My Messed-Up Life Read online

  PRAISE FOR MY MESSED-UP LIFE

  ‘Sassy and candid’

  Publishers Weekly, starred review

  ‘Funny and touching and well worth the read. Highly recommended’

  CM Magazine

  ‘Laugh-out-loud humour deftly mixes with insight into a troubled girl’s pain over her parents’ divorce . . . This comic novel scores’

  Kirkus

  ‘Violet is a complex, appealing character . . . a very engaging read’

  Booklist

  ‘A lot of cleverness and fun . . . Buy it’

  National Post

  PRAISE FOR OPTIMISTS DIE FIRST

  ‘Hilarious, heart-warming and beautifully unexpected – a real keeper’

  Lisa Williamson

  ‘Susin Nielsen has produced a richly comic story featuring a cast of mismatched, engaging characters’

  Guardian

  ‘Optimists Die First is both funny and heartbreaking. Fans of Rainbow Rowell’s Eleanor & Park will love it’

  Red Magazine

  ‘Nielsen writes with sensitivity, empathy and humour’

  Kirkus, starred review

  ‘Grief and guilt permeate Nielsen’s empathic and deeply moving story, balanced by sharply funny narration and dialogue’

  Publishers Weekly, starred review

  PRAISE FOR WE ARE ALL MADE OF MOLECULES

  ‘I defy you not to fall in love with this book’

  Phil Earle

  ‘A book to fortify readers against bullies and homophobes’

  Sunday Times

  ‘Snappy and witty. A really fine YA novel’

  Telegraph

  ‘This is stellar, top-notch stuff’

  Quill and Quire, starred review

  PRAISE FOR THE RELUCTANT JOURNAL OF HENRY K. LARSEN

  Winner of the Governor General’s Literary award, the UKLA award and the canadian Library association’s children’s book of the year

  ‘A realistic, poignant portrait of one teen who overcomes nearly unbearable feelings of grief and guilt’

  Kirkus

  ‘A fantastic narrator, authentic and endearing . . . a memorable read for all the right reasons’

  Booktrust

  ‘Nielsen writes about the heaviest subjects with the lightest of touches. . . a truly uplifting, even happy read’

  Lovereading

  PRAISE FOR WORD NERD

  ‘Ingenious and warm-hearted, Nielsen’s writing boasts believable, unpredictable characterisation’

  Guardian

  ‘Ambrose Bukowski is the titular nerd and it’s in his delightful, disarming voice that Word Nerd unfolds … a funny, wry tale’

  Globe and Mail

  ‘Tender, often funny. It will appeal to word nerds, but even more to anyone who has ever longed for acceptance’

  School Library Journal, starred review

  Contents

  Cover

  Praise

  Copyright

  Also By

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Acknowledgements

  Author’s Note

  This is a work of fiction. All references to real people, places, or events are a product of the author’s imagination.

  First published in Great Britain in 2018 by

  Andersen Press Limited

  20 Vauxhall Bridge Road

  London SW1V 2SA

  www.andersenpress.co.uk

  2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1

  First published in 2010 in Canada by Tundra Books as Dear George Clooney: Please Marry My Mom. This edition published by arrangement with Tundra Books, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Limited.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

  The right of Susin Nielsen to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  Text copyright © Susin Nielsen, 2010

  Art copyright © Oskar Fernlund, 2010

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data available.

  ISBN 9781787611276

  Also by Susin Nielsen

  No Fixed Address

  Optimists Die First

  The Reluctant Journal of Henry K. Larsen

  We Are All Made of Molecules

  Word Nerd

  To all of my family members

  – Nielsen, Fernlund, Inkster and Dixon –

  I’m blessed to have you in my life.

  1

  FOR THE RECORD: I did not mean to send my two half sisters to the emergency room.

  What happened was this: Rosie – my whole sister – and I were in Los Angeles for our second annual Fake Christmas. Real Christmas had already been celebrated in Vancouver with Mom. Fake Christmas took place on the twenty-seventh of December with Dad. I called it that because everything about it, from the date to the tree to Jennica’s boobs, was phony.

  But the presents weren’t. They were real, and there were lots of them. Rosie got a talking doll and a fairy costume and computer games and the Playmobil grocery-store set she’d always wanted, but that Mom couldn’t afford. It came with tiny plastic cucumbers and apples and beans and bananas, which you could stack on a tiny stand, and four plastic people. Even I liked it, and I’m practically a teenager.

  I got an iPod Touch and two new pairs of Converse high tops. The first pair was a Chuck Taylor design, with roses and skulls painted all over the fabric; the second pair was black leather. They were awesome. I also got a skirt from Jennica, which I would never wear because I never wear skirts – only jeans and T-shirts – which you’d think she would have figured out by now.

  Lola and Lucy got a bunch of presents too, even though they’d already been given tonnes of gifts when they’d celebrated their own Real Christmas. Jennica didn’t want them to feel left out.

  I won’t lie, the gift-opening part of our visit was fun.

  The weird part had been the so-called surprise.

