Jean Ure - Over the Moon

For Amy Kampta Maher

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Title Page

Dedication For Amy Kampta Maher

Over the Moon

Also by Jean Ure

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About the Publisher

Life is so weird: nothing but ups and downs. I can’t keep track of it! One minute it’s like whoosh, whiz, sizzle! You’re over the moon. And the next, back down to earth with a huge great thump.

Down into a pit, full of gloom and despondency and deep dark despair. Which is where I was last night. I just didn’t see (I still don’t) how Mum could be so mean. So utterly without any sympathy or understanding for my plight. Life almost didn’t seem worth living. Whereas today – wheeee! All of a sudden, I’m back over the moon. Halfway to Venus! Practically out of sight. I can go to the party after all!!!

No thanks to Mum. But hooray for Dad! He is THE BEST. I can always rely on Dad to stick up for me.

I wrote that in my diary almost a year ago. I cannot believe that I was so young! Well, I mean, yes, I was twelve. Now I am thirteen, which is admittedly a kind of landmark age when you stop being a mere child and become a proper person. I do think there is quite a big difference between being twelve and being thirteen. All the same … to get so worked up about such utter trivia. Such “small potatoes” as one of my granddads would say. It is truly pathetic.

I was all in a froth, I remember, because I’d been invited to Tanya Hoskins’ party, and rumour had it, from people that had been at Juniors with her, that Tanya’s parties were something else. I mean, like, really posh. So I’d got this special new gear I was going to wear, a dinky little white outfit, short swirly skirt with matching top, which I’d begged and nagged at Mum to let me buy. It was practically a matter of life and death. I had to look my best! What with Tanya being my number one rival and all. Plus there were going to be boys. Even Mum was prepared to admit that boys made a difference, though she muttered her usual mumsy type stuff about twelve being far too young “for that sort of thing”. To which Dad, with a wink and a nudge, said, “Oh, yeah? Look who’s talking!” It was a bit of a joke between me and Dad that Mum sometimes seemed to forget how she had behaved when she was my age. “A right little tease,” according to Dad!

Anyway, there I was, the evening before the party, over the moon and all dressed up in my white skirt and top, with Mum going, “Scarlett, I should take that off, if I were you, before you have an accident,” and me yelling, “I’m just trying it on!” and Mum retorting, “You’ve already tried it on a dozen times,” and me irritably protesting that, “I have to make sure I feel comfortable in it,” when bing, bam, boom! DISASTER. Swishing past the kitchen table, I caught the handle of the coffee pot and that was that. Coffee all over. All over me, all over the floor, all over my lovely new outfit.

I screeched so loud I’m surprised the neighbours didn’t call the police. I couldn’t have screeched louder if I’d hacked off my finger with the bread knife. Even Dad heard, and he was outside in the garage. He came bursting in, through the back door.

“What’s going on?”

“I told her,” said Mum. “I told her to take it off.”

Dad said, “Take what off?” And then he caught sight of me covered in coffee and his eyes boggled. “Good grief! What happened?”

“She caught the coffee pot,” said Mum.

By this time I was practically hysterical. I am not usually a screechy weepy sort of person, I didn’t shed one single tear when I fell over in the playground and broke my wrist, and that was when I was in Year 3. But this was a calamity of cosmic proportions.

“It’ll come out,” Dad said. “Won’t it?”

“Doubt it,” said Mum.

“Not even if you put it straight into the machine?”

“Not washable,” said Mum. “Has to be dry cleaned.”

“Oh, lor’!” said Dad. “Isn’t that the get-up she’s supposed to be wearing for the party?”

I sobbed, “Yes, but how can I? Now? Look at it! It’s ruined! I’ll have to go and buy something else! Mum, can I go straight away and buy something else?”

“No, I’m afraid you can’t,” said Mum, at the same time as Dad said, “Well, I suppose— ”

“No.” Mum’s lips went all tight and trumpet-shaped. She sounded like she really meant it. “I’m sorry, Scarlett, we’ll try taking it to the cleaner’s and see what they can do, but— ”

“That’s no good!” I shrieked at her, like a demented creature. “I need it for tomorrow! Mum, please! Please let me go and get something else!”

But she wouldn’t. She can just be so obstinate! Dad was on my side, cos Dad always is, but Mum stood firm. She said I had plenty of other things I could wear, and that I was indulged “quite enough”. Dad said, “Isn’t that why we have kids? To indulge them?”

“Not to the extent of spoiling them rotten!” snarled Mum.

Poor Dad. What with me weeping and Mum snarling, he looked quite crestfallen. He hates to see me unhappy and he also hates it when Mum gets mad – which just lately she had been doing more and more often. He could obviously tell she wasn’t going to give way cos rather lamely he said, “Are you sure it won’t come out?” Like he was implying that any proper housewife would know automatically how to remove coffee stains. Which, needless to say, got Mum even madder. She somewhat sniffily informed Dad that she had better ways of occupying her mind than “tedious domestic trivia” and swept out of the room, leaving me still bleating and Dad looking sheepish, as he always did when Mum turned on him.

He told me gruffly to “Cheer up! You know what your mum’s like … she’ll simmer down.” But he didn’t say that he was going to overrule her. He didn’t tell me to jump in the car and we’d go into town straight away and buy me something else. So that was when I went down into my pit and furiously recorded in my diary that

Mum is hateful she exults in my misfortune and makes my life a misery. There are times when it is just not worth living.

Like I said, pathetic!

The next day was Saturday, the day of the party. I had already made up my mind to punish Mum by not going. I wanted her to suffer! I’m not quite sure how I thought it was likely to make Mum suffer, me not going to a party that I’d been looking forward to for weeks; I expect I had this vision of her being racked with remorse for ruining my life. I also wanted Dad to see how desperately miserable I was, cos I knew that me being miserable upset him more than almost anything. But then, while I was still wrapped up in the duvet feeling sorry for myself, Dad put his head round the door and cried, “Wakey, wakey, all systems go! Your mum’s had a re-think … I’ve talked her round.”

Three huge cheers for Dad! He was on my side! It was me and Dad versus Mum. Me and Dad were like a team and Mum was like the referee, always blowing her whistle and yelling, “Foul!” We didn’t usually take much notice of her. We just did our own thing!