The Year I Turned Thirteen and Broadened my Mind by Lynne Roberts
Chapter 5.
Hiroshi had showed us pictures of his home in Japan but that had been really disappointing. He lived in a normal house and his bedroom had all the same sort of stuff that a New Zealand boy would have, although perhaps a bit more electrical stuff like TVs and stereos. Dad said it showed that people were the same all over the world and wasn’t that a wonderful discovery to make. Amber snarled back that in that case why were we bothering to have foreigners here at all, if it wasn’t going to broaden our minds.
“I don’t want any more farm helpers coming here,” stormed Amber. “They are all total disasters.”
She kept this up for three days until Pierre arrived from France to stay for a month. Then it was her turn to drool and go weak at the knees as her hand was kissed and he said “ello,” in a husky French accent.
Unfortunately the rain set in about then. We’d had that fine autumn weather they call “Indian Summer” and it was suddenly over. Kevin told me the tree hut leaked and he couldn’t sleep there any longer. I couldn’t believe we’d got away with it so long. Kevin’s mother lived on the other side of town so she never saw him and his brother and sisters were still at the Primary school. The college thought Kevin was still living at home as usual and by using the laundromat in town occasionally we’d kept the clothes he needed washed. Fortunately his Step-Dad had given him $50 when he left, conscience money Kevin called it, but it was going fast.
I decided we needed help and swore Amber to secrecy. Amber was amazed Kevin had been in the tree hut and came up with an awesome idea.
“Why doesn’t Kevin sleep in your cupboard, Robbie? It’s plenty big enough and he can come to tea every night then pretend to go home and sneak back in your outside door. I can help with extra food as well.”
“How do we keep Mum and Dad from finding out?”
“Tell Mum you’re making her a present for her birthday and she has to keep out of the cupboard. She’s really good like that. You know she makes a big deal about respecting privacy. You can open the end door at night to get in and Mum would have to push it shut to get into the room anyway.”
“That’s brilliant. I wish I’d told you a few weeks ago.”
“Thanks Amber,” choked Kevin. “I really appreciate this.”
“That’s okay.” Amber patted Kevin on the shoulder. “I’m sure things will work out eventually. Perhaps your father will be back soon.”
“Yeah,” agreed Kevin without enthusiasm.
Fortunately Mum was so pleased to have Pierre that she hardly noticed or minded that Kevin was there a lot of the time. There were a couple of sticky moments when he had to hide in the hall cupboard on his way to the bathroom at night or wait behind the glasshouse for me to finish breakfast. But generally it worked well.
Pierre was great. Not only was he a good worker, but he was keen to kick a soccer ball round with us after school. We went on hikes in the bush or to the beach at weekends. We ended up letting him into the secret about Kevin and he was really good about it. At first he kept telling us we should tell Mum and Dad but Kevin said he’d probably end up being put in a foster home and Pierre looked thoughtful after that and entered in the spirit of it. He would check that the coast was clear then go and talk to Mum and Dad all about his life in France so that I could sneak Kevin into the bathroom for a shower. He insisted on helping clear the dishes after each meal and offered to help us make our school lunches. That meant he put heaps of extra stuff in for Kevin.
Pierre bought himself ice creams and milkshakes at the shop and always shouted the three of us. He said that there might be times it was hard to get extra food for Kevin so he bought him a huge box of muesli bars for emergencies and made me and Kevin promise not to stuff the lot in the next couple of nights.
He also made sure we went out in the evenings when we could. That meant that Kevin could have the house to himself for a while and get on with his homework or watch TV instead of spending all his time stuck in the cupboard. We went to the hot pools at least twice a week although sometimes Kevin came with us and told Mum and Dad he would walk home from there. They trusted Pierre to drive Mum’s car which is an old banger, so he could drive Kevin home at nights. Pierre and Kevin would drive round town then Kevin would hide under a blanket and climb out just before our driveway to sneak into my bedroom again.
Pierre said the French helped lots of people escape from the German occupation in the Second World War and that it was probably in his genes to help people. Amber sighed and said he was such a hero but I don’t know why, really, because it was me who had to put up with most of the inconvenience. Pierre would ask if Kevin could come too if Mum and Dad said we were all going out to Rotorua or to the movies. I could see that Mum and Dad were a bit surprised by this but they were far too polite to say no and they didn’t want to upset Pierre who was such a good worker and so nice to everyone. He even made his bed and kept his room tidy and a couple of times he cooked us a ‘real French meal ’ Even the fact that this involved huge quantities of butter and cream didn’t freak Mum out and she went all giggly like Amber when he smiled at her.
The month seemed to go really fast. Amber was determined to learn French and travel overseas when she was older, to see Pierre, no doubt. Mum sniffed a bit and Amber cried when he left. Pierre shook my hand and said to “say goodbye to Kevin for me.”
Mum said when had gone, “I hope he marries a nice girl.”
