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Double history on a Wednesday afternoon - total nighto, I would have said I couldn&039;t i worse But when there&039;s a knock at the door, and it opens, and I spot et worse
When a parent turns up at school, unexpected, it s Either somebody close to you has been seriously injured or died, or you&039;re in trouble
My immediate reaction - please don&039;t let anybody be dead! I think of Dad, Gret, uncles, aunts, cousins It could be any of theue sticking out, a slab of deadto be buried I re flesh, having to kiss her forehead, the pain, the tears Please don&039;t let anyone be dead! Please! Please! Please! Ple -
Then I see Mue, and I know she&039;s here to punish, not coroan, rollon the corpses!"
The head&039;s office Me, Muarettes I&039;ve been seen s behind the bike shed (the oldest clich�� in the book!) She wants to know if the head&039;s aware of this, of what the pupils in his school are getting up to
I feel a bit sorry for Mr Donnellan He has to sit there, looking like a schoolboy hi he didn&039;t know this was going on and he&039;ll launch an investigation and put a quick end to it Liar! Of course he knew Every school has a s area That&039;s life Teachers don&039;t approve, but they turn a blind eye most of the ti at school than sneaking off the grounds during breaks and at lunch
Mu once, like she&039;s always re me Kids were no different in Muht back, she&039;d see what a bloody e a go at me at ho down the law in the head time
But it&039;s not like I can tell her, is it? I can&039;t pipe up with, "Oi! Mother! You&039;re disgracing us both, so shut yer trap!"
I sht, and of course that&039;s when Mum pauses for the briefest ofat?" she roars, and then she&039;s off again - I&039;rave, the school&039;s responsible, what sort of a freak show is Mr Donnellan running, la-di-la-di-la-di-bloody-la!
BAWring!
Her rant at school&039;s nothing co at the top of her lungs, blue bloodyschool - no, et up at dawn eachand do a hundred press-ups before breakfast How does that sound?
"Is breakfast a fry-up or sohurty crap?" is my response, and I know the second it&039;s out ofto say This isn&039;t the tie hued Mum fireworks Who do I think I aet kicked out of school? Then the clincher, the oneout of the hat - "Just wait till your father gets home!"
Dad&039;s not as freaked out as Mum, but he&039;s not happy He tells me how disappointed he is They&039;ve warned , how it destroys people&039;s lungs and gives the&039;s dumb," he says We&039;re in the kitchen (I haven&039;t been out of it since Muo to the toilet) "It&039;s disgusting, antisocial and lethal Why do it, Grubbs? I thought you hadwordlessly What&039;s there to say? They&039;re being unfair Of course sives you cancer Of course I shouldn&039;t be doing it Butout with cool people at lunch and talk about cool things But only if you smoke You can&039;t be in if you&039;re out And they know that Yet here they stand, acting all Gestapo, asking ? That&039;s what I want to know!" Mu to me in the third person since Dad arrived I&039;, Grubbs?"
"I dunno"
"Weeks? Months? Longer?"
"A few months maybe But only a couple a day"
"If he says a couple, he means at least five or six," Mum snorts
"No, I don&039;t!" I shout "I mean a couple!"
"Don&039;t raise your voice to oes on as if he isn&039;t there
"Do you think it&039;s clever? Filling your lungs with rubbish, killing yourself? We didn&039;t bring you up to watch you give yourself cancer! We don&039;t need this, certainly not at this tih!" Dad shouts, and we both juets very quiet when he&039;s angry Now his face is red and he&039;s glaring - but at both of us, not just hs, as if she&039;s embarrassed She sits, brushes her hair back off her face and looks at me ounded eyes I hate when she pulls a face like this It&039;s iue
"I want you to stop, Grubbs," Dad says, back in control now "We&039;re not going to punish you - " Mum starts to object, but Dad silences her with a curt wave of his hand " - but I want your word that you&039;ll stop I knoon&039;t be easy I know your friends will give you a hard tiscool Will you promise, Grubbs?" He pauses "Of course, that&039;s if you&039;re able to quit
"Of course I&039;"
"Then will you? For your sake - not ours?"
I shrug, trying to act like it&039;s no big thing, like I was planning to stop anyway "Sure, if you&039;re going to make that much of a fuss about it," I yawn
Dad smiles Mum smiles I smile
Then Gret walks in the back door and she&039;s s-sister-superior smile "Have we sorted all our little probleh and fake-innocent
And I know instantly - Gret grassedand she told The cow!
As she swishes past, beael, I burn fiery holes in the back of her head with h e!
I love rubbish du stuff there The perfect place to go browsing if you want to get even with your annoying traitor of a sister
I cliy cardboard boxes I&039; to use, or in what fashion, so I wait for inspiration to strike Then, in a s, I find six dead rats, necks broken, just starting to rot
Excellent!
