Totally Insane 38–Communications.
by Angharad

For Desiree, Rae and Jes — I hope they enjoy it.
By the time I’d soaked off all the dirt and dust from my heroics and dressed myself in clean clothes, the media circus had already begun. Mr Holiday had sent one of his press aides to see us and Mummy called me downstairs just as I was finishing doing my hair and checking my makeup–yeah, I tend to wear some most of the time, though getting my eyelashes dyed has saved me a bit of time and effort. It was Mummy’s idea and they did it at our salon, so I generously let her pay for it.

When I got downstairs, the police liaison officer was sitting talking to Mummy. “Ah, Kylie, you’ve arrived at last.” She was in schoolmistress mode so I didn’t bother to argue. “This is PC Armstrong.”

“Hello, Kylie, we met before d’you remember?”

“Yes, Ms Armstrong, you were with Mr Holiday when those horrid boys threatened to cut me an’ Philip an’ Brian rescued us; you were the one who got the real film of the thing from the camera shop.”

“You remembered,” she smiled at me and I felt happy to trust her. “And I remembered you were a very brave young lady to do what you did back then, and what I hear, you’re still a brave young lady. I’m not sure I’d have crawled down a hole to rescue a baby and his mother.”

“I didn’t think of anything but rescuing the baby, an’ they had a lock to pick.”

“Oh yes, you’re the locksmith girl who helped us catch Terry Catchpole.”

“Who’s he?” I’d never heard of him before.

“The man who was working for a locksmith and doing some breaking and entering on the side.”

“He wasn’t much of a locksmith, he scratched everything.”

“Which was how you identified him, wasn’t it?”

“I guess, but Daddy sent you the pictures, so he’s as much responsible as me.”

“Well I think you’re a very brave, clever young lady and I’m proud to know you, Kylie.”

Wow, no one ever said that before, maybe I should do more locks an’ things, it seems to get me more compliments than playin’ netball–mind you I’m not very good at it, better at badminton, especially with Philip. But I still blushed at her remarks and got tongue tied. I find that sometimes with strangers, my brain and mouth don’t seem to synchronise properly and it comes out wrong–nerves I suppose.

“How about you make PC Armstrong a nice cuppa–there’s the cake we made on Sunday out there as well.”

“You bake cakes as well, gosh you are multi-talented,” gushed Joanne Armstrong, “I was never any good at baking things, too impatient.”

“I just do what Mummy says and so far we’ve been able to eat them all.” I blushed and escaped to the kitchen. After boiling the kettle and warming the pot, I made the tea and while it infused–see I’m even learning the proper terms–I got some plates and knives and then sliced some of the cake and placed it on each of the plates. I took the tray into the lounge and placed it on the coffee table. Mummy insisted I pour the teas and place one of the nest of tables near her chair and PC Armstrong’s chair and then pass them the cake and the tea. I know she’s only teaching me what to do, but it seems some days I do all the work.

“Thank you, Kylie, this looks really good–you’ll make someone a wonderful wife one day,” she flashed me a smile of super white teeth and guess what–I blushed again.

“She’s had Philip over and cooked the dinner, haven’t you sweetheart?” Mummy loves to embarrass me. I’m not all goody-goody, if you remember I glued up the equipment store at the last sports day. The headmistress let me off when I owned up because I thought she was blaming two older girls. Well I couldn’t let somebody else take the rap could I? Unless it was Brian of course, ‘cos he’d let me take it. It’s his fault I ended up in skirts in the first place trying to recover his stupid love letter. As it turned out, when Mummy found me then kept me as a girl over the weekend, something must have happened in my head because I actually enjoyed myself, more than I did as a boy, once I got over the strangeness of it, it felt right somehow. Daddy summed it up perfectly, but then he’s like that–a clever dick–I take after him, when he said that somehow I’d always been struggling as a boy and something wasn’t quite right. When I became a girl, I seemed to be complete, or I will be one day. Strange innit, they cut something off so I can be complete?

“Yes, Mummy,” I sighed and ate my cake–it was jolly good if I say so myself–but then I would, wouldn’t I, and it would be too.

“And Emma across the road, thinks the world of her, doesn’t she, darling?”

“Auntie Em is very good to me, she lets me babysit Sarah.”

“You like babysitting, Kylie?”

“I love looking after Sarah, she is so good.”

“The first day, when I discovered Kyle dressed as Kylie, we were still discussing things when Emma came knocking at the door saying she’d shut her keys and the baby in the house while she was unloading her car. She knew Kyle had a reputation for opening locks and she accepted his alter ego so calmly, even gave her a bag of clothes.”

I tuned out as Mummy gave a description of my transformation from insignificant anorak to delicious babe–well Philip thinks so, and I’m not complaining, but it does get boring after a while.

“So when I first met Kylie, she’d only been a girl for a matter of weeks?”

“Yes,” answered my mother, “she took to it like a proverbial duck to water. When we thought about it, we couldn’t understand why we took so long to work it out, it was so obvious really...” she droned on and on and I did what I normally did when she got boring, I either thought of my last time with Sarah or what we’d do next time, easy really.

