A Bended Family Read online

A Bended Family

  “What’s a bended family?”

  I wasn’t tuned in for the explanation, because what Kitty had just said sounded so much more apt. To suggest that we blended seemed gross – if you blend two families, you get this yucky mix of pureed people. We weren’t quite at that stage yet. It really did feel like we were bending this way and that to accommodate Harry, Aimee and Fisty.

  A Bended Family

  Dillie Dorian

  Copyright 2006-2013 Dillie Dorian

  Oops! Did I Forget I Don’t Know You?

  Double Dates (& Single Raisins)

  While Shepherds Washed My Socks

  Coming soon:

  Sitting Down Star Jumps

  Now, Maybe, Probably

  Was He The Queen?!

  Not Zebedee!

  And many more…

  https://www.dilliedorian.co.uk

  Contents:

  #0 Preambling Note To Shells

  #1 Meating The Robinsons

  #2 The Self-Explanatory, Unexplainable Prospect

  #3 Itsy-Bitsy, Tiny-Whiny, Nasty-Vibey…

  #4 Peanut-Butter Jelly-Worm

  #5 Imaginary Futures

  #6 8 Simple Rules For Dealing With Space-Alien Stepsisters

  #7 Fishing Out The Wedding Tackle

  #8 Wibbly Invitations & Widdly Spying

  #9 A Woman On Her Own

  #10 Devon Magenta, Scarlett O’Hara

  #11 Kay & Everyone, Sitting In A Tree…

  #12 Off-Pink

  #13 Something Filched, Someone Blue

  #14 A Circus In My Mind

  #15 Return Of The Mini-Dice Hairbands

  #16 Goodbye, Dog-Slobbered Dreams

  #0 Preambling Note To Shells

  Dear Shelley + Assorted Prying Aussies

  The last two weeks have been mortifying, and my shoulder to cry on has shrivelled right back into its misshapen body. Along with my privacy, and that thing Zak calls “street cred”.

  I’ve slipped up here to my room to write this, ’cause Aimee’s downstairs, flicking from music channels to soaps to sitcoms, multitasking and getting the general gist (somehow) of every song / argument / mickeytake on the new(ish) plasma TV (with Sky!!) that she and Harry brought with them.

  The sudden contrast between pop music (MTV), arguing in Manchesterese (Hollyoaks), and friendly squabbling (8 Simple Rules), all of which I can hear from our room, is doing my head in. (Is this what people with 3268342896382 TV stations are used to??)

  Not that I’m taking it for granted that we’re not on benefits of any sort for the first time in my life! It’s just that the same old repeats of the same old episodes all weekend begin to shed their appeal. What must it feel like to grow up thinking this is normal? I couldn’t possibly lose touch with the charts or this week’s soapy story arc even if I tried. Unless I seal the gap in my door and blare an elderly Steps album on repeat, it is practically like I’m being stalked by media, with this house breathing comedy, tragedy and news updates in my ear as I lie in on a Sunday.

  With the current noise traffic all down to America (the person and the place), you might ask yourself “Where’re Zak, Charlie and Kitty?” – my real brothers and sister. So I’ll tell you: Zak’s got himself a girlfriend, Charlie hasn’t got a girlfriend any longer (for reasons I’ll let on later, on account of actually he’s had two in the last month!), and Kit’s having dinner at her boyfriend’s house and most likely watching the perpetually sticky Matty teach his little brother Luke to stuff ketchup-covered fish phalanges up his nose.

  I’m sitting here in my sister-free, brother-free, boyfriend-free bedroom, writing this out so you can hear all about when Mum and Harry got hitched, the circus came to town, and Chantalle’s small secret about her latest crush got out – believe me, you do want to know!

  PTO (i.e. please turn over)

  Harley.

  #1 Meating The Robinsons…

  The date: Saturday the 5th of November.

  The place: sitting in Harry’s expensive people-carrier with the stereo turned right up, but nobody really listening. I could tell, ’cause Kitty normally sings along to whatever song, whether she knows the words or not (usually not), and Zak and Charlie always secretly love whatever’s put on (even “The Wheels On The Bus”), but still try to keep face and argue over their respective urges to hear rap and rock.

