Laddered Tightropes Read online

I felt lightheaded. I would’ve put it down to the stressure of a relationship, if it weren’t that my practical fainting fits had actually started before there was any sign of us getting together.

  Uh-oh, Andy was still looking at me, brow furrowed.

  “I forgot to eat my humbug,” he mumbled, awkwardly.

  I blinked.

  He quickly unwrapped it and stuffed it in his gob. I watched his lips move, struggling to steady my brain and get a grip on what exactly I was stressing about. I could hear him swishing spit around as he sucked the life out of the humbug. A mere minute ago his tongue had been in my mouth. My stomach swirled.

  Andy swallowed. “Do you feel sick?” he asked me, in a sort of murbly way, seeing as how he was basically trying to balance a marble between his teeth.

  I nodded.

  “Where’s your humbug?”

  “I didn’t get one,” I managed.

  “Would it help if we shared?”

  No! squeaked my brain. His lips were glossy with the stickiness of the sweet. I shook my head.

  Andy squeezed my hand and went back to swishing spit. I tried looking out of the window.

  We were so far up in the sky that everything felt surreal. England had started to look like the toytown it really was. I thought of the Prime Minister and giggled a little at how unimportant he must feel every time he has to fly.

  I don’t know how long I was staring for, but surprisingly it didn’t make me feel any more sick. It was weirdly freeing; everything seemed so insignificant. The sea was blue-green and kind of shiny in the sun, the sort of colour Devon would know the word for. I mused on the mechanics of a forty-five minute flight. I mean, Jersey is so close to Southampton technically that it was a bit like being trampolined from island to island. We were over the channel in no time, floating and humming above several small bits of rock. This huge plane didn’t even seem like it would fit, like a giant child zooming a ride-on rocket into someone else’s Lego paradise. Suddenly England seemed big again. My mouth started filling up and I looked at Andy, worriedly. His head was turned across the aisle; he wasn’t in.

  “-he isn’t!”

  “She is!”

  “No he isn’t!”

  “She IS!”

  Oh dear. Lovers’ tiff?

  “Shut yer moof, Chazzer!” exploded Zak, from the row behind. “The Pink Power Ranger IS a girl!”

  “So I could be the first male Pink Power Ranger?” asked Charlie, who seemed OK with the idea as long as this was the case.

  “Oh my God, yes!” squealed Dev. “I don’t see why pink has to mean female.”

  “Pink nipples?” guessed Charlie.

  “That’s stupid,” said Zak. “Everyone has pink nipples.”

  “But I haven’t got-”

  “Devon!” shouted Mum.

  “That’s the problem,” I heard Devon hiss into Charlie’s ear. I’d recently realised that she wasn’t that great of a whisperer, but definitely thought she was. “Nipples shouldn’t be taboo. They’re only a body part.”

  “Ew!” Jade whined, from somewhere behind us.

  “What?” asked Kitty.

  “She’s gedding a nipple tattoo!”

  “Jade!” shouted Harry.

  “Who’s she, the cat’s mother?” snapped Kitty, with a tone of bitchiness that I didn’t think could be reached by anyone who still thought the Easter Bunny was real.

  “When’re we gedding to Hawaii?” PBJ grumbled.

  Kitty was silent.

  “KIDDY’S DAD, WHEN’RE WE GEDDING TO HAWAII?!”

  I crawled up in my seat and leant back just in time to catch Harry’s priceless expression.

  “Harley!” shouted Mum. “Shoes off the seat!”

  Oh yeah. Prying Aussies should note that Mum becomes uncharacteristically interested in discipline whenever we’re out in public. At home, she’s as quiet as a mouse, but it’s like she’s afraid of people finding out that she doesn’t care what we do. Sometimes it’s hilarious, for instance when Zak or Charlie acts up – but if it’s Kitty, she gets upset, and if it’s me… well, if it’s me, my entire day becomes curdled by her duplicity.

  “I don’t understand it,” Mum wept for the benefit of the other passengers. “They’re usually so well-behaved.”

  My blood boiled. As if on cue, there was a sudden, deliberate drop. Charlie screamed, which upset Kitty and Jade who screamed also. It was only momentary, and hey, probably part of landing, but it did nothing for the heavy feeling I’d been experiencing all morning. I felt so heavy that I was paranoid that my paranoid thoughts were taking up an extra person’s worth of weight.

