Home > Pretty Funny for a Girl

Pretty Funny for a Girl
Author: Rebecca Elliott

 

CHAPTER ONE


Dressed in a tight, gold, sequined, off-the-shoulder catsuit, I have my leg slung over the shoulder of Ron Weasley as we dance the salsa in front of an enthusiastic studio audience made up entirely of penguins.

Not real penguins. Penguin chocolate bars.

The dance finishes and the judges—Lady Gaga, Paddington, Winston Churchill, and Voldemort—all give us a ten. Ron Weasley kisses me on the cheek and says it’s all down to me, that not only am I the best dancer, who moves across the floor like a goddess, but I’m also hilariously funny. I blush and crack a joke. The crowd howls with laughter as he drags me back onto the dance floor, and we salsa the night away.

It’s possible I’m dreaming…

I’m a bit suspicious that chocolate bars aren’t normally the size of people, that Winston Churchill is actually dead, that Ron Weasley’s a fictional character, and that my normal body couldn’t actually move like this even if my life depended on it. But then my normal body is fat, and in this dream, as with all others, I’m not fat. I’m not thin either—I’m just me. Just the inside me, the me me. Although, judging by my current dream, the me me might not be fat but it is pretty weird and seems to have a crush on Ron Weasley that I was unaware of until now.

I try to hold on to it, but the dream floats away and rushing in to take its place is the realization that the music I’ve been dream-dancing to is actually my phone screaming “La Cucaracha” next to my head. It’s my alarm telling me to wake up for school.

Meaning, eurgh, I actually have to get up.

Which means moving.

Which seems impossible.

Eyes still clamped shut, I concentrate all my efforts into one of my arms. It slowly rises into the air before maneuvering over to my bedside table and hovering above it. Like one of those claw machines at the arcade, I repeatedly lower my hand and grab blindly, hoping to chance upon my phone, still loudly singing the most annoying tune ever written.

Why oh why did I think that song was a good idea for an alarm? AND a ringtone. Must have thought it was funny. I’ll change it later. (Except I know I won’t. This exact same thing’s been happening every morning for days now.)

On the bedside table, books, glasses of water, and jars of moisturizer (used only once or twice before I got bored of the whole idea of a “facial routine”) go flying until I finally locate the phone with my fingertips. I clasp it tight, trying to strangle the thing to death, then yank it toward me.

I pry open one eye just enough to squint at the time, inconceivable as it is: 6:45. No one should be awake at 6:45. It’s ridiculous. I blindly paw at the screen and eventually manage to turn off the alarm.

 

The next thing I know, Ron Weasley shouts my name in a high-pitched voice as he punches me in the stomach for messing up the foxtrot.

“Haylah!”

My eyes fly open as I realize it’s actually my four-year-old brother Noah who’s just jumped on my stomach to wake me up.

“Haylah! Hay… Hay… Hay!”

“Ow—Noah! What are you doing?” I mumble.

“I’m hungry! I want breakfukst!”

I make a sound halfway between a sigh and a sob as I look at my phone, still clenched in my fist. It’s 7:30. I’ve slept in. Again.

I stayed up way too late, watching comedy on the internet. Again. Why is my midnight brain incapable of thinking, You know what? I’ll watch that next video tomorrow and go to sleep now, when I choose, rather than keep watching the next clip, and the next clip, until I slump into a coma and my phone hits me in the face.

“Stupid midnight brain,” I groan as I hide my face back under the duvet and squirm around, trying to shift Noah off me. But, like a tiny champion rodeo rider on a bucking bull, there’s no way he’s coming off, no matter how much I thrash about or alert animal welfare organizations.

Noah giggles, loving our new “game,” so I give up the thrashing and slowly emerge from the duvet, squinting at the blinding daylight like a disgruntled tortoise woken early from hibernation by a psychotic squirrel.

“Fine, OK,” I say. “I’ll get breakfast— just get off and give me a minute, yeah?”

“Now, now, now!” he shouts as he bumps up and down on my belly.

“Ow—stop! Noah, that really hurts!”

“But it’s like a big bouncy castle!” he says, still merrily thumping up and down.

“Thanks,” I say, raising my eyebrows. Body positivity is not exactly one of my little brother’s strengths. Or perhaps it is—to him, resembling a bouncy castle is a body positive. After all, the ideal body to a four-year-old would be bouncy or have a tail or five arms or be covered in rainbow-colored fur. It wouldn’t be anything as boring as thin and beautiful.

He looks confused, but keeps bouncing. “Thank you? What for?”

“I was being sarcastic…”

Noah stops bouncing and leans his little round freckled face down toward me.

“What’s ‘star cat sick?’”

I prop myself up on my elbows so our noses are nearly touching. “That’s a very good question, Noah,” I say seriously. Then I grin. “Come on, let’s get breakfast.”

“Yay, break-fookst!”

A small laugh escapes through my nose. There are a few words Noah doesn’t quite say right yet. Mum says we shouldn’t laugh at him, but sometimes it’s extremely hard not to.

“It’s breakFAST,” I say.

“Break-fookst!”

“No, look, try saying it slowly. Break…fast.”

“Break…fookst.”

I give up. “Yeah, that’s exactly it. C’mon.”

 

We plod down to the kitchen, past the toys, clothes, and books that Mum continues to optimistically pile on the stairs for us to take to our rooms. We ignore them of course and head into the kitchen where every surface is covered with dirty dishes, pans, empty microwaveable cartons, half-eaten cans of beans and, well, you get the idea. It’s a mess. And I know I should clear it up, but clearing up’s just really, really boring. I’ll clear it up tonight. Maybe. Except I know I probably won’t. Tidying is not in my skillset, but procrastination? I’d totally win an award…if I ever got around to entering such a competition.

Look, I’ll clear it up tonight, OK?

“Bring me food, woman!” says Noah, grabbing a spoon from the drawer and then sitting on his favorite chair at the kitchen table, a dark wooden thing with a bogey-green, stained velour seat pad. None of our furniture matches, and not in a trendy, eclectic way, because not only does our furniture not match any other furniture we have, it also doesn’t match anyone’s idea of what attractive furniture looks like.

“What do you want this morning?” I say, fumbling around in the cereal cupboard. “Cornyflakers? Rice-Krispicles? Chocopops?”

We never have the real brands of cereal, only the cheap, supermarket-brand knock-offs, but Mum insists they come from exactly the same factory, only some get boxed for stupid rich people and the rest for smart poor people.

Noah ignores me, instead giving all his attention to his upside-down reflection in the spoon as he pulls tiny gargoyle faces at it.

“Come on, Noah—decide quickly. We’re in a bit of a rush,” I say.

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