Read Emily Taylor - The Teenage Mum Online
Authors: Vi Grim
Tags: #coming of age, #pregnancy, #emily taylor, #pregnancy and childbirth, #vi grim, #age 14 to adult, #the teenage mum, #young mum
Emily Taylor - The Teenage Mum (21 page)
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I catch a glimpse of the kids
up ahead, toodling along in their school uniforms eating bananas.
River and Lilly look a trick still wearing their school bags.
'Nelly!' I scream. I stumble and fall. I'm getting weak.
Annie swings around and takes
out a pterodactyl that's diving on us.
I'm struggling to stay
conscious. Nelly appears, looking down on me with a worried look on
her face. 'Mummy,' she says. 'Hold my hand, Mummy,' and takes my
hand.
Blip!
arm is heavily bandaged and I have tubes sticking out of me.
An Indian doctor comes and
examines me. 'You're fine, you can go.'
As I get up he adds, 'How did
you do this, again?'
'I um...err fell through a
plate glass window,' I answer.
'Well Miss Taylor, do take care
next time. You nearly lost your life.'
'Thank you,' I say, kissing him
on the cheek.
along the beach with Nelly.
'Promise me you will never do
that again,' I demand.
'I promise,' she says, avoiding
my eyes.
I don't believe her an
inch. She's going to be trouble, that one. They all
will.
'Nel,' I add. 'Thanks for
saving me.'
She doesn't say anything but
squeezes my hand and gives me a cuddle.
I'm sposed to be looking after it. Zeus said to do nothing but I do
feel a bit responsible. Like, I didn't even look at it or spare it
a thought for over a year. I make a cup of tea; get myself
comfortable on the sofa and with a click of my fingers the worm
appears on the front lawn. It's about time I checked up on the
people I care about.
table reading the paper. He's greyer and balder, looks thin and
drawn and has worry lines.
He looks up at me, as if he
knows I'm there, then shrugs his shoulders and goes back to his
paper.
Dear?' asks Mum, coming into the room.
'Not really,' says Dad, 'Just
the usual. It says there's a nasty bug going around.'
Mum has greyed and looks
terribly thin, 'It might be what Toby's got; he's got a temperature
and has been throwing up all morning.'
Mum shakes as she pours herself
a cup of tea, spilling some on the bench.
I hear Toby sobbing, so go to
see him. He's really sick. Even I can tell that. His breath is
short, he has a temperature and he's bleeding from his nose. I rest
my hand on his forehead and he looks up. I'm sure he can see me
because he smiles weakly.
'I'll look after you Toby,' I
say.
He closes his eyes.
says Dad.
'Good luck,' says Mum, and I
hear her giving him a kiss and the door clicks shut.
of me.
'Mummy! Vinny's climbed up the
thingy,' shouts Lilly.
I jump up and catch Vinny's leg
just as he topples into the worm. I don't want to be losing him
into another dimension, not today.
of the worm and teleport up to see Pollux.
'Toby's dying,' I say, trying
not to panic.
'No problem,' says Pollux,
'He'll be up here soon. He'll be in quarantine in the hospital for
a couple of weeks.'
What a relief. 'Thank you,
Pollux.' I give him a big kiss and get back down to sort my kids
out.
two weeks takes forever. Time, which has been on fast-forward the
last few years, suddenly goes in slow motion. I visit the slugs
whenever I can and look down on Earth. Things are bad, really bad,
like all the good that has been happening since Petra defeated
Ariella has been undone and there are evil forces at work. There's
got to be more than a bit of global warming and a weak dollar
causing all this. But how? Has Petra turned evil?
another cottage next to mine, looking out to sea. I think we might
be needing it.
better, I go in alone. He's never seen me; Mum and Dad probably
don't even talk about me much.
I'm almost scared to open the
door to his room. When I get up courage, I go in and stand at the
foot of his bed and we look at each other. He has the same blond
hair and sparkling blue eyes as I had when I was eight. We look at
each other for a long time, then he simply says, 'Emily.'
He knows.
I borrow a wheelchair and push
him back over the hill to my place. We don't speak. I'm sure he's
still weak and there must be a lot to take in without me yabbering.
When we arrive home I sit him on the sofa on the veranda where he
can see the view.