“What’s going to happen?” I asked of PC Armstrong when my mother actually stopped talking long enough for me to say something.

“With regard to...?”

“This rescue thing.”

“I’m hoping nothing, but I’ll stay here for a bit longer just in case we have any press people snooping about.”

“What if my previous life comes up?”

“Why should it?”

“’Cos people know about me.”

“I understand your concern, Kylie, but I think the force will keep pretty quiet about who you are, Mr Holiday has issued a very strong indication that he’d discipline anyone who says anything.”

“I hope you’re right.”

Just then, Mummy switched on the telly. “We’re still investigating why the house should collapse, but the young woman and her baby were rescued, although the mother had to have an operation on her leg due to masonry falling on her.”

“Is it true that you involved a schoolgirl to actually rescue the baby?”

“I don’t know anything about that,” declared the Fire Chief.

“I have it from several witnesses that a young woman was lowered into the hole and she eventually emerged bringing the baby with her–is this true?”

“We used a volunteer to recover the baby, yes.”

“And this was a young woman?”

“We needed someone small to enter through the tunnel that formed.”

“So this wasn’t an emergency service person?”

“Um–we got the assistance of a specialist who could open the door and recover the baby and take refreshments to the mother who was trapped.”

“A specialist? So the reports of you using a schoolgirl are wrong?”

“As far as I’m aware, we used a specialist locksmith who happened to be small enough to enter the tunnel and recover the baby.”

“And this was a young woman?”

“Yes.”

“Who was she?”

“I can’t say.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

“No comment.”

“Well, it seems we have a young woman heroine who put herself at great risk to help rescue a baby and his injured mother. We’re also told that she drew a map to enable the rescue service to plot exactly where the mother was so they could break through the floor and rescue her. Was she a schoolgirl? We’ll find out and let you know, this is Matthew Finch for Newtown TV news.”

I sat silently watching this and felt a numbness inside me. My mother was similarly shocked and PC Armstrong touched me on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, poppet, we’ll look after you.” I’m not sure if I believed her or not.

Later after she’d gone and I was going to bed, I asked my mum why I felt like a criminal when I’d actually done something good.

“It’s ironic,” declared my mother, “that the only thing you wanted was to pursue your life in relative quiet and then this happens.”

“Oh, that reminds me, there was some bloke looking for Kelly Ross, I told him there was no one of that name round ’ere.” Brian had come upon the story a bit late and we had to explain things to him. “That was you? Is there a reward?”

“No, I did it to help a baby and his mum.”

“Yeah okay, so I live with the Blessed Virgin Mary, yeah that figures,” he muttered to himself as he went up to his room.

“I’m going to murder that boy one day,” said my mother turning purple with rage. Then calming down she said, “Who’s Kelly Ross?”

“Oh that’s what Miss Erskine calls me.”

“Why?” she shook her head.

“Mainly because she’s a daft old bat who should be pensioned off.”

“Kylie, that’s not a very nice way to describe one of your teachers, is it?”

I shrugged, “She’s as blind as a bat and misread my name–and she drives a car though she can’t see as far as the windscreen.”

“Oh,” my mother winced for a moment, “Is her eyesight really that bad?”

I nodded.

“Perhaps I should speak with your headmistress before there’s an accident.”

“They all know, so I wouldn’t bother.”

“What if she ran you over or one of your friends?”

“Just make sure they get my name right on my tombstone, night Mummy,” I pecked her on the cheek and went up to my bed.

The TV people never did find Kelly Ross and thankfully stopped pestering local schools–well they did find one, a girl the other side of town who was as wide as she was tall and quite obviously hadn’t crept down any narrow holes since she was a toddler.

Life returned to normal and my geography marks continued to be higher than anyone else’s–Miss Erskine wasn’t reported for her defective eyesight until she crashed into the back of a police car that’d stopped in front of her. She claimed bumping her head on the steering wheel had caused her visual problems, until then, she was fine. They believed her but still stopped her driving so now she comes by bus if she happens to catch the right one. Twice I’ve had to take the lesson without her being there–none of my classmates seemed too worried.

It became common knowledge I was going to get the geography prize at Prize Giving, which is usually stuck on the end of speech day when some boring old tart comes and explains how important it is to remember we’re women. Seeing as most of us are wearing skirts and bras it’s not likely we will. They usually go on about glass ceilings, whatever those are–unless it’s to do with those who live in houses with glass ceilings shouldn’t undress with the lights on.

Sure enough, Mizz Cynthia Barwick OBE rattled on about all the usual stuff. I’m sure she had the same notes as last year’s speaker who was the Lady Mayoress or something, she had a loo chain round her neck or something like that. She chuntered on and on about remembering we were not just any women we were Hanky Panky women–yeah, right. I was nearly nodding off to sleep when she shut up and sat down and the headmistress started announcing the prize winners. I woke up a bit more to make sure I didn’t fall over something going up for my Geography loot–I deserved it, so wouldn’t feel at all self conscious, except it was in front of a thousand other girls–grrr.

