Laddered Tightropes Read online

Laddered Tightropes

  Optimism at all times; optimism at all times; optimism at all times… I told myself. I think that chant might have gone on longer than the disastrous wrestling match I’d had with my brain in PE, because before I knew it, it was the end of the lesson. I plunked my still-zipped pencilcase into my bag and handed in my blank quiz paper. I didn’t even know what the quiz was about. All I knew was that if I didn’t get some peace of mind soon, I might go on accidentally maiming my friends all summer – clumsily picking off Devon and Andy on our summer sojourn was basically a given, and I’d even forgotten to realise that if that happened it might make explaining the year’s happenings to you a little easier. (During my one phonecall a week from prison, that is.)

  Laddered Tightropes

  Dillie Dorian

  Copyright 2007-2014 Dillie Dorian

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

  Double Dates & Single Raisins

  A Bended Family

  While Shepherds Washed My Socks

  Sitting Down Star Jumps

  Now, Maybe, Probably

  Was He The Queen?!

  Not Zebedee!

  Angry Coral Week

  An Amicabubble Breakup

  Ging Gang Goo

  And many more…

  www.dilliedorian.co.uk

  Contents:

  #0 Preambling Note To Shells

  #1 Optimism At All Times

  #2 "BFF...N"?

  #3 Sounds Like "Fun"

  #4 BUMPALUMP!!

  #5 Nad A Baby

  #6 Air Stressure...

  #7 Scuba-Ears & The Sea-Through Sea

  #8 All The Everything

  #9 Cousin Who...?

  #10 The Aristotwat

  #11 Impressing The Impressionable

  #12 Through The Corn Wall

  #13 Circussy, Family Love

  #14 Laddered Tightropes

  #15 The Swimming Pool Grinch

  #16 Raspberry Split

  17 The Cliffhanger

  #18 Generation Why

  #0 Preambling Note To Shells

  Dear Shelley + Assorted Prying Aussies

  Everyone’s totally excited about your homecoming – way too happy to make any sense at all, in fact. Having just finished school for the summer, and pooped from our hols on the gorgeously scenic island of Jersey, I’m pretty glad to be snuggling down in my whiffy aeroplane seat to scrawl this out for you.

  What with the relative un-turbulence (apart from that seat-kicking scaby of a seven-year-old behind me), and somewhat-silence (OK, other than mumbles of barf from Zak, Mum and Harry’s chitchat, Kitty’s BFFN’s* constant gushing, and the unimpressed mutters of the rest of the passengers), I’m just about managing to ditch that infections American** accent and tell you all about it…

  As I said, “pooped”.

  Harley.

  *Just wait until you hear about that kid.

  **Seriously.

  #1 Optimism At All Times

  “Yessssssssss!”

  “Yessssssssssssssssssss!”

  “YEAH, BOYYY!!”

  The yellings of our classmates were getting ridiculous. It was a competition for who could celebrate the loudest, no matter how horrible the grade. (“Boo-yah! Still Level 3, just like in Year 6! Who. Da. Maaan?!”)

  “Godfrey, Andy – Level 7.”

  “Woo-oop! Woo-oop!”

  “Hartley, Charlie – Level 6.”

  Blank look.

  “That’s a good thing – do you ever listen?”

  Blank look.

  Tug.

  Earphones successfully removed.

  “Sorry, Sir.”

  Mrs Kettering, our Friday Science teacher barely looked narked about the mixup, since it was the last day of term. “You achieved a Level 6 in your Science SAT,” she repeated.

  “Oh.”

  “Yes, ‘oh’; that’s a good grade. You’ll probably be top set again next year.”

  “Now look what you’ve done, with your… education,” Charlie hissed back at Dev, who was sat next to me and behind him.

  “Hartley, Harley – Level 6.”

  Blank look-

  “Oh… uh, r-right…” I mumbled, jotting it down next to the other Level 6 that I’d already recorded in Maths. Only the one I’d been truly hanging on for was left. English would be the last lesson this Friday before early finish. (Our school’s idea of an early finish is missing last lesson and second break.)

