A/N Yay, managed to get this written by just ignoring all my other chores. I'm living by the toddler's motto. If I say "But I bery want to!" then it's fine, no problems, I'm allowed.
Hence the fact she's wearing only a singlet and has built an entire city of blocks in the living room. She bery wanted to :)
Disclaimer: Not mine.
EPOV
I stuck my head into the living room. All I could see of Tray was his rear end as he'd wedged himself between the sofa and the wall. "I think I've got it" he said.
"Good. Because you know how Sookie feels about wetas. If she comes home and finds one's moved in, I'm blaming you."
"Why is it my fault he ran?" Tray asked. "Ow!" he said. "He's in a shit with me, now."
"Can you blame him, Tray?" I asked, but there wasn't a reply. I left Tray to it. It was a good lesson in being responsible for the problems you created. Sam met me in the hallway. "Hey, where's Ivan?" he asked.
"Ivan?" That was a bit odd because he should have been here. Normally, he'd meet me at the door. Although his way would have been barred by the huge pile of stuff the kids had left in the doorway…which was still there I could see. But even so, Ivan didn't usually let minor setbacks like school bags prevent him from getting to me and drooling all over my leg.
"Yeah" Sam said. "I haven't seen him."
"Maybe Sookie took him to Kennedy?" I suggested. Leaving Ivan home alone for too long was never a great idea. He got bored, and created mayhem. Not for the first time I wondered if Tray and Ivan were related.
"I looked over the fence, but he's not there and Max is asleep. Max wouldn't be asleep if Ivan was over there. Max would be sitting beside his bowl growling because he hates Ivan" Sam explained. I was glad he knew so much about the inner workings of Max and Ivan's relationship.
Tray came out of the living room. "I got it!" he announced, holding his clasped hands out in front of him. "Want to see?" he said.
"No!" I said, quickly, but it was too late, as Sam had leaned over to look and, somewhat fucking predictably, the weta decided to escape. We all stood there and watched it climb the wall and perch in a corner of the hallway ceiling.
"Well, we know where it is" Sam said, presumably trying to look on the bright side.
"Yep" I agreed. "So let's move on to worrying about Ivan."
"I didn't do anything to Ivan" Tray said adamantly.
"Well, he's gone somewhere" I pointed out. Tray looked thoughtful, Sam looked worried.
"But where?" Sam asked after a minute. I had no fucking clue, but this was probably a good opportunity for the kids to practise thinking things through for themselves.
"If you were a dog, like Ivan, where would you go?" I asked Sam. Sam showed me he really did resemble Sookie when he was giving me a look that suggested he thought I fucking sucked.
"He can't have gone far" I said. "So where does he normally go?"
"The Furnans'" Sam said. "He likes their dog, you know, the big one. Bugger!"
"OK. Um…just take a walk and see if he is in their yard. Don't get caught" I said to Sam, and he nodded and started towards the door.
"Can I come?" Tray asked. Sam and I exchanged a look. It wasn't a good idea, not if Sam wanted to stay unnoticed. Tray was fucking loud at the best of times.
"I need you to stay here, and, um…watch the weta" I said. "Until I come back and we can get it down."
"Just watch it?" Tray asked. "You don't want me to try to climb up there?"
"Nope. I think we're good. OK, off you go Sam."
I left Tray standing in the hallway and went back to the kitchen. The situation in there didn't seem much better. "I just don't understand why he'd do it!" Yvetta wailed. "She's so old!"
"Boys are stupid" Chloe advised.
Amelia looked up at me. "Are you making dinner?" she asked.
"Yep" I said. "Later on though." And then I left the kitchen again. I wasn't really comfortable in there at the moment, and hoped like fuck they all moved to Amelia's room soon. Or went home. Preferably that they went home.
I walked into Pam's room, which seemed to have suffered from a glitter explosion. "What's going on?" I asked her.
"I'm making a welcome home card. For Mum."
