PART ONE – MAGGIE

“Hey! Mag! Have you heard this one?”

Beth is reading a list of dentist-themed memes that she found on Buzzfeed. Harry is laughing at them. I currently hate both of them and would like to murder them. I could maybe use the drill my boss does fillings with.

“Probably not.”

So, of course, she reads it to me. “Dentist: Open up! Patient: Well, it all started when my dad left.”

She giggles and Harry guffaws, his freckled seven-year-old face bursting with a joy I would normally find adorable but that I currently resent. I consider pretending she needs a tooth pulling and not using anaesthetic. “Beth, I’m trying to do some paperwork here.”

“Oh, of course. I’m so sorry, Mrs Imperial-College-Scholarship.”

It’s not fair. She says it like I’ve been showing off about the scholarship – I haven’t. Having a kid at seventeen was never going to be easy, not to mention having Beth dumped on me by our useless parents two years later, and I’ve worked my a** off over to get where I am. It’s starting to look like I might soon have a job for the first time in my life. Even if that is the most reviled job ever.

A dentist. I’m training to be a dentist.

I guess she can see I’m upset because she softens a little. “What time do you need to be there?”
“Half an hour.”

“... Past?”

“Past now, you idiot. Which means I should probably be leaving, but... ” I stare back at my laptop screen, a mostly-empty Excel spreadsheet dominating it. Secretarial work has nothing to do with my course, and I’m supposed to be doing practical elements this term, anyway, but the boss I have for my work experience, Daniel, is an absolute b****. He says he’ll give me extra credit if I fill in for his PA when she’s taking yet another week’s paid leave. He doesn’t say what will happen if I don’t.

Beth appears to be sharing my doubts. “What is that, anyway?” She puts down her phone and shoos Harry out of the living room.

“Nothing.” One perfect eyebrow arches. “Okay, not nothing. Extra credit work.”

“Go to work, you nerd.”

“But I need the – ”

“Tell your boss your little sister will sleep with him, he’ll definitely give you extra credit for that.” Before I can protest she’s tugging my chair out from under me, her quick fingers logging out of my account. I can hear Harry pounding on the door. Beth’s right. (Not about the prostitution though. I don’t agree with that.)
I’m slipping out through the front door, coat buttoned up wrong and handbag unzipped, when I remember it’s a Saturday. No school.

“You alright looking after Harry, Beth?”

“Course I am! Now leave!”

Fair enough. Not like she pays any bills anyway.

*

I’m sitting on the tube with my laptop on my knees, headphones in but no music playing. More ‘extra credit’ work. The sort of work I swore I’d never do.

I don’t get paid for my work experience, which I suppose is fair – most people on this course are paying. We get by on child support, unemployment benefits and, in theory, Beth’s ‘wages’. I say in theory because Beth doesn’t have a job. She works odd shifts at random bars every now and again, but she spends most of the time she’s not looking after Harry out drinking with her mates. I know she brought a guy home once, when Harry was asleep. I broke a plate over that.

“Hey.”

I can hear the guy fine as it is, but I pull my headphones out anyway. “Hi.”

“What are you up to then?”

“... Work.”

“Yeah, I can see that.” His grin is not unpleasant. He’s cute, in a large duffel coat and a rather incongruous patterned bow tie. I don’t stop to consider whether or not he’s my type; that’s irrelevant. I haven’t had sex in nearly eight years. I don’t intend to start anytime soon. “What kind of work?”

“Oh – nothing really.” I close the laptop firmly and flick my eyes upwards as I feel the train slowing. Please be my stop, please be my stop... “Extra credit. For my course.”

“What are you studying?”

“I’m training to be a dentist.”

“Good with tools then?”

For a moment I hold out the faint hope that he might not mean what I think he means. When I finally bring myself to look at him, though, I can tell that this is in vain. So much for ‘nice guys’. He smirks a little – or tries to smirk. The attempt is somewhat disturbing.

