The Parent Problem Read Free Page B

Harris and Pongo and confront Mum. ‘It’s Tuesday today. You’re not going tonight, are you? You can’t.’
    ‘Why not?’ she says.
    ‘Er, well . . .’ I grasp at the first reason that comes to mind. ‘School starts tomorrow,’ I say.
    ‘Not for me!’ says Mum.
    ‘OK, but you should be here for us the night before school starts!’ I say.
    Mum’s face falls. She looks a bit like Pongo when he’s been told off for chewing something he shouldn’t have. ‘I guess so,’ she says. ‘But I won’t be late. I can’t miss the first class, Skye.’
    For one tiny second I feel my heart go melty at Mum’s wounded-puppy face, but then my brain is flooded with images of her doing the foxtrot in spandex and the rumba in sequins – all with other people her age, who no doubt also love spandex and sequins – and all my meltiness hardens into a hot knot of rage.
    ‘You so
can
miss the first class,’ I say. ‘In fact, you can miss the second and the third and every single one after that!’
    Mum looks shocked. ‘What has got into you, Skye? What earthly reason have you got for demanding that I give up on this idea? How does it affect you in any way?’
    ‘I’ll tell you how,’ I say. ‘Number one, because it is hideously embarrassing, and number two, because it is the last night of the holidays and there is no way I am putting up with Milly Bad-Breath Brockweed coming round and “babysitting” and telling me I can’t watch what I want on TV and that I have to go to bed early.’
    ‘I think ballroom dancing sounds amazing, Mum,’ Harris pipes up, pulling his head out from under Pongo. ‘On that show we like watching they are always saying that dancing keeps the elastic bits in your body all elasticky and means you can do awesome stuff like the splits. I can already do the splits,’ he adds. He then proceeds to demonstrate while sitting on top of Pongo. ‘SEVEN!’ he shouts, copying one of the TV show judges. He flings his arms wide in a triumphant gesture.
    The dog wriggles with delight and sniffs Harris’s bottom.
    ‘Thank you, Harris,’ says Mum with feeling. ‘At least someone believes in me.’ She makes a point of looking at me, her mouth twisting in that way she has when she is trying not to get cross. ‘I can see that you don’t like being left with Milly, and I am sorry about that, but I don’t have anyone else to ask and it will only be once a week. What I can’t understand is how you think I will be embarrassing you, Skye? I am hardly going to cha-cha-cha down the High Street in front of everyone we know.’
    ‘You say that now,’ I warn her, ‘but one whiff of a Latin beat and you will not be able to stop your hips from swinging. That’s what they say on that dancing show Harris was going on about. I only watched it once with you and it gave me nightmares. Lots of old, wobbling bodies prancing around to what you call “groovy tunes” while their partners try to heave them up into lifts and spin them around—’
    ‘What a lovely image, Skye,’ Mum snaps. ‘Anyway, I don’t really care what you think – or anyone else, for that matter. I am going to do it. So there.’ Her jaw is set at a very stubborn angle. ‘In any case,’ she adds, ‘I need to meet people my own age.’
    I gawp at her like a goldfish who has lost all thirty seconds of its memory. ‘
Meet people?
’
    What does she mean by
meet people
? She already knows
people
. She goes to work in an office with ‘people of her own age’. Why does she need to meet any more?
    ‘Yes,’ says Mum. ‘Meet people. As in “make friends”.’ Her cheeks flush pink as she says this.
    Why is she blushing?
    Then a huge penny the size of a dinner plate drops into the slot machine of my mind.
    Oh no. Oh nononononono. When she says ‘people’, she doesn’t mean
male
‘people’, does she? As in
men
? As in
boyfriends
?
    I cannot bring myself to ask her this.
    I really don’t think I want to know the answer.
    There is