  Kitty was not listening to the stereo. Instead, she was fiddling with her hair and her Bratz doll’s hair simultaneously, and I could foresee them getting tangled up in a minute. But hey, I thought. If that’s how she deals with nerves, then I can always brush (or cut) the knots out later. I realised that my own hair needed a trim.

  Zak was not listening to the stereo, because he was plugged into his trusty, dog-modified mp3 player, occasionally muttering a semi-offensive lyric or two. Charlie was not listening either. He was making guitar sounds under his breath, and drumming his fingers on the car window. Of all the nervous tics, Charlie had to get the irritatingest.

  Mum was busy craning her neck to gaze into Harry’s eyes, which must’ve been difficult, not to mention uncomfortable for him, since he was driving. The reason that I was ignoring the perfectly good DAB that was filling the car was because I was trying so hard to force interest in my family around me, to ward off the nerves.

  Of course, if you hadn’t bothered reading the other painstakingly scrawled account / were suddenly stricken with spontaneous amnesia / already forgot who I am, you need to know:

  1) Harry is Mum’s boyfriend. She’s pregnant by him, and they are getting rush married in about a fortnight.

  2) We are on our way to meet Harry’s daughter – our new stepsister – for the first time. A bit late in my eyes, as with a wedding on the way it’s a bit late to pull out of the enforced stepsister blind date.

  As I dithered, we pulled up outside a two-bed house on the nice(r) side or town. Harry leant back to issue a warning. “I’m sure you know all about this, but we do have a dog, and she’s not brilliant with strangers.”

  Honestly? No. Our two had never been any problem around other people. Yet as I hauled myself out of the car in the Robinson driveway, I couldn’t hear barking. Harry must have been a far more successful dog trainer than any of us. Still, I imagined a huge, whopping Rottweiler bounding out of the door.

  “Aimee!” Harry yelled, sticking his head around the now-unlocked front door. “Grab Fisty! I do not want her in the road again!”

  Fisty sounded like a right punk name for a dog. She had to be a big one. That made me wonder what sort of stepsister I was actually getting. There’d been loads of versions in my head – girly, tomboy, chavvy, posh, goth, geek, fashionista, ADHD…

  “Oops, sorry; she slipped through my legs(!)” came a bitchy British accent from somewhere inside the house. Could still be a Pitbull, I thought, bracing myself to protect Kitty.

  It was then that a Chihuahua burst from behind the door, a miniature feather boa trailing from where it was tucked into her collar. She tore into the street, but I just caught her (fake) diamond encrusted pink collar before she made it to the curb.

  “Quit it! You’re strangling her!” went the voice again, behind me.

  I turned, wibbly with nerves, and made first eye contact with the girl. I’d known to expect a Year 11, but the rest had proven unguessable – America stood slightly taller than me, in unseasonable white denim cutoffs and a pink tummy tee that read: “Diamonds are forever, and so is Daddy’s credit card!”

  I pictured the horror that would be Rachel if ever the two should meet – a rival slogan collection was to be expected from anyone who would go around wearing that. Nervously, I realised her pink dolly shoes, false eyelashes and thick peach foundation. Her gold necklace that said “America”.
It didn’t look like a souvenir, either – more a carefully crafted piece of designer jewellery.

  The heat hit me as Harry led us into the pristine sitting room. Their whole house was like a sauna. “Sorry it’s so hot in here,” he withered. “Aimee insists on dressing for summer all year round.”

  It was mind-boggling. At our house, if all you could find was a T-shirt and shorts, you spent your day huddled under the bedcovers. You wore a duvet down to dinner. Anything but turning the heating up!

  Me and Charlie both grabbed the sofa at the same time. He put his feet up on my armrest, unwashed Bart Simpson socks in the icky vicinity of my nose. Kitty clambered onto Mum’s lap, interrupting her embrace with Harry on the other sofa. This was a household with two sofas! Two uncomfortably warm leather sofas.

  America just scowled from the doorway. Zak scowled back. She stuck her nose up at him, as if to say that it didn’t matter if our little sister was seven, seventeen, or seventy-seven – she wasn’t getting any fatherly love from Harry, ’cause it was all reserved for her. If fifteen-year-old Aimee saw a seven-year-old as a threat, she really must have been the spoilt brat her too-short T-shirt implied.

