Mostly Sunny with a Chance of Storms (8 page)

‘That pie smells
so
good,’ said Lyall appearing in the kitchen. ‘What was Settimio saying to you, Saskia? I could see you out my window?’

‘It’s Willow,’ said Saskia. ‘She’s dug up all his artichokes and chased Marmalade again. He said Marmalade is
too old
and might
have heart attack.’
Saskia was mimicking Settimio and his Italian accent. ‘Then, he poked me in the leg with one of his crutches.’

‘
Now
, Sunny.’ Mum took me by the shoulders, turned me around from where I was getting some cutlery out of the drawer, faced me in the direction of the door and gave me a gentle push. ‘Go and apologise for your outburst the other day,
and
promise him you’ll get Willow under control.’

I deposited the bunch of knives and forks I was holding in a pile on the table. ‘’Kay’ I said, looking about to see if anyone would come with me. Lyall and Saskia became suddenly frantic about setting the table. Even Willow pretended she was asleep.

‘
Now
, Sunny!’ Mum and Carl barked in unison.

All the way over to the cottage I was rehearsing my lines.
Sorry, Settimio, bye
.
Sorry, Settimio, that you really are the biggest grump alive. I’m sorry, Settimio, that you hate animals and children. Sorry about your hairy ears, Settimio.
Sorry I yelled at you, but it sure felt good, Settimio. See ya, wouldn’t wanna be ya, Settimio!

Before I knew it, I was knocking on his door and he was on the other side opening it.

‘Hello, Settimio,’ I said politely. ‘I just wanted to say that I’m sorry for yelling at you the other day. I was very worried about Willow, who I know annoys you and that’s another reason I’m sorry, and I’m going to make sure she doesn’t do any more bad things like chasing Marmalade. So yeah – that’s pretty much it. Sorry. Bye.’ I’d been looking at his feet the whole time. When my eyes finally met his, I noticed they were all weepy looking.
Oh no
, I thought.
I’ve made Settimio cry
.

Then he slammed the door in my face.

As I was walking back to the house I thought about how it sure felt bad to apologise and have someone
still
be upset with you. I mean, I’d done my bit, wasn’t he meant to say,
That’s okay
?

‘Well done, Sunny,’ said Mum. ‘How did it go?’ She had one of those patronising looks on her face. Kind of a mixture of
Good girl
and
I told you so.

‘Well, I apologised, but he’s still down on me, so what can I do?’

‘Oh, Sunny,’ said Mum. ‘He’ll come around. It’s early days.’

Carl had cut the pie into eight pieces and Lyall was
using the cake slide to lift them onto each plate.

‘I’ve been thinking,’ Lyall said, ‘and I’ve got an idea that could really help Willow stay out of trouble.’

‘Look out,’ taunted Saskia. ‘Lyall’s been
thinking.’

‘Where’re Claud and Buster?’ I said, suddenly realising I had forgotten to call them for lunch.

‘Still up in the turret, I think,’ Saskia said. ‘I’ll go call them!’

She was halfway to the door when Carl intercepted. ‘Oh no you won’t, young lady. You have to stop screaming up and down those stairs.’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Lyall, pulling his phone out of his pocket. ‘I’ll send Buster an SMS.’

‘You’ll do nothing of the sort,’ said Carl. ‘Sunny, would you mind using your
legs
and going upstairs to tell your friends that lunch is ready?’

‘Sure,’ I said, thinking that Lyall’s text idea wasn’t such a bad one and that I’d probably do it myself if my phone wasn’t permanently out of credit.

I made lots of noise thumping up the turret stairs, just in case Claud and Buster actually
had
been pashing all that time. But they were just lounging around on the floor looking at stuff on Buster’s laptop.

‘Lunch, you guys,’ I said.

‘Yay!’ said Claud, and they both sprang to their feet and took off downstairs.

I picked up my pillows from the floor and threw them back on the bed. That’s when I noticed the lens cap from the telescope dangling on its string and went to put it back in place. Don’t ask me
why
I thought it would be a good idea to have a quick snoop on Settimio. It just seemed to happen automatically. I lined up the telescope towards his cottage and pulled it into focus at the kitchen window.

He was right there at the table. I couldn’t see the whole of him, but I could see his hands going through papers in an old shoe box. I focused a little closer. There were photographs and old coins, a couple of smaller tin boxes and letters in old-looking envelopes. Maybe that was why he looked all misty and weepy. He’d been making himself sad by being sentimental and all memory-lanesy.

Why do people do that? Keep a whole lot of old stuff that makes them feel all bent out of shape? I just don’t get it. It’s kind of just as weird as people (like Mum) who actually
like
movies that make them cry. Still, it was kind of reassuring to know that it wasn’t me who’d made him cry. I’d obviously caught him in a bad moment.

When I got downstairs the others had started eating without me.

‘What took you so long?’ asked Claud.

‘Nothing, really, just straightened up a bit.’ I reached over for some tomato relish to help disguise the fact that the hunza pie was so full of vegies. ‘What’s your idea about anyway, Lyall?’ I asked.

‘Well,’ he said, with a mouth full of pie. ‘It’s a dog entertaining business. We can set up all sorts of activities in the garden and get paid to entertain neighbourhood dogs after school and on holidays, while people are at work. I thought we could call it
Boredom Control
. What do you think?’