Vinny comes out and says, 'Who
dat?'
'Uncle Toby.'
this year and new Christmas is a very subdued affair. The
Camilleans don't know what is happening on Earth but we don't feel
like celebrating.
slugs watching. On top of the droughts and floods that are hitting
everywhere, a killer computer virus has knocked out the Internet
and computer systems around the world. People are starving
virtually unaffected are the Kalahari Bushmen and other remote
tribes. Castor pulls up an image of a bushman. He wears nothing but
a pair of battered old shorts and has a spear and bow and arrow
slung over his shoulder.
'I saved this last week,' says
Castor. 'I love it.'
throws it away, slings the gazelle around his shoulders and trots
off across the dry grassland.
'Nice to see not everyone is
suffering,' I say. 'How's Ijju?'
'She's doing fine,' says
Castor, zooming in on Algeria. 'Things aren't easy, but they're
surviving.'
As the screen zooms in I see a
heavily fortified compound with houses and fields inside. Soldiers
patrol along the top of a rough wall that protects it and there's
bunkers with rockets and antiaircraft guns.
'Saleem is looking after
his people. He has plenty of water, camels and supplies and has
shut himself off from the outside world. Here's Azulay,' he says
looking inside a machine gun nest. He’s sitting with Yuba and Zam
playing cards. They’re dressed in army fatigues and look healthy
and happy.
'What about Ijju?' I ask.
'She's fine.' Castor pans
across to a mud poo house. It's got a bit of plaster missing and a
few recent bullet holes, but with the laundry flapping cheerfully
in the breeze and a couple of kids playing outside, it looks a
happy little home. Ijju is lying on the sofa having a siesta. As
always, she looks beautiful. Azulay is such a lucky man having the
two of us.
new screen.
'There were six and a half
billion of you guys six months ago,' says Castor, flashing up his
census screen, 'Now there's one and a quarter billion and counting
down.'
'What!' I scream, 'You mean to
say that five billion people have died?'
'Yes,' says Castor, 'It's not
all bad, look at these figures.'
the people dying off might be a good thing. It could even be the
power of The Book working for good.'
'Yes, exactly. Look at the slug
population, we're on a roll, we might take over your planet
soon.'
'Ooh yuck!' I say without
thinking.
'Careful what you say. We're
got sensitive feelings, you know.'
I'm not going to wait for them to die.
Toby keeps asking about them,
'When can they come to heaven?'
'Toby, this is not
heaven.'
'But when can they come?'
'Soon,' I say, not wanting to
commit to anything.
the worm and have a look. Things are bad in Sheffield. It's like
one of those movies when everything has gone to pot. There's cars
and trucks stopped randomly on the roads and those that are moving
have steel plates protecting the sides and a massive bumpers at the
front. They drive slowly dodging burnt out cars and corpses. Packs
of dogs roaming the streets, eating anything they can find, and
armed men run from shadow to shadow. The only sounds are sporadic
bursts of gunfire and the birds singing. The birds are really
happy. At least someone is.
Our house is gone, just a burnt
out shell remains
I find Mum and Dad, Danny and
Julie in a basement. They're skinny and Dad looks gaunt, but they
are alive and reasonably heath. They have a good supply of tinned
food and water and Dad has a pistol. Annie's mum and a couple of
our neighbours are with them too. They're playing gin runny by
candlelight. The flickering light makes their gaunt faces look
ghostlike and casts dark shadows against the walls, which jiggle
about like demons waiting to strike.
he's going to win; he has most of his cards down and just needs a
two to win. He picks up a king and throws it back out, not wanting
to carry any high cards in his hand. Annie's mum picks it up. 'Gin
rummy,' she shouts.
I click my fingers.
Click!
darkness into my living room. I flick on the light. Dad points his
revolver at me, firing a shot that skims my shoulder and shatters
the window behind me. Danny crouches low holding a carving knife. I
spin across the room, knocking the knife out of Danny's hand then
back flip over the sofa kung fuing the gun clear of Dad's hand. It
fires a shot knocking a big chunk down from the ceiling and filling
the room with dust and plaster.
Toby comes running in, stops
for a second to take in what's happening then shouts, 'Mum!' and
gives Mum the biggest hug.
