Read Emily Taylor - The Teenage Mum Online

Authors: Vi Grim

Tags: #coming of age, #pregnancy, #emily taylor, #pregnancy and childbirth, #vi grim, #age 14 to adult, #the teenage mum, #young mum

Emily Taylor - The Teenage Mum (2 page)

'You know us slugs are
touchy about our yellow bits,' he says, a hint of humour returning
to his round face.

 

Two blue blobs are coming along
the beach. Big round blue blobs with legs and arms, running around,
kicking a football.
'What are you doing?' I ask,
when they reach me.
'Come on, come on,' they say
together. 'What are we?'
'Slimeballs!' I push them over
and send them rolling down the lawn to the beach.

 

 

'We've been looking after you,'
says Azziz, once they've extracted themselves from their slimeball
suits.
'Thanks,' I say, giving them
each a big hug. 'I can't remember anything. Has it been long?'
'Weeks.'
I reach up and feel my head.
The scabbing has gone and there's short hair, soft like a cat's
fur.
'Let's have a look at our
patient then,' says Jesus.
I shiver in the cool air as he
lifts my top up. He gently unwinds the blood-stained bandage which
goes around me about twenty times. The wound has scabbed over and
looks healthy. Jesus rubs some ointment on it and bandages me up
again.

 

'What about Castor?' I
ask.
'We hose him down each day and
feed him lots of lettuces. We've piled up lots of sugar cane around
him. It helps keep the damp in and protects his modesty. Heaven
forbid if someone saw his yellow bits! Apart from his dented pride,
he's fine now. Just needs a new moon. They're custom made so it
takes a while.'
'The sooner, the better,' I
say, rolling my eyes skyward towards Renard.
'I know what you mean,' says
Jesus, giving me a wink. 'We're hurrying them on as much as we
can.'
Pachum, pachum.
Lasers arc across the sky. Blue
burning slime crashes down on top of us.
Whoomph!

A slimeball
lands in the su
gar cane a
hundred yards away and charges towards us. I try to open the door
but it's blocked by Castor's bulk.

'Run, run,' yells Azziz,
grabbing my hand. We run around the side and in through the back
door just as the slimeball slams into my cottage with a mighty thud
that sends plaster raining down on us.

Its face
presses against the window and the cottage
shakes as it tries to force its way in.

Pachow!
The slimeball is zapped.
'Sorry for the delay,' says
Pollux. 'It took me a while to get around to this side.'
'Canon malfunction,' says
Renard laughing. 'It just slipped through.'

I click my
fingers and are
back up in
Renard's moon. Looking him in the eye, I snarl at him, 'You let
that through on purpose,' and hit him as hard as I can.

 

When I get back down, Jesus and
Azziz are sitting out on my front lawn munching on charred bits of
slimeball. They offer me some. 'You really must try it,' says
Azziz. 'It's one of those things where you need to acquire the
taste, like olives and anchovies.'
'Laser grilled slime on a bed
of lettuce leaves, it simply the best,' says Castor.
I pick up a lump of slime and
throw it at him.

 

Maybe I shouldn't have hit
Renard. He has his sweet revenge, letting slimeball after slimeball
slip through his defences and get to ground on my asteroid.
I don't like slimeballs.
First one nearly ate me and now a dodgy sentry slug is letting them
rain down on my asteroid. Azziz and Jesus come to stay with me. As
always, it's nice to have their company and they delight in the
action when slimeballs get to ground. After a nasty incident where
three slimeballs attack the house together, they set up a photon
canon by the empty window and we take turns at blasting them when
they attack.

 

'It's all my fault,' says
Castor from under his sugar cane hut. 'I'm so sorry.'
'Oh Castor, it's not. You can't
get things right all of the time. Look at us people, we only get
things right once in a while, if we're lucky.'
'That's what we all like so
much about you teroids. You bumble along through life and make
amazing things happen. You're not scared to make mistakes.'
I walk around to the front of
the house and give him a big kiss on the cheek.