  In no time at all, there was the plunk of our tin can onto tarmac. I wondered if we would stop in time. For the speed we were going, I was amazed that those little wheels could even turn us. We came to a halt, and I realised something even worse.

  My ears had not unpopped.

 

  #7 Scuba-Ears & The Sea-Through Sea

  “Here, let me dab that,” muttered Mum.

  “No!” protested my brother.

  Zak had chewed his lip so hard that it was perforated a few millimetres deep and still bleeding. Meanwhile, Charlie was gloating about how grown up he was for tolerating a forty-five minute plane journey, and he wasn’t the only one.

  “I only screamed because I thought you were asposed to,” lied Jade, unimpressively. “Like on a roller coaster.”

  “I only screamed because you were hurting my ears,” grumped Kitty.

  Speaking of ears, mine seemed full. It reminded me of when we used to time how long we could hold our heads underwater at swimming lessons, except I’d lost count and I still felt like I was listening to everyone from halfway down a dripping tunnel. We were already at Baggage Claim.

  “Oh no you don’t,” said Harry, swiping the skateboard from Zak as his grip loosened to set it down on the inviting, shiny floor.

  “Kiddy’s Dad,” said Jade, urgently. I was already certain that it wouldn’t be something important, because of course she said everything was that inflection. “Can I get an ice lolly?”

  I looked around for an ice cream stand, of which naturally there were none. It was a Baggage Claim. The nearest source of sustenance was the not-drinking-water tap in the Ladies’.

  “It’s ‘May I have?’, and the answer is no,” said Harry, tiredly. “You may call me Harry.”

  I didn’t know why he was making such an effort. He didn’t with Kitty. This was coming across like the episode of Family Guy that takes off My Fair Lady. Jade’s “accent” was so annoying that I guessed Harry was going above and beyond with his corrections as a service to mankind. I mean, PBJ didn’t even sound like a normal American. She sounded like someone whose only source of socialisation had been a Hannah Montana sing-along CD.

  “I need a wee,” said Kitty.

  “I think she’s trolling,” said Andy.

  “What’s trolling?” I asked, from my invisible tube.

  “Er, internet thing. Generally just being irrelevant – I mean, being a windup.”

  I wasn’t sure if he meant Kitty or Jade at this point.

  “Lemmy needs freshening up anyway,” said Mum. “Come on, Kit. Jade?”

  I heaved a sigh of relief. If there was one good thing about Mum having Lemmy, other than Lemmy, it would have to be that his needs pretty much excused me from having to take anyone to the toilet.

  Jade folded her arms. “I’m nad going in the ’sabled bathroom again.”

  Mum looked at me.

  I stared past her.

  “Harley?”

  I gave her my most clueless look. “Mum,” I withered. “My ears are blocked. I’m about as useful coming into the toilets as I am standing outside.”

  I don’t think she realised I was playing dumb. Clearly, Mum didn’t want to correct my mock-stupid statement with any explanation as to why, actually, I would still be useful on the lookout for paedophiles.

  “I’ll go,” said Devon, bri
ghtly.

  “Thank you, Devon,” said Mum.

  Thank you, Devon. I mean, I was thankful not to be alone with Jade anywhere for any reason, but that had somehow been cancelled out by my fresh irritation at Devon being very probably the favourite right now.

  Charlie stuck out his bottom lip. Devon smiled and patted him on the bum before stalking off with Jade in tow. Mum’s expression suggested that she was not any kind of favourite whatsoever. Good.

  * * *

  “Please remind me why I’m in a band with that…” grumbled Andy, motioning to Charlie, who had done the gentlemanly thing for once and offered to pull Devon’s wheely suitcase. I suspected exactly what Andy was thinking – he’d only done it because it was pink and glittery, and sure enough, she’d been left to lug his holdall.

  “’Cause you’re his oldest friend, and vice-versa…”

  “I’m not his oldest friend. His oldest actual friend is Mr Wordsworth who’s twenty-five, after Otter who’s nearly eighteen.”

  “You know what I meant!” I teased him.

  Andy went to help Harry load the bigger suitcases onto the foldable trolley he’d hired along with the car. It was something like the ones at the airport, but not as sturdy. Now in the hotel car park, my ears still felt scuba.

