Yes by Deborah Burnside

Author:Deborah Burnside
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2013-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Great. Frannie thinks I’m great. Only because I’ve saved her bacon. I call Luke’s number again. I’ve got a headache now about the stupid boxes and almost wish Declan hadn’t helped us at all. ‘S’me.’

‘Yeah, hi. I’ve just been talking with Em. She’s had a brainwave, about putting tights or pantyhose in, too. If women are buying the caps as Art Deco fashion, then they’ll have to have matching stockings, she says. Problem solved, she says.’

‘Er, yeah.’ I don’t know what to do. Aroha has a point. Women are all different sizes, which you can’t confirm by the size of their heads, and I don’t think it’s a good idea to be buying extra stuff to put in and increasing the price. I don’t even know how I got involved again. They all talked me into it. I was supposed to have quit. Was going to quit. I’ve got other ideas churning around in my head … I just need to work out what they are exactly.

‘She reckons we can design a label that’ll go around the box and cover the flower-window space, and make the box look fuller than it is. The Art Deco people have said they can get our box labels printed for us by the company that prints all their stuff.’

‘Emily?’

‘No, Aroha.’

‘Oh.’

‘Just crunch the numbers, Marty. We’re on to it.’

Yeah, right. What numbers? I’m on to nothing. I’m behind in everything. I’ve got detention for a biology project, and when Mum rings later — collect from some little Spanish village to say she’s off to see flamenco dancers performing in a cave — it’s only to say she’s having real problems with the phone system over there so we might not hear from her for a while.

‘You and Dad well?’

‘Yeah, fine. It’s all good, Ma.’

Then she talks to Dad for about an hour.

Dad doesn’t cook, he orders Chinese takeaways, lets me drive him down to pick them up, and throws me a beer when he gets one for himself while we eat. We don’t say anything about whether or not he loves dirty clothes. Or packaging. Or pantyhose. Or labels. Or the Italian designer wool suit I ruined at Newday Drycleaning today. By accident.

‘School tomorrow, Marty. How about you go to bed?’

‘Sure, Dad,’ I say, then stay up watching a programme I have no interest in until he starts snoring in the chair. I’m not five years old. I don’t have to be told when to go to bed. I take ages to go to sleep, though. I feel uneasy about lying for Francesca, too. If Mrs Sutherland knew Frannie hadn’t been spending time with us when she said she was, she’d be annoyed. Probably as annoyed as me.

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