Darcy Burdock Book 3 Read online

  I hate glasses, and Dad is mad, mad, mad with me. Though if I was with Mum right now I would be so even MORE in trouble, so in trouble it’s not even worth thinking about actually.

  ‘Can’t believe you did that,’ Dad shout-whispers to me.

  ‘Did what?’ I say, and stare at all the other people choosing their glasses.

  ‘You shouldn’t mess around with stuff like that, it’s your vision, doll, it’s important. Not a joke.’

  ‘Jokes make people laugh,’ I snort. And then suddenly I see right at the back of the room, on the shelf, a rose amongst the thorns, the most incredible pair of glasses I’ve ever seen. Big multi-coloured, glittery rainbow, heart-shaped numbers with diamond twinkly bits around the outside that are simply so jaw-droppingly fantastic they make my heart scatter.

  ‘I love them!’ I scream. I run to try them on and pour my face into the mirror area. Fantastic, I’m thinking. I look fan-tas-tic. Dad begins to giggle.

  ‘I think they’re just for display, monkey.’

  ‘I don’t think they are.’ (They are.)

  ‘You’d wear them to school, would you?’ Dad says, all sarcastic.

  ‘Course!’ I bellow across the spectacle room. ‘Why wouldn’t I? They are SO COOL.’ Some other people look towards me just in case I happen to have found some glasses that everybody wants, but it’s OK, they quickly turn back round again: only I want these babies.

  ‘They are pretty groovy,’ says Dad, and then immediately apologizes when he sees my frowning face. ‘Sorry for saying the word groovy.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ I reassure him. ‘It’s easy for words to jump out when you’re overexcited.’

  These dream glasses are so perfect for me that I just want to keep trying them on over and over. I can’t wait to need glasses now and wear these every day and look immediately like an absolutely fabulous boss. I can’t wait for Anisha to diagnose me and say those three magic words:

  ‘You need glasses.’

  ‘You need glasses.’

  ‘You need glasses.’

  Then I can walk out of here ready for whatever life throws at me. Most writers wear glasses anyway so it’s only correct that I own a pair.

  I get all excited thinking about all the new things I’m about to see with my all-seeing new eyes. I will zoom in like a telescope on absolutely everything and feel exactly like a wonderful spy beast. I hear Anisha’s clip-cloppy shoes coming round the corner towards us so I know it’s time to prepare myself – the glasses wink at me from across the room like, See you soon, pal.

  ‘Darcy, it’s good news,’ she says. See? I look at Dad. I knew she wanted me to have glasses all along. ‘Your eyesight is perfect and you do not need any glasses today.’

  ‘Terrific news. Thank you,’ Dad says. ‘Right, come on then, monkey, home time.’

  ‘What?’ I say, aghast. ‘But what about these glasses?’

  ‘But you don’t need glasses.’

  ‘I think I do. Remember how badly I read the article on the wall yesterday?’

  ‘Yes, but maybe you were tired.’

  ‘I think I should retake the eye test.’

  ‘There’s no need; the lady said we didn’t need to. Come on.’ Dad smiles and thanks Anisha.

  ‘But what about when I read I HATE THIS out loud? Remember that? Do you remember?’ I try to remind Dad.

  ‘So that WAS deliberate?’ Dad’s eyebrows meet each other to make one angry eyebrow (Hi, how are you? Yeah, not too bad, not too bad), and I keep my mouth zipped up like a grandma’s purse.

  I trail away from the glasses. It’s not OK now you’re my age to throw yourself on the floor in crying sobs if you don’t get your own way; so instead I nod and wave goodbye to the spectacles that would have changed my life.

  Goodbye, life-changing spectacles. Goodbye.

  I can’t stop thinking about MY glasses, belonging to somebody else, changing their life, their outlook on the world.

  Chapter Three

  ‘What is that smell?’ Mum asks as she walks into the kitchen. She has on new Swedish slippers that Dad got her from Portobello Market that she will NOT take off. You can hear her feet scraping the floor with the soles of them. She is right, there is a smell in the kitchen; like Parmesan cheese or sick or horrid things all squelched together.

  ‘Have you left something horrible in the oven?’ Dad asks, because a few times Mum has left some terribly disgustingly offensive and ancient things in the oven like half-eaten plates of roast dinner (that she intends to finish nibbling on) or whole Indian takeaways.