Everyone else stands
immobile. The dust settles and people arrive, Annie and Janice and
all the kids. Annie screams and embraces her mum.
Dad catches my eye and a big
smile grows across his face. 'Emily!' he says opening his arms wide
to welcome me.
'Heaven?' he asks.
'Hell no!' I say.
I've been waiting so long to
say that!
Earth for a few weeks. Mum and Dad are here, that's all that
matters. They're delighted with their new house and somewhat
surprised by the number of grandchildren I've produced.
'Who's the dad and when are we
going to meet him,' demands Mum.
'Not telling and you're
probably never going to meet him. He's a survivor.'
'So he's on Earth then?'
'Maybe. Not telling.'
'He is, he is,' says Mum
gleefully, slowly working her way towards the truth.
We walk the kids to school and
have fluffy cappuccinos in the Italian's cafe. Then I walk them
around Kastela's magnificent walls and we have lunch in a fish
restaurant down by the port.
I'm not quite sure what to tell
them. Do I give them the same disinformation and half-truths that
we tell everyone else or do I tell them the truth about God and
Jesus? Do I tell them about me looking after Earth? I better not,
everyone's dead. It's probably my fault.
I say as little as possible and
try not to teleport in front of them. I threaten Nelly that I'll
cancel her birthday if she does. She wriggles her cute little nose
and smiles at me, then clicks her fingers and is gone. If she's
ended up on Kojiki, I hope she gets eaten!
up ahead, toodling along in their school uniforms eating bananas.
River and Lilly look a trick still wearing their school bags.
'Nelly!' I scream. I stumble and fall. I'm getting weak.
Annie swings around and takes
out a pterodactyl that's diving on us.
I'm struggling to stay
conscious. Nelly appears, looking down on me with a worried look on
her face. 'Mummy,' she says. 'Hold my hand, Mummy,' and takes my
hand.
Blip!
arm is heavily bandaged and I have tubes sticking out of me.
An Indian doctor comes and
examines me. 'You're fine, you can go.'
As I get up he adds, 'How did
you do this, again?'
'I um...err fell through a
plate glass window,' I answer.
'Well Miss Taylor, do take care
next time. You nearly lost your life.'
'Thank you,' I say, kissing him
on the cheek.
along the beach with Nelly.
'Promise me you will never do
that again,' I demand.
'I promise,' she says, avoiding
my eyes.
I don't believe her an
inch. She's going to be trouble, that one. They all
will.
'Nel,' I add. 'Thanks for
saving me.'
She doesn't say anything but
squeezes my hand and gives me a cuddle.
I'm sposed to be looking after it. Zeus said to do nothing but I do
feel a bit responsible. Like, I didn't even look at it or spare it
a thought for over a year. I make a cup of tea; get myself
comfortable on the sofa and with a click of my fingers the worm
appears on the front lawn. It's about time I checked up on the
people I care about.
table reading the paper. He's greyer and balder, looks thin and
drawn and has worry lines.
He looks up at me, as if he
knows I'm there, then shrugs his shoulders and goes back to his
paper.
The headline on
the front page reads,
Killer
Storm breeches Dutch Dykes 100,000 Dead
, not very cheery. I walk round behind Dad and sit on
the kitchen stool and read the paper over his shoulder. After
lingering a long moment on page 3, he turns the page,
Famine in Africa
. As the pages turn I realise just how bad things
are;
Reactor Meltdown,
Nuclear War in Korea, European Union Disintegrating, Civil War in
America, UK Economy Collapse, Virus Knocks out Power Grid,
and
Supertanker Aground in Cornwall.
Dear?' asks Mum, coming into the room.
'Not really,' says Dad, 'Just
the usual. It says there's a nasty bug going around.'
Mum has greyed and looks
terribly thin, 'It might be what Toby's got; he's got a temperature
and has been throwing up all morning.'
Mum shakes as she pours herself
a cup of tea, spilling some on the bench.
I hear Toby sobbing, so go to
see him. He's really sick. Even I can tell that. His breath is
short, he has a temperature and he's bleeding from his nose. I rest
my hand on his forehead and he looks up. I'm sure he can see me
because he smiles weakly.
'I'll look after you Toby,' I
say.
