Totally Insane 21–Manipulations.
by Angharad

I picked up my bag–the overnight one–the sleeping bag and the one containing Gemma’s present. Damn, now she’d be a year older than me. How come I was always the youngest?

I did feel smart in my outfit and makeup, even if it looked like I was going on holiday with all the luggage I had. Mummy dropped me at Gemma’s, waiting until the door opened before she drove off. She wouldn’t do that for Brian, that’s for sure.

Gemma opened the door, “Yes?” She looked at me, then said, “Kylie? is that you?”

“No, it’s Amy Winehouse; who do you think it is?”

“You look, so like, different.”

“Duh! I don’t look that different.”

“You do, I’ll bet no one will recognise you.”

“That might be a good thing. Anyway, I like, came early in case you wanted some help. Oh, happy birthday.” I handed her the bag with her present and card.

“Thanks, Kylie.” She hugged me and kissed me on the cheek. “Hmm, somebody smells nice,” she whispered as we pulled apart.

“I always smell nice; cheek, huh!”

“Now, don’t like frown, with that much makeup on, your eyelids will stick to your forehead.” She started to laugh and so did I. “Did you do it yourself?”

“No, my mum did it, she like, used to go to Led Zep concerts with my dad.”

“Yeah, like so what?”

“I think it’s kewl.”

“I’d rather have seen Abba.”

“What? Are you like, crazy?”

“No, but you are. Trust me to invite a rock chick to my slumber party.”

“There’s nothing like, wrong with being a rock chick.”

“Ah, I thought I heard the door; who is this, Gemma?” Mrs Smith nodded at me.

“Kylie Mosse, who did you like, think it was?”

“Kylie? The tomboy? Good lord, you look about sixteen.”

“Yeah, Kylie the rock chick,” said Gemma poking out her tongue at me.

“Rock chick? Explain please, Gemma.”

“She likes rock music.”

“Oh, I see. I wondered if you’d taken up an interest in geology or something.”

“No, Mrs Smith, just the usual things.”

“You’re the first to arrive, Gem, take her bags upstairs. I’ll be helping Daddy with the door lock–what a time for it to jam.” She disappeared before I could say anything.

Gemma took my overnight bag and I took the sleeping bag and we deposited them in the spare bedroom. “I know a bit about locks, maybe I could help?”

“I know you do, that’s what got you into all this in the first place, isn’t it?”

I shrugged, and we both laughed, “Seriously, I might be able to.”

“Yeah, and how do I explain why you know everything about fixing locks?”

“You’ll like, think of something.”

“No, I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“Okay,” I shrugged again, checked my hair and makeup in the landing mirror and followed her downstairs. My curiosity was aroused and I wanted to see that lock.

It appeared we were going to spend the slumber part of the night in their large conservatory. It was the lock on the two patio doors which was causing the problem.

“Can’t you simply put a chain around them with a padlock, or even tie them shut?” said Mrs Smith to her husband.

“I can’t understand why it won’t stay shut, the thing just won’t turn at all.”

“We had trouble like that at home,” I said.

“Oh hello, um, you are?”

“Kylie Mosse, Mr Smith.”

“Oh, Brian’s little sister, you look rather grown up tonight.”

“I helped Daddy fix ours.”

“What did you do?” I knew that it was the spring on the mechanism sticking, but how could I tell him that.

“Can you take the cover off this bit?”

“I could, but I don’t see how that would help.”

“It’s what Daddy did to fix it.” I lied and felt like shouting at him that I knew what I was doing, but would then blow my cover.

“Okay, damn, my fingers are too big for these tiny screws.”

“Can I help?” I snatched the screwdriver from his hand and undid them in a few turns. These doors were cheaper than ours. I removed the cover and careful not to chip my nail varnish, moved the spring with the screwdriver. It was very stiff. “Any WD40?” I asked and he passed it to me. I sprayed inside the lock and particularly around the spring. I took the key and tried the lock, it worked perfectly. I wiped up the excess with a rag he was holding and put the cover back on. “There you go,” I said handing him back the screwdriver.

“What!” he exclaimed as I shut the doors and locked, then unlocked them. “I don’t believe what I just saw.”

“It’s just what Daddy did.” I shrugged.

“Yeah, but did you help him,or did he help you?”

“Mr Smith, I’m an eleven year old girl, what do you think?”

“I think you ought to train in engineering.”

“Yeah, Kylie can build the next power station or whatever, come on, girl.” Gemma tried to drag me away.

“Before you go, think on this, Gemma Smith, Kylie has just saved your party. If we hadn’t been able to fix those locks, you’d have had to sleep in the lounge and there isn’t nearly so much room there.”

“Bob, you don’t think it would be worth showing Kylie that desk drawer that’s stuck?”

“What sort of lock is it?” I asked, pulling my arm free of Gemma’s.

“A desk drawer.”

“Can you show me?”

“Don’t tell me your dad showed you how to undo those?” Bob Smith said, shaking his head.

“No, I learned how to do those myself. Have you got a set of mini-screwdrivers?”

It took me ten minutes to pick the lock, with a screwdriver and paperclip. If I’d had my own kit, it would have been two minutes, but I was trying not to scratch the wood on the front.

“That was amazing,” said Bob Smith. “Where did you learn to do that?”

“I have a desk in my bedroom, I lost the key. Brian wanted to break the lock, I knew there had to be a better way. It took me ages, but I learned I could lock and unlock it with a bit of bent wire. I have a bit of a knack with locks.”

“So I see. Thank you very much, Kylie, I can fit a new one there and hope we don’t lose the key.”

“If you do…”

“We certainly know where to come.”

I went into the lounge where there were a small group of girls, one of whom was Maisie McIntosh, Gemma came into the room with another girl. I recognised some of them from being around town, but knew none of them except Maisie and Gemma.

