Don't Follow Vee by Oliver Phommavanh

Author:Oliver Phommavanh
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781742538570
Publisher: Penguin Random House Australia

Chapter

Thirteen

Mum falls asleep on the couch. So I resist joining her and go back to my room to scan Matty’s photos of his Mum. I’m up to the last one when there’s a knock on my door then it opens.

‘Now what are you up to?’ Mum says.

‘Just helping out a friend,’ I say.

She picks up one of the photos. ‘Isn’t that Mrs Brown?’

‘Er, yeah. It’s for a family history project.’

‘Are you doing ours too?’ Mum says.

‘Well, I was going to just send my history teacher a link to The Chronicles of Vee but it’s only half the story since you’re not on there.’ The Anti-Vee inside me rises. ‘Could you tell me more about your pre-Vee-ious life?’

Maybe if I get Mum to open up more, she’ll see how great she is, even if it means doing a bogus assignment. I scan the last photo and upload them all onto a USB stick.

Mum sits down on my bed. ‘Well, you can look at your Uncle Po Ki and Auntie Phear’s Facebook page.’

‘Yeah, I know,’ I say. ‘It’s a shame we don’t see them much anymore now they’re in Melbourne.’

‘Yes, and all your other relatives live in China,’ Mum says with a sigh.

‘Where’s there no Facebook or Instagram.’ It sounds like paradise. ‘I’d love to go visit them someday.’

‘They’ll feed us until we explode.’

‘And what about my dad?’ I say.

Dad. It’s not really a word in my Veecabulary. Whenever we talk about him, I always end up asking Mum the same three questions, and I get the same old answers.

‘What was Dad like?’ That’s question number one.

‘You’ve got his pig nose and his stubby head.’ Mum won’t look me in the eye, and fumbles around with her fingers.

It’s an oldie answer. I want to know something fresh. Question two. ‘Do you have any more photos of him?’

‘I threw away all of his photos when you were a baby,’ Mum says.

She must have deleted all the Dad data from her brain too.

‘Are you sure you don’t have even one hidden somewhere?’

‘No, definitely not.’

Mum’s tone is saying ‘subject closed’. I don’t want to ask question three. It’s one that I wrote down on a piece of paper years ago and then stuffed in the vault. But the Anti-Vee inside me makes me bold. ‘Why did he leave us, Mum?’

Mum’s face sags. ‘I wish I knew, Vee.’

It’s the same answer I was given when I was little. So it’s no surprise. But it doesn’t make it hurt any less.

None of my 160,000 followers have a clue about the pain I feel inside. Like how I don’t find Halloween scary, but Father’s Day spooks me out because it feels like I’m haunted by the ghost of my dad. Would they still follow me if I tell them how hard it is to hide my annoyed vibes whenever Annabelle and her dad are doing ducky kisses. Then there are the countless times I have to fight the awkwardness I feel when my friends talk about their dads, like it’s normal.

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