Normally it comes in the same batch as the history and design ones, and before the maths and science ones. But it didn’t, they went on to do maths and science and Gemma nudged me and whispered, “Oh dear, looks like geography got lost.” She smirked and I glowered at her.

Sports prizes were presented and I really began to feel that I hadn’t got a prize after all, and wished I’d gone sick and stayed home–this was really boring, except Karen got one for being an awesome hockey player and scoring a record twenty goals, Gem and I clapped loudly for her.

I drifted into ennui and was almost asleep when Gemma nudged me. “They’ve remembered Geography.” I sat upright and tried to clear my head.

The first form, the third form, the fourth and so on all the way up to the sixth–what was going on? They left us out entirely, the second form or year eight as some teachers call us.

“And now the Geography prize for year eight, Kylie Mosse.”

At last, I stood up and walked up to the stage to receive my well gotten gains–a book token. As I walked on the stage there was a gentle applause from my friends and one or two other girls who remained awake, most had lost the will to live if they felt like I did.

“Kylie just wait a moment, will you?” The headmistress loosely held my arm. I wondered what was going on. “Some of us here will be aware that Kylie has another unusual skill apart from helping to teach geography classes, if you cast your minds back to last year’s sports day when a lock became jammed and Kylie sorted the problem and saved the day.

“She’s done that since when she helped the police to apprehend a burglar who turned out to be another locksmith like our very own Kylie, but he wasn’t as clever or as neat as Kylie and that enabled the police to find him based upon information given to them by Kylie and her father.”

I was by now blushing bright red and feeling so self conscious I wanted to disappear in a puff of smoke or sink through a crack in the floor of the stage.

“We have one final prize to present. A few months ago a large house collapsed and buried in their basement flat were a young mother and her baby son. No one small enough was available among the emergency services and they realised they also needed to be able to open a locked door to effect a rescue. The police knew of Kylie’s ability to open locks and also that she was small enough to go down the tunnel they’d excavated to the basement flat. They asked her to try and enter the flat and rescue the baby. She didn’t hesitate and after quite a struggle she made it down to the flat, opened the locked door and rescued baby Andrew, and helped the fire and rescue service plot where Andrew’s mother, Sophie, was.”

The school was absolutely silent and all I could hear was the thumping of my heart while I wondered if my ears were steaming yet, they felt so hot.

“It takes a lot of courage for a thirteen year old girl to scramble down a dark tunnel to open a door to goodness knows what, and then to help the mother and rescue a baby boy by ascending the tunnel it just took an hour to scramble down.”

Boy oh boy, this was far more frightening than going down that hole, that was just difficult, this is excruciating. I stood and sweated with embarrassment.

“Ladies, Gentlemen and girls, I’d like to call upon Fire and Rescue Chief Robinson and Mrs Sophie Mullins, to present Kylie with the Royal Humane Society’s award for heroism.”

As the whole place began to applaud I caught sight of movement out of the corner of my eye and the fire chief from the rescue walked onto the stage with a woman who used a stick–then I remembered she’d lost her leg. She was carrying a baby with her, the one I helped to get out, I suppose.

The Fire and Rescue Chief shook hands with the headmistress. “Headmistress, ladies and gentlemen, girls, I’m really pleased to be here to help present this award. It isn’t given lightly to just anyone, and in my opinion that is a good thing. On this occasion, it is fully justified as the young lady who is stood beside me richly deserves it. I can’t imagine how she felt when we asked her to try and reach the flat, but she agreed as calmly as if we’d asked her to go and grab a loaf from the corner shop. Then she struggled down a couple rollers we’d laid down into the hole to make it easier to move. It was a very difficult descent but she made it, then managed to open the locks on the door and get the baby out from all the chaos you’d expect from a house that was collapsing. Not only that but she was able to show us on a diagram of the building exactly where Mrs Mullins was trapped. That shows a coolness and courage way beyond her years and I salute you.”

With that the silly bugger did just that, saluted me and then shook my hand–well he actually shook my whole body, I suppose because it was attached to my arm. I nearly fell over.

“I know Mrs Mullins would like to say a few words.” The headmistress was off again and only the fact that she still had hold of my arm stopped me from legging it.

The woman came up to the front and shook hands with the headmistress. “I shall never forget the angel who came through my front door that day, in the shape of a young woman. She was cheerful though dirty faced. She gave me a drink of water and asked me where Andrew was, then she pulled out a screwdriver and undid the side of the cot and removed him to safety using the bucket out of my pedal bin.

“I’ll never be able to thank her enough for myself and more importantly for my son.”

The next moment she handed me the baby and she and the fire chief stood either side of me as the whole place began to clap and cheer and I was finally given a certificate saying I was a nationally recognised heroine. They don’t do book tokens apparently.

The local paper took a photo on the understanding I wouldn’t be interviewed, as it was old news, just the photo and a few lines, mainly quotes from Mrs Mullins. I was just thankful it was all over and I could get back to being me, Kylie Mosse, schoolgirl, locksmith and superhero–least that’s what Philip calls me; I won’t tell you what I call him–well a girl’s gotta have some secrets to be interesting.