‘Um, it’s ah …
interesting,’
I said. ‘Worth thinking about.’

‘You sure do have plenty of room for it,’ said Claud.

‘Yeah,
stacks
,’ added Buster.

‘Can I design the brochures? asked Saskia.

Everybody looked over to me and gave me
the eyebrow
, all at the same time.

The thing was, ever since we’d moved I’d been trying to think of new business ideas. I really did like Lyall’s idea, don’t get me wrong. It’s that just being an inventor and an entrepreneur,
I
should have been the one to think of it myself. I mean, if we did do Boredom Control and it was Lyall’s idea, wouldn’t that mean he was the boss? Can you imagine how tragic life would be if I had to take orders from a precooked? That would be about as wrong-town as you could get.

I glanced around the table to find everyone still looking at me.

‘Sure,’ I finally said. ‘Let’s do it. But you’re not the boss of me, okay, Lyall? No one is.’

‘I don’t know
what the matter is,’ said Steph tearily, after changing Flora’s nappy. ‘She’s fed; she’s changed; she’s burped. I’ve been cuddling her all day.’

‘Here,’ said Dad, reaching for Flora. ‘Sunny and I will take her for a walk in the pram. We’ll get some groceries and fix dinner too, won’t we, Sunny?’

‘We’d better take this,’ I said, holding up Flora’s dummy as Dad lay her in the pram. She had stopped crying momentarily. I brushed the rubbery dummy gently against Flora’s lips until she opened her mouth and sucked it in, making the cutest slurping noises, just like Maggie from
The Simpsons.

‘Try and get some rest, Steph,’ said Dad, putting his arm around her. ‘You look exhausted.’ He kissed her on the
side of her forehead, which made her even tearier.

‘Do you know the
worst
thing you can say to someone who’s tired, James?’ snapped Steph. Dad stared at her blankly. ‘That they
look
tired!’ And she stomped into the laundry, slamming the door behind her.

Dad looked at me guiltily. ‘Come on, Sunny, grab the shopping list and we’ll give Steph some peace.’

Steph slamming the door like that jangled my nerves and made me feel as though I shouldn’t be there at all. Kind of like the time I was at Ruby’s house and she got in trouble for exploding the microwave by heating the left-over spaghetti Bolognese with the tin foil still on. I just wanted to disappear. Which is when my imaginary aeroplane seat 44K comes in handy. Way up in the clouds, strung-out stepmothers and bad feelings don’t seem to exist at all. I think it’s something to do with the altitude. And also due to the fact that when you peer out the window of an aeroplane, your life (and all your worries) suddenly shrinks to insignificant proportions. In seat 44K, all there is to think about is the next movie you’re going to watch and what sort of yummy surprises you might find wrapped up on the dinner tray. So right after Steph yelled at Dad and slammed the laundry door, I boarded my imaginary plane. And that’s when the most incredible thing happened …

‘Miss Hathaway,’ the hostess said as she greeted me at the door. ‘Lovely to see you again.’

‘Hello, Tabitha,’ I said, reading her nametag. ‘Yes, it feels like ages since I’ve had a spell in 44K.’

‘We were worried about you, Sunday. Thought you might be flying with
someone else.
’

‘Not at all,’ I said. ‘I’m perfectly happy with
ThinAir
.

‘Well, have we got a surprise for you, Miss Hathaway. Do you know what it means to be
upgraded?’

‘Does that mean you get to skip a year at school?’

‘No,’ chuckled the hostess. ‘Come with me and I’ll show you.’ She ushered me to the left, and immediately the seats were a little bigger and not so squashed in together.

‘This is business class,’ she said, leading me past rows and rows of seats. Then we came to a curtain that was buttoned down on one side. She swept it open, ushered me in and quickly closed it again behind us. ‘Now, Sunday, because you’re such a loyal customer, we’ve reserved a seat for you in our
first class
cabin. Seat 2A, Miss Hathaway, right up the very front of the plane.’

‘Sunny?’
Dad said, ‘Did you hear what I said? I asked if you’ve seen Flora’s beanie. I had it just a moment ago.’

‘Found it!’ I said coming back to reality. It was wedged down the side of the pram. I tried to slide it onto her head without her neck going all wobbly and without making
her cry. Then Dad and I set off, and before we were even out of our street, Flora was asleep.

‘Was I this much trouble?’ I asked. ‘Is that why you only had one of me?’

‘Flora’s no trouble,’ said Dad. ‘She’s just a baby, doing what babies do. Steph’s having a bit of a tired patch, that’s all. She’ll come good. But we might get Guff to move in for a while and lend a hand.’

‘Cool!’ I said, because Auntie Guff is my favourite auntie. (Come to think of it, Auntie Guff is my
only
auntie, so that makes having a favourite a whole lot more politically correct.) Auntie Guff knows absolutely everything there is to know about stuff that most people think is
flaky
. You know, like crystals and past lives and auras and chakras. She also works behind the scenes on TV shows and films, so I get to hear stories about actors and what sorts of diets they’re on, and how some of them miss out on roles because they’ve had too much Botox and have lost their facial expressions.

I helped Dad make dinner so that Steph could rest, but Flora woke up grizzly and it took a long time for Steph to settle her back down again. There wasn’t much anyone could do to help, ’cos most of the time all Flora wanted was Steph’s boobs.