“Look,” I tell him, as calmly as I can, “I don’t really feel that’s an appropriate question. Besides, I have a – ” S***. I can’t tell him I have a son. I may not like him, but I don’t want him to think I’m some trashy freak. “ – a boyfriend.”

Somehow, the guy has managed to convince himself that this merits personal offence. He gets to his feet. “Whatever. I didn’t like you anyway.”

IhatemenIhatemenIhatemen.

“I didn’t like you either,” I tell him. And then I smack him in the face.

*
“You can’t just hit people, Maggie.” I’m sitting on the lid of the loo, going through emails on my phone – I don’t trust Beth to bath Harry on her own – and my annoying little sister is kneeling in front of the bathtub, swishing her hands in the hot, bubbly water. She seems to find the whole affair very funny. I don’t. I nearly lost my Oyster card over it. I was so worried, and I wasn’t sure if what he’d said qualified as sexual harassment, so I told them he felt me up, too.

I know it’s wrong to lie. But I need that card, or I can’t get to my course. And I need this course, or firstly, I can’t get my job. I can’t get the money I need to look after my sister and raise my son.

And secondly? More importantly? If I don’t finish this course, then I can’t prove to the world that I am not what they think I am. Not just some stupid slut with her ten fatherless kiddies and her nicotine patch. With her unemployment benefits.

“I’ll hit you if you don’t shut up,” I tell her, and I mean it. She giggles.

“You love me really.”

Sometimes.

“Um, excusely,” says Harry, who knows ‘excusely’ is not a word but says it anyway, “I want my bath now.” He’s standing naked, feet square on the bathroom floor, teeth pressed together in a mock-snarl so that each perfect one is visible. They’re all tiny and pearly white. The latter is because his mother is a training dentist; the former is because he still has all of his milk teeth. At seven, it’s not too uncommon, but I’m expecting him to start losing them soon. Not that they aren’t pretty.

“Yes, and you can have it.” Beth gets to her feet, grabs him around the waist, and plops him into the tub. She might be irresponsible but I can’t pretend she isn’t good with him.

Better than I am.

Sometimes I wish he was hers. Her baby, and I could leave him with her guilt free and be whatever I liked. I wouldn’t have had to leave school so early. I wouldn’t have had to wait before going back to uni. And best of all, I wouldn’t have had to live with Beth and Harry.

Whom I love. Don’t get me wrong.

But still.

*

I will gouge Daniel’s eyes out if he doesn’t stop doing this.

The point of my work experience is for me to observe him. To learn, well, how to be a dentist. You know? But any time he’s got an important appointment, I’ve conveniently got some ‘extra credit’ work to do. I’m starting to think he’s doing it on purpose.

He’s got this big drawer of silver dentist’s tools in his surgery, Daniel has. I know each one by name and number. I’m sure there are a few that’d work for eye-gouging.

I come back into the surgery and he’s just taken out a tooth. The patient has left. I’m seething – trying to hide it, but I don’t think it’s working. Usually, the patients choose to take their teeth with them. This one hasn’t. I don’t know why. It’s a pretty one. Looks nearly healthy.

“Stick that in the bin,” he says, seeing me staring at it. “Give me five minutes, I’ve got to see Kerry.”

Kerry is his PA – the one whose work I always end up doing, whilst she gets infinite leave and numerous undeserved ‘tips’. I’m almost sure they’re sleeping together.

He slips out of the door and I continue staring at the tooth. I can’t put it in the bin, it’s far too pretty...
I slip it into my pocket. Maybe I’ll start a collection.

PART TWO – HARRY

“I live with my mum and my dad and my little sister.”

“I live with my mummy, but I stay with my daddy on the weekends.”

“I live with my daddy and my mummy and my granny and my brothers. I’ve got four.”

“I live with my dadda and my poppa.”

“I live with my – ”

Not sure what to say because everyone’s said my and I don’t have any ‘my’s in my house. I’ve just got Beth and Maggie.

“I live with my mummy and my daddy.”

That’s what I say in the end, because that’s what most of the others said. Oh well.