  •••

  My dad had picked us up at LAX that morning, looking tanned and buff. ‘I have a surprise for you girls,’ he’d said as we got on the freeway. For a fleeting, insane, Pollyanna moment, I actually thought he was going to tell us he was dumping Jennica and coming back to Vancouver.

  But, instead, he drove us to Santa Monica, a beautiful neighbourhood near the ocean. He pulled into the driveway of a sprawling, modern ranch-style house with a lush garden.

  ‘Like it? It’s ours.’

  I understood that by ours, he didn’t really mean ours.

  ‘Wow,’ said Rosie, drawing out the word, her five-year-old self unable to keep the awe out of her voice.

  ‘What happened to the apartment in Burbank?’ I asked.

  Dad shrugged. ‘It was getting a little tight for the four of us. Plus it was a renta
l.’

  The new house was beautiful. It was big. The porch didn’t sag, the gutters weren’t broken, and I was pretty sure the roof didn’t need replacing.

  It was nothing like our house in Vancouver.

  I was trying to think of something mean to say when Wife Number Two dashed outside and hugged us.

  ‘Girls, it’s so lovely to see you!’ Jennica said, and I was reminded all over again that she was a lousy actress. ‘I like your hair, Violet. It’s pretty when it’s a bit longer.’ I made a silent vow to ask my mom to cut it short again when we got home.

  The twins were having their nap, so Dad and Jennica toured us through the house. All the rooms were on one floor, but it was a gigantic floor. I hardly recognised any of the furniture. ‘Our old stuff just didn’t suit this place,’ Jennica told us, running her hand through her long blonde hair. ‘Plus this house is soooo much bigger than the apartment.’

  They walked us through the living room, with its sleek modern couches in shades called mocha and taupe, and into the bright, airy kitchen with its stainless steel appliances. Then they showed us the bedrooms, at the far end of the house. The master bedroom was huge, with a king-sized bed and a walk-in closet that was as big as the room Rosie and I shared at home, but without the sloped ceilings. My dad’s clothes took about one-eighth of the space – the rest of the closet was stuffed full of Jennica’s things. She had more clothes than my mom, Rosie, and me put together.

  The twins shared the room next to Dad and Jennica’s. Jennica opened the door quietly so we could peek inside. ‘I wanted it to look like a fairy tale,’ she whispered.

  The twins were fast asleep, sprawled out on two matching canopy beds, safety bars in place so they wouldn’t roll out. The canopies and duvets were covered in shimmering pink fabric. Princess Lola was written in silver above one bed, Princess Lucy above the other. A window seat was filled with pink and silver cushions. Stars and moons had been stencilled all over the ceiling. Built-in shelves held all their toys.

  ‘And here’s your room,’ Jennica said, sweeping her arm toward the door at the end of the hallway like Vanna White on the ‘Wheel of Fortune’. The beige walls were bare except for a bland watercolour of a sunset that hung between the IKEA-brand twin beds.

  When the twins woke up, we unwrapped presents in the new living room, sitting on the floor by the fake tree. It was only three o’clock in the afternoon when we were done, so Dad took us outside. The backyard was even bigger than the front. It had a swing set, a playground-sized sandbox, and a kidney-shaped pool surrounded by a fence.

  Our yard in Vancouver had a rusted trampoline with a broken leg. And mud.

  ‘I didn’t know Jennica liked to garden,’ I said to my dad, as I took in all the colourful flowers and plants.

  He laughed. ‘She doesn’t. The garden was here when we bought the place. Fortunately, our nanny has a green thumb.’

  I’d forgotten about the nanny.

  ‘It’s a bit too cold for swimming,’ Dad said. ‘Why don’t you play in the sandbox?’

  As an almost-teenager, this hardly appealed to me, but Rosie and the twins loved the idea, so we dragged the lid off the sandbox and piled in. Lola and Lucy were so cute, it hurt. They were just under two years old, and they’d inherited the best of their parents’ genes: Jennica’s thick blonde hair and big brown eyes, and my dad’s chin dimple and megawatt smile.

  Rosie and I hadn’t been nearly as lucky in the gene-pool lottery. Despite having the same father and a very attractive mother, all we’d inherited was Dad’s mousy brown hair and his poor eyesight. He wore contacts; we wore glasses. I’d managed to get his big feet and ears, too, and his bulbous man-knees. All these things looked good on my dad, but transplanted onto a scrawny girl like me, it was seriously unfortunate.

  We played with the twins for a long time in that sandbox. They adored being with Rosie and me, and I would have loved them with all my heart if I hadn’t hated them so much.

  After dinner we hung out in the family room, which was just as big as the living room, but more casual. Dad was on the couch reading the paper, but when Lucy and Lola crawled up beside him, he put the paper down and scooped them both into his arms, calling them ‘my little starbursts’ and tickling them until they were giggling uncontrollably, a mass of little limbs.

  Rosie sat nearby watching, her lips pursed.

  When Jennica took the twins away so she could give them their bath, Rosie launched herself at him. ‘Daddy!’ she shouted, jumping onto his lap.