"She only went this morning" I pointed out.
"Yes. But you told me to go to my room so I am Making the Best of It and Occupying Myself" Pam said, defiantly. And when had she started talking in capitals, anyway? At least, while utilising phrases from Sookie and me.
"OK" I said. "So, um…don't scratch Tray again…"
"But he was going to put wetas in my bed!"
"Never mind about that. Can you go in the kitchen and tell Amelia, quietly, that it's nearly dinner time and her friends have to go home?"
Pam looked at me suspiciously. Fuck, they all looked at me suspiciously. I didn't know why, I wasn't doing anything wrong. It was becoming patently clear to me that all the kids came from fucking Planet Sookie at times.
"Why me?" Pam asked.
"Because…um…you might want to hang out with them."
"They're all old" Pam said dismissively.
"One of them has pink hair" I reminded her.
Pam shrugged. "They won't listen to me" she said, and she opened another container of glitter and poured it onto some paper. Well, that wasn't fucking useful.
Felicia arrived in the room. "When's dinner?" she asked, plaintively.
"Soon" I said. "But...uh…kind of waiting on the guests to leave…"
"Guests? What guests?" Felicia asked. "You mean Amelia's tribe of loser-friends?" I nodded. Felicia looked annoyed. This could be useful.
"If they would just leave" I said. "Then I'd get dinner served up, but I can't while they're still sitting there…" I was left talking to myself as Felicia stormed down the hall.
"Go home!" she screamed into the kitchen. OK, maybe not quite the idea I'd been going for.
"Shut up Felicia!" Amelia yelled back. Yeah, definitely letting Felicia go in with the full-frontal attack might have been a tactical error. "You don't know anything!"
"What don't I know? Because I don't have a loser boyfriend who slept with my mother!" Yep, that didn't fucking bear thinking about.
"Because you're a baby, that's why!" Amelia screamed. "You're just a baby and you should just butt right out!"
I braced myself for the next verbal assault from Felicia, but instead she ran past me declaring "They're so mean!"
Well, that was fucking odd. And Amelia's party still seemed to be hunkered down in the kitchen, which didn't help me. We'd managed to recover one of our party though, because Ivan shoved a wet nose against my leg. God, he was filthy.
"Where were you?" I asked him, and he panted uncomprehendingly beside me. Sam appeared next to him. "He was at the Furnan's" Sam said, darkly. "Luckily he wasn't home yet. Mr Furnan."
"So did you get him back without anyone seeing you?" I asked Sam.
"Not really" Sam said. "I was trying to sneak around their house because I could hear the barking, and it sounded like Ivan. But she saw me."
"Who? Mrs Furnan?" She wasn't so bad, except that she was pretty brow-beaten by that ass of a husband of hers.
"No. The girl. Kayla. She saw me and wanted to know what I was doing. And then she wanted to talk to me." Sam said the word talk like it was the biggest drag in the world.
"What about?" I asked. I hoped the kids from that house weren't delivering fucking lectures on watching our dog now. It wasn't my fault Ivan had learned how to dig.
"I dunno" Sam said, shrugging. "She wanted to know if I was going to the park this weekend. I said maybe. She asked when. I said I didn't know, I've got cricket tomorrow. Then she asked about cricket. She's really weird." Sam looked pretty perplexed about it.
"Sookie likes cricket" I reminded him. "She's not weird."
"But she's Mum…so just. It's different" Sam said, adamantly. I'd have to take his word for it.
Tray walked up to us, looking slightly perplexed as well. "So, uh, did you guys see where the weta went?" he asked.
"Fuck, Tray. Really?" I asked, turning to him. "All you had to do was watch one weta."
"Yeah. But I had to go to the toilet. And, uh, I just wanted to fix some of my Lego…"
"Fucking fantastic. Now we have a weta loose somewhere in the house, and two extra girls in the kitchen."
Tray looked worried. "We're still getting dinner, aren't we Dad?"
