I washed quickly and dressed, my hair wasn’t too bad, Mummy did it in a braid again, tied off with a pink ribbon. I threw on my undies and breast padding, pulled on some tights, a corduroy skirt and long sleeved top; finally my Ugli boots, which are so like, comfortable. While no one was looking I took my two pills, although my boobs seemed determined not to grow.

Downstairs, I ate my cereal quite quickly and had some juice. “Are you not wearing any makeup today?”

Oops! I forgot, “Yes, I thought I’d have breakfast first; I was, like, hungry.” Mummy gave me a knowing smile as if to say, ‘A likely story.’

I dashed upstairs and did some eyeliner and mascara, and my lip gloss to finish the face painting. Then a quick squirt of my smellies and I ran downstairs again.

“Goodness, Kylie, that was quicker than I can do it, and I’ve had a lot more practice than you.” I smirked back, I was pretty quick with an eyeliner brush. “What about your earrings?”

I still had to wear studs, but there are studs and pretty studs. I had on the boring ones they gave me in the shop when they shoot them through your ear lobes–sounds awful, doesn’t it? It is, loads of pain, blood everywhere–hee hee. It hardly hurts at all, mind you there’s a boy at our local supermarket and he has these things like washers in his earlobes, with a big hole inside them. They look horrible, you could hang a coat hanger from the hole, and I’ll bet they hurt. Half expect him to have a bone through his nose the next time I see him.

Once again I ran upstairs and changed my earrings to small glittery butterflies, made of silver with sparkly stuff on the front. As I got downstairs, Mummy held out my bag and coat for me. However, instead of following her out to the car, I checked I had my purse, my mobile and my lip gloss.

Mummy had started the car and was shaking her head at me, “Kylie, I know girls are always late, but I had time to wash up as well and still beat you.”

“Ummm, sorry, Mummy; had to check my mobile.”

She shook her head again, muttering, ‘Girls’, which made me smile. About ten minutes later we parked on street just off the main shopping area and not that far from where we experienced the attack by the cop’s kids–as Brian called them.

“What are we buying her?” I asked.

“The sound track from Mamma Mia.”

“You’re joking?”

“No, you’re going to see the video tonight,” she smiled as she dragged me towards HMV.

Why not Led Zep in concert? Or even The Who? Not that dumb Irish guy who used to play James Bond, Pierced Ears, or whatever his name is, at any rate he can’t sing, and I don’t rate his acting much either, but what do I know? I know most of them are old farts, still I suppose Jimmy Page is one now, it was neat the bit he did at the Olympics closing ceremony, do do, do do do–I could hear the opening bars of Whole Lotta Love in my head and was tempted to start playing air guitar, except it might not have gone with the outfit. Why couldn’t we like, get that instead, Early Days the one with the boys in space suits. I’m sure Gemma would prefer it.

While Mummy went to the soundtracks section, I hit the rock section, and went to see if there were any Led Zeppelin CDs we didn’t have. There weren’t, nor Who, Cream or even Iron Maiden, there was a new Guns & Roses, but they said it wasn’t very good and it was still quite expensive.

Mummy had the CD in her hand and was looking at the DVD of the film, no, please no. Damn, she’s buying it, nothing against Abba, but it isn’t Abba singing is it? If it was, maybe. Still it could be Highschool which would be purgatory for a rock chick like me. I giggled when I thought about myself as a rock chick. Only a few weeks ago, I fancied myself as Jimmy Page, now I look more like bloody Duffy, except my hair is redder.

“Is there anything you want to look at?” asked my mother as we joined a queue.

“Not really, thanks,” I kept it polite even if I didn’t appreciate her choice in music–“Hang on, can we get Abba Gold?” I dashed off and managed to find a copy and get back to the queue in time. If she insisted on listening to the Swedish group, at least she could listen to the originals.

Next stop was a card shop and I chose a card for Gemma, it had a cuddly kitten on the front, I know she likes cats, she used to make a fuss of ours when we had one. “Mummy, can we have another cat?”

“I’ll speak to Daddy about it, if we do, you can help look after it.”

“Can it sleep in my room?”

“I don’t know about that, Kylie, they get fleas and things and bring in all sorts of dead or dying birds and rodents.”

Yuck, I didn’t fancy that bit, but a kitten sleeping with me would be kewl. “I’ll train it not to kill those sorts of things.”

“It’s innate in them, they can’t help it.”

“Maybe I can teach it to kill burglars or bent coppers.”

“Oh yeah, Kylie, what are you after, a leopard cub?”