Later on, we have to say what jobs our mummies and daddies do.

“My daddy is a C – E – O and my mummy looks after me and my sister.”

“My mummy works in a bank and my daddy works at Tesco.”

“My daddy is a lawyer and my mummy is a teacher. My granny just sleeps all day.”

“My dadda’s not got a job but my poppa’s a vet.”

It’s got a pattern again. Some of them are mixed up, but mostly the daddies work and the mummies do the looking after, so I tell them my mummy looks after me and my daddy’s a dentist. Everyone goes ew; no-one likes dentists. “Dentists are cursed,” says Jack Hardman.

Miss Price tries to cheer me up (even though I don’t need cheering.) “What’s your daddy’s name, Harry? Maybe he’s my dentist.”

I don’t think Maggie is Miss Price’s dentist. She’s not anyone’s dentist, she’s still learning. Doesn’t matter anyway ‘cause Maggie’s not a daddy in the first place, daddies have to be boys and Maggie’s a girl. Sometimes Beth calls her my mummy but I don’t think that’s right. Maybe Beth’s my mummy.

“Mr Maggie,” I say, and then I remember that if he’s my daddy his surname’s got to be the same as mine, so I just say the first thing that comes in my head. “He’s dead now anyway.”

I’m trying to make it better but I don’t think it works because Miss Price goes very white and some people giggle.

“See! Dentists are cursed!” shouts Jack Hardman. The giggling gets louder.

I giggle a bit, too.

*

“... but I don’t have any mummy or daddy so I just pretended, and I said I had a daddy who was dead but when he was alive he had a job, and a mummy who was still alive but didn’t ever have a job. I called her Beth, because that’s your name.”

“That’s nice,” says Beth. She’s brushing her eyelashes. I don’t know why. “But you do have a mummy, Harry. Maggie’s your mummy.”

“I don’t think that’s right,” I tell her. She laughs. I don’t know why she does that, either.

“Oh, well, that’ll show me.” She’s stopped brushing her eyelashes and now she’s brushing her teeth. She sees me staring at her and rolls her eyes. “You’ve got to brush your teeth too, Harry, or Maggie will pull them all out.” I shriek and run for the toothbrush.

It’s cold and quiet in our bathroom at the moment. We had Britney Spears on while I was having my bath, but not anymore. Maggie’s come home and she and Beth had a right row. Beth said I liked it and she liked it, so why couldn’t we have it on? Maggie said she had to work. Said she needed it to be quiet. She had to work, because one day, that work’s going to get her money.

Work work work money money money. Those are the words that are ringing in the air every time they fight. Beth says Maggie’s going crazy, like Britney-Spears level crazy. And it’s all because of work work work money money money.

We go to my room and Beth’s got this little smile. “Look under your pillow,” she says, so I do. There’s new pyjamas! With cats on! I’ve not had new pyjamas in ages. Beth sees me grinning and she grins right back. “They’re a present. Don’t tell Maggie.”

I’m about to ask if she won’t see them when she comes and checks on me. Then I remember Maggie’s got work to do. She can’t come and check on me.

Oh well.

*

It’s eleven ‘o’ clock. Or I think it is. The long thin hand and the little fat hand are both sitting right in front of the eleven, so it must be.

I can’t go to sleep because Maggie and Beth are fighting. I can only hear bits of it, because they’re shouting, talking really fast, but still. They’re loud.

“You thought I wouldn’t find the receipt?”

“It’s a treat for him, you don’t have to be a b**** about it.”

“I work my a** off... ”

“Just because you slutted around in high school... ”

Bang smash crash, bang smash crash, work money work, bang smash crash.

I get more and more tired and my ears go to sleep, nearly. I hear less and less... I thought Maggie and Beth would have gone to bed by eleven. I’ve never been up this late before.

“You act like you’ve got a f***ing stick up your... ”

“I don’t know why you think you can...”

Bang bang smash bang money money work. Now they’re talking about a man called Bill. Is that my daddy? Lots of men called Bill. Maybe I’ve got lots of daddies.