  Mum opens the oven. ‘No,’ she sighs, almost sad that there isn’t anything old for her to eat.

  ‘Fridge?’

  ‘Um . . .’ Mum flops over to the fridge and it opens with the globbery slobbery pulling noise it makes. ‘A few jars and bits of cheese but nothing that would smell this bad.’

  ‘Maybe Lamb-Beth had an accident?’ Dad suggests.

  ‘Er . . . or maybe she SO did NOT!’ I shout. ‘She never has an accident, she is a glorious clean girl, aren’t you, Lamb-Beth?’ Lamb-Beth at this point, perfectly timed, does a huge popping explosive fart and it stinks like rancid stew.

  ‘And there’s the answer to my question.’ Dad folds the newspaper in that I do have a point kind of way.

  ‘It really isn’t like her to do a poo in the kitchen . . . but I suppose we should look, in case it’s under one of the cabinets, rotting away.’ Mum tilts her head at Dad. ‘I say we, but I mean you.’

  ‘What, so I’VE got to find this missing poo, have I?’

  Mum nods and Dad rolls up his sleeves.

  Not even one minute had gone by and Dad bellows, ‘There we go!’

  ‘Did you find it?’ I ask.

  ‘Not quite . . . but I sure found the culprit.’

  ‘What is it?’ Mum asks. I can hear the rumbles of Poppy and Hector now hurdling their way down the stairs, wanting to get in on the goss.

  There, dangling in between Dad’s fingers, is a tiny dead MOUSE.

  ‘We’ve got mices!’ Hector yells.

  ‘’Fraid so,’ Dad says as he inspects the mouse.

  ‘Yuck! Put it down!’ Poppy screams. ‘It’s scary.’ This encourages Dad to start pretending to throw the dead mouse at us and make terrifying noises until we are screaming our heads off.

  ‘What do we do?’ Mum asks.

  ‘Call the police!’ Hector cries.

  ‘No, honey, you don’t call the police if you have mice.’

  ‘Oh.’ Hector looks disappointed – policemen are his latest craze. I think he would faint with excitement if the police had to come over.

  Dad thinks he is a bit of a policeman detective right now. He is rubbing his chin and then he says, ‘Set traps, poison, that sort of thing,’ and he begins wrapping the dead mouse in loads of plastic bags like what people have to do with evidence. This is too much for me to deal with on my quest to become a vegetarian. I have to swallow a ball of my own sick.

  ‘What are you going to do with that now?’ I ask, disgusted.

  ‘Thought I might keep it as an ornament,’ he laughs with sarcasm and I scrunch my face up – there’s no way that’s going on our Christmas tree!

  ‘Joking, Darcy! I’m going to throw it in the bin.’ He then throws the mouse into the bin, alongside the tea bags and toast crusts.

  ‘Just like that?’ I squeal.

  ‘Just like that,’ he says, washing his hands at the sink. ‘Right, who’s coming to the shops with me?’

  I just love supermarkets. I think they are glorious palaces with everything inside that anybody could ever want to meet in the World of Food. I like imagining everybody’s shopping lists – which brand of washing powder they choose, which flavour crisps is their favourite. People always magically seem so happy in the supermarket, it is such a peaceful safe place full of beeps and human beings and food.

  My favourite aisle is the bakery section, followed by the sweets and chocolate aisle, followed by cereal,
followed by crisps. Then I like the party aisle which has everything you’d ever need to have at a party: cake mixes, candles, paper hats, those blowy things that make the surprising noise, party poppers and all different colourful plates. I love parties.

  But sadly we are not in need of these aisles.

  We go to the evil end, right at the back of the supermarket, next to the plain simple bottled water and cat litter, to get the mouse poison. I am a bit embarrassed; I don’t want people to think we live in a disgusting unclean house that’s absolutely riddled to the rooftops with mice and infestations. We recently had a massive outcry of nits at my new school and everybody took it really seriously and got so embarrassed. At my old school we had a nit infestation rampage on a daily basis, so we were completely used to it, in fact you felt left out if you didn’t have nits. Anyway, I remember the school nurse saying, ‘Nits only like clean hair, so if you have nits that is because your hair is clean.’ But I suspect this was only to try and make us feel better, and I just don’t think the same rule applies to a mouse infestation.