  ‘Ow!’ Dad exclaimed. ‘Rosie, holy cow, you’ve gotten big! Sit beside me, OK? You’re too heavy for my lap.’ He picked her up and placed her beside him. Then he picked up his newspaper and started reading again.

  Rosie’s bottom lip quivered, but she didn’t say a word.

  ‘Violet, I almost forgot,’ my dad said from behind the sports section. ‘Do you mind going out and putting the lid on the sandbox? Our neighbours on both sides have cats.’

  ‘Sure thing,’ I said. I got up and left the room. But instead of going outside, I snuck into Dad and Jennica’s enormous en-suite bathroom and had a pee and didn’t flush.

  At bedtime, Rosie made me guard the door while she put on a pair of pull-ups under her pyjamas.

  ‘You won’t tell anyone, will you?’ she asked, her thumb slipping into her mouth.

  I pulled her thumb out. ‘Never.’

  ‘Cross your heart, hope to die, stick a needle in your eye?’

  ‘All that.’

  •••

  The next morning after breakfast, the twins wanted to go back to the sandbox. I held on to their chubby little hands and led them outside, Rosie following a few steps behind. Dad and Wife Number Two stayed in the kitchen, drinking their lattes.

  We’d been playing for only a few minutes when Lola asked, ‘What dat?’ She pointed at two big cat turds half-buried in the sand.

  FOR THE RECORD: I’m not proud of what I did next. But I also don’t think it called for the freak-out that followed.

  What happened was this: when Rosie started to answer, I clamped my hand over her mouth. ‘It’s chocolate,’ I said. ‘Santa must have left it. Look, there’s one for each of you.’

  The twins reached into the sand. They picked up the turds. They popped them into their mouths. They chewed. They swallowed.

  They burst into tears.

  Dad and Jennica were outside in a flash. When she found out what had happened (thanks to Rosie, who couldn’t tell a lie to save her life), Jennica wanted Dad to call 911. Seriously. He made her see reason, sort of, and the two of them drove the twins to the nearest hospital instead. Don’t ask me what she thought an ER doctor could do. Maybe give the twins some high-powered mouthwash.

  Rosie and I were left alone in the house for over two hours. We went into the family room and turned on the flat-screen TV.

  I knew I was in big trouble. I knew Mom would hear about it. And I knew I should feel bad about what I’d done.

  But I didn’t. I felt empty – like if you looked inside me at that moment, there’d be nothing there. Just a great big blank.

  About fifteen minutes into a rerun of Arthur, Rosie said, ‘You never made me eat poo.’ Her eyes didn’t leave the TV.

  ‘No, Rosie,’ I said, gently pulling her thumb out of her mouth and taking her hand in mine. ‘And I never would.’

  •••

  Jennica wouldn’t even look at me when they got home. That night I heard Dad on the phone to my mom, telling her about my ‘ongoing troubling behaviour.’ The next morning, I announced that I’d like to go back to Vancouver. Nobody argued. Rosie didn’t want to leave, but she was too young to travel by herself, so she had to come with me. I packed up all our clothes and all our new gifts, except for the skirt, which I stuffed under the bed.

  We were back in Vancouver in time for dinner. Fake Christmas h
ad lasted just over twenty-four hours.

  2

  ‘Wash much?’

  I sighed. Thing One (otherwise known as Ashley Anderson) stood by my desk, smirking down at me, flanked by Thing Two (otherwise known as Lauren Janicki).

  ‘Shut your mouth much?’ Phoebe snapped at her from the seat in front of me, like the awesome best friend she was.

  ‘Honestly, some people could care less what they look like,’ Ashley said to Lauren.

  ‘Couldn’t,’ I said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Couldn’t care less. If you could care less, it means you could. Care less.’ Yeah. I really said that. Honestly, there are times when I wish I could tear out my own vocal cords.

  Ashley’s big eyes got a little bigger. ‘Oh. My. God. You are such a geek!’ Still smirking, she strutted away, followed obediently by her posse of one.

  Ashley was at the top of the food chain at Emily Carr Elementary. It didn’t mean she was the most popular. It just meant she acted like she owned the place, and for some reason, we all went along with it. She radiated confidence, with her long chestnut brown hair, blue eyes, actual boobs, and unique sense of style. Like today, she was wearing hot pink tights, a long white T-shirt cinched at the waist with a big belt, black boots, big hoop earrings, and blue glitter eye shadow. On someone else, for example, me, it would’ve looked ridiculous. On Ashley, it looked cutting edge. Lauren was a copycat version of Ashley, only shorter and a bit odd-looking, like all her features were squished a little too close together.

  Phoebe and I were a lot farther down the seventh-grade food chain. We weren’t at the very bottom; we weren’t like plankton, thank you very much. We were more like gazelles, or maybe field mice, which meant Thing One and Thing Two could eat us for breakfast whenever they felt like it.

  I glanced down at my T-shirt. Sure enough, there was a food stain, most likely spaghetti sauce. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed it this morning. Truth is, I’d been dressing Rosie and me in our least dirty dirty clothes since we got back from L.A. because the washing machine was still broken and Mom and I hadn’t had a chance to get to the Laundromat yet.