Hunky Dory

On the other hand, who told Janine Edwards to keep beaming? There can’t be two of them that fancy me! I don’t want to be fancied; I just want to be left alone!

I’m really glad it’s Friday; I am beginning to feel persecuted.

Wee Scots is coming tomorrow. That should be liven things up.

Saturday

Wee Scots arrived this morning, bright red as usual with the usquebaugh. Mum went to fetch her from the bus station. As they came through the front door Dad said, “Watch out, here she is, Hell’s Granny!” Wee Scots bashed him with her handbag and cried, “Och, awa’ wi’ ye!” They have a really good relationship.

After lunch, while me and the Microdot were doing the washing up, which is one of the tedious tasks we have to perform in order to get any pocket money, the Microdot said she’d got a secret to tell me. She said, “You know my friend Linzi?”

I didn’t, but I didn’t bother to say so; I just grunted. The Microdot has so many friends I can’t keep up with them. Last year for her birthday she invited twenty people. Boys, as well as girls. She claimed they were “all my friends”. I can’t understand why she’s so popular; she is very bed-tempered.

“My friend Linzi?” She snatched a plate out of my hand before I’d even had time to put it on the draining board. She always treats washing up like it’s some kind of competition. “The one with the plaits?”

When she said that, I had this faint uneasy feeling come over me. I’d noticed a girl with plaits in the middle of the gigglers. She’d been giggling along with the rest, but more in a sort of embarrassed way. Grudgingly I said, “What about her?”

“She’s got a crush on you.”

“What?” I was so alarmed I let a glass go slipping through my fingers on to the kitchen floor.

“Now look what you’ve done,” said the Microdot. “You’ve gone and broken it.” Like I needed her to tell me? “That was Granny’s favourite usquebaugh glass.” I said, “It’s not an usquebaugh glass. She uses tumblers for usquebaugh. This is a water glass.”

“It’s still broken.”

“I can see that, thank you very much!”

“Yes, well, anyway. Like I was saying…about Linzi. She’s got this massive crush on you.”

I said, “What d’you mean, crush?”

“Crush! Like she wants to crrrrrrush you!”

Before I knew what was happening, the Microdot had flung both arms round me and was squeezing me to a pulp. I said, “Geddoff!”

“I’m just showing you what she’d like to do to you. She’d like to hug you! And kiss you. Aaaah…it’s so sweet!”

“Why don’t you just shut up?” I said.

“Cos I want you to know how she feels. She’s in love with you! Only she’s too shy to tell you, so I thought I would.”

I said, “Is that what all the stupid giggling was about?”

“Yes. It’s really pathetic! They’ve all got crushes on you…they think you’re so cute!” She gave this great cackle, like she was inviting me to join in. “But poor Linzi, she’s got it worse than anyone. She is totally gone. She is, like, demented. She’s written your name all over, everywhere! I’ve told her what you’re like, but she just can’t stop herself. I feel sooo sorry for her.”

Crawling round the floor with the dustpan and brush, keeping my face hidden because I just knew I’d gone bright beetroot, I said, “So what did you tell her I was like?”

“Well, like you are…peculiar! Anyone that spends their time digging holes in the back garden and playing about in the mud…where’s the sense in having a crush on someone like that?”

This is what I mean about my family, and the difficulties I face. Scorn and derision at every turn. I don’t play in the mud and I’m not just digging a hole, I am excavating. It is serious work. They know this perfectly well; I’ve told them over and over. It is an archaeological dig. But the Microdot still treats me like I’m some kind of geek. Even Mum and Dad have a secret giggle—well, not all that secret, either, cos I heard them the other day telling someone about “Dory’s hole”, like it was just totally hilarious. It is an uphill struggle, in this house, trying to make something of yourself. One day when I’m Sir Dorian, and famous for my work on dinosaurs, they’ll look back and feel ashamed of the way they treated me.

Of course I might be famous as a Crime Scene Investigator. That’s another career I’m thinking of pursuing. I reckon I’d be good at it, as I find it most interesting on television when they examine the contents of people’s stomachs or collect maggots and bugs that have taken up residence inside dead bodies. The Microdot says I am gruesome. She says it is totally disgusting and would make any normal person feel sick, but that is just her point of view. Mine happens to be different.

Anyway, if I’m peculiar so is she. She screamed her head off the other day, all because there was a spider walking across her bedroom ceiling. She screeched, “Get rid of it, get rid of it!”

I’ve told her about a hundred times that spiders are perfectly pleasant and harmless creatures, just going about their business.

“What d’you think they’re going to do, bite you?”

She screeched that they might fall on top of her while she was in bed. They might even get into the bed.

“They could get down my nightdress!”

