Exclusive tale - "Favorite Aunt" - Part 1

One

“You’re like this every time,” says Mum.

I keep my eyes on the laptop screen. There’s an essay I haven’t finished. There’s also an open chat with Joe. Best thing I ever did was add the mobile app to my computer so I can use my phone without Mum twigging.

No mobile until you’ve done your homework.

Sure thing, Mum.

She’s not exactly tech smart.

She stands in the doorway of my room. “Every time.” Her make-up is half-on, her hair is half-done. She’s holding Lucy, who is looking pretty Zen but will soon start crying, because she hates it when Mum and I fight. “I told you I had a night out planned last week. Why are you always like this?”

I close the laptop with a sigh. “I’m not like anything. I just want to go out with my mates because it’s Friday night.” Joe’s going to freak if I back out.

“When was the last time I asked you to babysit?” Mum looks gratified when I finally meet her gaze. “You’re sixteen, you want to have fun, I get it.” She manages a thin smile. “I know you think I’m a dinosaur. I was young once, I haven’t forgotten. But your dad’s gone, Jake, it’s just us now, and I need your help.” She raises Lucy’s hand to provoke a clumsy wave. “Your sister needs your help, too.” Lucy responds by reaching for Mum’s mouth, as if to shush her, and I couldn’t agree mor.

Yeah, you tell her, Lucy. Shut up, Mum. Shut up about Dad.

I stand up. “I promised Joe,” I say, which is true. “He’s going through a hard time,” which isn’t. I stuff my hands into my trouser pockets, because they get weird and trembly when I make stuff up. “He thinks maybe his mum and dad are splitting up.”

I watch as Mum’s nose wrinkles like she’s on the wrong end of a bad smell. She sighs. “Okay.” She jiggles Lucy in her arms.

“Okay, I can go out?”

She nods. “I’ll get a babysitter. I’ll work it out.” She sighs again. “Short notice, but…” She gives me Lucy. “You can look after her for five minutes, yeah?”

I stick my tongue out at my baby sister, which always gets a laugh. She loves me. She adores me. Shame I can’t say the same for the girls in my class.

I hear Mum in her room, talking on the phone. She’s got her poshest voice on, the one she uses when she’s asking a favour of someone she doesn’t know very well.

“Don’t worry,” I tell Lucy, sitting back down with her on my knee. She looks sweet in her bunny print dress, and don’t get me wrong, I love my baby sister; I just don’t want to be stuck at home with her tonight. “Sure you’ll get the five-star treatment. Teatime, bath, jammies, story and ni-night kisses.” I make a kissy face and earn another laugh. “All the good stuff, right.” I kiss her for real, a noise one on her cheek. “Lucky Lucy.”

I flip open my laptop, Joe’s still online. I tell him we’re good for tonight, and he says I’m a ledge. True enough.  Lucy reaches for the keyboard and I push the laptop away. She makes that whiney sound that means she’s about to get narky, and so I open YouTube and find that baby shark video that she’s never gotten tired of.

Mum comes back to my room, waving her phone. “All sorted,” she says brightly. She stands and watches the video, she knows as well as I do that you don’t stop the baby shark video until it’s finished, not unless you want Lucy to cry the house down.

“You used to love sharks,” Mum says, a hand on my shoulder. “Well, dinosaurs really. You were obsessed.”

I nod. Just little kid stuff, a lifetime ago.

When the song ends, we clap our hands and Lucy does the same, pretty much. She bounces on my lap and says, “Gen! Gen!”

Mum laughs, scooping Lucy up. “No time for sharks, time for num-nums!” She pokes Lucy’s belly. “Let’s get you fed.” She looks at me. “You want your tea, Jakie?”

For a moment, I imagine Mum feeding me the way she does Lucy, bib around my neck and cut up fish fingers, chasing peas around the plate with my fingers.

Num-nums for Jakie.

Weird.

“No, ta.” Joe’s getting pizza to go with the sherbets. Reckon I’m going to be stuffed as well as a little bit trollied tonight.

I get up, take a look at myself in the mirror. I’m going to want to sort my hair, pick a shirt. I roll my eyes as I see my good jeans crumpled in the corner. Mum doesn’t wash my stuff these days unless I put it in the basket. She says since Dad left that I need to take on more responsibility, including helping out around the house. But it’s not like Dad ever did any of the washing.

“Who’d you get?” I ask as Mum walks towards the door with Lucy.

She turns her head. “Hmm?”

“The babysitter.”

“Oh.” She smiles. “Auntie Sarah.”

I frown. “How do you mean? I haven’t got an Auntie Sarah.”

Mum laughs. “I know. That’s just what everyone calls her.”

To be continued...🐱‍🐉