The Friendship Trap ... Book One of a Trilogy

By Gail Luck

Published by CUSTOM BOOK PUBLICATIONS

When the BoobRats are hot, they’re really hot! And they’re pumping today! Out in the playground, bumcheeks bouncing, they mince along, with Kellie Francisco leading the pack – as always. She’s the hottest chick in the BoobRat pack. All the others ape her style. She’s tied the ends of her regulation school shirt into a knot so that ten centimetres of brown belly show between the shirt and her pants. And those pants! Some kind of leggings or trakkie daks, I think. You know the kind, made from some stretchy stuff. But they aren’t part of any uniform I’ve ever seen in the catalogue. If they were any tighter, they’d have split right up her bum as soon as she sat down in the school bus this morning.
A great teen and tweens story...

• Language: English
• Publisher: CUSTOM BOOK PUBLICATIONS
• Release date: Feb 25, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370952656

Book preview

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

STIFF AS A BOARD

Just then, dad came rushing out of his office. ‘Jane, I need some help in the embalming room. Give me a hand.’

You’re probably wondering what my dad is talking about. Why on earth would an ordinary family have an embalming room? Is my dad some kind of sicko freak? Or does he practice ancient rituals on family members?

Well, you’d be wrong on both counts. 

My dad runs the family funeral business. Our family has been dealing in death for the past fifty years. We live above the funeral parlour. It’s a great place to live, but none of my mates want to hang out at my place. They seem spooked by the idea of hanging out in my bedroom when there are dead bodies in the fridge on the floor below.

No … not in our family fridge, of course. The bodies are in the refrigerated cabinet next to the autopsy lab, each one in separate drawers. They’re refrigerated to help preserve them until they can be embalmed for viewing by the family of the person who has passed away. ‘Passed away’ is the polite way of saying ‘died’…

A unique and humourous look at death and afterwards!

…for such a tiny baby, Fiasili leaves a huge legacy.

FIASILI’S LEGACY

Sisters Kate and Cassie get more than they bargained for when their grandmere’s birthday gift of a trip to Samoa turns into a nightmare.

While Kate has eyes only for Tavita, Cassie finds herself getting deeper and deeper into a mystery involving Atelina, whose fear of her surly cousin, Rata, seems out of all proportion. Add political intrigue, the kidnapping of tiny Fiasili, a creepy old uncle and the plot thickens…

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

The Author lives in Wollongong, a multicultural, regional city south of Sydney. Married with four adult children, she has taught English to speakers of other languages for more than twenty years. The adult students she teaches have become an inspiration for many of the stories she has written over the years, stories of life told to her by migrants and refugees. Her aim in retelling these stories is to provide an awareness of the similarities and differences between people around the world.

C

opyright © 2017 Gail Esdale Luck

A

sia’s Print & Digital Publisher

All the characters are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

THE

FRIENDSHIP TRAP

Book One of a Trilogy of Short Stories

by Gail Luck

Chapter One

When the BoobRats are hot, they’re really hot! And they’re pumping today! Out in the playground, bumcheeks bouncing, they mince along, with Kellie Francisco leading the pack – as always. She’s the hottest chick in the BoobRat pack. All the others ape her style. She’s tied the ends of her regulation school shirt into a knot so that ten centimetres of brown belly show between the shirt and her pants. And those pants! Some kind of leggings or trakkie daks, I think. You know the kind, made from some stretchy stuff. But they aren’t part of any uniform I’ve ever seen in the catalogue. If they were any tighter, they’d have split right up her bum as soon as she sat down in the school bus this morning.

Her two consorts follow. Trudy Trang and Jessica. Trudy’s alright. She lives next door to Johnno, one of my mates. But Jessica is another story. Her mum was my mum’s best friend in the old days, so I know her well. She’d get me into trouble as soon as look at me. They both have their skirts hitched up and they’ve stuck fake tattoos up their legs. I know they’re fake. Trudy’s family is Vietnamese and she’ll have to spend ages in the loo scrubbing off the tats before she can go home. Jessica’s mum has a tattoo herself but she won’t let Jessica have a real one. Doesn’t seem fair to me.

The BoobRat groupies are still tarting along behind Kellie. A bunch of sad misfits.

‘What are you staring at, Barrington Davis?’ Kellie screams at me across the vast expanse of dirty concrete that makes up our hangout from hell.

That’s me! Mum named me Barrington, but when my kid brother, Evan, was little, he couldn’t say Barrington, so he called me Barry, and that’s what my friends call me.

‘Haven’t got a clue! I’m no good at puzzles!’ I answer Kellie, with deep conviction.

She pokes out her tongue as she wiggles along in a crazy travesty of some skin-and-bones supermodel. Except she’s very well endowed. Her bum sticks out like two beach balls under the tight fabric of her daks. The effect isn’t quite the same as some catwalk cat sliding along on oiled wheels.

I’m not in any mood to trade insults with the BoobRats. It’s been a harrowing week. On Monday, Dad’s new girlfriend showed up in the middle of the night, crying, and Dad made a bed on the couch for her – as if we didn’t know she shares his bed when we’re at Gran’s every second weekend. She pitched him some story about a stalker. As if! Who would want to stalk her? She’s not even pretty, not like my mum was. Her eyes are as hard as apple pips. Small and brown and dull. She’s got lots of wispy, fluffy blonde curls and a soft sweet voice. I can’t stand the woman. And she can’t stand me. Every time she looks at me, I automatically feel ten times grubbier than I did five minutes ago, and my manners desert me completely.