“Maybe if you picked up a proper job instead of... ”

“Just because I want to better myself... ”

“But it’s not paying now, is it, Maggie? Not paying your precious f***ing bills.”

I think maybe I’ll ask Beth if Bill’s my daddy, but by the morning I’ve forgotten.

*

Today Maggie is not going to work because the door key is lost and we are locked inside. Maggie thinks Beth’s hidden it so she can’t go to work. She won’t eat breakfast. She’s standing next to the door crying. Beth’s eating her breakfast, which is strawberry yoghurt, all pink, like her eyes.

“If we can’t get out of the door does that mean I don’t have to go to school?”

“It’s the holidays, Harry.”

I can still hear Maggie crying. Every now and then she stamps her foot like Jack Hardiman’s little sister does. Jack Hardman’s little sister is three, so she’s too young to know better. But Maggie’s a grown up. She oughtn’t to be stamping.

“I’ve got a wobbly tooth,” I tell Beth. I don’t, but I don’t like everything being quiet and it’s the first thing I could think of to say. Beth does this big smile like she’s super excited but I don’t think she is.

“That’s great! Wobble it for me.”

I hold my front tooth and pull it a bit. It hurts a bit, but it doesn’t move. Beth raises her eyebrows.

“I don’t think that is wobbly. But maybe it will be soon.”

I keep mucking up at the moment. Maggie always says you get silly if you stay up late. So it’s Maggie’s and Beth’s fault I’m mucking up. For keeping me up past eleven.

It’s nearly time for lunch when Maggie finally finds the key (under her pillow, like Beth kept saying it would be) and goes to work. While she’s out Beth gives me a bath, which is wrong, because I’m supposed to have my bath in the evening. Maybe she’s got silly from staying up late too.

After she gives me a bath she leaves and she doesn’t tell me why, but she puts a big plastic box of sandwiches next to the microwave for me, so I eat those. I watch TV for a couple hours and then I put on my new cat pyjamas and get into bed, even though it’s only five o clock. (I think.)

Maggie gets back before Beth. I can hear her crying from downstairs. I can hear smash bang crash too. She comes up to check on me in a bit, but she doesn’t really pay attention to me.

“I can’t believe her,” she keeps muttering. “I’m going to kill her. I’m going to slit her throat.”

(She isn’t really.)

“My tooth is wobbly,” I tell her, trying to get her attention, and it works. I jab the one I tried to wobble earlier. Maggie leans over and pulls on it.

“That’s not wobbly.” She looks really sad and I feel guilty for lying.

“Can you pull it out anyway? With one of your dentist tools?” For a moment I think she’s going to say yes.
“One day.” Her voice is very low and her whole face is silver in the shiny light that’s coming through the window. It’s probably half six by now and since it’s winter the moon’s already out. “One day."

“Not really though.” I’ve changed my mind because Maggie’s scaring me a bit.

She starts pressing all along my line of teeth – and then it happens. One of them gives a little. She grins and leans back. “That one is. That one’s wobbly.”

“And it’ll come out soon?”

“That’s right.” Oh, she’s looking so much happier now, and I’m happy too. I’m so proud of myself for getting my first wobbly tooth. “I won’t slit Beth’s throat really,” she assures me, which is nice. She gets up and closes the curtain. “Night night.”

I get to sleep pretty quickly once she’s gone, playing with my wobbly tooth till it starts to ache and my hand drops dead on the pillow beside me. I sleep, and I don’t think I dream.

But Beth gets back at two am, and after that, I’m awake all night.

PART THREE – BETH

I can hardly think ‘cause I’ve got a banging f***ing headache, Maggie’s shouting in my ear and Harry’s just lying on the floor crying. I haven’t slept. I know I shouldn’t have gone out but I needed to get out of that house. I hate it here. Harry’s a nice kid but it’s not fair, the way this is. And now Maggie’s gone batshit on me on top of everything.

