Norma Meek sure knows how to pack a bariffle of pre-teen troubles into 150 pages.
In Watching Out for Mummy, which the author wrote twelve years ago and is still her only novel, we meet 11-year-old Shawn Austin at a moment of transition: he’s about to swap life in Barbados for life in New Jersey in the United States, where his mum lives.
The author is not content with simply having him adjust to a new school where brown faces like his are no longer the majority, English is not the only tongue, and they play baseball instead of cricket. The poor lad is also struggling with the loss of his father, trying to keep the promise he made to him, all the while competing with the suave Dr Jordan for his mum’s attention. Meek throws bullying, fighting, self-defence, drugs, and gang violence into the mix. HIV/AIDS, literacy, schoolwork, family, friendships, and religious faith are in there as well. Through flashbacks and memories of home, she contrasts elements of Barbadian life, learning, culture, and natural environment with observations of America, and we even get their grade school system explained in simple terms!
In short, the novel is a dream tool for secondary school teachers of Health & Family Life Education (HFLE) and social studies.
It is tempting to speculate if this was not a calculated move on the author’s part to create a story that ticks as many coming-of-age issue boxes as possible, but Meek is storyteller first and foremost. She skillfully sets in motion the rollercoaster that becomes Shawn’s day-to-day life, seamlessly moving from one drama to the next; we believe it and come along willingly for the ride.
The author’s background in education is also revealed: the language is simple and straightforward enough not to scare off a reluctant young reader, yet the text is filled with enough vocabulary challenges and general knowledge to engage stronger and more inquiring readers. She also pitches the storytelling at just the right level to engage parents and children.
Descriptions, dialogue and dialects are handled well. Meek’s touch is light, humorous at times, but never cartoonish as she goes about animating her characters and differentiating between ethnicities. She is particularly successful in depicting her school bullies and the colourful yet shadowy figure of Pete, a much older teen. Here we get a close-up of Tank, the class bully, and his sidekick, as Shawn encounters them for the first time:
The fat boy came up to Shawn, followed by another boy and the one who had sniggered. Shawn saw that this last boy was small, even smaller than he was. He had a leer on his face, reminding Shawn of the nursery rhyme about a monkey and a weasel. He wasn’t sure what a weasel looked like, but he felt sure that it must look something like this boy.
“Hey, Squirt,” the fat boy said with his mouth full of candy. “Where’d you get that fancy car?” He turned to the weasel. “Go get me another candy—”
Shawn himself is instantly likeable, and I think this is partly because we get to know him well. We are let inside his head frequently, privy first-hand to both his clear and muddled thinking, the good and bad intentions that war inside him. We cheer him on in his shining moments, worry for him when things go horribly wrong; in short, we find ourselves “watching out” for him while he watches out for his mother.
If there is a weakness in the work, or simply a question mark looming over it, then it concerns the characterization of Shawn’s mother. When the novel opens, he is on his way to join her in America; it is three years after his father’s death, and he has not seen her in all this time.
She’s a nurse, a good, hard-working, single mother who loves her son but is also trying to rebuild and get on with her life. As a reader, I wanted to take her aside and whisper to her, Spend more time alone with your son; talk to him. But Meek denies her (and us) the option. There is a plausible explanation toward the end, but the mother’s strategy does not seem fully realistic and results in all kinds of fallout. And again, you can hear the HFLE teachers quizzing their students: What would you have done differently if you were Shawn’s mum? Or Shawn himself?
But that is a small quibble. If ever there was a book not to judge by its unassuming cover, this is it: a neat, compact novel for 10-to-14-year-olds, with short, manageable chapters and simple but charming illustrations. ̛The action zips along satisfyingly, touching all the right nerves and tugging at strings, often unexpectedly and right up to the last page.
Meek is better known to Barbadian audiences as a poet and author of humorous, dialect-driven writing for children and teens. Her poetry has strong narrative overtones, and this lonely, self-published debut reflects her skill; showing she can spin a novel-length yarn with characters to think and care about.
She should not stop. It would be cool to drop in again, perhaps on a slightly older Shawn, just to see how he’s getting on.
