and stand on your own two feet!”
So Carrie screams, “Oh, don’t worry about it! I will! I’m leaving now! I’m going to live at Shiraz’s house!”
Then she jumps off the pool cabana table and storms upstairs and packs a wheelie suitcase full of clothes and leaves Draperville, slamming the front door. As I write this, she’s having a nap in Cava-Sue’s old room.
My mother says Carrie’s welcome to stay until things calm down. Or until she realizes that our house has no swimming pool facilities or in-room TV. Whichever is soonest.