Once you get drunk enough you forget s***, like, you’ve got a kid waiting for you back home, your sister’s going to kill you, you have to go back. You forget all of that. And it’s nice.

Maggie has been shouting for about four hours. Not straight, but she might as well have been. Soon as I got back she was waiting for me, and I felt so guilty and awful, I just wanted to give in. But I couldn’t bring myself to apologize I just argued right back, trying to defend myself. Couple times I thought she was going to smack me one or something. I kept trying to get past her, to go to bed, but she wasn’t having that, was she?
Eventually, she dragged me to the dining table, and she said, in this weird f***ing voice, “You’d better have dinner.” And she made me sit there for like an hour, maybe more, while she made this complicated stew thing, and sat there watching while I ate it. It must have been four in the morning or some s*** and the dinner tasted f***ing awful. She made me eat the whole thing.

I tried to go to bed again then but she made me stand in the bathroom and brush my teeth for about ten minutes. She was all red and snivelly, half crying, crazy. I mean, I know it’s totally awful to go out and leave a seven-year-old kid by himself and stuff. I know that. But still.

Harry came down while we were brushing our teeth and he was crying too. Maggie started shouting again, telling him to go to bed. I said I want to go to bed ‘cause you know, at that point I had my hangover coming on. But no. Maggie says, "It’s time for breakfast."

So here we are playing out this stupid farce. Harry’s curled up crying on the lino. I’m sitting at the breakfast table eating my yoghurt, feeling like I’ve got a f***ing death metal band playing in my head. And Maggie’s just standing there, eerily quiet. If I stop eating or try to get up, she shouts. So I stay here. Eating my f***ing strawberry yoghurt, one spoonful at a time.

*

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Maggie’s come home from work grey-faced. She’s holding this little plastic bag in her two hands, full of something, but I can’t see what. Pebbles? God, she’s loony. Anyway. She keeps apologizing. Harry’s stood next to me, his little hand in mine. Feels like us against her. But he’s her son.

“It was my fault.”

And it was.

She says it’s okay, that I was stupid but that she overreacted, and Harry gets us to hug. He does it by pointing and shoving ever so gently, not saying a word. He hasn’t spoken since he woke me up (I had a well-deserved nap which took pretty much all day) and he’s made it pretty clear he’s not going to.

Maggie doesn’t say anything about Harry being all quiet, but she’s in a funny mood. Oh well. She never listens to him anyway so maybe she hasn’t noticed.

“Do you want a rest or something?” She nods very slowly. As she’s going up the stairs I shout after her – “Did you buy painkillers like I asked you to? Harry’s got a sore tummy.” He doesn’t, or if he does he hasn’t said anything, but I don’t want to remind Maggie about my hangover.

“We can’t spend any money,” she says, and she says it very seriously. “We mustn’t. None at all.”

And up she goes to bed.

I put a pizza in for Harry and me – Maggie hasn’t been eating much lately – but when it’s served he won’t eat it. I’m getting pissed at him, starting to think of going out again because I can’t deal with his s***, when he opens his mouth and shows me why.

One tooth missing.

He opens his hand, too, and there it is. Clean and white and sparkling.

“Your tooth fell out!” Stating the obvious much, Beth? But I’m excited. I’ve got to be. For him. “You can still eat, you know. You’ve got to put it under your pillow tonight though. For the tooth fairy.”
“What’s the tooth fairy do?”

“Takes your money and gives you your teeth.”

It’s Maggie speaking, from the doorway. I didn’t hear her coming down the stairs... Still grey-faced. She looks really f***ing skinny in her dressing gown and white nightie. I think at first she must be joking, but then I remember that Maggie doesn’t joke. She just misspoke.

“She means – takes your teeth and gives you your money.”

Harry doesn’t care, he’s playing with his tooth. “Alright,” he says, after a bit. “So I can buy the new Transformer maybe. Will another one be wobbly soon?”

Transformers are twenty pounds, but we can’t afford that. I’ll just get him it for his birthday. Still. He’ll be happy enough to find a quid under his pillow.

