And Baby Makes Two - Dyan Sheldon [25]
“When?” persisted Shanee.
“As soon as I have a chance.”
My Chances Come
The phone rang that night, while Dragon Lady and I were eating in front of the telly.
I didn’t move. I knew it wasn’t for me. Neither Les nor Shanee would ring that early. Les because he was at work, and Shanee because the Tyler circus would be in full swing at that hour.
Huffing and puffing, she heaved herself from her chair and went to answer it. When she came back she marched straight up to the screen and snapped it off.
“Hey!” I shouted. “I was watching that!”
“And I should’ve been watching you,” said my mother. She folded her arms in front of her so she looked like a wall in jeans and a pink sweatshirt. A pissed-off wall. “Just where the hell have you been for the last three days when you should’ve been at school?”
I stared back. “What are you talking about?”
“Don’t give me that,” said my mother. “You know exactly what I’m talking about. You haven’t been to school for three days.”
I swear to God, she started tapping her foot. And she thought I watched too many films!
“’Course I have.”
Sometimes bluffing worked. I was really good at looking blank and sincere. It confused her. Even though she hated everything about me, part of her didn’t want to think her daughter was a liar.
But it didn’t work this time.
“Oh no, you haven’t.” She jerked her head towards the kitchen. “That was Mrs Mela. She says you haven’t been in since Tuesday.”
“I told you. I don’t like Shakespeare.”
It was incredible how thin she could make her lips when she wanted to.
“To school. Not just to English.”
“You mean this week?”
Taptaptaptaptap. Fred Astaire would’ve loved her.
“Yes, I mean this week. Why weren’t you at school?”
I shrugged. “I didn’t feel like going.”
“You didn’t feel like going…” Hilary the Parrot.
“That’s right.” I got up and moved towards her, to put the telly back on. “I was feeling too stressed.”
She cackled. “Too stressed? You?” She flattened herself against the screen. “You think stress is breaking a nail or getting some mud on your jeans.”
“What do you know?”
I made a move towards the TV, but she pushed me back and I whacked into the coffee table. I screamed in pain.
She didn’t care that she’d wounded me. “I know you’ve been bunking off school, that’s what I know. And I’d like to know why.”
I rubbed the back of my leg.
“I hope you’re happy,” I snapped. “You’ve really hurt me.”
“Not yet, I haven’t,” she screeched. “But I will if you don’t start giving me some straight answers.”
I stood up tall. My tummy stuck out in the air between us.
“I told you. I didn’t feel like going. That’s all.”
“No, it isn’t all,” said PC Hilary Spiggs. “I want to know where you were.”
I was the same height as her. I stared right into those beady eyes.
“I was here, that’s where I was. Satisfied?”
She wasn’t satisfied. She started banging on about her responsibility as a parent, and my responsibility as a young adult, and what a mess my future was going to be if I got expelled for absenteeism.
“My responsibilities as a young adult?” I screamed back. “That’s a laugh. I’m not a young adult to you. To you I’m still a little kid.”
“You get treated the way you act,” said my mother.
And that’s when I told her. Just like that. It seemed like the right moment.
“Oh, yeah?” I gave her my smuggest smile. “Well, for your information it just so happens that I’m having a baby.” I stepped up my smile. “How’s that for acting grown up?”
She just stood there staring back at me, looking like I’d bashed her over the head with a dead fish. Then she smiled the way people do in films when they’ve been bashed over the head with a