Monkey Wrench by Liza Cody

matter, Eva – can’t you take a joke? That’s the trouble with you girls. No sense of humour.’
    I don’t forget and I won’t forget. Not about Gruff and Pete and their python. Nor about the mice. Nor about California Carl. Especially California Carl.
    On my way out I met Mr Deeds coming in.
    â€˜Oy! Where’s the fire?’ he said. ‘You could’ve knocked me over. Still, I’m glad you’re here. I want to talk to you about masks.’
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜Masks, Eva. What you put over your head when you don’t want anyone to see your face.’
    â€˜I know what a mask is. I ain’t pig ignorant.’
    â€˜Very popular,’ he said. ‘Kendo Nagasaki, the Rasputin Brothers. It’s the air of mystery. What I want to know, Eva, is have you ever seen a woman fight in a mask?’
    â€˜What woman?’
    â€˜No woman,’ Mr Deeds said. ‘Have you ever
seen
one? Only me and some of the boys were talking dinner time. And we reckoned a mask might suit
you
Eva.’
    â€˜What mask?’
    â€˜I don’t know,’ he said, sounding cross. Which made two of us. ‘I don’t know what mask. That’d be up to you. The Woman in the Iron Mask. Could be a splash, Eva. Think about it.’
    Some of the boys and Mr Deeds. Talking about me at dinner time. Masks.
    â€˜Where you going, Eva?’ Mr Deeds shouted. ‘I ain’t finished.’
    â€˜Dentist,’ I said. ‘I got toothache.’
    Mr Deeds is the guv’nor. He is Mr Money Bags. He pays me my purse. I can’t sit on his head and chop his legs off at the knees. I can’t stuff his head in a bag like he wants to stuff mine. And cut off his light and air.
    I’ve seen those masks, and I wouldn’t be caught dead in one. You can’t see proper. You can’t hear proper. You can’t breathe or talk.
    Wear a mask? I’d rather disembowel myself with a rusty spoon.
    One day, I’m going to be so freaky famous, no one, not Mr Deeds, not California Carl, not Gruff, not Pete,
no one
will have the nerve to piss me around.

Chapter 9
    I don’t like running. In fact, I despise running. Running don’t do nothing but hurt your knees and puff you out.
    The gym was enemy city that day. But I am a big girl and I need exercise, so I ran all the way from the gym back to Mandala Street. Which is most of two miles.
    I did not jog. Jogging is for recreationals. I ran. Get the difference? Good. Not many do.
    It was mizzling and cold enough to make your nose drip. I ran, but I didn’t enjoy it. It was turning out to be the sort of day I don’t enjoy.
    By the time I got to Mandala Street it seemed my whole life was like that – just one mega screw-up after another. Beginning with birth. If you don’t believe me, ask my ma. She’ll tell you. Why shouldn’t she tell you? She tells me often enough.
    My ma wishes I’d never been born. More than that, she wishes I’d never been got. She says she was sick for the whole nine months and when that was over I came out the wrong way round. The doctor had to haul me out by the feet. She says I ripped her from stem to stern and I’ve been nothing but trouble ever since.
    My ma has been ashamed of me since day one. She says no one at the hospital had ever seen such an ugly baby. She says my sister Simone cried when she took me home. She says Simone cried and asked for a pretty doll instead. I bet she’s lying. Simone’d never say a stupid thing like that. She’s a lying cow, my ma.
    She says she doesn’t know who my dad is. I used to want to know who he was when I was a kid but I don’t care any more. Why should I? But she should know. You don’t go round having daughters by any old bim you meet, do you? I bet she knows, and she’s lying as usual. Like she does about Simone. She just wants to keep us all apart.
    That’s the sort of thing you think