Emily Taylor - The Teenage Mum Read online

  We light a bonfire on the beach and barbecue fresh fish, then the zinodes set up a screen on the front lawn and we watch Manchester United playing Liverpool.

  9

  God's not talking.

  He won't wear the immaculate conception story.

  He won't talk to Azziz or Jesus because he's sure one of them is the dad. Even if they're not, they should've been taking better care of me.

  I don't see what's so bad about being pregas, it's really exciting that there's new life coming. What does it matter who the dad is anyway? As long as it's not that creep James!

  If they want to fight about it, that's their problem.

  We are now well into spring. It's a wonderful time to be pregnant. There's magic all around. The trees have new green leaves, there's lambs in the meadow and the pesky morning chorus has worked its charm and the bird nests are now full of fluffy chicks. Negrita is looking very plump as well. I hope she doesn't have kittens; one of her is quite enough.

  Apart from burnt toast, there's other things I crave, chocolate for one and cherries. it's not quite cherry season yet, so I'll have to wait. The ones on the tree are still green.

  I've had enough of travel and the outside world for a while; I don't want to know about slimeballs or gays. I just want to do homey things, chill out and let the baby grow. I find Trigger and we go for long rides. I take him to the prairie then he takes me to all his favourite places, we push through dense forest and find a little clearing full of wild strawberries and follow a stream to a gushing waterfall. The jiggling makes me want to pee at the time, but Trigger doesn't mind stopping, it gives him a chance to grab a mouthful of fresh grass. He has explored all over Camillo, and knows it even better than the slugs.

  The garden's doing well; with the slimeball compost, everything is growing like crazy. I try to spend a couple of hours gardening each morning, weeding, training the beans and bougainvillea and eating strawberries as soon as they turn red.

  My trees are growing. They're an inch high. I weed and water and sing to them then threaten to turn them into firewood if they do not get a move on.

  I want to tell Mum and Dad about the baby and tease then about becoming grandparents. I wonder if they'll ever get to see him. I could go and visit. It might turn weird though. Dad will probably freak out and have a heart attack or the social services will catch me and make me go to school. Or I'll click my fingers to come back and nothing will happen and I'll be stuck in Sheffield in the rain.

  I'll just stay here.

  Castor says that I need to take it easy, that I should eat well and get lots of rest.

  I go fishing off the rocks every morning and have fresh fish for breakfast then hunt around my lawn and eat any dandelion flowers that have popped up. I crave their bitter yellowness.

  I'm three months pregnant now, so past the riskiest bit. I hope the baby is okay and there's nothing wrong with him. I feel really good so I'm sure he's okay. I think he's a she but I'm not too sure. I stand naked in front of the mirror and wonder about my little bump; he's going to be so much trouble. My skin has gone all perfect and smooth and almost glows with healthiness and my hair is growing like crazy. It's down to my shoulders and really thick. It's not blond blond like it was before; it's starting to get browny streaks in it. Mum has beautiful reddy-brown hair. She said she used to be blond when she was little. I hope my hair goes the same colour as hers; blond is okay for kids but looks a bit wimpy on adults. I never understood why they dye their beautiful hair streaky blond. It always looks so tacky.

  I wonder what my baby will look like. I think it will look like me but it won't. Zula has beautiful dark skin and thick black hair. Will it have his greeny-brown eyes? I hope so.

  I wonder how Ijju's baby is coming on. I click my fingers and the white wormoscopic refractor appears on my front lawn. Some daisies have come up. They almost taste as good as the dandelions.

  Ijju is looking good. She should be a supermodel or something.

  She is still slim but her bump is more than a just a bump, it looks like a balloon that's ready to pop. It must be due soon. Maybe I could watch. I'm not sure if I want to, childbirth is one subject I've been avoiding thinking about. How can a great big baby fit out through my little fanny, something has got to give. It's going to hurt!

  Ijju and me will be related; our babies will be half-brothers. I ask the slugs to let me know when Ijju is ready to give birth.

  I avoid looking at England. I will cry if I see Mum and Dad and might do something stupid, like bing them up here. I'd love to see their faces though. They'd get such a shock! They'd freak out and run around screaming. I don't want to see Annie; I'm still feeling a little guilty about her dad. Not that guilty though, if I had the chance again, a Burmese tiger would escape from the zoo and eat him. That way he’d suffer for what he's done to Annie and her mum.

  It's time to relax. I need to kick back and give my baby a chance to grow, to let my energies go into growing his bones and giving him great big muscles. The trouble is that I can't find a good book to read; I've grown out of Jacqueline Wilson. I need something a bit meatier to read. I visit Pollux and we go shopping. I ask him to recommend some books.

  'You'll like The Hunger Games,' he says.

  'What's it about.'

  'It's about a teenage girl that kills everyone. It's very good.'

  'It sounds like me, I'll get it.'

  We order it and the Harry Potter series and a whole lot of other books. Pollux offers to download e-books but I want proper books with pages that I can throw at Negrita when she sharpens her claws on my bedspread, so I'll have to wait.