Look out, Gret - here I co breakfast at the kitchen table Radio turned do Listening to the noises upstairs Trying not to giggle Waiting for the outburst
Gret&039;s in her shower She showers at least twice a day, before she goes to school and when she gets back So to bed too I don&039;t knohy anybody would bother to keep themselves so clean I reckon it&039;s a for, Muured I wouldn&039;t mind And I don&039;t In fact, it&039;s perfect I wouldn&039;t have been able to pull my trick if Gret didn&039;t have her own shoith its very oel rack
The shower goes off Splatters, then drips, then silence I tense with excitement I know Gret&039;s routines inside out She always pulls her towel down off its rack after she&039;s showered, not before I can&039;t hear her footsteps, but I i the three or four steps to the towel rack Reaching up Pulling it down Aaaaaaaaannnddd
On cue - screale screa into another I push y cornflakes aside and prepare h of the year
Muo stiff when they hear the screams, then dash towards the stairs, which I can see fro
Gret appears before they reach the stairs Crashes out of her roo them from her hair She&039;s covered in red Towel clutched with one hand over her front - even terrified out of her wits, there&039;s no way she&039;s going to co?" Mu?"
"Blood!" Gret screams "I&039;m covered in blood! I pulled the towel down! I"
She stops She&039;s spottedI&039; I&039;ve ever seen
Mum turns and looks at me Dad does too They&039;re speechless
Gret picks a sticky pink chunk out of her hair, slowly this time, and studies it "What did you put onthe table, crying with laughter "I got rats at the rubbish duet sick, I&039; so much
Mum stares at me Dad stares at me Gret stares at me
Then -
"You lousy son of a - !"
I don&039;t catch the rest of the insult - Gret flies down the stairs ahead of it She drops her towel on the way I don&039;t have ti and scratching ather off, calling her by the name she hates She normally calls me Grubitsch in response, but she&039;s too es at rabs my jaw, jerks my uts downinstantly - a rand ��ber-joke! "Get off!" I roar, lashing out wildly Mum and Dad suddenly recover and shout at exactly the same time
"Stop that!"
"Don&039;t hit your sister!"
"She&039;s a lunatic!" I gasp, pushingoffrat blood fro - serious orks - and her face is as red as her long, straight hair Not red froer, shame and fear?
Mum picks up the dropped towel, takes it to Gret, wraps it around her Dad&039;s just behind them, face as dark as death Gret picks uts frouish
"They&039;re all over uts at me "You bloody little monster!"
"You&039;re the one who&039;s bloody!" I cackle Gret dives for my throat
"No more!" Dad doesn&039;t raise his voice but his tone stops us dead
Mu daggers I sense that I&039;m the only one who sees the funny side of this
"It was just a joke," I mutter defensively before the accusations fly
"I hate you!" Gret hisses, then bursts into fresh tears and flees dra oing up to try and coiven names She&039;s the one who picked them, and is the only person in the world who doesn&039;t see how shudderingly awful they are
Muhs, walks to the counter, tears off several sheets of kitchen paper and uts and streaks of blood from the floor After a couple of silent minutes of this, as I lie uncertainly by aze on n that he&039;s really angry, even angrier than he was about
"You shouldn&039;t have done that," he says
"It was funny," I mutter
"No," he barks "It wasn&039;t"
"She deserved it!" I cry "She&039;s done worse to- I knoas her! And remember the time she melted my lead soldiers? And cut up s you should never do," Dad interrupts softly "This rong You invaded your sister&039;s privacy, hu! You" He pauses and ends with a fairly weak "upset her greatly" He checks his watch "Get ready for school We&039;ll discuss your punishe upstairs ro is about It was a great joke I laughed for hours when I thought of it And all that hard work - chopping the rats up, etting up early, sneaking into her bathroouts in place - wasted!
I pass Gret&039;s bedroo softly to her My stoets hard, the way it does when I know I&039;ve done sonore it "I don&039;t care what they say," I gru off atory Confined to my room after school for a month A whole bloody MONTH! No TV, no computer, no comics, no books - except schoolbooks Dad leaves my chess set in the room too - no fear my chess-mad parents would take that away froion in this house Gret and I were reared on it While other toddlers were being taught how to put jigsaws together, ere busy learning the ridiculous rules of chess
I can come downstairs for meals, and bathroom visits are allowed, but otherwise I&039;o out at the weekends
In solitude, I call Gret every naht Mum and Dad bear the brunt of my curses the next After that I&039;m too miserable to blaainst myself to pass the time
They don&039;t talk to me at meals The three of thelance at me spitefully and sneer, the way she usually does when I&039;house treatment