  Devon was smugly slicking over her itallically noted Level 7 with a blackcurrant-scented purple glitter pen. She would find the brand that could stink up an entire desk like aerosol changing room torture. Dev and Andy were seemingly amongst the best grades in our year, if you didn’t count the odd person like Norma who could get a virtually unheard-of Level 8 while sleepwalking.

  “Hey, well done you guys!” she simpered, twisting the knife.

  “No, well done you,” I responded, in my best girly-mate voice.

  * * *

  “Hurry up; it’s the end of break!” Norma reminded us, hastily gathering her things so-as not to be late for an hour of uncharacteristic averageness with Miss Winterbottom for a gym partner. Even in PE, Norma was careful to make sure that she never exactly failed. She could stretch and roll with the best of them while I tripped over my shoelaces and prayed for a revision of the uniform back to plimsolls. (Prying Aussies should note that it’s white non-marking trainers, or when we can’t afford them, barefoot at the mercy of the stampede.)

  I stuffed my reading book and the Skittles I’d been sneaking from under it into my bag, and stood up. I hadn’t actually been reading at all – Devon had made me and Charlie and Andy do a tiresome questionnaire in the library to “commemorate” this momentous day. I was so bored from having to describe myself in five alliterative words (and other such rubbish that I’d apparently outgrown), that I practically wished for PE to come sooner.

  “We’ve got trampolining!” Charlie moaned. “It makes my head pound, and Otter told us this story about his mate that got his balls stuck in one.”

  “It was his mate’s balls,” said Andy.

  “I know.”

  “I thought you said Otter’s mate got Otter’s balls stuck.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  And we were forced to part ways with that thought in our heads…

  I watched Norma all through the lesson. It amazed me how she offered to carry benches without being asked. Even I wasn’t that helpful. I wondered if she ever tired of being a teacher’s dream (in more conventional ways than Asta strived for).

  It didn’t usually, but the “high achiever” thing was really starting to get to me today. It was true that I still got spammed by NAGTY, and I was sure that nearly the whole family had at times resorted to their pamphlets as toilet reading material before they inevitably wound up in the cage-lining/wastepaper tray. In Year 7, I’d even pored over the descriptions of luxurious-sounding summer schools at renowned university campuses – y’know, back when I thought Guide camp looked like fun – but I was always rattled right out of my trance by the vision of Charlie’s face of frustration when I announced that I’d been invited to an Ancient Greece workshop at the local college.

  Prying Aussies should note that he hadn’t been having a fab transition to secondary school as it was; Dad had just left, and unused to being in separate classes it probably did look like I’d been tiered away from him as some sort of insult. Needless to say, I didn’t attend the workshop. I went to Maths and PE and Geography just like everybody else, and made sure he overheard what an absolutely ghastly time I’d been having – though I don’t know why I bothered, because he’d been allowed the day off and wouldn’t have known whether I went anyway.

  Well
, the GCSE-focussed assemblies had long since begun, and all the emphasis was on C. “A C is your passport to a better future!”, “With just five Cs, you can get into college!”, “C yourself in two years’ time!” Mr Pringle had gone on and on about Cs. It was obvious that the school daren’t develop higher expectations, and here I was fretting over Level 6, a vaguely above average grade. I’d probably fly under the radar for another two years if I went on like this, because as it had said in my last school report, I was not problematic. Those two words seemed as though they’d been said in direct reference to my twin brother, and it had to stop. Were they going to start comparing Zak as well once he moved up in September?

  It was selfish, and actually kind of stupid, but I wanted to be worthy of note. Devon was the best at Art, and somehow managed to be annoyingly good at just about everything else. Andy rocked at Geography and Science, and Charlie was, well, more at home on the stage than me. I was sick of being “just OK”; not talented but sort of above average. You got more attention by acting stupid. The school didn’t care about anyone who was “not problematic”, and it wouldn’t be sorry if I didn’t leave with an A* in English because the teachers couldn’t be bothered. As Harry would say, rightly so. Maybe I was just doing averagely at Maths and Science because I was lazy. I should pull up my socks. I should work on my posture. I needed that Level 7 in English as a proper excuse not t-

  Thud!