I shrugged. "I guess. Maybe if we just go in there…if we all go in there, and start on it, they'll get the message."
Sam and Tray exchanged a look. I didn't think they were particularly enthusiastic about this plan. "If you want dinner, you'll come with me" I said, and we all walked back into the kitchen. The scene wasn't much better than when I'd left earlier.
"I just don't understand why!" Yvetta wailed. Well, none of us did. And sitting there at my fucking table wasn't going to get her any answers.
Ivan had followed the boys and me as well, and he was still pretty filthy. I walked straight through the kitchen to the laundry room to get one of the old towels to dry him off with. Sure enough, there in the pile of old towels was the t-shirt I'd lost. "It's not a very original hiding place" I said to Ivan. "I'm pretty sure she's used that one before." Ivan just panted a lot and didn't offer an opinion. I really liked Ivan.
Sam walked in. "Why are you in here?" he asked.
"Drying Ivan" I said. I wasn't in here for no reason, after all. And I definitely wasn't in here to hide from those girls.
"So what's the plan for dinner?" Sam asked.
"Get it out of the slow cooker and serve it" I said. It was pretty obvious, I thought.
"No. There has to be more to it. There's not enough food otherwise" Sam said.
"Well, go and check if Sookie left a note" I said to him, and I tossed the now wet and dirty towel on the top of the washing machine.
Sam went back into the kitchen, but I stayed put. I looked at Ivan, and he looked at me waiting to see what I was going to next.
I was thinking about that.
From the kitchen I heard Amelia say, loudly, "Tray, did you fart?" Tray sniggered. Maybe if I waited here for a while longer, Tray would drive them away.
"God, brothers are so disgusting!" Amelia said.
Sam came back in and gave me a weird look. "Um…there's only three things on here" he said, holding a post-it note in his hand.
"Just three?" I asked. That didn't seem quite right. Normally Sookie left a whole list of things we had to do.
"Yeah. It says: 'Feed kids. Do occasional headcount. Remember I'll be back on Sunday.' There's nothing about dinner" Sam said, as he handed over the post-it.
I stared at it. Sam was not wrong. As much as I wasn't a fan of the notes Sookie usually left, the ones which dictated what had to happen for every minute of every day, and had four hundred different options for every eventuality, I thought that maybe we were missing something.
"Well, I'm sure we can figure it out" I said, and I walked back into the kitchen. The smell wasn't pleasant, but it hadn't deterred Amelia and her friends. Or stopped the crying.
"Not all boys are bad" Chloe…it was Chloe with the pink hair, I thought, anyway…was saying. "You're pretty cute." She reached over to pat Tray's head and Tray flinched. I didn't think that was the reaction he'd been expecting to his stunt.
I stared at the slow cooker. "Well, that's got meat in it" I said to Sam.
"Can we have mashed potatoes?" Tray asked. "I know where they are." He pointed at the pantry.
"Um. Sure, Tray. Get peeling then" I told him.
"Peeling?" Tray asked.
"Yeah. Peel the potatoes. You can't leave the peel on" I told him.
"I don't…I can't…peel them?" Tray stammered. He seemed to be having difficulty with the terminology.
"Mmm" I said. "Sam'll help, won't you Sam? He likes mashed potatoes."
"I don't think it's a good idea" Sam said. "Remember the time with the carrots?"
"What? I was fine!" Tray said.
"You kept asking Mum if carrots were meant to be red! No they aren't! You were bleeding, you dickwad!"
"Yeah, but I was fine."
We weren't getting anywhere fast, and I became aware we had an audience anyway. Amelia stood up from the table and came over to where we were all standing around the slow cooker. "So that's, like, one of Mum's stews" she said, stating the fucking obvious. "And you need to do two minute rice." She pointed to some packets on the kitchen counter.
"How long does that take?" I asked her.
Amelia gave me a look. "Two minutes" she said. "It's two minute rice. So just cook each one for two minutes."