But Evan’s okay. She thinks he’s cute! If I ever want to really push his buttons, I just have to say, ‘Oh, Evan, you’re so cute,’ in a simpering voice, and put a sickly smile on my face. That’s when he tries to punch me. As little brothers go, Evan’s not bad. I think he’d stand up for me in a crisis. He’s just soppy. Anyway, back to my week …

As soon as Miss Soft and Simpering – S&S for short – had installed herself in our living room, the phone rang and Dad picked it up.

‘Hello?’ he barked into the handset. I guess he wasn’t too impressed when Miss S&S turned up. He was flat on his back and snoring loud enough to wake the dead, at 2.30 am, when she started knocking. It took a while for any of us to wake up and open the door. Dad didn’t need this kind of grief.

‘Hello?’ he shouted, this time. He hung up, obviously without getting a reply.

‘Who was it, Don?’ Miss Soft and Simpering asked.

‘Wrong number,’ Dad was heading for the kitchen to put on the kettle, when the noise started.

‘See, Don, I told you,’ she screeched hysterically. ‘Now he’s traced me here. He must be watching me all the time.’ She sobbed loudly.

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Cheryl,’ Dad tried to take control. ‘You’re imagining things. It was probably just someone phoning for a cab and they rang the wrong number.

‘No, no, Don, he knows,’ she moaned. The tears ran down her cheeks making her look all blotchy. Evan and I stared at her. She looked pretty haggish. Maybe Dad would see through her if she went on crying and moaning. Her eyes were all red and she sniffed loudly every few seconds.

That was the end of normal sleep that night, for any of us. Miss S&S sobbed and simpered by turns and my dad tried to calm her down by making endless cups of tea. We were sent back to bed but we couldn’t sleep. We wanted to find out what was going on. We weren’t going to miss out on all the fun. If Dad got sick of her whingeing, he might even throw her out. Dad had other plans for us, though. He heard us sniggering and came storming into the bedroom, laying down the law, yelling and stamping as he came through the door. He looked a bit shamefaced and I knew then that he didn’t mean it but he did want us to stop being a pain and get into bed and at least shut up so he could deal with Miss S&S’s problem.

Things calmed down after that and I must have drifted off because next thing I knew it was morning and when I went out to get something to eat, I could see bits of fluffy fair hair sticking out from under a blanket on the couch. I picked up the milk carton and was just about to take a swig when an almighty wail erupted from the living room. I dropped the carton and it landed with a splat in the middle of the kitchen floor. Milk flew everywhere – as milk always does. It was all over the stove and the floor was slippery with white splashes. The cat shot out from under a cupboard and starting frantically licking up the pools under the big kitchen table. I stood looking at the mess. I knew I’d be expected to clean it up before I could leave.

‘What the …’ Dad came stomping out of his room at this point and slid through a great puddle of milk, landing heavily, dead centre on the kitchen tiles. He tried to get up but the milk wouldn’t let him. He slid around ineffectually for a while, yelling and cursing in turns, rubbing the seat of his pyjama bottoms, put on specially to impress the fastidious Miss S&S. He dripped milk across the floor as he limped to a chair and collapsed, hyperventilating – more from shock than actual pain, I suspect.

‘Oh, Don,’ Miss S&S simpered, ‘I’m sorry I woke you, but Barrington was just about to drink from the milk carton.’

‘Oh! Is that all?’ Dad didn’t look too upset, although he usually didn’t like me doing it either.

‘Don,’ she continued, ‘you can’t let him get away with that. Think of all the germs he’s putting on the spout. If I get a cold this week, I know I’ll have Barrington to blame.’

Dad looked a bit shamefaced again. He was making a habit of this. ‘I know, I know, Cheryl,’ he agreed. ‘But we have bigger things than that to worry about at the moment. We’ve got to work out what to do about your stalker.’

Miss S&S smiled up at him gooily, then lowered her eyes demurely and nodded. Dad looked sort of beaten, as if he wanted to get outside with Evan and me and just kick a football or something, but he couldn’t. As if that gooey look had caught at his heart.

I cleaned up the milk. Isn’t it amazing how far milk spreads when you drop a carton? It splashes everything within sight it seems, and leaves a sticky, hard-to-get-off residue. It took me ages; I missed the bus and had to walk to school.

*****

Chapter Two

I was late walking into class and Kellie Francisco sniggered when I appeared in the doorway. She nudged Jessica who kicked Trudy under the desk. I could see it all from the viewpoint of the door. I thought I’d probably get detention but that wasn’t the half of it. I couldn’t ever have guessed what happened next.

‘Go to the Principal’s office, Davis.’ I’d hardly put one foot inside the classroom when Nixon, the science teacher, spoke. I turned on my heel and left.

What kind of excuse could I make for being late? ‘My dad’s girlfriend’s being stalked and she turned up in the middle of the night. When I was getting breakfast, she screamed giving me such a shock I dropped a carton of milk on the floor and had to clean it up before I left.’ And he’d believe that? That’s when I heard mum’s voice. ‘Tell him you went to the cemetery to put flowers on my grave.’

Mum was killed in an accident about eight months ago, and I do still go to the Quiet Pines Peace Park every week or so, to put some flowers on her grave. I miss her heaps but I know I have to get on with life. Everyone keeps reminding me about that. They tell me how much my dad has to cope with and that I mustn’t make it any harder for him than is necessary. No one ever thinks that I might be missing my mum or that I might have a fair bit to cope with too. But this was the first time she had spoken to me!

I glanced around the vestibule. Mum was standing right behind me. She looked just like she used to, before the accident, I mean. She had the same soft brown hair and the same blue eyes, with little crinkles at the corner from all the laughing she used to do. She was wearing her usual jeans and T-shirt and I noticed that around her neck was the necklace Evan and I had given her for her last birthday, the oddly shaped turquoise attached to a silver chain. I went to speak to her but Mr. Proudfoot, the Principal,