He closes his eyes.
says Dad.
'Good luck,' says Mum, and I
hear her giving him a kiss and the door clicks shut.
of me.
'Mummy! Vinny's climbed up the
thingy,' shouts Lilly.
I jump up and catch Vinny's leg
just as he topples into the worm. I don't want to be losing him
into another dimension, not today.
of the worm and teleport up to see Pollux.
'Toby's dying,' I say, trying
not to panic.
'No problem,' says Pollux,
'He'll be up here soon. He'll be in quarantine in the hospital for
a couple of weeks.'
What a relief. 'Thank you,
Pollux.' I give him a big kiss and get back down to sort my kids
out.
two weeks takes forever. Time, which has been on fast-forward the
last few years, suddenly goes in slow motion. I visit the slugs
whenever I can and look down on Earth. Things are bad, really bad,
like all the good that has been happening since Petra defeated
Ariella has been undone and there are evil forces at work. There's
got to be more than a bit of global warming and a weak dollar
causing all this. But how? Has Petra turned evil?
another cottage next to mine, looking out to sea. I think we might
be needing it.
better, I go in alone. He's never seen me; Mum and Dad probably
don't even talk about me much.
I'm almost scared to open the
door to his room. When I get up courage, I go in and stand at the
foot of his bed and we look at each other. He has the same blond
hair and sparkling blue eyes as I had when I was eight. We look at
each other for a long time, then he simply says, 'Emily.'
He knows.
I borrow a wheelchair and push
him back over the hill to my place. We don't speak. I'm sure he's
still weak and there must be a lot to take in without me yabbering.
When we arrive home I sit him on the sofa on the veranda where he
can see the view.
Vinny comes out and says, 'Who
dat?'
'Uncle Toby.'
this year and new Christmas is a very subdued affair. The
Camilleans don't know what is happening on Earth but we don't feel
like celebrating.
slugs watching. On top of the droughts and floods that are hitting
everywhere, a killer computer virus has knocked out the Internet
and computer systems around the world. People are starving
virtually unaffected are the Kalahari Bushmen and other remote
tribes. Castor pulls up an image of a bushman. He wears nothing but
a pair of battered old shorts and has a spear and bow and arrow
slung over his shoulder.
'I saved this last week,' says
Castor. 'I love it.'
We follow the
bushman as he pussyfoots through the dry grassland. He's silent as
a cat as he stalks some gazelle. He shoots one with his bow and
arrow then sprints after it and finishes it off with his spear. He
pulls out his cell phone and taps out a text,
Gazelle. Put the pot on. Back soon
XX
. He pushes send and when
the phone shows a
No
Signal
message, he climbs up
on top of a rock and tries again, holding the phone above his head
to try and pick up the signal.
throws it away, slings the gazelle around his shoulders and trots
off across the dry grassland.
'Nice to see not everyone is
suffering,' I say. 'How's Ijju?'
'She's doing fine,' says
Castor, zooming in on Algeria. 'Things aren't easy, but they're
surviving.'
As the screen zooms in I see a
heavily fortified compound with houses and fields inside. Soldiers
patrol along the top of a rough wall that protects it and there's
bunkers with rockets and antiaircraft guns.
'Saleem is looking after
his people. He has plenty of water, camels and supplies and has
shut himself off from the outside world. Here's Azulay,' he says
looking inside a machine gun nest. He’s sitting with Yuba and Zam
playing cards. They’re dressed in army fatigues and look healthy
and happy.
'What about Ijju?' I ask.
'She's fine.' Castor pans
across to a mud poo house. It's got a bit of plaster missing and a
few recent bullet holes, but with the laundry flapping cheerfully
in the breeze and a couple of kids playing outside, it looks a
happy little home. Ijju is lying on the sofa having a siesta. As
always, she looks beautiful. Azulay is such a lucky man having the
two of us.
new screen.
'There were six and a half
billion of you guys six months ago,' says Castor, flashing up his
census screen, 'Now there's one and a quarter billion and counting
down.'
'What!' I scream, 'You mean to
say that five billion people have died?'
'Yes,' says Castor, 'It's not
all bad, look at these figures.'
