✅ A Dose of Humiliation

57. House Warming

We spent most of the day at Serena's house, and we never quite got over the size of the place. It wasn't that it was huge; from one side to the other probably wasn't that much bigger than my house. But there were more floors, especially once you considered that Marcie and Elspeth's new place was practically a whole apartment in its own right, tucked away in the basement. Even more so when you realised that the garden at the back was actually a courtyard; it was shared with the neighbours on both sides, but Serena's house actually continued on the far side.

This place was bigger than a family house ever needed to be. Bigger than I would have ever imagined a house in the city centre could be. And the more parts of the house we asked to see, the more we realised that there were rooms in odd places, sticking out into what we might have imagined led to next door.

We'd been there an hour before I felt the need to pee, and once it had started the pressure built up deceptively quickly. I told myself that this was the consequences of the shot Mrs Miller had given me, and that I would have to get used to it. After just a couple of minutes I excused myself and rushed to the bathroom. Everyone was quieter when I got back, and I guessed that some of my friends had been worrying about me. I didn't think it was too serious, though. I mean, it could be annoying at times, but I was pretty confident that I should be able to cope with it.

"Don't worry about me," I told them. "Seriously. This is a new nuisance, but it wouldn't mean anything if she hadn't waited until I was desperate before giving me the shot."

"You're braver than I am," Jodie answered, and a couple of nods indicated that everybody else agreed. I might have said more, but that was when I almost jumped out of my skin when I was startled by my phone. My parents were calling, and my burst of confidence faded a little when my thumb hovered over the screen. I knew I'd have to tell them sooner or later that I had a new problem to deal with, but I didn't want to deal with all that today.

"Parents?" Serena guessed, and I just nodded. I'd been so sure that I could take care of this by myself, and now I couldn't face telling my dad what had happened. "Put them on speaker. They can't be too bad when there's other people listening."

I thought about it for a second, and then nodded. I swiped across my phone screen, and handed the phone to Serena, who dropped it onto the dock on top of her hifi. There was a chime and her background music paused, and then Dad's voice came from the air, sounding like he was in the room with us.

"Lorna?" he asked. "Mrs Miller just–"

"Hi Dad," I said.
"Hi Mr Peen," Jodie joined in.
"Hi, Mr Peen," Serena and Elspeth joined in the chorus. And then Dad's voice went quiet.

"You got friends there with you?"

"Yeah. We're helping Elspeth move," I answered. "Do you need me back home sooner? Something you wanted?"

"You probably shouldn't take calls where your friends can listen," he said.

"Aren't you always telling me that it's rude to neglect people who are there in the real world just to talk to someone on the phone? Or is that different depending on which person is you?"

"Suit yourself," he snapped, and I could tell he thought that was some kind of win. He sounded mad, and maybe he thought that I wouldn't want my friends to know that. But now I was sure that they would be there to give me moral support.

"So, what's up?"

"Mrs Miller called. She said she was very disappointed with your behaviour, and she recommends that we need to impose some more restrictions on you when you get home. She also suggested that you should have a booster shot as soon as you get home, because apparently you left without properly accepting punishment for–"