  A ball launched by Asta smacked me right on the eye. It smarted for a minute as I tried and failed to regain my balance, teetering alongside Fern on the bench at the back of the room. Instinctively I grabbed her, sending us both crack! against the wall – judging by the tears, her harder than me.

  “I’m sorry!” I panicked, shoving my arm around her as she clutched the back of her head in agony.

  Windy blew the whistle on us and came heffing and lumping over. “What’s happened here?”

  “I hit my head,” squeaked Fern.

  “We fell off the bench,” I explained, eye finally openable. “It was my fault.”

  Windy hmmed, distrustfully, and peeled Fern’s hand back from her hair.

  There was blood.

  “I’m sorry!” I repeated.

  Fern’s expression said I’d deafened her with my apologism. “Why? What does it look like? Am I dying?”

  “Uh… you’re not dying,” I reassured her, even though I’d heard some horror stories about brains swelling up, comas and ineffective life support.

  Fern glanced at her hand, which was smeared with head blood.

  “You’ll live,” muttered Windy, almost affectionately, as she helped Fern to her feet. “Norma, walk her to the nurse please. And you…” She paused, looking down at me like I was a muddy dog. “Back on the bench!”

  * * *

  Dashing to the nurse to check on Fern – and, OK, because I was feeling worryingly dizzy myself – made me fashionably late for English.

  “-moving to the Svalbard Islands to counsel bipolar bears!”

  I’d walked in halfway through an announcement of such, and in my lightheadedness (nursie said I was fine) it took a full two minutes to figure out that Mr Wordsworth had been making a joke.

  “…in September.”

  “Aw,” I actually heard Norma utter.

  What in September? What in September? What in September that Norma would care about? (I had decided to try to be more like Norma.)

  “Dev…” I whispered. “What in September?”

  “Our SAT results,” she hissed back.

  Well. I needed no faffy Norma resolution to care about that.

  Optimism at all times; optimism at all times; optimism at all times… I told myself. I think that chant might have gone on longer than the disastrous wrestling match I’d had with my brain in PE, because before I knew it, it was the end of the lesson. I plunked my still-zipped pencilcase into my bag and handed in my blank quiz paper. I didn’t even know what the quiz was about. All I knew was that if I didn’t get some peace of mind soon, I might go on accidentally maiming my friends all summer – clumsily picking off Devon and Andy on our summer sojourn was basically a given, and I’d even forgotten to realise that if that happened it might make explaining the year’s happenings to you a little easier. (During my one phonecall a week from prison, that is.)

  Like a zombie, I hung back. You know when you start doing everything in slooooow motion because you’re hoping to catch the teacher once everyone else has gone? Only, I wasn’t alone in that pursuit.

  “Si-ir…” said Norma, almost pleadingly. “Is there any way that we could find out our marks today?”

  “Nope, sorry, Norma,” sighed Mr W, who was packing his laptop away at the exact opposite speed to what I’d been going at. He probably couldn’t wait to get moving, himself. “They haven’t sent them through. Only half the papers have been marked.”

  “But what if we’re in the half that has been marked?” I couldn’t stop myself moaning. “Making everyone wait is just mean!”

  “It’s completely fair,” he corrected me. “Besides, it’s the last day of term. Why worry about that?”

  “My parents won’t let me go to summer school if I don’t get top marks in everything,” said Norma, sullenly.

  “They won’t let you go to summer school?” I asked before I realised how bitchy it sounded.

  “Surely a bad grade would be a good excuse!” said Mr W, enthusiastically, although I could feel that he was itching to drive out of the gate. “And anyway, what can they do? It’s not your fault we haven’t had the results back yet. It’s not even mine.”

  “I suppose,” said Norma, standing up straighter. “Thanks, Sir.”

  “Thanks,” I muttered, already for some reason nervous about what I was about to say. It was a mixture of that, and the galling realisation that I wouldn’t get to see Mr Wordsworth smile at me when he read out my grade. If it was the grade I wanted…

  “You’ve been two of my favourite students,” he reassured us. “I’m sure you’ll do fine. Now if you don’t mind; Mini’s got the afternoon off and I wouldn’t want to get on her wick!”