 

Pollux does his best to
stop the slimeballs getting through the defences but it takes time
for his moon to orbit round to my side. He apologies profusely for
Renard, 'I've never seen anything like it, he's almost as bad as
the slimeballs. He should be disconnected.'
'Disconnected?' I ask.
'Yes! Disconnected from the
slug Internet. It's eons since we last had a rouge slug.'
'No one's disconnecting me!'
shouts Renard.
When he's next overhead, he
lets another slimeball through.
I grab the canon, pick off the
slimeball before it hits the ground then fire a couple of shots at
his moon. Much to my surprise there's an explosion. Yes, got
him!
'You'll live to regret doing
that,' he snarls, as his moon disappears over the horizon trailing
black smoke.
'He deserved that,' says
Castor, then adds, 'It might well be the last we see of him. I've
just heard that my moon's ready. Thanks for everything.'

 

He disappears and a few moments
later a gleaming new sentry moon appears overhead.
I'm itching to go and visit but
hold back because I'm sure he needs time to get familiar with his
new moon. After a minute and a half, I can't wait any longer and
with a click of my fingers, I'm up there.

 

'You took your time,' says
Castor, as I look around his cockpit. 'It's an SM6. The SM5 had new
weapons systems; this one has better ergonomics and thermal
shielding.'
'Ergonomics!' I say. 'How can
you put ergonomic and slug in the same sentence?'
'It's so comfy,' he says,
giving a little involuntary shiver that shakes the whole moon. 'In
the old Mark III, I just sort of squidged in. The old ones came in
two halves like a seashell, you slithered in and it closed up. This
one's based on a snail shell, my yellow bits fit perfectly inside
the spiral. I guess snails have been onto it for a long time. You
never hear them complain about cramps or going dry.'
Looking down at Camillo, I can
see lines mown through the forests and prairie by the slimeballs.
'What a mess,' I say, shaking my head.
'It'll grow back.'
Remembering my horse, I ask,
'Is Trigger okay?'
'He's fine, he might be a
little long in the tooth but he can still outrun a slimeball. There
he is.' Castor zooms in on Jesus's vege patch where Trigger is
munching his way through the Brussel sprouts.
I never did like sprouts.
'If he goes near the lettuces
I'll fire a laser at him,' says Castor, his eyes dancing with
humour. He is happy with his new moon.
'I must be going,' I say, and
give him a peck on the cheek.
'Don't forget to plant plenty
of lettuces when you get back in your garden.'
'I'll wait to the end of the
month, until it's a bit warmer,' I reply.
'Don't forget the glass
house.'
'All right then,
tomorrow!'

 

 

 

3

 

It's nice to be back in
my garden, I work away, enjoying the winter sunshine. Castor clears
the rotting remnants of the slimeball with a quasar torpedo,
splattering it around the garden. The zinodes work on replacing the
fence with a high, reinforced concrete, slimeball proof wall. I
think it's more to protect the slug's lettuces, than to protect me.
At first it looks a little ugly but now they've covered it with
stonework, it looks much better. When the bougainvillea they've
planted covers it up, it'll look great.

I plant an
apple tree, a Peasgood No
nsuch, up against the back wall in memory of Scruff. He was
so valiant taking on the slimeball. I collect up all the sheep
bones I can find and bury them around its roots. They might just
come in handy in his doggy afterlife.

 

That night, I
dream of gardening. I'm planting out the garden and the seeds grow
like straight away, really quickly and keep growing and growing. At
first I'm a little kid in a magic garden and skip around popping
open giant pea pods and picking strawberries the size of
watermelons, then the veges grow up blocking out the sun and I feel
like an ant in the Amazon rain forest. A slimeball appears out of
nowhere. I run but are trapped by the high walls and the slimeball
chases me around devouring everything until there's just me and
him, like in a Roman arena. I pull off my red jersey and use it
like a matador's cape sidestepping nimbly out of his way as he
charges.
Ole!
The crowd roars and whistles,
throwing flowers at my feet.

Trumpets sound as the slimeball
prepares for its next charge, then the crowd turns nasty. The music
changes to a nightmare throb and the crowd chant, 'Get her, get
her, get her.'
The slimeball charges. I run
but he has me cornered. There's no way out. He opens his mouth wide
and sinks his fangs into me.