“Oh I don’t know,” said Dad. “There was something a bit odd about the way he kept asking about doing things with Kevin. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was more interested in boys than females,” he concluded darkly. Amber and I promptly had a fit of the giggles but decided not to tell Kevin about this conversation.
It was just as well that Pierre had bought Kevin the muesli bars as it was all he had to live on for the next week. Mum and Dad had said they wanted a ‘breathing space’ before the next foreigner arrived and Mum told me not to asked Kevin to meals for a week.
“We need to have time to ourselves, just as a family,” she said. I knew how she felt. I was starting to feel rather crowded myself with Kevin in my room all the time. It wasn’t that I didn’t like Kevin, because I did, but it’s hard to have someone living with you 24 hours a day and not feel suffocated. I felt responsible for him too; without me he would starve and I was beginning to feel old before my time. Now I was beginning to have some idea of what Dad meant when he said that having responsibilities was very ageing.
It was also being a bit of a pain about my other friends. Even though I mainly hung out with Kevin I sometimes used to go and play with Simon on his computer and Kevin wasn’t interested in that much. But with Kevin staying with me it was a bit awkward. I went home after school and ended up staying for tea with Simon’s family and when I got home Kevin was sitting In the tree house by himself and nearly starving. He said he never wanted to see another muesli bar in his life so I felt I couldn’t go and play with other kids and that made me feel trapped so I got cross with Kevin. Because it wasn’t his fault, I felt all mean afterwards and had to be twice as nice to him. Kevin kept saying I was only being nice to him because I thought I had to be and because I was sorry for him and no one had ever wanted him anyway. I was worried about what we would do in the holidays as he would be hanging around all day then but decided I would think about that later. We couldn’t even take much extra food to school that week as Mum insisted on cooking Amber and me the most enormous breakfasts and then standing over us while we ate them. We would stagger off to school clutching our stomachs and groaning stuffed with pancakes and bacon and eggs. Poor Kevin would be hiding behind one of the trees and he’d come out looking pale and hungry and we felt twice as bad. I gave Kevin all my lunch to make up for it but breakfast must have stretched my insides or something because then I was absolutely staving by 3.30. Much to our disgust Mum even dosed me and Amber for worms and she hit me really hard for that when Mum wasn’t looking.
Amber was getting a bit stressed o
Anyone would have been a let-down after Pierre, but with the arrival of Marc things really crashed down with a vengeance. His first impression was good. Amber started swooning when she saw this tall, blond, blue eyed hunk climbing out of the back seat of Dad’s car. He certainly seemed friendly enough. He smiled and shook our hands and pressed a box of chocolates into Mums’ arms, murmuring,
“You will like these. They are made in Germany.”
If we’d realised the significance of those words then, we would have pushed him back in the car immediately and told Dad to take him back to the bus stop.
Mum had gone all out with the roast lamb and all the trimmings but Marc asked for, then tipped, half the tomato sauce bottle over it before announcing that “New Zealand food is not as good as German food.”
Mum was a bit taken aback by this but didn’t try to argue. Unfortunately this was only the start. Marc proceeded to lecture us on what could be found in Germany. It was all very mind broadening. Apparently Germans had the prettiest women, (Amber sniffed a bit at this), the best cooks (Mum began to look mutinous), and the best vehicles in the world. Dad was going to argue with this but considering he’d been raving on about his mate’s Audi he couldn’t really object.
For the next week Marc bored the socks off us with tales of how everything German was the best. When Amber sweetly asked him how he knew this, he replied that “it says so in the German newspapers.” We were all too stunned to speak.
“Is this guy a moron, or what?” Amber fumed as we walked to school. “If I have to hear about how great Germany is one more time I’m going to stuff his guide book down his throat.”
“If he thinks it’s that great, why did he bother coming over here?” Kevin asked.
“Good point,” said Amber.
She innocently asked Marc this at dinner as he was eating the last chop, which I’d hoped to keep for Kevin, and telling us how inferior New Zealand meat was to German meat. Nothing could faze Marc though. He condescendingly informed us that all good Germans saw it as their duty to spread the word of how their country excelled to other poorer people.
Dad looked a bit indignant at being considered poor, but as he’s always going on about how much our shoes cost and how much power we use, he didn’t have a leg to stand on.
Amber decided to try sarcasm after that and after everything she said she would add,
“But of course it is better in Germany.”
Marc merely looked complacent and nodded in agreement so all that achieved was to make him even more insufferable.
The crowning insult came one day when Marc complained to Mum that his room could have been cleaner.
“In Germany we give our visitors the best room in the house and we sleep on the floor,” he said loftily.
Mum was furious and told us later that if Marc hadn’t been leaving the next day she would have thrown him out on the spot. As it was she glared at him and attacked his room with so much cleaning stuff that it made us gag just passing the door. Marc didn’t dare complain about it as I think even he had finally recognised the signs of a woman who was coming to the end of her rope.