My Madly Bonkers Life

By Margaret Morgan

Snooks is now used to her father being both Mum and Dad, since Mum's departure last year. She also likes his new girlfriend, Trish. What Snooks and Dad soon learn will tip them upside down; drawing Trish and Mum's new boyfriend, Anton, into the Madly Bonkers Life Snooks lives through. As life normalises, she and Dad go to have bone marrow t

• Language: English
• Publisher: Margaret Morgan
• Release date: Jul 27, 2020
• ISBN: 9781913704230

Margaret Morgan

Margaret Morgan is a professional calligrapher and an Associate of the Calligraphy & Lettering Arts Society. She regularly accepts both public and private commissions and conducts calligraphy workshops.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

Me, Dad, Toby the Cat.

And Mum!

Today, Saturday, Dad tells me off because I don’t get up with him to have a ‘proper’ breakfast.

I shout at him. Leave me in bed, Dad, please!

This makes him cross.

Why can’t you speak nicely to me, Snooks? Dad moans. I’m nice to you.

Yes. I feel bad, because he is nice to me, in his fussy Dad type way. He’s never been a father and mother before, so he is a bit too careful.

Half-dressed, I rush downstairs and collide with Toby. Dad is about to leave and glares at me as I have jeans and a dressing gown on. He hates half-dressed daughters now, it seems.

Perhaps I am a witch, but I don’t have any books of spells. Nor do I have any witch friends, except Toby. He’s a black cat, so he’ll do for a start, I suppose. I toss my head and try to be offhand with Dad.

Then I’m sorry, as it’s not his fault. He has to go to work, so I kiss him, twice. As he runs to the car, I see his socks are odd; one’s black, the other’s blue. Mum has broken his heart, so I blow him a kiss and get a lovely smile and wave in return. He was a dance master when I was younger, which means he has a gorgeous smile. Women of all ages fall for him immediately.

You’ve probably heard of a dance called the salsa, which is a South American or Cuban dance, I forget which. Dad is half Venezuelan and, oh so handsome; a bit like Elvis Presley when he was still slim and youngish. Dad is in his thirties now, I think; so is Mum. That isn’t really young, is it? When I said that to Dad, he chased me around the table. Of course, I daren’t say that to Mum. She is one of those mothers who ‘lose it’ pretty quickly. She cannot stand any comments like that.

Mum lives across town from us now, in a flat. I don’t see her that much but I miss her, even though she is difficult to live with. Dad is in a real state and looks as if he’s been ‘dragged through a hedge backwards’. That’s a saying about looking a bit scruffy. Odd socks for instance. His hair needs something done to it, urgently. It is too long and floppy. Usually, he has immaculate wavy hair.

Mum moans about my hair, but I won’t have it cut. As she left us, I don’t think she should tell me what to do anymore. Yes, my hair’s mousy and it can go really wavy, then wild, but I like it. Well, no I don’t, but I won’t let Mum win.

Perhaps if she comes back, I’ll have it cut, I’ve said to Dad often.

The truth is, I know I won’t.

How do I get her back, though?

I wonder if I have a witch’s power?

The training shoes could be part of a spell, couldn’t they? The ‘Get Mum Back’ spell, I say, picking up madly purring Toby. He knows I’m sad, but purrs anyway.

I start to think and plan. I’m doing nothing as Dad is at work today. Mum has promised to take me out, but she hasn’t arrived. I’m supposed to ring a taxi and go to Dad’s work, but no thanks. What can a thirteen-year-old girl do at an Electrical Superstore?

Plenty!

Last time I went, I rang up -£1,000 on the till. That means minus £1,000. Dad went more than madly bonkers! He’s never got the money wrong, or anything else for that matter. We had to stay quite late to remove my mistake before he could submit the day’s accounts to Head Office. I was banned from the till area for life!

I take Toby upstairs with a helping of sardines. As he eats, I fetch the shoes from her wardrobe. They’re not really worn at all and seem quite nice, so I put them on. A bit big at the moment. I collect ‘spell stuff’ from Mum and Dad’s bedroom; face powder, hair from Mum’s broken brush and her old, ‘boring’ bra. Dad sleeps with her ‘designer’ nightie. Poor Dad. I could sleep with the shoes, I suppose. With the stuff in my room, I plan my next move. Toby’s snoring as he’s full and fast asleep; very witchlike!

A star with five points, that’s what I have to draw. What should I use? Salt comes to mind for witches, but I can’t remember why. I go down to fetch it and the phone rings.

First heart attack.

I don’t answer it and I hear Dad leave a message, thinking I’m out with Mum.

Hi, Snooks. I’ll be late tonight as two staff have got themselves arrested. You know, the two dimwits. Stay with Mum and I’ll pick you up from there.

