Ma da’s got bad feet. He says it’s cause when he was wee, his mother made him wear shoes that didnae fit him. She made him squash his feet intae shoes that used to be his brother’s, cause she couldnae afford to buy new wans fur the baith ae them. He’s got curly toes noo because ae it: thir aw twistit aroon on top ae each other lik the plaits ma ma pits in my hair. You can see aw the big blue veins in his feet like sumdy’s drew them on wae a felt tip pen. He canny bend his toes right an he has tae wear steel toe caps tae work in case anywan stauns on them.
Oor school’s gonnae be starting swimming lessons soon an ah cannae wait. Ah cannae swim yet. So ah asked ma da if he’d take me tae the baths tae let me practice. He said naw. Ah said, ‘How no?’ He says ‘cause ah cannae bloody swim that’s how no.’
Ah said, ‘Aye but yi don’t need tae be able tae swim to go in the pool.’ He didnae say much afterwards, he jist pointet at his toes and said, ‘if you wur me, would you want tae show aff feet lik that?’
The swimming baths was pish. They pit me doon the shalla end wi this pure midden ae a boy cawd Colin wae wan E that looks like he’s never had a bath in his life, and this lassie called Harpreet that wears a mad swimming cap cause it’s against her religion tae get her hair wet.
Ah got made to wear these big stupit yella airm bands. Aw the boys in my class laughed at me. Aw ma pals were up at the seven foot mark, daein lengths and dancin fur rubber hula hoops. Ah said tae ma da, ‘how’d yi no go see a shiropodist?’
‘A shi-ropodist?’ he said, ‘what would ah want wae a shiropodist?’
Ah said, ‘mibby he could help fix yir feet and then yi’d be able to take me swimmin.’
Ma da jist laughed at me, though. ‘A shiropodist?’ he said, ‘he’d take wan look at these feet, chop the bliddy things aff.’
Ah only says it to him cause, see my wee sister, she’d bad feet when she was a wean. She managed to get her feet fixed. This guy in the StartRite shoe shop. He fittet her wae the wrang size of shoe. She ended up wae her toes aw up and down like Gourock. It wis aw cause she had wee skinny ankles an big broad feet an he packed her toes into wee narra shoes. Ma ma knew something wisny right aboot they shoes cause fur a whole week after she bought them, my sister wouldnae stop gurning. She kept pullin the shoes aff and flinging them ootae the pram. We were coming back fae the Sunday school one morning. This guy chased after us cause he fun wan shoe at the top of Ard Road, the other wan halfway doon Vennacher.
When ma ma took the shoes aff that night ma wee sister’s feet were aw red raw and covered in blisters and her wee toes were aw twistin thegither lik a corkscrew.
Ma da took the shoes back to the shop the next day, and ah’ve never seen him that angry. Ah thought he was going to punch the guy’s lights oot. Ma wee sister was lucky that her bones hadnae set properly, and the shiropodist managed tae gie her these wee things for in between her toes: they wur lik braces made of plasticine stuff. They looked a wee bit like the jelly false teeth you used to get aff the ice cream van. The shiropodist was dead nice an made me a bouncy ball oot a plasticine stuff fur me to play wi when ah wis sitting in the waiting room.
Thir wis deep sea divers in the bath today. Ah swum half a breadth and ah stopped at the edge ae the pool tae watch them, they hud snorkels and oxygen tanks an everythin. Wan ae them had a pair ae green flippers, and she wis pittin them on when sumdy fae up the deep end, shoutet ‘heh, duck feet!’ And evrubdy else started laughing. Then Chris Rice fae ma Regi class shoutet at me, ‘heh, how’d yi no get a perra duck feet tae go wi yir wings?’ That wis whit gave me the idea.
BRIAN - Brilliant, I love that. Let’s have a round of applause.
Description
In this clip from BBC Authors Live, Ely Percy reads an extract from their novel, Duck Feet, in which Kirsty is learning to swim.
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