  “Come and join us, Aims,” said Mum, breaking the silence. The two had met before, and I got the idea that where America could just about stand the thought of her dad having a girlfriend, the package deal of four stepsiblings and a half on the way did not appeal.

  “Rather not,” she sighed back, as if the whole experience of meeting us filled her with absolutely no emotion. She was just bored.

  Fisty staggered back into the sitting room, dragging behind her a rubber lamb chop designed for a rather bigger dog. Aimee scooped up the Chihuahua as if she were holding a baby, and nuzzled into her obnoxiously. She appeared about a boulevard nicer in an instant. “Aww, babes, did the big mean girl try to strangle you?” she cooed, adjusting Fisty’s collar and pouting.

  “’Scuse me!” Zak exploded, indignantly from his armchair. “Harley didn’t strangle Fisty; she saved her life. Without her, your dog’d be roadkill.”

  Charlie and I had a simultaneous shudder at the thought of this poor, innocent pet being run down. Whatever kind of attitude earned her that name, Fisty didn’t deserve that any more than she deserved to be tinned inside this sweltering house with what appeared to be a posh, housebound chav.

  Mum grimaced. “Thanks for that, Zak.”

  Fisty scrambled down from America’s arms, and rushed to get her chop, which she then resumed pulling along the carpet in Harry’s direction. We sat in awkward silence until she reached her destination, when he took the toy from her mouth and threw it back out into the hall. Fisty scampered after it, no doubt to drag it back again.

  “Yewwwww, Dad! Stop giving her the gross toy! Throw the bunny rabbit or the ball instead!” Aimee paused, pouted, and added: “Why does she only play with the stuff you buy her?”

  “Aimee,” Harry sighed. “What do you think of the Hartleys?”

  It was an odd question. We hadn’t introduced ourselves in any way, yet he spoke as casually as if he’d asked if she liked The Simpsons.

  “I think, how could you fall for someone so frumpy? None of her kids seem to know what a hairbrush is!”

  “Aimee, cupcake,” he replied, so annoyingly casually that you’d think she’d just slagged off his new socks. “This is the woman I’m marrying, and like it or not, these guys are going to be our family from now on.”

  Charlie groaned next to me. Maybe ’cause of the over-cool generalisation of “guys”, but more likely at the prospect of having to share a home with America. He began to drum his fingers on the coffee table in front of us, and Zak gave him a look.

  I didn’t like where this was going. The atmosphere of the room seemed to swirl. Harry rose from his seat and offered us drinks, and dragged Aimee with him to the kitchen. No sooner had they got out of earshot, I felt something burst around us. Like we’d been caught inside a bubble on a summer’s day, the walls kaleidoscoping around us as we sailed uncertainly, high above town – and suddenly, it popped. Kitty threw up on the carpet. We shot back down to earth with a crunch, and everyone knew exactly where they stood.

  Charlie leaned back from the table and whispered my way, “Any chance we could still have Fern?”

  #2 The Self-Explanatory, Unexplainable Prospect

  “It’s not the end of the world,” said Rachel, dangling upside down from the monkeybars.

  Surprisingly, she wasn’t talking about my fringe, which I’d had a hack at just that morning ’cause it was getting near to my chin. My efforts were currently suspended with Kay’s butterfly clips, and they were ridiculous! Pink, glittery, fluffy and mad, they boinged about everywhere like their owner’s general temperament.

  I’d actually just finished explaining (as best humanly possible) the self-explanatory, unexplainable prospect of living with the freshly-laid dog poo that Harry and Fisty would drag with them to our house, and my bedroom, along with the rubber lamb chop.

  “You’re right, Rach,” Keisha agreed. “The end of the world was when Charlie was born. Harls, I don’t think it’s possible for your family to get any more annoying.”

  If that had been supposed to make me feel better, it missed by a long shot.

  Chantalle fizzed. “He’s not that bad when you think about it. Who’d you rather have? Charlie or Andy?”

  “Mmm, point. Probably Charlie. Andy’s such an idiot!” snorted Keisha, who’d been won round already. “Definitely the bigger lllooozzerrr!”

  I refrained from comment. Having known Charlie since the womb, and Andy since Reception, I could probably have thought of a million points to argue Charlie’s case as the somewhat more pathetic one, but whatever my friends felt they could say about him, he was still my brother. “Look, guys, if I wanted to talk about Charlie’s world I’d be at home listening to him yabber about Sounds Of The Fallen Evil City Of Eternal Vengeance or whatever it is this week.”