How peculiar is that? Fantasising about spiders getting down her nightdress. What makes her think any self-respecting spider would want to? I can’t understand it when girls start freaking out at the sight of anything with multiple legs. The Herb came across a centipede the other day; she didn’t freak. But then the Herb is different.

I spent the whole afternoon excavating. I’ve only got till the end of the month, then the builders are coming in to build Dad’s new workshop, so I’m trying to get as much done as I can. Aaron and the Herb are helping me: they are my official assistants. I am doing my best to train them, but I have to say it is uphill work. They don’t seem able to grasp the fact that there is more to excavating than simply picking up a trowel and digging as fast as you can. I’ve told them, you have to dig slowly. You have to dig carefully. You have to sift. Then if you find anything, you have to label it, and say where

it was, like how far down, and how far in. The Herb asked me today exactly what it was we were hoping to discover. Before I could give a more scholarly reply, Aaron had jumped in and yelled, “Dinosaur bones!”

“What, in Warrington Crescent?” said the Herb.

Aaron said why not. They’d have stamped about in Warrington Crescent same as they did anywhere else.

“In the back garden?”

“You gotta remember,” said Aaron, “it was all primeval swamp in them days. That’s what it still is, deep down. Then the bones kind of work their way up. Prob’ly quite near the surface, some of ’em. I wouldn’t be surprised if we came across the odd one now and again.”

I said, “I would.” This is exactly what I mean about Aaron always claiming to know everything when in fact he knows nothing. I said, “I’d be very surprised.”

“So what are we searching for?” demanded the Herb.

I had to explain that it wasn’t dinosaur bones, which in any case would be fossils by now, but just whatever turned up. So far I have discovered:

An old coin dating from 1936 A piece of broken china (a shard, as we professionals call it) A small blue bottle (probably contained poison) A rusty penknife, almost certainly antique.

They are all cleaned up and properly labelled. I showed them to my assistants, thinking they would be impressed—thinking they might actually learn something—but the Herb just giggled and Aaron said, “Is that it?”

I said, “This is history, this is.”

“Some history,” said Aaron.

The Herb giggled again. Everything’s always a big joke with her; she finds it very difficult to take things seriously. “You never know,” she said, “it could be the scene of a hideous crime. We’ve got the murder weapon!”

“If you’re talking about that penknife,” I said, “it wouldn’t go in deep enough.” I know about these things; I’ve studied them.

“All right, then!” She snatched up the bottle. “Poison!”

It was all they needed. Next thing I know, they’re both going mad with their trowels, showering earth in all directions. I told them quite sharply to stop.

“This is not the way you’re supposed to do it! You’re ruining the site!”

Aaron panted, “We’re looking for a body!”

“You’ve got to admit, bodies would be interesting,” said the Herb. “More interesting than bits of broken china.”

I had to be very stern with them. I mean, yes, OK, body parts would be great. Teeth, or skulls, or thigh bones. I’d like to discover body parts just as much as anyone else, but it’s not the way that it’s done.

“If you’re going to help, then help properly,” I said. “Just try to be a little bit professional.”

The Herb mumbled “Professional, professional,” and stroked an imaginary beard, while Aaron went into exaggerated slow motion with his trowel. I said, “That’s better. You’re worse than the dogs!”

Dad has erected a special wire netting enclosure for the hole. He did it so that Mum, in her daffy way, wouldn’t go trundling down the garden with a barrow full of used cat litter and fall into it, but it also serves to keep the Russells at bay. I do love the Russells, but I sometimes can’t help wishing Mum had developed a passion for a more useful breed of dog. Dogs that could fetch, or carry, or herd. If the Russells got into the hole it would be total chaos. As it is, they all sit on the other side of the netting and whinge.

“Dunno why you don’t let ’em in,” said Aaron. “Get the job done far quicker.”

“Wouldn’t be professional,” said the Herb. “Hey, I just thought of a joke! Is it OK to tell jokes?”

I think I must have hesitated, cos she said, “It’s all right, it’s a professional joke…it’s a dinosaur joke.”

“Yeah, yeah, go on!” said Aaron. “Tell it!”

“Right. What’s a dinosaur that’s had its bottom smacked?”

“I don’t know,” said Aaron. “What is a dinosaur that’s had its bottom smacked?”

The Herb said, “A dinosore-arse!” She looked at me, triumphantly. “Funny?”

“Your mum wouldn’t think so,” I said. “She’d say you were being vulgar.”

The Herb gave one of her cackles. “Rude, rude, Mum’s a prude!”

“I reckon it’s pretty good,” said Aaron. “Here!” He gave me a nudge. “You tell the Herb about Amy Wilkerson?”

Herb said, “Ooh, another joke?”

“She fancies him,” said Aaron.

“Amy Wilkerson?”

“Yeah, she went and sat next to him and started breathing over him.”

