“Will my room still smell the same?”

I am using my ‘polite-inside-voice’.

No one is listening to me. No one will answer my question.

I will just have to try again, louder. “Will my room still smell the same?”

But everyone is talking at the same time. Their stupid voices are all rolly-pollying themselves around the table and NO ONE is listening to me. Big Liz is asking if her room will still have pink, frilly curtains. Because Big Liz has a squeaky, squealy voice mummy answers her question. (Daddy always says Big Liz’s voice makes his ears bleed when she talks too much and then he asks her to turn it a few DB’s to the negative. That means to be quiet.)

“Yes, of course dear. We can bring your curtains with us!” Mummy sounds very pleased. She smiles like a pumpkin.

Smoke starts to come out of Big Liz’s ears. Her face is turning into one of those purple Ribena berries that dance on the telly ad. She stamps her feet like a Bront-ee-saw-us and she yells “WELL I DON’T WANT PINK, FRILLY CURTAINS ANY MORE!!”

Mummy is frowning a bit now. Her face is a lemon. Daddy has his hands over his ears. His eyes are droopy like Turtle’s.

(Oh, Turtle is our puppy. He is a black and white and brown Basset Hound with VERY floppy ears.)

Maybe it’s my turn now?

Maybe if I yell like Big Liz?

“WILL MY ROOM STILL SMELL THE SAME?”

But my yelling comes out not like yelling. My yelling comes out like whispering.

Why does it do that? Why does my mouth get all sandy?

Stupid Big Liz is crying now. Snot bubbles the size of balloons are growing out of her face. I think I might try to find a pin so I can burst one and then it can go SPLAT on her face.

Karl is telling her to grow up. That’s because Karl is a grown up. Karl is almost as tall as daddy and he can drive a car and he can SLAM DUNK. So he is a grown up.

Daddy is telling everyone to calm down. He flaps his arms like a chicken. Mummy is getting out ice cream, to stop Big Liz from crying. It’s the super creamy kind with the swirly caramel and eating it makes you fly.

But I don’t want any because STILL no one has answered my question and now I am MAD.

I climb down from my chair and I sneak like a spider from the kitchen. I go into my room and climb up onto my bed and I put my dirty feet under the covers and I touch my Transformers quilt and I tug on my Spiderman curtains and I lie very, very still.

I smell my room.

It smells like red cordial and it smells like playdough and it smells like the ginger biscuits that I steal from the pantry sometimes and eat under the covers and that is called being STEALTHY.

So how can my new room still smell like all these things at once?

It can’t.

It can’t, it can’t and it WON’T.

My eyes start to feel a little bit itchy and they’re sort of stinging but I am NOT crying.

I don’t really notice the door open or even the footsteps until she is sitting on the bed next to me and running her fingers through my hair and spiking it up and then ruffling it back down.

Then Mummy hugs me and whispers “We can make  it smell like your room.”