‘Yeah.’
That hung in the air for a while, heavy. In that silence, Norah hoped she was wrong about this and it was just a misunderstanding.
‘I’m a bit busy,’ Poppy said. ‘Homework.’
Norah pushed down the lump in her throat. ‘So that’s it, is it?’ she managed to say.
Poppy looked down. ‘Yeah.’
Norah realised Poppy was just waiting for her to get the hint and go.
It was all true. Norah had been used. She knew Poppy was more experienced than she was, but she’d never guessed she was like this. That it was all a game to her. That she didn’t give a shit about her now she’d gotten her ‘prize.’
‘OK,’ Norah said. She turned and walked down the path, hearing the door shut behind her.
She went home, walking into the house where her mother seemed to be waiting for her.
‘Everything OK?’ she asked nervously.
She’d seen this coming, somehow. Norah supposed it was motherly intuition.
Norah began to cry, something she rarely did around her mother. Her mother came to her and held her, also a rarity.
‘It’s OK,’ she said.
But it wasn’t—it was heartbreak.
Eighteen
Now
‘I don’t think it goes there,’ Poppy said, wiping sweat from her brow.
‘There’s nowhere else for it to go,’ Norah complained just as sweatily.
They were trying to put Luna’s car seat in next to Freddie’s, and though Poppy and Norah had clicked two straps in place, there was still a third with no apparent home.
‘Can we go yet?’ asked Freddie.
‘There’s a wasp. I think it wants to sting me,’ Luna added.
She was only wearing a T-shirt. Poppy had attempted to bundle her, too, but she wasn’t having it. Poppy decided to let her get chilly and then attack with the coat.
‘They don’t want to sting you, Luna. They won’t if you leave them alone,’ Poppy assured her.
‘What if I call it a dipshit?’ Luna asked. ‘Will it sting me then?’
Poppy stopped and turned, stunned. ‘Where on earth did you hear that word?’
‘You said it about that deliveryman when he dropped that big load of milk on your toe,’ Luna explained casually.
‘Oh,’ Poppy said quietly. ‘Right.’ She turned to Norah. ‘In my defence, I didn’t know she was around to hear it. And it was a bulk amount of soya milk. My toe was big for days.’
Norah laughed. ‘Sounds like a dipshit to me.’
‘Dipshit,’ Freddie repeated.
‘Freddie...’ Norah warned.
‘DIPSHIT! DIPSHIT! DIPSHIT!’ Luna started chanting, and Freddie was quick to join in, both delighted at the horror it was inspiring in the adults.
Norah sighed and turned away from it, placing her attention back on the chair. ‘If I say something, it will only get more exciting for them to say it. So I’m just gonna let them wear it out.’
‘Good plan,’ Poppy nodded. ‘Sorry,’ she added.
‘The blame for this splits pretty evenly,’ Norah said. There was a clicking noise. ‘Aha!’ Norah said triumphantly. ‘Just need to tighten it now.’
‘Let me,’ Poppy said, tugging and pulling at the seat belt with all her strength until it would move no further. ‘OK, I think that’s as good as it’s going to get.’
‘Let’s get ‘em in.’
Happily, the chant of ‘DIPSHIT’ was dying off somewhat by this point, but Poppy wanted to expedite its demise.
‘OK, kids! To the farm!’ she exclaimed with a lot more jolliness than she felt, trying to distract them.
The kids immediately forgot how fun it was to swear and scrambled into their seats with their hearts and minds all for the party. Poppy and Norah clicked their respective kid's seat belts into place.
Poppy was so grateful for the ride. The idea of trying to wrangle Luna onto public transport had not appealed. It was hard enough doing the walk to school now that she couldn’t chuck her into a vehicle and blast her there in two minutes. There was no doubt about it, broke-life sucked.