“Yuck, yuck, yuck!” said the Herb. She turned, and made vomiting noises. “Amy Wilkerson…puke!”

“She’s not that bad,” said Aaron. “I’ve seen worse.”

“OK then, you have her,” I said.

“Yes, you have her,” said the Herb. “Amy Wilkerson…bluurgh!”

I really wish I’d never mentioned it. I’m certainly not going to say anything about the Microdot and her gang of gigglers. It’s funny, though, I never knew the Herb had it in for Amy Wilkerson.

When we went back in for tea I found Wee Scots doing things with mothballs. Threading string through them and tying knots.

“She’s making necklaces,” said Will. “To go round trees.”

I said, “What do trees want necklaces for?”

Wee Scots cried, “Mothball necklaces, laddie!”

I screwed up my nose and looked at Will. Solemnly, he said, “It’s to stop the dogs using them as toilets.”

And the Microdot says I’m weird?

Three

Sunday

She said to draw a house and garden. I drew a house and garden. She looked at it and said, “That’s supposed to be a house?” I said yes. I have never claimed to be any good at drawing.

She told me that I’d done it the wrong way round. She said, “Look at it! It’s back to front.”

Sometimes she is just totally illogical. How can a house be back to front? I explained that it was simply seen from the rear. She said, “So who draws a house seen from the rear? Honestly! It’s so anti-social. It’s like turning your back on people.”

I said, “That is just your opinion.”

“It isn’t an opinion,” she said. “It’s psychology.”

Huh! I bet she doesn’t even know how to spell the word. She says she’s going to give me one test a week until she’s built up a profile. “Then we shall see!”

I told her she wouldn’t see anything if I refused to do them, but she said that was where I was wrong. “If you refuse to do them it’ll simply show you’re scared.”

I said, “Scared of what?”

She said, “Of having your true self revealed! So whether you do them or whether you don’t, we shall still see.”

I think this is a form of bullying. I told her so, and she said, “How can I bully you? I’m only ten years old.”

“Which is far too young,” I said, “to know the first thing about psychology.”

“I’m learning,” she said. “Ten isn’t too young to start learning. Or to fall in love! Poor Linzi is heartsick. She’s suffering. I’m really worried, cos she’s my best friend—one of my best friends—and I’m just so frightened for her. If you keep on rejecting her like this—”

I resented that. I said, “I’m not rejecting her!”

“Excuse me,” said the Microdot, “you walked straight past her the other day. You didn’t even look at her!”

“Cos I didn’t even see her!”

“That’s even worse! Not even seeing her. Like she’s invisible! If I told her that,” said the Microdot, “I dread to think what she might do. She might do something really awful. And if she did, you’d be the one that was responsible for it!”

This is definitely getting beyond a joke; it’s putting me under a lot of stress. I don’t know how much more of it I can take!

Monday

This morning at breakfast, in sickly sweet tones that practically oozed a trail of treacle right across the table, the Microdot announced that she was becoming “ever so worried about Dory”. I knew at once that she was up to no good. I glared at her, but she just smirked and wrenched the marmalade away from me. Turning to Mum, still all sweet and sickly, she said, “You don’t think he needs his eyes tested, do you?”

Mum, of course, latched on to it immediately. She is such a sucker! She said, “What makes you ask?”

“Well, it’s the way he keeps missing things,” said the Microdot.

“What things?”

“People,” said the Microdot.

“Och, he jist has his head in the clouds,” said Wee Scots. “He’s a bit of a dreamer, aren’t ye, laddie?”

“You’d think he’d notice girls,” said the Microdot.

Wee Scots gave one of her throaty chuckles. (Mum says it’s all the usquebaugh.) “I bet the girls notice him all right! I’d have noticed him when I was a wee lass.”

“Dunno why you’d bother,” said the Microdot.

If Dad had been there, he might have come to my rescue. Will was sitting opposite and I tried to catch his eye so that we could pull faces at each other, but he just went on cramming his mouth with cornflakes and refused to look at me. I think he should have done: after all, he is my brother. We ought to stick together!

Did some digging after tea. Aaron and the Herb came round and I gave them the house and garden test. The Herb said, “Ooh, do we get marked out of ten?” I said I would tell her after she’d done it.

Aaron got a bit stroppy and said he thought we weren’t supposed to have time for anything except digging. “Way you were carrying on the other day, all bossy and got to be professional.”

I had to soothe him. I said, “These are important psychological tests.”

To be honest I think they are rubbish, but it is very undermining when a person of ten years old keeps telling you that you are weird and peculiar and anti-social. I really needed some kind of reassurance. I’m feeling a lot happier now; now that I’ve seen what Aaron and the Herb came up with. If I’m weird, they’re even weirder. I mean, how’s this for whacky: the Herb drew a house with a face

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