  The hotel itself was a white building across a largely un-busy road from the beach. I was to be sharing with Dev, and Andy was sharing with Charlie, Zak and Ryan, while Kitty and PBJ were stuck in the same room with Mum and Harry and Lemmy. (But I was sure that Kitty had already realised that this was a very good thing, since being stuck in a room with Jade all night would be a thoroughly “grr!” experience.)

  Harry was on the phone to Aimee right away, checking on her and Ben and making sure they were keeping the house/pets/plants/amoebas OK, so me and Devon were straight into unpacking and admiring the sea view.

  “I want to see everyone now!” I heard Kitty keep yelping to Mum and Harry through the wall. “Please?! I don’t know if they’re nice or fun or-”

  Mum had already clarified that we wouldn’t have time to drop in on family today. She and Harry were flicking around for a nice restaurant, and thinking of early bed / early rise. Devon dragged me forcibly into the next room where everyone had congregated.

  “I wanna go down the beach!” complained Zak.

  “Only ’cause there’s girls there!” Ryan snorted. “I’m in!”

  “Can we can we can we?!” Kitty shrieked.

  “Doesn’t look like a nice beach!” PBJ complained. “There’s rocks and stuff. The sea is supposed to be see-through – that’s why it’s called the sea!”

  “Oh but can we?!” Kitty persisted.

  Harry looked more tired than I’d ever seen him. A combination of ridiculously young baby son and two noisy little girls was obviously even harder to handle than any wrath of Aimee. “Maybe it would be something nice to look forward to when you go to bed tonight.”

  “Yeah, Zak. Nice dreams about girls.” Ryan winked. “Again, I’m in!”

  Harry rolled his eyes.

  “Oh, wouldn’t it be romantic though?” gushed Devon, who had sidled away from my side and up to my twin brother.

  Andy and I looked at each other.

  Bleurgh!

  It’s not like we’re under-romantic; it’s just that we’re not under romantic spells either…

  “I don’t think it’s safe for you guys to go night-time wandering about here,” reasoned Mum, who had leapt right to the accurate conclusion that they hadn’t meant before dinner. “You don’t know what the tides are like.”

  “Not night-time wandering; just sort of… dusk-time wandering, maybe?”

  “OK, OK, compromise,” said Mum. “You can all go down to the beach now, but only for a little bit while we find somewhere to have dinner.”

  “And in this little bit,” added Harry. “You’ll be taking your mobile phones and Kitty and Jade, and nobody will be swimming or walking about without shoes – you can just have a bit of a romp, OK?”

  “But it’s daylight…” pouted Devon.

  “If you stop giving me a hard time, maybe I’ll let you and Charlie get an outdoor table at the restaurant,” Harry groaned.

  The long, brown, sea-wall appeared to go on and on forever in one direction, and then forever in the other, which Zak testified. Eventually he came to a break in the barrier, with some stone steps which we teetered down to get to the beach.

  It being July, there were still loads of kids on the sands, playing games and building castles and splashing in the rock-pools. I felt like I’d stumbled into someone else’s childhood memory. The beaches back home were pebble, the water grey, and the sunshine non-existent except when it was an exam day or something else equally preclusive of fun.

  Kitty and Jade looked longingly at all the fun, while Zak and Ryan looked longingly at all the girls playing grab-the-attention (a.k.a. volleyball) in their bikini tops. Devon and Charlie had already slipped away, probably to ignore everything and everyone else as usual from the comfort of nature’s cupboard (a cave?).

  Andy was looking at me when I turned to him. No, not in the bikini region – though I was convinced it was the belly region that would grab his notice when I did slip into my cozzie. He’d been giving me a sort of face-gaze, like he was happy to wait all day for my eyes to finally meet his.

  I smiled.

  “Where are we gonna sit if we’re not allowed to get sandy?” he asked.

  “I guess we’ll just lean,” I sighed, stepping back a few paces and balancing myself against the wall. Kitty and Jade wandered aimlessly by, picking up shells and stones and chattering/muttering respectively.

  It was sort of nice. It wasn’t brilliant; it wasn’t a memory to cherish for a lifetime or anything, but it was OK. Just gently being boyfriend and girlfriend without drawing attention to ourselves, definitely not quite alone, and not rolling in the foam with sand in our crevices. And before long, Harry was on the phone (to me, natch), asking us to come back in because Location Dinner had been cracked.