Sam sighed. "I'll do it" he said.
"And you need to do peas" Amelia added.
"No we don't!" Tray said, vehemently. "Peas are just gross."
"Yeah, you do. I'm going to make that pasta with tomatoes for us."
"Us?" I asked, and Amelia looked thoughtful. "I just need…to talk for a moment" she said, her voice dropping down in volume. "Just, uh, come out here." She walked out of the kitchen and I followed her.
APOV
It was all very well Mum going away, but the place was starting to fall apart without her. All my life I'd thought she was a total mug for looking after Dad, I mean, no one can be that useless. He had to be putting it on.
He wasn't putting it on. He was that useless. For all that he could order us all around, without Mum there to tell him what was happening, he was kind of lost. The boys had eaten a whole packet of biscuits for afternoon tea, Felicia had eaten most of a bag of chips and she was in a weird mood anyway. Well, weirder than usual. Pam was God knows where doing God knows what. Ivan had been wandering the neighbourhood, and no one could figure out what the hell to do for dinner. It wasn't that hard. I mean, we'd all seen Mum do it for years and she might watch Masterchef but she didn't cook like that. It was two minute rice! It went in the microwave for two minutes! How freaking hard was that?
Still, it wasn't my biggest problem. My biggest problem was Yvetta and the fact I'd ended up bringing Yvetta home. I hadn't wanted to. I didn't even really want to be her friend anymore, even though she kept, like, talking to me at school and we still sat next to each other in French class because we'd picked our desks at the beginning of the year and we weren't allowed to change.
But she'd been really, really upset. And I could kind of understand why. I mean, knowing that Dylan had hooked up with Ana, eurgh! I tried to imagine what it would be like if Riley wanted to hook up with Mum, but I couldn't picture it. For one thing, Riley thought Dad hated him as it was. He wouldn't, like, try anything like that and risk Dad killing him.
Although, possibly Dad would only kill him if Mum put it on a note first.
Anyway, Yvetta was miserable during French and then Chloe and I found her in Mt Eden crying over her phone and somehow she came home with us. Chloe seemed really interested in it all, which I thought was a little ghoulish, but now I had both of them and neither of them wanted to leave, and I was stuck feeding them because, of course, they were both freaking vegetarians.
I managed to get Dad to come with me into the hall and took a deep breath. "I need to get rid of Yvetta" I said.
"Yep" Dad agreed. God, it was like pulling teeth. How on earth did Mum cope? I mean, if I said something like that to Riley, he understood. He didn't stand there staring at me like a big freaking idiot.
No wonder we had so many problems with Tray. Same gene pool. You could tell.
"So you'll have to talk to her" I prompted.
"What? I'm not…no. You're doing OK, Ames" Dad said.
"Not Yvetta!" God, he was so dense. "Ana. You need to tell Ana to come here and get Yvetta, because if Ana shows up then there's nothing we can do, she has to go with her mother. Doesn't she?"
Dad looked thoughtful. "Is it the, uh…well. I don't know. Her home life. Is it OK?"
Oh God. He picked the worst times to suddenly care about the welfare of annoying people.
"I don't know! I mean, I know she thinks Ana and Dylan hooked up, but it was just a text, she might be wrong. Can't you use one of your Jedi mind tricks to make her think she wants to go?" I looked at Dad pleadingly. I didn't want Yvetta to stay, I really didn't. I hated feeling responsible for making her feel better. This was way worse than when she'd been drunk at that party. God, it was horrible being the responsible one all the time.
"Who's a Jedi?" Tray asked.
"Oh, for God's sake!" I exclaimed. I wasn't getting anywhere with this lot.
"Sam's just about done all the rice" Tray announced, when he didn't get an answer.
"OK. So it's dinner then. I guess" Dad said, and he walked back to the kitchen.
Where was Mum when you needed her?
SPOV
Wine was lovely, and everything was lovely after wine. Even crappy frozen tortellini was better with wine. And I liked Tara. She was fun to hang out with. We should do this more often. Definitely.
