Squishy Taylor and the Mess-Makers
For Odette and Zephyr – my own bonus family. Together you helped me invent Baby.
–
Ailsa
For my little mess-makers, Wombat and Bilby.
–
Ben
Contents
About the author and illustrator
I hold my breath as she grabs a ledge of rock with one hand. She grips
tight
, her knuckles pale. The sky behind her is so bright it’s scary. She slips a little and her fingers slide back towards the edge.
There is a blur of rope and rock and a
thump
as shoulder collides with cliff.
Carmeline Clancy’s familiar laugh rings out, and I let my breath out in a
whoosh
. I’m watching her on the TV in the foyer of Rockers, our rock-climbing centre. I’ve seen these clips hundreds of times on YouTube. I loved Carmeline Clancy before she got famous.
Carmeline is from Colorado and she’s the youngest person ever to climb
Lincoln’s Terror
, one of the hardest climbs in the universe. She straps her camera to her helmet, so you can watch the crazy stuff she does. Her YouTube channel is the best.
Usually the videos in the rock-climbing centre are of grown-up men. Not today, though. Carmeline Clancy is
news
because she’s making a movie and doing all her own stunts. They’re filming the city scenes in Melbourne this week.
I want to
be
Carmeline Clancy. Or maybe I want to hang out with her forever. I can’t decide which.
I turn to my bonus sister Vee as the next clip begins. I call her my bonus sister because she was like the bonus points I got for moving in with my dad. Vee is
fun
.
‘I’m going to find Carmeline Clancy tomorrow and get her to sign my rock-climbing top,’ I say.
‘I’m going to make friends with her and then I’ll get to be in the movie,’ Vee says.
‘She’s going to make me a stunt-person in
heaps
of movies,’ I say. Then I do an announcer voice: ‘
Squishy Taylor, stunt-climber!
’
That’s me, Squishy Taylor. It’s like the gangster, Squizzy Taylor, only better.
Vee grins and says, ‘I’m going to go to Colorado and take her title as the youngest person to climb Lincoln’s Terror.’
We both laugh. ‘You can’t even climb the Gargoyle’s Escape yet,’ I say.
The Gargoyle’s Escape is the hardest climb at Rockers. I can only do the first half of it. Vee is a little bit better but not much, and she’s been rock-climbing for heaps longer than me. I only started recently, when I moved in with her. I moved in because my dad had Baby with her mum.
A voice-over comes on: ‘
Rock-climbing child star Carmeline Clancy arrived in
Melbourne yesterday where she is already making waves –
’
‘All right you two,
giddy-up
.’ It’s Alice, Vee’s mum, coming out with our bags. Baby is asleep in the sling with his big head leaning sideways under her chin. She stands right in front of the screen so we can’t see.
‘Let’s go,’ says Alice, turning our shoulders towards the door.
‘Hang on,’ I say, straining to keep looking at the screen. The announcer is saying something in a serious tone, but I can’t hear it properly.
Alice turns around, but it’s too late. The voice-over has stopped and now they’re playing one of Carmeline’s more
awesome falls
.
‘Come on, Squishy,’ Alice says.
‘They were talking about Carmeline Clancy,’ I say.
‘Of course they were,’ says Alice, like the only thing anyone
ever
talks about is Carmeline Clancy. Which is kind of true in our house.
Me and Vee do
upside-down scissor-kicks
from the tram handles on the way home. Vee can do more than me, but I do better flips because I practise on the monkey bars at school. Vee is in the year above me and those kids don’t do monkey bars anymore. Vee pretends she doesn’t care, but I’d care if I were her.
Alice hides her face in Baby’s shoulder, pretending to be scared as I land from a flip. She looks up and says, ‘You just spent
two hours
rock-climbing. Are you not totally exhausted?’
‘No!’ we chorus, and both jump upside-down again.
‘Well, I’m just going to pretend you don’t belong to me, OK?’
I say, ‘OK, Alice!’
Vee says, ‘OK, Mum.’
Vee’s black ponytail swings in time with the swaying tram. Mine is too much of a
big curling tangle
to actually swing, but I like how it feels, dangling off my head.
The tram stops four doors down from our building, opposite a big hotel. The hotel has shiny brass luggage trolleys and an outdoor carpet and men in
fancy suits
who just stand there, waiting to be nice to people.
We cross at the lights, towards the hotel, and Vee elbows me and points. A big, scraggly grey
puppy
is sitting next to one of the men. It’s skinny and is looking up with massive soft brown eyes. The man kicks it, not hard, but still a kick.
‘Hey!’ I say, because that was
mean
.
The puppy scampers away, limping. It stops behind a big tree out the front of the hotel, and I run towards it. I want to pick it up and
cuddle
it and give it food. But something scares the puppy and it bolts across the road where I can’t follow.
‘Come on.’ Alice tugs my hand. I follow her towards our place, even though I don’t want to.
‘I’m calling the pound,’ the Fancy Man says.
I turn around to glare at him for being so mean, but then immediately forget all about it. Because someone is getting out of a taxi and heading into the hotel.
‘
It’s Carmeline Clancy!
’ I say.
‘It was
not
Carmeline Clancy,’ Jessie says, packing up her violin music. Jessie is Vee’s twin, my other bonus sister. Even though they look matching, in lots of ways they’re opposites.
‘It was
so
, I saw her,’ I insist.
‘You wish you saw her,’ Jessie says in her
annoying older-kid voice
.
‘I
did
see her.’
The twins are only five and a half months older than me, but Jessie does this all the time.
‘Can you guys give it a break?’ Alice asks. She’s kneeling on the floor and Baby is trying to kick her in the face while she
wrangles
his dirty nappy off him. Usually on Saturday morning, Dad looks after Baby while Alice does rock-climbing. This weekend, one of Dad’s old friends is sick so he’s gone over to make him food. That’s why Baby came to the gym.
Baby is wrinkling his face. I calculate that he’ll start screaming in nine seconds. I start counting down:
Nine, eight, seven …
‘Can I google where Carmeline’s staying?’ Jessie asks.
Six, five …
Alice says nothing.
‘Please, Mum?’ Jessie brings the iPad over.