Big Bones Read online

  The ducks quack.

  POO. POO. Actual, literal POO. Threatening to force its way out of me like a Mr Whippy ice-cream machine. I trap it in.

  I run around like a sweating headless chicken among ducks and dogs and overgrown weeds and the annoying pond bath and all this gross hay. Sweat is pouring off my face. Can I find somewhere to do a poo in the garden? But how, without being noticed by my nosy neighbours who are all enjoying the sun?

  I’ve also left my phone indoors so I can’t even call Mum or Camille and get them to rush home and let me in.

  They’ll be back soon. The pet shop isn’t far. Even though my mum takes a batrillion years to shop, I’m thinking Camille might’ve had the same reaction to the old shepherd’s pie and they might have turned back.

  I just need to hold it. Hold it. And breathe. Focus. Think back to that woman who came and spoke at school about mindfulness and meditation. Blank it out. What was it she said? You are on a beach … you can see the sea … NOW RUN, RUN INTO IT AND … POO!

  Wah. Breathe. It won’t be long until they come back. I tremble. I feel sick. Wet mouth. I spit. The bulking bashing of squishy, hot poo in my insides is terrorising me. I try to look calm. But I feel like I have a wet handbag filled with warm brown goat’s cheese slamming about inside my guts. My bowels are a punching bag being beaten. A bagpipe of mud.

  And then it only gets worse.

  ‘BB!’ It’s Farhana. ‘Your mum’s out the front. She says can you let her in. She’s locked out.’

  What the actual hell?

  ‘Sorry, what?’ This can’t be. I feel dazed. Feverish.

  ‘She’s left the front-door keys on the kitchen table; she’s just asked me to ask you if you can let her in.’

  ‘Farhana!’ I scream. My voice garbles; I feel like I’m talking gibberish, my mouth as lose as my bum. I can’t be bothered to be nice to anyone any more, no more pleasantries from me. ‘SHE’S locked the door to the garden from the inside! I’m locked out; I can’t get into the house!’

  AND P.S. MY BUM IS ABOUT TO EXPLODE!

  ‘Oh dear! What are the chances?’ Farhana bites her lip. Well, don’t just stand there. ‘I’ll let her know.’ She runs back inside and I squirm. 2B and Not 2B glance at me. L-o-v-i-n-g the drama. Smugly toilet-breaking liberally to spite me. YOU DO NOT NEED TO SQUEEZE THAT FAKE ANXIETY-WEE OUT, 2B. I have to find somewhere to go. I have to try the door again even though I know it’s locked. Maybe the heat made the door swell? Perhaps my hands were too clammy?

  ‘Bluebelle!’ Oh no, not Gerald the author. He dangles his head over his balcony, mug balanced cockily in his hand. ‘Your mum’s outside, she’s –’

  ‘I know, I know!’ I snap. I KNOW! Shut down.

  I can’t do this any more. I can’t.

  I need to get this disgusting Trojan horse of a shepherd’s pie out of me. It’s toxic; it’s poisoning me. Why couldn’t it come as sick? Then it wouldn’t be so embarrassing. I could just lean over into a bush and be sick. Popstars do it on stage all the time. Come on, if I could find somewhere to turn upside-down it might come out of another hole. I can barely move; I’m walking cross-legged. Hopping. Bum cheeks clenched. I don’t dare fart. It would rumple out of me. HELL. OK, THINK … right up next to the back door, there is an alley, only small, with a cupboard door where the lawnmower is kept. I creep around there, crouch and prepare to poo – but it’s all decking. I can’t just go freely like that. I don’t know what’s going to come out of me. What if somebody walks out at the wrong time … yes, maybe my bare bum will be out of view but the eruption of poo might not go so unnoticed. It might spill out of me like a glass of spilt chocolate milkshake. Crap, I need a thing to crap into.

  The dogs look like they’re looking around for me too. But I know they’re not. They don’t care. Just DO IT. Be natural and free and animally like us! they think. It’s so tempting. But I’ll never live it down. I’m meant to be becoming a woman. Not needing a baby nappy. I’ll never be a manager of anywhere. I think about the annoying smug nurse from the doctor’s laughing in my face. Alicia from Planet Coffee tutting at me in disgust. The girls from school. Blegh … She’s so fat and gross AND she poos herself. These stories don’t just go away, you know?

  I can’t. The poo is bellowing, desperate to begin its grand exit and thunder out of me. Why do I feel like it’s taking over my body, drip-feeding poo into my veins?