  “Is that your girlfriend, Sir?” I asked.

  “Er, yeah,” he replied, with an embarrassed twitch of the nose. (I hadn’t known humans could twitch their noses. I experimented half the way home, until Andy asked what I was doing.) There was an awkward silence. “Well, see you around, girls.”

  “Bye Mr Wordsworth,” said Norma.

  “Bye!” I added, as he herded us both out of the door and locked it behind him.

  A pressure built up in me as the three of us walked down the stairs to the lobby in silence.

  “Uh, Norma…?”

  “Yes?”

  I dug my fingernails into my palms. “Have a nice summer…”

  “Thanks, Harley. You too…”

  #2 “BFF…N”?

  The scene, four months previous:

  “So, Kitty. Are you sure you want to take her and not Emily?”

  “Emily’s going to Disneyland; I already said!”

  Mum had breathed out deeply. “So why didn’t she want to take Little Madam with her?”

  “She’s not allowed to take anyone.”

  It was funny how quickly financial issues had fallen by Mum’s wayside. Only a year ago we wouldn’t have been able to go on a school trip if it wasn’t for the deep purse of Auntie Sharon. Clearly, though, she was regretting the offer where this particular kid was concerned – and Kitty’s sudden attitude wasn’t helping.

  “If I can’t have Emily, I am having my BFFN and that’s final!” (One of Harry’s favourite phrases which she’d picked up and run with for the week.)

  “OK, Kitty,” Mum had withered.

  Kitty had seemed pretty pleased with her new BFFN, whoever she was, but there had to be a reason that Mum wasn’t completely sure about her.

  Of course, BFFN was one of my words. It meant “Best Friend For Now”. Kitty had put it to use one day when Emily had been off sick and t
hey had to pick pairs, and I was actually kind of impressed – but that didn’t change the fact that there had to be something decidedly off about this kid for Mum to, uh, notice.

  The door went.

  Kitty leapt up from the sofa and rushed to answer it. “It’s her!”

  A small, dark haired girl swanned into the living room, followed by her serious-looking mother. The girl was dressed head to toe in Hannah Montana, and moved her lipglossy mouth around uncomfortably like a chewing cow.

  Mum smiled at them both, but her eyes were frowning.

  “Hello Sandra,” said the mother, with an equally forced smile.

  Not to be outdone, Mum tried a little harder at whole-face smiling. “Hello, uh, Mrs Greene…”

  The woman sat down uninvited. “Oh, call me Angie, please!”

  “Sandie,” Mum said, offering her hand.

  The woman took it. “Pleased to meet you, Sandie. So, what’s all her babbling about?”

  “Well, we were thinking – since we’re going on our hols when school breaks up – and we’ve agreed that the older kids can each bring a friend – d’you think it would be OK for-?”

  I tuned out. She was bound to go off on her spiel about how us “older kids” were experienced and lovely and how Kitty’s friend would come to no harm – failing to mention Aimee’s bump, and how me and Charlie and Zak were capable of about as much teamwork as Lizzie McGuire, Horrid Henry and Bart Simpson would be.

  “Hi,” I said to the girl, who had made an instant beeline for the toybox and was in the process of making a big, scornful pile of Hot Wheels cars, Betty Spaghetti parts and plastic knights and horses.

  “These ponies are wrong,” she bitched, looking me square in the face. I was perplexed by her American accent in contrast with her mum’s snippy English.

  “They’re not ponies,” I explained. “They’re horses from Zak’s old castle set.”

  “They’re boring. Why can’t they be pink and purple and stuff?”

  “Uh… because in the days of old, and… in fact, nowadays too, real horses don’t look like My Little Ponies.”

  “Where’s their creadive license?” she spouted. “Miss Atherfold says that’s when you make something priddy because no one wants to look at some dumb brown ponies.”

  I rolled my eyes at Kitty, but disappointingly, she seemed to be lapping up this girl’s every word.

  “I’m sick of my dumb brown hay-err,” said my sister, in an imitation of her friend’s tone. “I’m thinking, like, pastel purble or peeyank.”