Big Day Out Read online

  ‘Wow,’ I said.

  Skippy smiled. Mum smiled. Mick smiled. And I smiled too. Then we all ran hand in hand down down down the hill, ready for our picnic.

  I’M THE ODD one out in the family. There are a lot of us. OK, here goes. There’s my mum and my stepdad Graham and my big brother Mark and my big sister Ginnie and my little sister Jess and my big stepbrother Jon and my big stepsister Alice, and then there’s my little half-sister Cherry and my baby half-brother Rupert. And me, Laura. Not to mention my real dad’s new baby and his girlfriend Gina’s twins, but they live in Cornwall now so I only see them for holidays. Long holidays, like summer and sometimes Christmas and Easter. Not short bank holidays, like today. It’s a bank holiday and that means an Outing.

  I hate Outings. I like Innings. My idea of bliss would be to read my book in bed with a packet of Pop Tarts for breakfast, get up late and draw or colour or write stories, have bacon sandwiches and crisps and a big cream cake or two for lunch, read all afternoon, have a whole chocolate Swiss roll for tea in front of the telly, draw or colour or write more stories, and then pizza for supper.

  I’ve never enjoyed a day like that. It wouldn’t work anyway because there are far too many of us if we all stay indoors, and the big ones hog the sofa and the comfy chairs, and the little ones are always dashing around and yelling and grabbing my felt tips. And Mum is always trying to stop me eating all the food I like best, pretending that a plate of lettuce and carrots and celery is just as yummy as pizza(!), and Graham is always suggesting I might like to get on this bike he bought me and go for a ride.

  I wish he’d get on his bike. And take the whole family with him. And most of mine. Imagine if it was just Mum and me …

  We had to do a piece of autobiographical writing at school last week on ‘My Family’. I pondered for a bit. Just writing down the names of my family would take up half the page. I wanted to write a proper story, not an autobiographical list. So I had an imaginary cull of my entire family apart from Mum, and wrote about our life together as a teeny-weeny two-people family. I went into painstaking detail, writing about birthdays and Christmas and how my mum sometimes produced presents that had Love from Daddy or Best Wishes from Auntie Kylie in Australia – although I knew she’d really bought them herself. I even pretended that Mum sometimes played at being my gran or even grandpa and I played at being her son or her little baby. I wrote that although we played these games it was just for fun. We weren’t lonely at all. We positively loved being such a small family.

  Mrs Mann positively loved my effort too! This was a surprise because Mrs Mann is very, very strict. She’s the oldest teacher at school and she can be really scary and sarcastic. You can’t mess around in Mrs Mann’s class. She wears these neat grey suits that match her grey hair, and white blouses with tidily tied bows, and a pearl brooch precisely centred on her lapel. You can tell just by looking at her that she’s a stickler for punctuation and spelling and paragraphing and all those other boring, boring, boring things that stop you getting on with the story. My piece had its fair share of mistakes ringed in Mrs Mann’s red rollerball, but she still gave me a ten out of ten because she said it was such a vivid, truthful piece of heartfelt writing.

  I felt a little fidgety about this. Vivid it might be, but truthful it isn’t. When Mrs Mann was talking about my small family, my friends Amy and Kate stared at me open-mouthed because I’m always whining on to them about my big family. Luckily they’re not tell-tales.

  Sometimes I get on better with all my Steps. My big stepbrother Jon likes art too, and he always says sweet things about my drawings. My big stepsister Alice isn’t bad either. One day when we were all bored she did my hair in these cool little plaits with beads and ribbons, and made up my face so I looked almost grown up. Yes, I like Jon and Alice, but they’re much older than me so they don’t really want me hanging out with them.

  The Halfies aren’t bad either. I quite like sitting Cherry on my lap and reading her Where the Wild Things Are. She always squeals when I roar their terrible roars right in her ear and Mum gets cross, but Cherry likes it. Rupert isn’t into books yet – in fact I was a bit miffed when I showed him my old nursery-rhyme book and he bit it, like he thought it was a big bright sandwich. He’s not really fun to play with yet because he’s too little.

  That’s the trouble. Mark and Ginnie and Jon and Alice are too big. Jess and Cherry and Rupert are too little. I’m the Piggy in the Middle.

  Hmm. My unpleasant brother Mark frequently makes grunting snorty noises at me and calls me Fatty Pigling.

  I have highly inventive nicknames for Mark – indeed, for all my family (apart from Mum) – but I’d better not write them down or you’ll be shocked.

  I said a few very rude words to myself when Mum and Graham said we were going for a l-o-n-g walk along the river for our bank holiday outing. It’s OK for Rupert. He goes in the buggy. It’s OK for Cherry and Jess. They get piggyback rides the minute they start whining. It’s OK for Mark and Ginnie and Jon and Alice. They stride ahead in a little gang (or lag behind, whatever), and they talk about music and football and s-e-x, and whenever I edge up to them they say, ‘Push off, Pigling,’ if they’re Mark or Ginnie, or, ‘Hi, Laura, off you go now,’ if they’re Jon or Alice.

  I’d love it if it could just be Mum and me going on a walk together. But Graham is always around and he makes silly jokes or slaps me on the back or bosses me about. Sometimes I get really narked and tell him he’s not my dad so he can’t tell me what to do. Other times I just look at him. Looks can be very effective.

  My face was contorted in a dark scowl all the long, long, long trudge along the river. It was so incredibly boring. I am past the age of going ‘Duck duck duck’ whenever a bird with wings flies past. I am not yet of the age to collapse into giggles when some male language students with shades say hello in sexy foreign accents (Ginnie and Alice), and I don’t stare gape-mouthed when a pretty girl in a bikini waves from a boat (Mark and Jon).

  I just stomped around wearily, surreptitiously eating a Galaxy … and then a Kit Kat … and a couple of Rolos. I handed the rest round to the family like a good generous girl. That’s another huge disadvantage of large families. Offer your packet of Rolos round once and they’re nearly all gone in one fell swoop.

  We went to this pub garden for lunch and I golloped down a couple of cheese toasties and two packets of crisps and two Cokes – all this fresh air had made me peckish – and I had to stoke myself up for the long trail back home along the river.

  ‘Oh, we thought we’d go via the Green Fields,’ said Graham.

  I groaned. ‘Graham! It’s miles! And I’ve got serious blisters already.’

  ‘I think you might like the Green Fields this particular Monday,’ said Mum.

  She and Graham smiled.

  I didn’t smile back. I don’t like the Green Fields. They are just what their name implies. Two big green fields joined by a line of poplar trees. They don’t even have a playground with swings. There isn’t even an ice-cream van. There’s just a lot of grass.

  But guess what, guess what! When we got nearer the Green Fields I heard this buzz and clatter and music and laughter. And then I smelled wonderful mouth-watering fried onions. We turned the corner – and the Green Fields were so full you couldn’t see a glimpse of grass! There was a fair there for the bank holiday.

  I gave a whoop. Mark and Ginnie and Jon and Alice gave a whoop too, though they were half mocking me. Jess and Cherry gave great big whoops. Baby Rupert whooped too. He couldn’t see the fair down at kneecap level in his buggy but he didn’t want to be left out.

  Mum and Graham smiled smugly.

  Of course, the fair meant different things to all of us. Jon and Mark – and Graham – wanted to go straight on the dodgems. Ginnie and Alice and I went too, while Mum minded the littlies. She bought them all whippy ice creams with chocolate flakes. I wailed, saying I’d much much much sooner have an ice cream than get in a dodgem car. Mum sighed and bought me a