  I’m so hot. I have to smash the window, break into the house. I take my pyjama top off so I’m just in my once-white-now-looks-like-it’s-been-retrieved-from-a-Victorian-ghost tea-stainy bra, and wrap it up around my elbow. I am so impressed I know to do that and not punch the glass through with my fist like an actual idiot, which I CLEARLY am. I size up the window, ready to punch the glass. But I can’t. I’m tingling. I feel so weak from the necessity to poo that I have no strength. If I do a punch, I’ll surely do a poo too. No woman-power at all. I have to grow up.

  This is my moment. You are a responsible adult now, BB. You got yourself into a jam and you’re gonna get yourself out of it. Let this be the start of the new you.

  I go back to my spot, breathe in deep, pull my pyjama bottoms down and then I spot it. The dog bowl. Sod it. I drag the bowl towards me; at least then it will be contained. It scratches, metal on the tiles. Even though Not 2B hates my guts – not in there, no, not in there, BB, THINK! But whatever, he needs to be brought down a peg or two. Sorry, Not 2B.

  Shoving the metal pan under my bum like a potty I, without much choice, release hot sloppy poo into it. The dogs whimper.

  Gerald pops his head out onto his balcony to say something but I point a finger at him from my crouched position like a possessed demon giving birth to another possessed demon, Possessed Demon the Second, for example, and roar, ‘GO BACK INSIDE, GERALD!’

  And he skulks back in as I continue the big smushy relief. Eyes closed, it gallops out of me. I am rattling with the sensation. Trembling. So elated I feel I could float. Actual heaven. Pull my bottoms up.

  Now. I am back to life. A superhero. Capable of anything. I breathe. Wrap the jumper again over my elbow. Focus on the glass like a bullseye target, smash the window; it shatters in one go. I am SUCH a badass ninja. I use my other hand to unlatch the bolt. Clank. Yet again, absolute boss. Inside, I run through the house. It all looks so basic and inferior to me now that I am a legend capable of breaking into houses and just as I reach the door the key inside the lock twists. Mum and Camille enter with Dove.

  ‘Dove let us in. I told Gerald to come out and tell you, did he not say?’ BLEUGH. WRETCHED FLASHBACK OF GERALD SEEING ME POO! The eye contact. Shudder. Mum continues: ‘Sorry for locking the door, it’s just habit. How did you get inside?’

  ‘I just …’ I feel frantic. ‘I just smashed the door with my elbow.’

  ‘You smashed the glass? BB, we were only outside for two minutes. I just rang Dove, she ran back with the key. Couldn’t you have waited?’ Stupid Dove with not even one bit of sweat on her stupid perfect forehead after running in the heat.

  ‘Not really. I … had a bad tummy. Did you, Camille?’

  ‘No.’ Camille laughs, carrying through the stack of straw. She looks perky and fresh. She’s got bagels under her arm. We couldn’t be in more different places at this moment.

  ‘Is the shed clear?’

  ‘Sort of but, like I said, I had a bad tummy.’ I follow her through to the kitchen where she unpacks her shopping.

  ‘It’s hot, isn’t it?’ She reaches for a glass to fill with water, rolling her eyes at the shattered glass on the floor. She looks out into the garden …

  Where there are blood-stained white feathers, everywhere.

  Mary, Kate and Ashley … OH NO!

  Those dogs do NOT hang about.

  ‘Well, we won’t be needing this any more then.’ Mum throws the bag of straw down and I run upstairs to shower.

  TOAST

  Toast eases most things. Even toast from crap white sliced bread – that and a cup o
f tea and you can fix quite a lot.

  But not three dead ducks.

  Or having to hose out a dog bowl full of your own poo.

  It’s later that day when Dad comes over.

  ‘It’s Not 2B!’ Mum yells. ‘He thinks he owns the bloody place.’

  ‘Don’t blame Not 2B!’ Dad yells. He’s wearing a flat cap these days and he flops it off like a prop and slams it on the coffee table to show he’s annoyed. I can’t help but judge all of his actions like he’s been directed to do them. ‘What do you expect? If you get three ducks with two Dalmatians there’s going to be carnage. They are dogs, you know, Lucy, they hunt.’

  ‘They are badly trained.’