I know I’ll be in trouble later, but I don’t want to stay with her all of a sudden, even if she wants me to, which she won’t. I don’t know why, but I can’t stand the feeling I get from the flat. Or her, for that matter. Every time I go home, I cry.

Her new, long-term boyfriend, Anton, is sweet, funny and French. He’s shocked at Mum’s bad temper with me and is so nice. He’s a tree expert and ‘feels the pain of trees’.

As if!

No, I’m being rude about a lovely man who cares about every living thing. Even me.

Dad said Mum would give him a real pain - in his wallet. Dad’s still paying off her credit card debts. Don’t ask me why, as they are her debts. I tried to tell him, but he said that I was ‘too young to understand’!

She owes money, not you Dad, I say.

He has to admit I’m right, ‘in theory’.

Oh, please!

Back to the spell. A five-pointed star is not easy, but I wobble it. I put all the spell stuff in the middle of the star and make the wish.

Mum, I wish you back.

I say it three times. Silence! Then, the doorbell rings.

Second heart attack.

I hide the spell stuff by moving my bed over it. It rings again, impatiently, so I race downstairs.

It’s Mum! I can’t speak, as she looks really beautiful; all blonde and tanned. Even thinner than last time and made up, in a strange way.

Got your coat, Snooks? Am I late? Do your hair! Have you cleaned your teeth? No kiss for me? Let’s have breakfast out. Lost your tongue, sweetie?

Mum fires this at me like a machine gun. I have to zoom and go. A broomstick would be handy. Toby moans to see Mum, but she’s already in the car, tapping her ‘designer’ nails on the dashboard, her head on the steering wheel. Dad would call her a ‘drama queen’ now. Why put your head on the steering wheel? To make me feel bad I expect, for keeping her waiting; when she was late, not me.

This is typical Mum.

Although we buy really fashionable school shoes for me, I stay in a state of shock. How quickly does a spell work? Mum thinks I’m sulking.

You are so like your Dad, Snooks. Sulky!

This is the most madly bonkers thing I’ve ever heard because Dad doesn’t sulk, Mum does. She could sulk for our Olympic Sulking team.

When we get back to the house, she lies on the sofa saying she’s exhausted! Toby is ecstatic to have her back, but she just orders me to vacuum the carpet when she’s gone. I tell her what Dad wanted, just to see what she’ll say. Ha. I’m right. She looks horrified at the prospect of having me all day.

It’s too much to have you all day, Snooks. I have a…a… things to do. It will bore you; hair and a…a…tanning salon and shopping. I’m working early tonight, too. Dad won’t pick you up before I go and Anton’s not back yet.

Mum is the manager of the town’s only ‘nightclub’. She sings too, which makes Dad very proud, in an odd way. I found out, by accident, that she does all sorts of dancing on stage, with a group of ‘exotic’ dancers. Dad was furious when I told him. Then, Mum shouted at me, after he’d spoken to her about it. She had asked me not to tell him, you see.

I knew I had to, as he was going there for a drink with his work crowd, thinking she was just the manager and resident singer. How awkward both of them would have felt, as the exotic dancers don’t wear much. Mum says the nightclub is going broke and she brings in a good crowd of people when she dances.

She used to be quite a famous pop singer and dancer, you see, and older people remember her. Sad, I know. She still has loads of newspaper articles and photographs, which I’ve never been allowed to see. Don’t ask me why.

After looking through Dad’s desk and bank statements, she zooms off to an appointment she can’t miss. I ring Dad to tell him I’ll be alone for a few hours, which I don’t mind. He’s really cross with Mum for leaving me alone after she’d promised to have me for the day. Again.

She’s the mother from Hell, he shouts. Make sure both doors are locked, Snooks, and put on the chains.

I hear it boom out over the loudspeaker in the shop. The staff cheer and clap, shouting ‘Rick Rafael Rules’, as Dad is a very popular manager, especially with the female staff. I don’t mind Dad worrying about me, as there is a good reason.

Recently, our area has had lots of break-ins, where the house is cleaned out of computers, phones, televisions and valuables. Luckily, we only have an oldish computer and a fairly ordinary television. Dad worries because some people have been badly hurt when they’ve tried to stop the thieves. One old woman died of a heart attack recently. My orders are to run out of either door, screaming as loud as possible and dialling 999 at the same time! I often think of fighting them off, but Dad has shown me how dangerous that can be. He just gripped my wrist tightly and I could do nothing. Nothing! He does have a black belt in karate too, but it made me realise how impossible it would be to fight off a strong grown man. Without training in karate or something like that, I mean.