  I sit out on the sofa enjoying the sunshine but soon get bored. Then I remember my diaries. I used to carry my diary everywhere in a secret pocket, so that it was always with me if I got abducted or blown up or something. Now that my life is a little less precarious, the diaries are tucked in the drawer on the little table next to my bed. I haven't written anything since the slimeball got me, there's a whole lot of catching up to do.

  First I read through my diary from the desert, starting in Timbuktu and crossing to Khartoum. The sketches Ijju and me drew come alive again: the camel train, the sand surfing, the rock paintings and the pyramid hidden under the sand. It all seems so long ago now, like from a different life. I flick through the pages from Abdullah's seedy penthouse; I didn't like that much, and reach Camillo and my wonder of being on this special little asteroid.

  The second diary is about half full. I read up to my last entry at the beginning on December then go back and tidy up some of the drawings which I made in a bit of a hurry, colouring them in carefully and trying to make the clouds and sea look realistic. Clouds are tricky.

  I bring it up to date, starting with Jesus's birthday party on Christmas Day. That was fun. The next day, Boxing Day, I nearly got killed. I go to draw a picture of the slimeball getting struck by Zeus's lightning bolt as it hoovers me up, but just thinking of it makes the scar on my side throb. Instead, I draw brave little Scruff barking at the rampaging slimeball. On the next page I sketch Castor washed up on the beach but as soon as I start colouring in his yellow bits, little lasers start kicking up the dirt around my ankles. I rub it out and draw Castor's round white face looking out through the window of my cottage. I draw Zeus in his fighter against a background of stars and write a couple of pages about my surprise 14th birthday party. The seeds, I draw life size and leave space to write what sort of trees they are, once they grow. I'd like to write something about Zula's visits but it's just too secret even to go in my diary. I draw a picture of me curled up in bed with Negrita at my feet. You can't see much of me, just some spiky short hair sticking out from under the duvet. Zula is in there with me.

  Zwingly is tricky. It was so neat having a boyfriend; we had such fun. That's why it hurt so much when it all turned to custard. If I went back in time, would I do the same again? Yes. I might even forgive him one day. I have so many good memories and it was so nice having someone to l
ove, someone who was mine, if only for a little while. I leave the page blank; he was such a good looking guy. If I draw him now he's likely to have missing teeth and devil's horns.

  I draw me in my lacy green knickers with a little baby inside, and add some devil's horns; I've been such abysmal company these last couple of months!

  'Her waters have broken,' says Castor. 'Emily, Emily, wake up. Ijju's waters have broken.'

  It's two in the morning. How inconvenient! I click my fingers to start up the worm and stay where I am, snug in bed. It's late at night in Algeria as well. Ijju is sitting on the side of her bed with a shawl wrapped around her shoulders. I reach up and touch the necklace she gave me in Khartoum, twiddling with the little coins. It used to look so good against her chocolate skin. I wish she knew that I'm with her now. She has a few little contractions but nothing is really happening. Zula's mum, Nwella, comes in and lays a couple of towels on the bed and tells her to get some more sleep.

  Great idea. I do the same.

  Through the worm I can feel her contractions. As dawn approaches they get stronger and wake me up. Then they cut in real strong. The pain is muted through the worm but is still very real. At first she grits her teeth and just grunts a little but as they get stronger and more regular, she crumples up her face and screams against the pain. I go to make a cup of tea but have to sit down when Ijju has a contraction. I wanted to see what it'd be like but this is a bit too first hand. It's her baby, not mine. I turn off the worm and make some tea and toast and sit outside and watch the sun come up, fretting about what lies ahead.

  I let the sun rise up into the sky, and a little higher still, then click my fingers and visit Pollux's moon.

  He has Ijju up on high resonance radar. It still gives a good picture but is not quite so hands on as the worm. She's standing up against Nwella and is being helped by another woman. She's covered with sweat and her face is strained. She screams loudly in the contractions.

  'Pant, pant, pant,' says the lady, trying to get Ijju to control her breathing.

  'Com'on, com'on, you're almost there.' says Nwella.

  I can see a dark lock of hair showing. Ijju screams loudly and strains, making the veins stand out on her forehead. The baby's head comes into view. The lady holds her hands gently against the baby's head, and eggs Ijju on, 'Here it comes, one more push.'

  One more scream.

  Whoosh!

  Out it pops in a flood of blood and goop. The lady collects the red baby in her hands, quickly checks it over, and hands it to Ijju who pulls it firmly against her chest and sits down on the bed. The baby gives a little cough and a whimper.

  'It's a boy!' says Pollux. 'It wasn't too bad, was it?'

  Maybe I shouldn't have watched. I have to sit down. I put my head on my knees and cry.

  'Wasn't that neat,' says Pollux, trying to cheer me up. 'Out it popped, a new life. Shall we watch some more?' The cockpit screens fill with images of women in different stages of childbirth, panting and screaming and begging for mercy.

  It's more than I can bear. I click my fingers and are in bed, cowering under the covers.

  10

  It's scary being pregnant. There’s all sorts of things that can go wrong: the baby can die, or worst still have some serious disability. What's more there's all the nasty side effects the go with being pregnant: you pee, you cry, you throw up, you fart, you get clown feet, and you get stretch marks and saggy boobs. Scariest of all is that at some stage you have to give birth. Then there's the chance that you will die from bleeding or infection. The death rate is really high where there’s no decent medical facilities, like here.