  ‘Oh, see it as the equivalent of you being left on your own with four hundred glasses of chilled white wine and being asked not to drink one.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  Meanwhile, the toast is amazing. I can drown out the thought of the ducks’ murder and the poo incident and them arguing with the delightful lullaby of pale, salty butter. The smushing soft, warm press of a doughy mattress, the crumbling of salty Marmite rubble, collapsing under each chew, the crisp toastiness, washed down with tea. It’s my fault. I never should have left the ducks unattended.

  Then the pair of them really begin to row.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Dove says as Dad gets up.

  ‘I’m leaving. Your mum’s being a septic cow.’ And then he walks out.

  Mum turns to us and laughs. ‘His hairline is so receding,’ she says. ‘I don’t know what I ever saw in that bloke. Honestly, girls, never fall for an older man, because it seems fun and mysterious at the time and then you turn around and before you know it you’ve gone and made babies with your granddad. They say they have money but it’s a lie; you end up paying for them.’ She rubs her eyes. ‘I’m sorry, girls, I shouldn’t be mean; I know he’s your father but I just need to get this off my chest.’ She rubs her neck like she’s about to say something she’s been holding back for a too-long amount of time. ‘Your dad is a deluded, arrogant, egotistical, self-pitying old pig with a drinking problem.’ She catches her breath, clears her throat and begins again. ‘He looks like a tub of butter, an old one, that should be in a museum. It’s laughable.’ She strokes the dogs’ heads. ‘What on earth was I –? Dove, go pour me a glass of wine, would you?’

  Turns out toast can’t fix Mum and Dad either but I love each and every mouthful.

  CORNISH PASTY

  ‘No, I know what he looks like.’ Mum sips the wine; it’s clearly giving her clarity. ‘… a Cornish pasty. Your father looks like a soggy Cornish pasty … sweating … in a paper bag.’

  You know, in the olden days, you used to be able to get Cornish pasties that were half savoury and half sweet, so the farmers could take them to work and have a main and a pudding in one filling lunch. I think they should bring that back.

  LATTE HEARTS

  It’s not that I fancy Max but maybe I think I fancy him.

  Quite an actual lot.

  Max and Marcel like to talk for hours about the coffee beans. I know I a bit fancy him because I’m jealous of the coffee beans. I am jealous of how Max talks about them like it’s his genuine passion. I am jealous of the way he holds the beans so gently in his hands, how he smells them, breathes them in. Flirts with them. I want him to talk to Marcel about me like I’m the coffee beans. Saying how great and unusual I am.

  I flump next to the two of them. Next to my rival, the beans. Knuckles pressing into my chin. I have on my alphabet shirt. It’s covered in coloured letters. And high-waisted pink leggings. The boys have a little thermometer thingy that they dunk inside the milk frother, and challenge each other to do designs on the top: leaves, fans, flowers, birds, presidents’ faces.

  ‘Teach me how to do one of those,’ I ask Max. And by ‘ask’ I mean ‘BEG’. Oh, I feel like my mum, perving all over him. OK. Time to admit it: I FANCY MAX. IT IS OFFICIAL. OH I HATE HOW I’M WRITING. HOW I’M BEING. THAT YOU’RE READING THIS IN MY FOOD DIARY AND IT CLEARLY HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH FOOD BUT BLOODY HELL THIIIIISSS‌SSSSSSSS GUYYYYYYYY‌YYYYYYYYYYY. TOO FIT. TOOOOOOOO FIT.

  ‘What, Bluebelle, you’ve been here ALL this time and you STILL can’t make a coffee?’

  ‘Shut up, Max. I want to do one of those designs on the top.’

  ‘Latte art!’ Marcel smiles proudly. GO AWAY, MARCEL. ‘I can do boobs.’

  Max tuts at Marcel. ‘I’ll show you.’ He smiles at me. Sometimes he looks at my mouth when he speaks. His head is newly shaved. I want to say, Have you had a haircut, Max? but I’m a bit worried that it’s slightly forward.

  ‘Do the boobs if you want to get a better tip!’ Marcel interrupts.

  ‘It doesn’t make the coffee taste any better,’ Max argues.

  ‘But it shows you care!’

  ‘Oh look, here’s your chance!’ I point as an old lady with a sausage dog wanders in. ‘Go earn your tips, Marcel!’

  Max laughs and walks me over to the machine. ‘OK, your milk has to be all shiny and silky like this. You know if you have an espresso in the bottom of the cup, it’s about trying to get the milk to go over the top of the espresso, so that it cuts through; it’s what’s going to get you that ripple effect, see?’ I watch him gently curving the cup in his palm, swivelling the side of it round, angling it so it slides into his hand. ‘It’s about pouring it from a height, then you begin to get closer … When you’ve got that, you tip it up, here; you have to move quickly and then …’

  ‘A heart!’ Could I be any more delighted?