Dad arrives back earlyish, so I microwave our Indian takeaway. I’ve made a yoghurt, cucumber and mint dressing too, with some salad. Dad finishes half a bottle of red wine with it and goes to sleep on the sofa. He looks tired out and scruffy, with dark shadows under his eyes. I do some homework and watch television at the same time, without my reading glasses! Headache and bed, I think.

That night I put the shoes under my pillow. They are awful lumps to lie on. It’s then that I realise, for some reason,

I’m not Mum’s little princess anymore!

She didn’t even kiss me goodbye, but she kissed Toby and just moaned to me that ‘her things had been moved’. What things? Things she didn’t want, like her training shoes and old bra?

And me?

She didn’t try to take me from Dad when she left us.

I heard him tell his sister on the phone that ‘the time wasn’t right’ for her.

What does that mean? She’ll pick me up when I’m twenty or something? For the time being, my mother ‘can’t fit me in’.

I throw the hateful shoes across the bedroom. It frightens Toby so much that he has to get into bed with me. Of course, just as I’m asleep, he wants to go out for a wee. He wakes me by kneading on my neck. The pain!

It’s a nice night though, and we manage not to wake Dad up. While Toby is pretending to be brave, I have such a nice surprise.

A female fox, a vixen, walks slowly across the bottom of the garden with her three big cubs. She looks at me but realises I’m not going to upset her night.

Don’t worry, foxy mum, you are my secret.

As a rule, I don’t like secrets. Do you?

Dad has quite a few secrets, I gradually discover!

CHAPTER 2

Sunday Lunch out and

a Lovely Surprise

Sunday is usually our lazy day, when we do the washing and very little else. For lunch, we’ve been having ready-cooked meat and gravy, with those Auntie’s roasties and Yorkshire puds, followed by my truly awful homemade puddings. But today, we are going out for Sunday lunch to the Royal Oak. Dad is jumpy about his looks for a change. For a handsome man, he isn’t vain.

Do I look nice, Snooks? he asks again, as he slaps on aftershave.

Yes, Dad, you’re handsome. Why? I say, being suspicious.

I um… want you to like my…um…new girlfriend, Trish, he says, hugging me.

Dad’s got a new girlfriend!

Yes! I thought he had, as he’s been smiling again and popping out, looking good. Usually, he drops me off at a friend’s, then leaves, looking sheepish.

When he picks me up later, I notice he usually cannot stop smiling and dancing.

Great! Mum was actually destroying him, as he could never please her. Neither could I, for that matter. She didn’t even like my face. It was growing ‘so ordinary’. And she thought my mousy, wavy hair was ‘frightful’. Charming! I think it was the fact that I needed glasses in the infant school that really spooked her. I only wear them for close reading now. They are ‘designer’, of course. I take them, as the menus are printed quite small at the Royal Oak.

In the car, Dad is happy and nervous at the same time. Trish must mean a lot to him. He’s cut his chin shaving and it’s still bleeding. I stick a bit of paper hanky on the cut for him. He giggles in that way he used to, like a happy idiot. It annoyed Mum, so he stopped laughing with her. She said it was ‘so irritating’. My lovely Dad. Irritating?

Snooks, do you miss your Mum terribly? he asks, too casually.

Dad, how long have you known Trish? I reply, changing the subject.

Oh… I don’t know. Two weeks?

As if.

Oh, come on, Dad. You know exactly, I say. I’m a bit cross. Why does everybody try to be so secretive? I hate secrets, you know that.

Well, I took her to the firm’s dance. How long ago was that? More than two weeks, wasn’t it? Dad remembers suddenly, blushing.

Four weeks, I say. There you are. Remembering isn’t hard, is it?

Dad squeezes my knee, thinking he’s upset me. I’m a bit concerned about the spell to bring Mum back. What if it works? Perhaps I’ll have to do a ‘cancel the last spell’, spell. The pit of my stomach tells me life could suddenly get madly bonkers. I don’t want life to get more complicated. Complicated by my own mother? What a dreadful thing to think. I know I’ve gone red and Dad is waiting for me to speak.

I thought you were happier, Dad, I say to reassure him.

Clever girl, Snooks, he sings and blows me a kiss.

We park badly in the Royal Oak car park and head towards the entrance. Dad is a useless driver at the best of times; now he is like a gun, ready to go bang. I take his arm to steady him a bit. He thinks I’m upset and tells me he loves me. He is a bit of a softy like that, so I kiss him when we get out of sight and whip the paper off his chin. I feel wobbly again, but try not to cry. What will she be like?

It must be Trish waiting in the little bar. Through the side window, I see large, green, friendly eyes. I smile at her and she winks at me, secretly, jumping up when we go into the restaurant. I already like her for winking at me. Her smile is so warm