The Ant Colony. Jenny Valentine
The old lady with the dog was called Isabel. She seemed all right to me. Mum told me to watch out cos people like that were never nice for nothing. I was watching out, but I was just walking past her door when she said, “Come on in, whoever you are.”
It was like walking past a phone box when it rings. I’ve always wanted to do that. And then for the phone call to actually be for me.
She was in the kitchen. She said, “Help me get the lid off this bloody yoghurt. Damn stuff is supposed to be good for you and the stress of it is going to finish me.”
She had the pliers out and everything. She’d been trying to pull off the side of the pot cos she couldn’t see where the lid started. I flipped it open in about three seconds. First she looked angry with it and then she laughed.
“I’m Isabel,” she said. “I saw your nice door sticker. Is your name Cherry or Bohemia?”
“Bohemia.”
“Where did you get a name like that?” she said.
I shrugged. “Most people just call me Bo.”
“Well, it’s not a piece of fruit at least,” she said, sort of under her breath so I wouldn’t hear it, except I did. “Cherry your mum’s real name, is it?”
“I think so,” I said, because I’d never been asked that question before.
“Cherry Chapstick?”
“No, Cherry Hoban,” I said.
She started spooning yoghurt into a mug. I was looking at it so she asked me if I wanted some and handed me the rest of the pot. She asked me how old I was and I told her I was ten.
“Why aren’t you at school, Bohemia Hoban?” she said.
I liked that she used my whole name. It made me feel like somebody important. I said I was home-schooled cos that’s what Mum says.
Isabel put her hands on her hips then and clucked her tongue and said, “What lesson is it now then?”
“Yoghurt opening,” I told her, and she laughed.
She said being home-schooled was a lot more than wandering about the place waiting for my mum to wake up.
“She is awake,’ I said, which was actually true.
She said, “If your mum got a whiff of what home-school was about you’d be down the local primary in a second. Home-skiving’s what you’re doing.”
See? That’s why Mum didn’t like Isabel.
I didn’t look at her, even though I know she was looking at me. I ate some more yoghurt before she could ask for it back.
“So you’ve met us all then,” she said.
“I’ve met you and the landlord with the face.”
“That’s Steve,” she said. “Don’t stare. It was an accident with a facial peel.”
I asked her what one of those was and then I wished I hadn’t because it was something to do with burning your old skin off with acid.
I gave her back the yoghurt. “Why would someone want to do that?” I said.
She told me not to underestimate the power of getting old, or something. “Ask your mum,” she said. “Watch her closely when she hits forty.”
I asked her who else there was to meet.
“Well, you’ve got Mick to come – beard, bike, body odour. Met him yet?”
“Nope.”
“Aren’t you the lucky one.” She looked at her ceiling. “The flat above me’s empty, but it won’t be for long.”
“What about your dog?” I said, and I asked her what it was called.
“Doormat,” she said. “Where is he?”
I laughed. “Doormat,” I said after her. “I don’t know where he is, I haven’t seen him. Only that time when he was peeing.”
“He’s always peeing,” she said. “He’s trying to be macho. Go and have a look in his basket, would you? It’s by my bed. You have to boot him out in the mornings sometimes, tell him who’s boss.”
When I was out of the room she called after me, “I’ll make you some toast.”
Doormat was curled up in his basket with his face hidden in his bottom. He wagged his tail a bit, just at the tip, and he stretched like everything hurt. I picked him up and took him to the kitchen.
“Don’t spoil my dog,” Isabel said. “Make him use his legs or I don’t know what’ll happen.”
I put the dog down and he lay in the corner and hid his face in his bottom again. You really couldn’t tell which end of him was which, like a dog doughnut.
“What does your mum do for work?” Isabel said. She had her back to me while she cut the bread.
I said she was “between jobs” because I like the way it sounds, all grown up. I said she was having an interview at the pub down the road and she was getting ready for it right now. “She was there last night and the man offered her one, just like that.”
“I bet he did. You tell her I can always babysit if she needs.”
“I don’t need a babysitter. I can sit myself,” I said.
“Well, not when you’re ten dear, that’s not really allowed. But you know where I am.”
That’s when I told her the rules of babysitting because I found them out once in a library, to be sure. The rules are that you can leave your child at home whenever you like as long as you can get home in fifteen minutes and they are good at looking after themselves and being sensible and they have your phone number somewhere. So seeing as I’m very sensible and the pub was only down the road, I wouldn’t be needing a babysitter at all. That’s what I told her.
Nobody ever believes me. Isabel didn’t believe me either. She scribbled her phone number on a piece of paper and then she made me learn it and say it to her without looking, and then she asked me what I wanted on my toast.
“Anything.”
She asked me if I slept well and I said, “Fine, thanks. Me and Mum slept like logs.” I crossed my fingers she didn’t hear Mum coming in at four in the morning. I know it was four cos she made so much noise doing it. I think she tripped over and whoever was with her couldn’t see well enough in the dark to help her up. I think it was Steve.
I said, “Mum?” And I sat up in bed to see what was going on.
Mum said, “Shush, go to sleep, it’s four o’clock in the morning.” So that’s how I know.
They went into the kitchen and sat on the floor, and Steve must’ve been a very funny man cos Mum was just laughing and laughing. Maybe he told Mum about his facial peel.
I smiled at Isabel right through my lie, without even blinking, and she smiled back exactly the same, so maybe she knew and maybe she didn’t, but neither of us was going to say.
She put a pile of toast on the table. Isabel made her own bread. It had all lumps and bits in it, but it wasn’t as bad as it sounds.
I was on about my fifth bit when I heard Mum’s shoes on the stairs. She was coming down carefully cos of the heels. I could picture her, sort of sideways and a bit stiff looking, pressing her hands against the walls. I brushed the crumbs off my front and Doormat jumped up and started hoovering them straight away, like a living, breathing dust buster. He followed me when I went and put my head out the door. Maybe he thought I’d leave a trail of crumbs.
“What