  ‘Yeah. You try.’

  ‘Let me taste it first,’ I say. ‘Bleugh! No, still vile.’

  Max laughs and hands me a fresh cup. The coffee machine churns. I do the same, following his precision. ‘Yeah, that’s it, but relax your hand a bit more …’ He hovers over me like he wants to reach out and take the cup out of my hand. DAMN MY HANDS FOR BEING SO UPTIGHT. ‘Can I?’ he asks gently.

  ‘Sure,’ I say, shyly, thinking he’s about to snatch it off me, finding it unbearable to watch me mess up his passion.

  But suddenly, instead, his warm hand is cupped around my hand. My tremor. The coffee flutters. I feel my heart racing a bit. Feeling a bit nervous.

  I thought all you had to do was do your life and go to sleep and wake up and eat and drink and be happy and work and your body would work it out for you if you fancied somebody or not. I thought it just did all the sums for you while you slept and gave you the results in the morning, in your private time, when you were alone. Not when you’re in front of the suspect, when you’re at work trying to make a heart on the top of a latte.

  Oh, how did I get here? I HATE MYSELF.

  ‘You’re shaking.’

  ‘I’m nervous.’

  ‘Why are you nervous?’ BECAUSE YOU ARE LITERALLY MADE OUT OF CARAMEL AND ARE BRINGING ME OUT IN HIVES. DUH. ‘I had to do this hundreds of times to get it right.’ He takes my hand. I feel like the coffee is doing that thing the water does in Jurassic Park in the scene with the car when the T. rex is coming. BETRAYING ME. Absolutely throwing me right under a bus.

  BANG. BANG. BANG.

  Before I know it I am saying what I just thought out loud. Oh, hideous brain, you deceive me. ‘Ah, it’s just like that scene in Jurassic Park where the T. rex is coming, you know, with the plastic cup of water … you know … the ripples …’ Oh shut up, BB.

  ‘I haven’t seen Jurassic Park.’

  ‘You haven’t seen Jurassic Park? Sorry, do you live under an actual rock? I just … am I meant to still be your friend or …’ PERHAPS YOU COULD GET UPGRADED TO BOYFRIEND.

  Gross. I’m so easy to hate.

  ‘Come on, it’s so old.’

  ‘But it’s so relevant. The effects are still so good. Like how you use the thermometer for the milk, well, Jurassic Park has basically become my thermometer to tell if films are good at effects. Like, if it’s a new film with a massive budget and the effects still aren’t as good as the effects in Ju
rassic Park then it is a hundred per cent a bad film.’

  ‘OK, I’ll check it out.’ He pretends to write on his hand with his finger as an imaginary pen, ‘Jurassic Park’ and then pretends to throw the imaginary pen over his shoulder. I giggle and it’s the most annoying laugh you’ve ever heard.

  ‘It’s also become my thermometer to decide if I like somebody or not. If they haven’t seen-slash-enjoyed Jurassic Park then we can’t be friends and they aren’t my species.’

  ‘Hold on … you can’t go around saying “slash” in real life.’

  ‘I can say exactly what the hell I like.’

  ‘You’re quite cocky, aren’t you?’

  HUH?

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘No, I’m not.’

  ‘Yeah you are. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing or anything, you don’t have to be offended, but if it’s a weapon, a defence mechanism or whatever … all I’m saying is, you don’t have to use that weapon on me.’

  I stay silent. I watch the coffee out of the corner of my eye. I can’t shout at him because that will count as another weapon.

  ‘I like how you are. You can be – SLASH – SHOULD BE – yourself, because being yourself is good and please don’t rule me out as a member of your species because I haven’t seen Jurassic Park.’ He whips the coffee cup up in the U-bend of his thumb. ‘And there you are; you did it!’ He raises the cup like a potter spinning a jug on a wheel. ‘A sort-of-ish heart!’ he announces. But I don’t think I can listen because my heart is raiding around my chest looking for an exit to physically thump onto the ground, grow legs and run to the chapel to be wed.

  ‘It looks like a broken heart to me.’ I laugh and go to tip it down the sink, embarrassed.

  ‘No, no, wait!’ Max says. ‘I’ll drink that.’

  I watch him sip it, pleased as punch, if punch was ever pleased. That’s my coffee going down his throat and into him. Sorry about me.