“No, a tiger.” We both laughed. We added wrapping paper to our purchases, and some of those bow things in silvery ribbon, gosh, girl stuff is so much more fussy than boys’. Still I suppose when it’s my birthday, I’ll get the same fuss, so that doesn’t feel so bad. I have changed so much in such a short time–was it already there, or am I making this happen just to keep people happy, meet their expectations? Dangerous territory, stick to choosing the ribbon and bows.

From there it was a quick flit around town, get a new card for my digital camera, it’s only a little one but it takes nice photos, and now I have a couple of gigs memory for it.

Then we went to Morrisons supermarket. More boring food shopping, I yawned. “Oh, you should be enjoying this girl, you have, maybe, seventy years of this to look forward to.”

“But it’s boring, Mummy.”

“You don’t find eating boring, do you?”

“That’s different.”

“Where do you think the meals come from?” Her question got me thinking, apart from the few occasions when I’ve helped make the meals, I didn’t think about it. Okay, I’ve been dragged around a supermarket often enough, we all have, but I don’t think about the meals we’re going to eat and then plan and buy them.

“From now on, I want you to come with me every week unless there’s a very good reason you can’t; then we’re going to plan our menu for the week around what we buy, we can have a draft idea but it still depends upon the stuff being available. So, I want you to tell me what we’re going to eat say, tomorrow and Monday, and make sure we have what’s necessary to cook and eat it.”

“Um,” my mind was blank. “We usually have a roast dinner on Sundays.”

“So which one and what do we need?”

“I don’t know,” I folded my arms and felt stupid and angry, “you coulda, like, warned me.”

“I just did, women are expected to cope, it’s men that flap.”

“Like, a lotta notice.”

“So what are you going to do when your husband or partner arrives on the door step with his boss, expecting to be entertained?”

“Play ‘em your DVD of Mamma Mia?” Well I thought it was a cute answer, she sniggered then frowned at me.

“Be serious, young lady, so what roast are we going to have tomorrow?”

“I dunno, what does Daddy want?”

“Perhaps you should have asked him?”

“Like when, two seconds ago?” I slipped off my backpack and pulled out my mobile. I speed dialled, “Hi Daddy, Mummy wants to know what roast you want tomorrow? Anything? Okay, I’ll see if they have penguin. Bye.”

“Penguin?” My mother’s eyebrows rose so fast I wondered if they were going to lift off her face. “Is that penguin tikka masala?”

“Um,” why does she use these big words, hang on, ticker something, that’s one of those horrid curry things. “No silly, barbecued.”

“We’ll probably have to settle for frozen then.”

“Go on, you’ll be telling me they have ostrich next.” I laughed at her.

“I don’t think they do here, but a farm shop about an hour away does. I bought some when you were very little but you ate it okay. It was too dear to buy again.”

“Yuck, fancy eating ostrich.”

“You eat lamb, they go gambolling about the fields.”

I felt unsure if I could eat lamb again, thinking about my chop bouncing around a field making baa-ing noises. For that matter, the idea of eating a pig or a cow made me feel rather choked too. Thinking about what happens to them made me feel a bit moist eyed. “That’s like eating our cat?”

“In China, they sell kittens in markets for eating, they also eat dogs. They eat horses in France.”

“That is gross, Mummy, can we do roast fish fingers?”

“Don’t be silly, besides the fish were swimming around until someone caught them in a net and killed them.”

“How about cauliflower cheese?” There’s no meat in that.

“The rennet they use to make the cheese comes from calves’ stomachs.”

“What? How do they make the calves sick?”

“They don’t, they kill them and cut out their stomachs.”

Oh my God, I’ll never eat cheese again. “Can we have roast vegetables or bread?”

“Don’t be silly, Kylie, you were eating meat yesterday, so what’s different?”

“I hadn’t like, thought about where it came from.”

“It comes from dead animals. As long as they’ve been raised and slaughtered humanely, it’s okay. It’s the ones that haven’t been who suffer, and that’s wrong. If you really feel it’s an ethical issue, then when you’re a little older we can discuss it. But for now, I want you to see if you can help me select humanely produced meat, and then we can plan what else we need and how we’re going to cook it.”

“Um, okay, I suppose.” I wasn’t at all sure, but it did seem to make some sort of sense.

We looked in the fridges and chose a part leg of lamb. I tried not to think of it bouncing around field. Next she got me to choose the vegetables, from potatoes through to carrots and cauliflower, I also suggested some broccoli.

“Okay that’s one meal, what about Monday?”

“Fish and chips?”