  Back home and the poison is all laid out in the cupboards and corners: it is called ‘pasta bait’. It is really funny that mice enjoy pasta; I never would have thought that. Plus it’s bright blue – those mice are so fussy. They will be wanting candlelit dinners next and bread baskets!

  ‘I thought mice liked cheese?’ Poppy asks while we are unpacking the shopping. So did I actually, but I’ll leave her to find out the answer and look stupid.

  ‘I think they like most things,’ Dad says. ‘Look at this!’ He is holding up Mum’s hand cream that lives by the kitchen sink – all around the side of the tube are tiny teeth-sized munch marks. ‘See those nibbles on the side – they’ve even tried to get in there!’

  ‘It’s because it’s coconut flavour,’ I suggest.

  ‘Funny how mice like cheese and when they die they smell like cheese. I think that means I’ll smell like apple juice and chocolate cake when I die,’ Poppy ponders. ‘Trust us to get the ones that like blue pasta and moisturizer.’

  In bed I keep thinking I can hear the scurrying tiptoeing of a mouse in my room. I just CANNOT be bothered to find a mouse crawling over my face whilst I sleep and using my open snoring mouth as some kind of basin to wash its paws in. EUGH! Maybe the mouse might even attempt using my tongue as a slide when I sleep? Like some kind of outrageously fantastic water slide? What if they start taking turns and one accidentally falls down my throat and it gets trapped and then it has to live in my tummy and that becomes its new flat and I have to go about the rest of my life with a mouse living in my belly? Imagine how much it will hurt when it wants to decorate? Or put pictures up? I’m going to have to be a really strict killjoy landlord.

  A screeching ‘AHHHHHHHHHH!’ wakes us all up an hour earlier than normal. It’s Poppy.

  We all know that ‘AHHHHHHHHHH!’ very well, because it’s the same one she does when she goes on her bike or it’s her birthday or she has a bee near her or sees a pop star she likes on the TV.

  This time, she’s seen a mouse.

  ‘I was just eating some cereal and then I saw it scamper across the kitchen floor. It was so fast. It made me jump!’ Suddenly Mum and I begin curling our toes up, it’s almost like our feet and legs begin to get itchy and irritated. It’s as if we can feel hundreds of tiny mouse hands and feet all over our skin. Now I know why that lady in the Tom and Jerry cartoons gets so angry and is always marching around with that broomstick.

  ‘Which way did it go?’ asks Dad.

  ‘That way,’ says Poppy, pointing to the cellar.

  We all head down to the horrid cave dungeon, Mum carrying Hector. It smells damp and it’s all dark and cobwebby. It is also home to lots of boring shed tools, boxes of beer, raincoats and wellington boots, but I am very good at seeing the potential in things and realize it could be an excellent den.

  ‘I’M SCARED!’ Poppy squeals and runs back up.

  ‘It’s cool down here!’ I say brightly.

  ‘Yeah, freezing.’ Mum wraps her cardigan around her and Hector.

  ‘I meant cool as in . . . good. I like it.’

  But she is already heading back upstairs, asking who wants a cup of tea. I don’t know why she even offers us tea because tea actually means: a coffee for Dad, orange squash for Poppy and Hector, water for me and a cup of tea just for herself. Really it should be, ‘Who wants a squash?’ because that’s the most popular choice. You wouldn’t say, ‘Who wants a slice of pizza?’ when you know nobody else eats pizza. Although that’s a terrible example because who doesn’t eat pizza?

  I stick with Dad in the cool cellar, plotting my idea for a hideaway or den. A lick of paint, some cushions, a little writing desk, perhaps a lava lamp and a beanbag and we will be well and truly golden . . . well, after the mouse infestation has passed.

  ‘How do the mice get up into the kitchen if they live down here? It’s not as if the door is open,’ I ask.

  ‘Mice can get into gaps the size of pinheads, their backs are bendy like shoelaces and they can wriggle into the tiniest of holes, the nippers.’ I can tell Dad’s a bit enjoying this new hobby; he gets a whole pot of the bright blue pasta bait and plonks it in the centre of the cellar. ‘That will do the trick. Not all mice eat on the spot, they sometimes take the bait back to their nests, to feed their family.’