"I can't believe we're so old now!" Tara exclaimed, throwing her hands around and maybe spilling a bit of wine. Meh. Not my carpet. And it was white wine, anyway.
"I know" I said. "I mean…I don't feel old enough to be this old, you know?"
"I do!" Tara said, enthusiastically. "It feels like soooo long since we were teenagers. God, remember when I stole that bottle of wine off my folks? And we got slaughtered in my bedroom when they were out?"
"And all you could talk about was how hot JB was?" I prompted.
"Yes! Well, he is. Even now. Even now he's ooooold like the rest of us." Tara giggled a bit. So did I and I wasn't really sure why.
"That was my first time. Drinking. Wine" I said. I hadn't really liked the taste then. It had grown on me.
'Well we're not virgins anymore!" Tara shrieked and she fell backwards on the couch. Somehow she managed not to spill her wine. That was a skill.
"Not with drinking" I agreed, taking a big sip of my wine. I liked the taste of this one. I wondered which bottle it was from.
"You've got five fucking kids!" Tara said, righting herself again. "Who do you think you're kidding?"
I shrugged. I wasn't really trying to kid anyone. It was kind of hard to when you did have five kids following you around bitching and fighting and generally bringing you down. I loved them, but the break was heavenly.
Although…
"I miss Eric" I blurted out, and Tara looked at me for a moment and I wondered if I'd broken the unwritten rule of girls' weekends away. But then she smiled. "I miss JB too" she sighed. "Wine makes me horny!" And then she giggled and I giggled because…oh, I couldn't really figure it out. But it was funny, anyway. And much better with wine.
EPOV
When it came to it, I couldn't fucking do it. I couldn't send that kid Yvetta back to, well, fuck knows what. I wanted to think her mother wasn't as horrible as they thought…but then hadn't everyone wanted to think the best about my dad too?
So we were stuck with her. And with Chloe who seemed excited at the prospect of a sleepover. Amelia seemed less than thrilled, which was odd, because she'd spent years and years pestering us to have friends to stay.
Of course Pam decided to take over that role. "So, can I call Venetia and Florentine?" she asked me, when we finally all sat down to dinner. "And have them over?"
"No" I said.
"But…but…Amelia has friends over."
"It's a, um, crisis, Pam" Amelia said, while glaring at me. I did not create the crisis and if Yvetta would stop snivelling over the pasta for five fucking minutes, maybe we'd discover it wasn't one, but at the current time, we were stuck with it.
"Well…I'm having a crisis too, then!" Pam declared. She ate some rice. "What's a crisis?" she asked.
"A really stupid thing that only stupid people want to call it when they can't stop crying" Felicia muttered. Yvetta glared at her. Amelia glared at her. Chloe beamed at Tray who she was sitting next to. "You can eat really fast!" she said to him. Tray didn't say anything; he just edged his plate further away from Chloe and tried to block her from it.
"No one tells me anything!" Pam yelled.
"That's because you yell at them!" Sam yelled back.
"Wow. This is way better than home" Chloe said. "Holly was going out with this new woman she met, so I was going to have to eat by myself. Again. That kind of sucks."
"Do you get all the food?" Tray asked her. With his mouth full.
"Well…duh. Yeah" Chloe said, shrugging.
"How does that suck?" Tray asked Sam. Sam looked at him and pulled a 'how the fuck do I know, girls are weird' face. And then they both carried on eating.
The rest of dinner went OK. As OK as you'd expect with seven kids sitting around the table. Sookie's note might have suggested checking I still had all five kids from time to time, but it didn't really cover off what to do if there were extras. I wondered what she'd say if we never got rid of Yvetta.
I'd worry about that Sunday, I figured.
More pressing was the problem of Felicia. She was…I didn't know how to describe it. Something was going on. She'd snap at Amelia, but if Amelia retaliated, she didn't come back. Instead she'd sit there, and look sad.