“So you’re going to cook them are you?”

“I was thinking about the take away.” I blushed.

“Ah ah, you have to cook them, from scratch, so no oven chips.”

“Um, okay, can we do a stew or casserole, in the slow cooker.”

“Of course, what would you like to stew?”

“There’s some chopped turkey here, which I think would be nice.”

“Okay, I haven’t done that for a while, what else do you need?”

“Um, onions, garlic, swede, um, dunno, what else would you use?”

“Carrots, celeriac, mushrooms, asparagus–the choice is almost infinite. Are you going to do dumplings?”

“Ooh, I could couldn’t I, if I can remember how Auntie Em showed me.”

“Well Brian is a fan of your dumplings.”

“If I catch Brian touching my dumplings, I’ll slap him one.”

“I think you know perfectly well what I mean, and after last time, I don’t think he’s likely to touch much of you at all.”

“Would you have made him wear a bra?”

“If necessary, yes.”

“Wow,” I blushed, maybe I should provoke him?

We finished all the shopping and went home. I helped Mummy get lunch and Brian helped us eat it. Then I had to go and shower and wash my hair, because Mummy wanted to try something different. I sat with towels wrapped around me as she washed it in some horrible smelly stuff, then conditioned it, then washed it again, or at least rinsed it. Then towel dried and mousse rubbed in, being Jimmy Page was so much easier. Finally, she blow dried it. It was like amazing. It seemed to have increased in volume like twice as much, plus she’d put streaks of bright red and blonde in it, it was mega kewl.

“Do you like it?”

“What? I love it, that is amazing, Mummy.” I threw my arms around her and kissed her on the cheek.

“I’m glad you like it, some of the colour will wash out, the blonde, I’m afraid won’t.”

“That’s okay, it’s really kewl. Gemma will love it.”

“As long as you do, I don’t care about the others. When you get dressed, I’ll show you how to do your party makeup.”

“Is that different from what I did this morning?”

“Oh yes, very different, but we have to be careful or you’ll look too old, you’re still just a kid, should be interesting; show me what stuff you had from Lorraine, from the out of date things.”

I gave her the bag of what Auntie Emma and I had sorted to go with my colouring. She poked around while I dressed. Then she put a towel around me to keep the make up off my clothes.

Firstly, she lined my eyes on the inside of the bottom lids, inside the lashes. This was done in a deep blue colour, then blue mascara and eyeliner to my top lids, then she blended a blue and purple and grey shadow around my top lids up to my eyebrows. She tweezed my brows a little and defined them in pencil, it wasn’t a dark pencil but it made them stand out much more, then she used a chunky brush to apply blusher to my cheeks and cheekbones. Finally, she drew around my lips, then using a brush she painted inside her lines. I looked at the mirror, looking back at me was a girl of about sixteen, if not older. She was a really hot chick.

“Well?” asked Mummy.

“That is, like, amazing, Mummy, I look so different.”

“I’ve gone a bit over the top, but it’s a party after all, just don’t forget to take it off before you go to bed. Take some cleanser and pads with you. Take a change of clothes to wear home tomorrow, as well, and don’t be too late back, remember you have a lunch to cook.”

“I won’t,” I kept staring in the mirror. It was just, like amazing. I had no idea my Mummy knew that much about makeup and things.

“It’s okay, if you like I’ll take a photo for you, unless you’re going to spend all night staring at yourself in the mirror.”

“I didn’t know you were into makeup?”

“Who do you think went to Led Zeppelin concerts with your daddy?”

“What? You’ve seen Led Zep live?”

“Several times, when we could afford it.”

“Geez, Mummy, you really are like, kewl.”

“I’m glad you noticed eventually. I’ll show you some photos one day, when I can find them, I was quite a looker in those days.”

I hugged her, “You still are, Mummy.”

“Is that where you get it from?” she said smiling.

“Like, of course.” We hugged again and laughed, but the funniest thing was yet to happen. Mummy offered to lend me one of her pashminas, she has several. I was parading in front of the hall mirror wearing this shawl, when Brian came in saw me and didn’t recognise me.

“Who’s the babe?” he asked staring at me, then walked straight into the door post, nearly knocking himself out. He gave me a different look when he found he’d been lusting after his sister. Didn’t we laugh though, I was in danger of spoiling my makeup.

To make things even better, Mummy gave me the pashmina, so now I have one–they are brill, I think everyone should have one, and Brian, he has the beginnings of a shiner. Life just couldn’t get any better if it tried.

Thanks to Gabi B for making this readable