  ‘Awww, that’s thoughtful of them,’ I say.

  ‘Hmm . . . not in this case, Darcy.’

  ‘Yeah, it’s like a takeaway.’

  ‘Yeah, but would you think it was nice of me if I came back from the Chinese takeaway with poisonous noodles? I don’t think so!’

  ‘Poison!’ I cry. I love animals, remember.

  ‘What? Did you think I was feeding them? Fattening them up for a competition? Come on, Darcy, they aren’t our pets!’

  ‘But Dad, it seems so unfair and so not like what a nice human being would do.’

  ‘OK . . . look . . .’ Dad sighs. ‘Here’s what we shall do. I don’t want to hurt the animals, I just don’t know how else to get them out of our home . . . so, I’ll buy you a little cage and you can try and collect the mice yourself. Every mouse you catch you can put in the cage and you can keep it as a pet. How does that sound?’

  ‘OK. Fine,’ I say.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Dad strokes my hair. ‘Come on then, monkey, let’s have some breakfast . . . if the mice haven’t got there first, that is!’ He makes his way up the stairs. ‘Oh, and by the way, you’re not a nice human being, you are a nice human bean . . . because you’re a vegetarian. Ha-ha-ha.’

  Oh ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha. So funny I forgot to laugh.

  Chapter Four

  As promised, Dad makes a little cage out of a cardboard box. It has straw all along the bottom, cotton-wool-type fluff and even a water dispenser.

  ‘What’s that?’ Poppy demands the moment her eyes clap on it. ‘It better NOT be for a hamster. I’ve been asking for a hamster for SO long, and already Darcy hogs Lamb-Beth to death, so this better not be more pets for her.’

  ‘Calm down,’ says Dad. ‘It’s for all three of you. Darcy doesn’t like the idea of the mice getting poisoned, so I’ve said you guys can keep whatever mice you manage to catch in here as pets.’

  You can almost hear Lamb-Beth gulp – she is clearly concerned.

  We make Dad get our fishing nets out of the boot of the car. It’s a weird place for nets to live but they just seem to have made a home for themselves there (because, let’s face it, what are we going to catch with nets in London? Carrier bags or crisp packets out of the puddles?). We camouflage up in browns, greys, greens and blacks and ask Mum to do war-paint camouflage lines on our faces like true safari hunters. We are ready for action. For the rest of the day we lurk, hunt, snoop, spy and sneak as much as we can.

  ‘You do know that mice are nocturnal, don’t you, my babies?’ Mum calls out as we slip down the staircase like jungle shadows.

  �
��SHHHHHH!’ I growl, not wanting the mice to know we are literally on their tail. ‘We are on call.’

  ‘Sor-ry,’ Mum whispers back.

  I hate asking for help when I want to be in charge but I ask Mum, ‘What does nocturnal mean?’

  ‘It means they only come out at night.’

  I huff. Great. ‘So I’ll be sleeping whilst they are out, probably, won’t I?’

  ‘Probably, yes,’ Mum says. ‘That’s why they are so tricky to be rid of. That’s why I’m packing everything into the lunch boxes, so they can’t get in.’ Mum has turned the kitchen upside down and all the cereal, rice and (normal-coloured, so jealous of those mice) pasta is in boxes and tubs.

  ‘We’re never going to catch ANY mice at this rate. Will you maybe let us stay up one tiny bit later, just until it gets really dark, to see if we can catch at least one?’

  ‘If you’re good and you come and help me with this,’ she replies.

  So all three of us get demoted from catching mice to packing the food into boxes, but it’s OK because Mum has the radio on really loud and we all do singing and stuff and then we eat a bowl of cereal as a reward.

  Night time takes for ever to come but the kitchen is spotless and smells like bleach. We are not even allowed one snack without completely tidying every crumb around us. Personally it seems a little late to begin telling us off for crumbs, as we’ve already got mice, but Mum says she thinks it will only help make them leave sooner if they can’t find food. Lamb-Beth’s bowl of greens has moved to outside the kitchen door, but I don’t think she minds. She hasn’t said anything to me about it anyway.

  We can’t really be bothered to dress back up into our camouflage and so we continue to snoop in our pyjamas. Hector really isn’t used to being up late so he is really hyper and over the top and squealing and being the worst mouse-catcher ever.