As the number
next to
Teroids
counts down alarmingly quickly, most
of the other numbers are going up. 'There's a bit of a delay before
populations expand,' says Castor, 'but you can get the general idea
that while people are dying off, just about everything else is
flourishing. Dolphins were at twenty two million and are now up to
twenty five; rabbits have gone from one billion to three, they're
quick breeders; tuna from eight hundred million to a billion;
locusts from one hundred billion to two hundred billion; and last
but certainly not least, look at the slug population. We've gone
from ninety nine million to one hundred and fifty million. Aren't
we doing well?'
the people dying off might be a good thing. It could even be the
power of The Book working for good.'
'Yes, exactly. Look at the slug
population, we're on a roll, we might take over your planet
soon.'
'Ooh yuck!' I say without
thinking.
'Careful what you say. We're
got sensitive feelings, you know.'
I'm not going to wait for them to die.
Toby keeps asking about them,
'When can they come to heaven?'
'Toby, this is not
heaven.'
'But when can they come?'
'Soon,' I say, not wanting to
commit to anything.
the worm and have a look. Things are bad in Sheffield. It's like
one of those movies when everything has gone to pot. There's cars
and trucks stopped randomly on the roads and those that are moving
have steel plates protecting the sides and a massive bumpers at the
front. They drive slowly dodging burnt out cars and corpses. Packs
of dogs roaming the streets, eating anything they can find, and
armed men run from shadow to shadow. The only sounds are sporadic
bursts of gunfire and the birds singing. The birds are really
happy. At least someone is.
Our house is gone, just a burnt
out shell remains
I find Mum and Dad, Danny and
Julie in a basement. They're skinny and Dad looks gaunt, but they
are alive and reasonably heath. They have a good supply of tinned
food and water and Dad has a pistol. Annie's mum and a couple of
our neighbours are with them too. They're playing gin runny by
candlelight. The flickering light makes their gaunt faces look
ghostlike and casts dark shadows against the walls, which jiggle
about like demons waiting to strike.
They’
re okay but
they're not going to live for long. I should wait for them to die
or get killed, but the rules have changed now, nobody is counting
bodies anymore.
he's going to win; he has most of his cards down and just needs a
two to win. He picks up a king and throws it back out, not wanting
to carry any high cards in his hand. Annie's mum picks it up. 'Gin
rummy,' she shouts.
I click my fingers.
Click!
darkness into my living room. I flick on the light. Dad points his
revolver at me, firing a shot that skims my shoulder and shatters
the window behind me. Danny crouches low holding a carving knife. I
spin across the room, knocking the knife out of Danny's hand then
back flip over the sofa kung fuing the gun clear of Dad's hand. It
fires a shot knocking a big chunk down from the ceiling and filling
the room with dust and plaster.
Toby comes running in, stops
for a second to take in what's happening then shouts, 'Mum!' and
gives Mum the biggest hug.
Everyone else stands
immobile. The dust settles and people arrive, Annie and Janice and
all the kids. Annie screams and embraces her mum.
Dad catches my eye and a big
smile grows across his face. 'Emily!' he says opening his arms wide
to welcome me.
'Heaven?' he asks.
'Hell no!' I say.
I've been waiting so long to
say that!
Earth for a few weeks. Mum and Dad are here, that's all that
matters. They're delighted with their new house and somewhat
surprised by the number of grandchildren I've produced.
'Who's the dad and when are we
going to meet him,' demands Mum.
'Not telling and you're
probably never going to meet him. He's a survivor.'
'So he's on Earth then?'
'Maybe. Not telling.'
'He is, he is,' says Mum
gleefully, slowly working her way towards the truth.
We walk the kids to school and
have fluffy cappuccinos in the Italian's cafe. Then I walk them
around Kastela's magnificent walls and we have lunch in a fish
restaurant down by the port.
I'm not quite sure what to tell
them. Do I give them the same disinformation and half-truths that
we tell everyone else or do I tell them the truth about God and
Jesus? Do I tell them about me looking after Earth? I better not,
everyone's dead. It's probably my fault.
I say as little as possible and
try not to teleport in front of them. I threaten Nelly that I'll
cancel her birthday if she does. She wriggles her cute little nose
and smiles at me, then clicks her fingers and is gone. If she's
ended up on Kojiki, I hope she gets eaten!
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