 

In the morning, I'm all jittery
and freaked out. I don't want to get up; I don't want to go out. I
hide under my covers and cry. I just want to be somewhere safe
where there's no slimeballs. I might go back to Sheffield and live
with Mum and Dad. It'll be a bit of a shock for them at first, but
once they get their heads around it, I'm sure they'll be happy to
have me back. I'd be safe there, and we could watch daft game shows
on tele and have roast lamb with Yorkshire puds on Sundays.
There's a soft knock at my
door. I stay hidden under my covers. The knocking gets a bit
louder. 'Hello, is there anyone in?' calls a familiar voice, with a
heavy German accent.
'Wait a minute,' I call back.
'Have a seat on the sofa while I get dressed.'
I jump up and throw some wood
on the stove and put the kettle on, then have a shower, pull my
clothes on and go out to see my visitor.
He's sitting on the sofa gently
stroking Negrita. No one strokes Negrita. When he sees me coming he
puts her gently on the ground and she rubs up against his leg. Not
even a hiss or a snarl!
'Emily, lovely to see you,' he
says giving me a big hug.
'Freud, so nice to see you
too.' I say. It is, he's just one of those people.

'Do call me
Sigmu
nd!' says Freud, then
looks me up and down. 'Zeus said that you're going through a bit of
a rough patch. You beautiful blond hair, it's gone. Have you turned
Gothic?'

'Oh, my hair. Yes, I’ve
gone Gothic; maybe I should dye it black and get a few studs. I
haven't had time to have a teenage crisis, not yet. I had an
accident.'
The kettle whistles
impatiently. I make us a cup of tea and some toast and go and sit
with Freud.
He compliments me on my lovely
asteroid and we chat about Juno, then I tell him about the
slimeballs.
'You really are a survivor,' he
says. 'The slimeballs are a psychological weapon. Yes, they do
gobble things up but their main purpose is to unsettle us, to freak
us out.'
'They certainly do that!'
'Yes, that means the Titans are
winning. Do you want them to beat us?'
'No.'
'So, we need to get you strong.
We're going to put Emily back in charge and stop those
nightmares.'
'How do we do that? I pee
myself just thinking about them.'
'Do they chase you?'
'They do.'
'Have you ever had dreams about
other things chasing you?'
'Yes, there's always things
chasing me.'
'Tell me about it.'
I tell him about Sheryl and
Charlene, the bullies at school, about the hippo, Gamel, Abdullah
the bear and all about the slimeballs.
'Because you're such a lovely
person, the bullies of this world like to pick on you. They want to
cut you down to their level,' says Freud.
He stays all day. We walk along
the beach and have hot choccies in Azziz's cafe. We watch Jesus
surfing. 'He's so relaxed and at one with himself,' I say to Freud.
'I wish I could be like that.'
'You can, you will be like
that. You're a girl with an incredibly strong will. You make things
happen.'
'No, I just bumble along.'
'You bumble along in a very
determined way.'

 

We skim stones and walk back
along the beach. The afternoon is wearing on.

I have
so
much to say. I like Freud
visiting. 'Would you like to stay for a few days?'

'It'll be my pleasure,' he
says.
I make up the bed in the spare
room and he stays.
We walk up to the bluff and
throw bits of banana for the gulls to catch. We find Trigger and
gallop across the prairie and have a go at surfing at the stream
mouth. The water is icy cold and we get brain-freeze.
I feel much happier and we
haven't even done any therapy.
When I say this to Freud he
smiles and says, 'Life is therapy.'
He does say that I need to get
over my fear of slimeballs.
'I think it's quite healthy
being scared of them,' I say. 'I run away so they can't get me.
It's self-preservation. Look at what happened to Scruff.'
'It is healthy to be scared but
not paranoid and petrified! Can big red buses kill you? Yes. Do you
treat them with a healthy respect? Yes. Do you have nightmares
about them chasing you. I hope not.'
'So what do we do?' I ask.
We master slimeballs. We get
you out there shooting them down, we fry them up as an aperitif and
we go and find that fang.'

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