  He hasn't kicked yet, maybe there's something wrong with him. I do hope he's okay.

  'He is one hundred percent a-okay,' says Pollux. 'Do you want to know if he's a boy or a girl?'

  'No, please don't tell me.'

  That's a relief. The baby is okay, I only have farting, certain death and childbirth to worry about. Maybe I need a midwife.

  'I'll help,' offers Jesus.

  'Do you have any experience?' I ask.

  'A little bit,' he answers. 'But it was a couple of thousand years ago.'

  'It would be lovely to have you there,' I say, 'but I need a mid-wife; someone who knows what they're doing to guide me through it and do the right thing if there's a problem. I'm sure Dr Florence could do it.’

  Summer arrives and so do my books. Azziz delivers them along with a big box of supplies: jelly beans, Marmite, Maltesers, Hula Hoops, chocolate-coated almonds and Caramello. When there's no one around, I lie out in the sun naked and read. My body turns beautiful and brown and my little bump grows a little every day. Being pregnant suits me. I like being pregnant. Best of all, I have to eat for him too. I open a packet of Maltesers and have one for me, then one for him, one for me, one for him, and in no time they're all gone!

  I have big long siestas that last from lunchtime to late afternoon. By the time I get up, it's almost bedtime. One afternoon in late June I wake up with ringing in my ears. It must be one of those funny side effects of being pregnant. I go outside and it gets louder, a lot louder. Cicadas, the cicadas have finally arrived! I call out to Zeus but he doesn't answer. He hasn't talked to me since I got pregnant. He's probably sitting on Isora, stoned out of his tree.

  After reading all seven Harry Potters and all three Hunger Games, I'm as brown as a button and the cherries are ripe. I climb up the old twisted tree and pick a basket full then walk up to the bluff and sit with my feet dangling over the edge eating cherries. After about a hundred I feel a funny sensation like popcorn in my tummy. Maybe I'm going to be sick. There it is again, and again, a little stronger. It's him, he's kicking. His dad needs to feel that!

  That night I set up the worm and look out for Zula. He's still in the desert. He can't have seen his boy yet. He's thinking of me too. Good! Let's really give him something to think about!

  I click my fingers and he's there beside me. I hold him tight. It's so nice to have him there. He gets all frisky but I don't want that just now. I do what's needed to keep him happy then curl up in his arms pushing my tummy against his. He reaches down and gently strokes the lump. I feel a little butterfly wing of a kick. I hope Zula can feel it too.

  'What-' Zula starts asking.

  I click my fingers before something happens to break the spell.

  It would be so nice if he could be here the whole time. I'm sure he would like Camillo. If he wanted a bit of action we could go out in the fighters together and blast slimeballs. I could click my fingers and steal him away from Ijju. I'd love to but I can't. You can't do things like that to people you love.

  Jesus said we'd have a rock concert. I liked the idea at the time but now I just want to laze through the summer. I don't want all those superstars hanging out on Camillo. I'd probably get seduced again. It would be nice but it would end in tears, my tears. They'd just want my body, like the thousands of groupies they've had before. I need something a little more, which they wouldn't understand or care about.

  I discuss the concert with Jesus because I think he'd like to do something. He suggests inviting Bob Marley and his reggae band and Janice. We all like Janice. Jesus and Azziz will invite their friends who normally hang out at the cafe. They're really laid back and cool.

  Janice arrives a few days early and comes to stay with me. We sing, we paint wonderful abstract paintings and hang them on the walls, then paint ourselves bright yellow and chill out and chat.

  We do the grisly job of killing a sheep, and on the day of the reggae concert we catch fresh fish and prepare the food. It's really simple; spit roasted lamb with potatoes and corn and fish wrapped in tin foil cooked in the embers. No messing around with salads, or puddings. The afternoon passes in a flash; well it does for me anyway. Having been up since dawn helping set things up, I have a sudden unexpected weary, and curl up on a sofa in the shade of a coconut palm, surfacing occasionally to listen to the reggae beat but not opening my eyes until the sun has
slipped behind the hills and our guests have departed.

  Negrita has started buzzing. She struts around the house buzzing, then opens her mouth and out flies a cicada. She toys with them until they buzz no more, then lightly roasts them and swallows them whole. She's caught so many, it's surprising that there's any left on the asteroid. As the end of August approaches and the sun starts to lose its hard edge, the few surviving cicadas run out of puff and their song falters and dies.

  If I've been wearing anything all summer, it's been my lightweight summer dresses. They float about me like I'm hardly wearing anything. Now the weather's cooler, I need clothes, but nothing fits except my XXXL jumper. I wrap myself up in a sheet and walk around the house being Aphrodite, the Greek Goddess of fertility. What can I wear? I need fat people's clothes.

  'You could go to Zwingly and see Coco?' suggests Jesus.

  'No,' I say abruptly, 'I'm not going to Zwingly.'

  'You did get your fingers burnt, didn't you?'