  #8 All The Everything

  We were hanging out in the playroom from hell. Imagine all the crap me and the sibs and Andy and Ryan have accumulated over the years, crammed into a poky room in a townhouse flat. It was like one of those pictures kids send in with all the Beanos right from Daddy’s childhood, or all the Pokémon cards, or all the Beanie Babies – except this place had all the everything.

  Keeping tidy was obviously an insurmountable challenge, because there simply were not enough shelves. The walls were taken up by DVDs and videos and games for every console imaginable. I even think I saw a Laserdisc machine jumbled in with the complicated layers of consoles and players and remotes and controllers stacked by the bed.

  “This is my room,” said the cousin, redundantly. I mean, heck, if he was going for unnecessary, it wouldn’t have hurt to remind us of his name. That, I was gallingly sketchy on. We’d met but once at Nana’s wedding when Zak was just a baby.

  I stared at his poster of The Doctor and Rose – you know you’re in for a treat when a swirling time-travel background is the least dizzying aspect of the situation you’re in. I still wished Jade would disappear into another dimension, because she could not stop touching things.

  “You have Kingdom Hearts?!” Zak exploded. “I know how to see up a girl’s skirt on there.”

  I tried giving him the evils on behalf of the female populace of the gaudy orange-painted room, but he didn’t pick up on it. The cousin himself, despite his close-shorn head and many gangsta rings, looked a little taken aback by Zak’s comment. Wait, wasn’t he older? Cousin Who had been somewhere around our age in the wedding photos, unless I was thinking of someone else. (Probably.)

  Jade grabbed the poster from Zak, tearing it. “That’s what a beach is aposed to look like!”

  The Cousin drew breath, and I mean he drew breath hard. He looked set to be swallowed up by a full-blown panic attack at the destruction of his admittedly beautiful pictur
e. Jade was terrified. Cousin Who was still holding his breath. I figured it was some sort of anxiety breathing exercise, but soon enough Devon realised that it was the actual anxiety.

  “Give him some space! Everybody out!” she insisted, “Now don’t worry, I’m not going to touch you. Breathe…”

  “You better not,” I heard Charlie mutter as we piled out into the living room.

  “Somebody jealous?” I snickered. It would serve him right if Devon dissolved into Jersey forever to be with our cousin instead. He was obviously a perfectly nice boy, and at times, Charlie… well… wasn’t.

  Moments later, Devon and The Cousin emerged.

  “Jade,” said The Cousin, who looked like he was drowning in his oversized Adidas shirt and beyond-floor-length chain-adorned jeans. “I’m not angry.”

  Fab. So now he knew her name, but I still didn’t know his name.

  “Whew,” said Jade, in the most frustrating tone. I wouldn’t have blamed him for smacking her, and I’m a pacifist. “So did they Phodoshop everything?”

  “Er, what?”

  “Did they Phodoshop Hawaii? It looks different on TV.”

  “Kingdom Hearts is computer generated,” The Cousin explained. “None of it is real.”

  “No, Hawaii! Where you live, dummy!”

  He gave me a confused look. Me. I felt kind of special that even with Devon’s so-called help, Cousin Who seemed to think I was the sane one around here. Not even Andy; me!

  “Yeah, we’re in Hawaii,” I said, nodding exaggeratedly.

  “Well then maybe you’d like to play with…” He bobbed into his bedroom and back in seconds, and produced a gigantic blue plushie. “STITCH!!”

  I marvelled at his inventory. I had probably a tenth the amount of junk, and I usually couldn’t even find an empty crisp packet that had been on my bed ten minutes ago…

  #9 Cousin Who…?

  I gasped as a somehow almost completely spherical rock narrowly missed my head.

  “Potatozard, go!” hollered Zak, as another flew my way.

  Of course, nothing beamed itself out of the oversized pebble to protect him from the attack of a booby older girl who’d unfortunately been behind me when he threw it. Unfazed, the boys continued shouting their way through a seemingly never-ending bucket of ridiculous mythical creature names. What was essentially an excuse to throw rocks at each other had been creatively disguised as a “Pokémon Battle”.