Later that night Maggie and I row again. She thinks even a quid’s too much. Says maybe a penny. Or maybe nothing. “We can’t spend any money,” she tells me, again and again, her voice and face urgent. “We can’t spend any money at all.”

“He’s got to have something from the tooth fairy.”

It’s not like our other fights – not loud and screaming. Maggie’s sitting very still in her chair with a mug of coffee next to her. She takes ages to speak. Sometimes it’s up to five minutes before she’ll reply to me. I don’t go to bed though. Maggie’s been scaring me recently.

Eventually, she falls asleep. I take a pound from her handbag and put it under Harry’s pillow. My little act of defiance. Maybe I’ll buy him a Transformer too.

*

Harry wakes up at five, all excited. He asks me if a pound is enough to buy the Transformer. I tell him no, of course, but he looks so disappointed I decide he can have it anyway.

I take a big glass jar out of the cupboard and stick it on the kitchen surface. “This is called the Harry jar,” I tell him, “and we’re allowed to spend this money, and Maggie can’t tell us not to. And we’re going to spend it all on nice things, okay?”

He looks very excited. I put nineteen pounds in the jar and the look on Harry’s face when he realizes that nineteen add one equals Transformer is almost great enough to make me forget that in an hour or so, Maggie’s going to wake up. And she’s not going to be happy.

God, I need a drink.

“Can we go to Toys-R-Us now then?”

“We’ll go tomorrow. It’s not open on Sundays.” And Maggie doesn’t do her work experience on Sundays, either, so she can look after Harry and I can go out. I’m slicking on lipstick with one hand, writing a note to Mag with the other. If I can get out before she wakes up I might just be safe. And she wouldn’t do anything to Harry.
Not that she’d do anything to me.

I turn the TV on for Harry and pull my coat over my shoulders. It’s not that I don’t feel guilty for leaving the kid on his own again, but he’s got his mum at home with him anyway, and I really can’t deal with the b**** right now.

I go round my mate Jade’s and spend the day there. Later, we go out drinking. I make sure I’m back by midnight though – like Cinderella or some s***. Just in case... just in case something happens.

Maggie’s waiting up for me.

“Have you been working?”

No. “Yes.”

“That’s a lie. I called Jade.”

“Could you sound a little less like my mother?” From what I can tell, Harry’s in bed. I’m not needed here. I’m just reaching to open the door and leave again when Maggie grabs my wrist and pulls me backwards. She’s stronger than I expected, and her nails leave scratch marks. “Ouch!”

She locks the door and turns around. Her face isn’t grey anymore, it’s white. “He told me about the jar. I can’t believe you.”

“It’s just something nice for him.”

“I don’t care.” Her voice is far, far too level. I don’t know why I’m scared. “Go to bed.”

I move a step closer to her. “You’re alright,” I tell her – I mean it to be a question but it doesn’t come out that way. More like I’m trying to convince her, or maybe trying to convince myself. She doesn’t reply, just stands there, arms folded, eyes red. She’s been crying again.

“You won’t go out like that again.”

You can’t tell me what to do.

“I won’t.”

*

“Beth?”

He’s by the side of my bed, smiling like a little cherub. I grin right back at him. I’ve almost forgotten about Maggie and what a weirdo she’s been. Today is Transformer day. “Hey there, Harry.”

He doesn’t reply again but he grabs my hand and we practically skip down the hall together like little kids in a f***ing nursery rhyme. Into the kitchen, up to the counters. It’s not there, and for a second I’m worried, but Harry isn’t. “I put it in the cabinet. To keep it safe.” And he busies himself opening the cabinet door, that perfect smile still plastered across his cheeks.

I’m looking in the fridge, seeing if there’s anything good to eat or maybe a beer to crack open. I can hear the cabinet open – can hear him lift the jar out – can hear... a tiny scream.

“Harry? Harry, what’s wrong?”

He turns to me, and I almost shriek, too.

The jar is filled to the brim with teeth.