And when we were cleaning up dinner she blew up again. But at me, not at them, and I really wasn't the fucking problem. "I don't know why you're letting them stay!" she yelled pointing to Yvetta and Chloe. "It's not fair! I live here, and no one cares!" And then she stormed off.
Fuck knows what that was about.
"So Yvetta" I said. "Do you want to call your mother and, uh, let her know where you are?" Maybe they'd reconcile and it would stop being my problem, and I wouldn't have to feel fucking guilty about just sending her home.
"No" she said, vehemently. "No, the old cow can rot. I sent her a text and said I'm with a friend. She can stew about it all frigging night. I don't care. She's just horrible! You have no idea what it's like!" Then there were more tears and Amelia had to hug her while glaring at me.
So, fuck.
"Why do girls cry all the time?" Tray asked me, in a whisper.
"Mum doesn't" Sam pointed out. "Unless it's a sad movie, or a baby died or something."
"What baby died?" Tray asked.
"Any baby. When it's on the news. And she says 'the worst thing is, no one ever cared for it'."
"Oh" Tray replied. He didn't seem particularly interested in Sookie's reaction to reports of child abuse deaths. Pam was still very interested in Chloe though.
"So your mum let you have pink hair?" she asked.
"Mmm. She's not bio-mum though. My bio-mum is still in Nelson. She's with a guy now. That's weird."
"That is weird" Pam mused. "Boys are all stinky and disgusting. Girls are much nicer."
"That's what she used to think" Chloe pointed out. "But Holly says she got blinded by his sausages and never looked back."
"Pam!" I called. "Go and get your stuff ready for your shower."
"I don't want a shower!" she complained.
"We have to get that glitter off you somehow. Go." I started getting stuff ready to make coffee. I hoped Sookie was having a nice time. I hoped she missed the coffee though.
Pam came back. "Leesha won't let me in the bathroom" she complained.
"Well, tell her it's her turn later." I suddenly realised we had two extra people to schedule in too. I'd have to let the boys use the ensuite although they tended to make a fucking mess. Maybe they didn't need showers?
Pam walked off and I heard some yelling, and then she came back. "No" she said. "She says she's not budging. She says she wants Mum." Pam looked baffled.
That did sound odd. "I'll go and tell her she has to go" I said. This was all I needed really, someone creating a fucking logjam in the bathroom schedule.
I knocked on the bathroom door. "Leesh!" I called.
"Go away!"
"Leesh! You have to come out!"
"No I don't."
"You do, and I'm not standing here arguing about it."
"Well, go away then. I don't want you here anyway!"
"Let Pam in and I'll go."
"No!" She sounded desperate. "No, I don't want anyone in here. I want Mum!" Something was wrong and I couldn't figure out what the fuck it was.
"Are you OK?" I asked, through the door. There was no answer.
"Leesh?" I tried, quieter this time. "Leesh, let me in."
"No."
"Well I'm not leaving until you do" I warned her. I waited. I guess she was waiting too. It was kind of a stalemate. I wished I'd actually made the coffee and been able to bring it with me.
Eventually there was a click to signal the door being unlocked. I pushed it open to find Felicia standing there, arms crossed across her chest and tear stains down her face. Oh, fuck.
"Felicia, no one's pushing you out. We just have to, uh…well, Yvetta's having a tough time and we should…"
"Who the hell cares about Yvetta?" Felicia said, savagely.
"So, uh, what's the problem then?" I asked. I was totally fucking lost. I just wished everyone would stop fucking crying.
Felicia sighed, and looked away from me. I hadn't realised the towel rack was that interesting.
In the end she sighed again and dropped her arms to her sides, looking defeated. "I got my period" she said, so quietly I almost didn't hear what she said.
Oh, fuck.
A/N So for anyone else who would like a reminder, wetas are insects. Like big, black, annoyed cockroaches.
Thanks for reading!