  “I don’t know; he’s sort of… funny,” said Kay, totally ignoring my whole statement. “I like him.”

  Everyone was doing a silent, looky-shockedy thing in response – except for Chan, whose eyes had gone into little slits instead. Was it bright behind us?

  “No, not like that!” Kay gabbled. “I just kinda wish I had a funny brother. Ben’s just boring now, out with his girlfriend Aimee all the time.”

  “Ai-Aimee?” I managed, incredulously.

  “Yeah, some Year 11 girl from school.”

  That figured. I knew America attended our rival school, the one Kay had been going to for about five minutes before she latched onto us and managed a transfer. Ben was at sixth form there. I could just imagine from his average-to-good-looking physique that he’s about the kind of guy that bimbo would go for. Not good. If they were soon to be next-door neighbours, I wouldn’t even be able to escape from her at Kay’s house!

  “I … I think that might be the Aimee,” I grumbled. “God, she is such a bitch. You know I don’t say that lightly!”

  “Yeah, but- remember when Livvie came?” started Dani.

  Did I remember when Livvie came? Chantalle had virtually never shut up about her younger stepsister since that fateful day in Year 5 when her mum’s new boyfriend moved in. But what came like a punch to the gut was the realisation that no matter how grown up and reasonable I thought I was, Aimee probably saw me as some stupid little girl…

  #3 Itsy-Bitsy, Tiny-Whiny, Nasty-Vibey…

  On the Sunday, Harry and Aimee moved in. Instead of our usual lie-in, we were forced out of bed at eight in the morning to help arrange things that had already been brought inside from the impatiently humming van Harry and his friend had brought over. In an act of surprising stinginess, he had bought this guy a mere six-pack in return for all his heavy lifting.

  “I’m going to need two big strong boys to help bring the armchairs in,” Harry told my still-yawning brothers.

  Then he’d come to the wrong house. Zak, sporty as he was, was a
lso ten years old and looked a practical twig next to Harry’s mate John. Neither was Charlie worth an ask – his muscle tone so poor that it surprised me that he could lift his schoolbag when we had PE.

  “But we already have armchairs…” I said, lamely, as it was the least I could do to save my siblings a couple of hernias on such a dismal day.

  “Oh come on, now, Harley,” tutted Mum. “What, do you really want our scrutty old furniture over Harry’s brand new suite? It’s not even paid off yet.”

  “I could go next door and get Ben,” teased Zak, who had been told about the situation with Aimee.

  “Yes, you do that,” Mum agreed. “I had probably better tell Hugh we’re looking like late for our meal.”

  I knew that really, Mum was sniffing around Andy’s doctor dad for further help with the furniture. Unless Harry was secretly ripped like Ned Flanders, he clearly wasn’t going to be much use himself. Sure enough, she returned in ten minutes with a weary-looking Dr Godfrey, Andy, Ryan and their cousin Otter. The eventual arrival of Ben and Eileen meant that we had more than enough lifters for the heat-absorbing leather and bulky bits of bedframe, while Aimee tittered in the driveway.

  “Mitts off,” she reminded me snidely, as if I thought I had a chance. I hadn’t even been looking at Ben as such – more mulling on the disappointing feeling that I’d never been more embarrassed and helpless as a member of the female sex. I couldn’t lift a mattress! So maybe neither could my brothers, but likely at Ben’s age they would manage it. I would be stuck on tea duty while the even more useless women chuckled at their muscle men.

  Andy took a hand off his heavy box and flexed at me, jokingly. Unfortunately, the whole thing overbalanced right into the flowerbed – chipped and shattered ornaments everywhere. It was clear that Andy was not going to be Aimee’s favourite person from now on.

  “My puppies! My foxes! You brute!” she cried, making no effort to pick up the parts of her oh-so-loved collection that were still intact.

  I didn’t want to help tidy up the china animals either. Aside from the fact that they looked like something off your grandma’s dressing table, what had I done to be involved in this? All the same, I wanted to be helpful. The three dogs, cooped up in the Cold Room out of the way, were audibly pleading to be set free.