“Okay, everyone, this is Kylie, she was fixing a lock with my dad.” They all gave me a peculiar look.

“His fingers were too big to undo a screw, I helped him.” My explanation seemed to reassure them that I wasn’t some sort of weirdo–even though I was.

“Maisie, Nicola, Suzie, Rosie and Zoe,” said Gemma, introducing me to all the others.

We all chatted about different things at the same time. I had agreed a sort of story with Mummy. I was away at school, although it was getting so expensive, I might have to go to a local state school. She gave me the name of a boarding school and a few other facts like the name of the headmistress, and an English teacher she knew.

It came in handy, within two minutes they’d asked me about school and where I lived. I lied, I hope convincingly, Gemma’s eyebrows raised once or twice as I gave the names of teachers and described the dormitories at the school. My mother went there as a girl with her sister. This was when Gramps was training as a priest, and running a business.

Then just before we went into tea, Nicola asked, “Know anyone who wants a kitten?”

“I do,” I said loudly.

“She’s black and white and called Splodge.”

“She sounds wonderful, I’ll have to check with my mum, but I like, asked her about a kitten, like this morning. You must have like read my mind.”

“Yeah, I like do it all the time,” she laughed. “Who did your makeup, it’s awesome.”

“My mother did, I brought a pile of stuff in my bag. The manager from one of daddy’s shops gave it to me. We can have a play with it later.”

“Oh wow, sounds like fun, your dad owns shops?”

“No, he’s an area manager for a chain of pharmacies.”

“Oh right, kewl.” She wasn’t quite as impressed, not that I really cared.

Gemma was called out to the kitchen and a few moments later called us all in to tea. The table was groaning with all the sandwiches, little quiches and things like sausages and pineapple and cheese on sticks. We all tucked in and hardly made a dent in it.

Finally, when we’d all eaten as much as we could, Mrs Smith brought in a cake with a dozen candles on it and Gemma had to blow them out while we all sang, ‘Happy Birthday to you’.

While we were all still full of food, we were led into the lounge to watch the DVD of Mamma Mia. I was right to be worried about James Bond not being able to sing, but we all sang along with the songs and it wasn’t too bad.

Then we played a few games, had a quiz and did a dancing contest. I came last in that, but it didn’t worry me because I won the quiz–I mean, I like had to, one of the questions was about Jimmy Page–I was the only one who like, knew the answer.

After another round of food and drink, I got the bag of makeup from my case and we played with that for about an hour. I refused to have anyone mess with mine, but I did do some on Gemma, which I thought looked quite good. I told everyone they could keep what they wanted from the bag. That brought squeals of approval from everyone. We used wet wipes to clean off the mess and then we had to sort out the beds.

Gemma’s dad brought out a series of inflatable mattresses, and with an electric pump, blew them up. We each took one and laid it in the conservatory. Then we got our nightwear out from our bags, well all except Suzy, who couldn’t find her keys.

“What am I like, gonna do?” she wailed, close to tears. Mrs Smith came to see if she could help and so did Bob.

He winked at me, “Let me just take this through into the kitchen, Kylie, can you spare a moment?”

It was quite a good lock on a fairly expensive, wheeled case–one of those you pull along with an extending handle. With my own kit, I’d have opened it in a few seconds, with two bits of bent wire it took me a little longer.

“You really are good at this, aren’t you, girl?”

“Am I?” I said noncommittally.

We took the case back to its owner and she was effusive in her praise for Bob Smith.

“I didn’t do anything, it was Kylie’s nimble fingers.”

“How did you do it?” Suzy asked me.

“I dunno, just waggled a bit of wire in it and it clicked.” As I said this, Bob Smith smirked and winked at me. I felt myself blushing.

“So that’s two locks she’s fixed tonight?” said Suzy.

“Actually, it’s three,” said Gemma. “She did the lock on the patio doors, as well.”

“Wow, she’s like, Super Lock Girl,” suggested Nicola. I blushed even more.

Maisie looked at me, “You beat me at badminton the other week, didn’t you?”

“Did I?” I pretended I did it all the time.

“Yes, with Philip Gonnersall.”

“He’s my partner–when I’m home,” I added quickly.

“Yeah, I’m sure it was you. We thought we had you beaten and then you went up a gear and like, thrashed us.”

“Philip is a good player, he usually wins.”

“I’m sure it was you, but you were calling yourself Kate.”

“It’s his joke,” I said blushing.

“Joke?”

“Yeah, the supermodel, Kate Moss. My surname is Mosse.”

“Oh yeah, I like geddit, yeah, Kate Moss, like that’s funny.”

We took it in turns to change in the two bathrooms and the cloakroom. I wore the new pyjamas my mother had bought me. Obviously I had to wear knickers inside them, or some little bulges might show where they shouldn’t be. As regards the lack of bulges higher up would be lost in the looseness of the top. Mummy had bought something quite fashionable and at the same time quite safe.

At ten it was time to go to bed. Of course we all chatted and told all sorts of silly things, but the one which kept me awake for a while was Gemma’s telling of a ghost story, of some monk-like figure who was seen to walk across the graveyard of the church and disappear into the back wall of the church.

That was okay, until she said, “The story is true, they found a decapitated body, or skeleton which they think was the abbot of the priory which was on the site of the church and these houses. He was tortured by Henry VIII’s men and beheaded for resisting the take over of the monasteries.”

“Dissolution of the monasteries,” said Nicola.

“Yeah, whatever,” continued Gemma, “anyway, the monk or abbot is seen regularly about this time of year, ‘cos that’s when they chopped off his head.”

Soon after, the lights went off and we were left lying in the dark to ponder on the ghostly monk.

Thanks to Gabi for corrections, editing, and a  £600B loan to The Bank Of England.