by John Newman
In he charged like a mad bull, and he was about to grab Ms. Addle when Ms. Print held up her hand and said, “Just open the back door of the car and I’ll help Aggie out.”
We watched as Ms. Addle slowly slid into the car, helped by Ms. Print. Mr. Masters held the door and jiggled his keys, and Mr. Rogers said, “Give them a cheer” as the car pulled away.
“You go, girl!” shouted Orla out of the window, and everybody cheered. Ms. Addle waved bravely as they drove off.
So you see I was right to go to school today after all.
But it wasn’t all good. Mrs. Lemon did not give me any free sweets today when I dropped in. She just took my money for the Spiff bar and looked sadly at me and said nothing.
Sally didn’t come straight home so I read her diary. I had to find out whether she knows it was me. But I’m still not sure if she is sure or if she is just pretending she knows so I will fall into her trap and give myself away. No fear of that — I was extra careful to put the diary back exactly as I found it and to straighten her bed so it was just as smooth as Aunt B. had left it. This is what she wrote yesterday:
151 days.
Hi spy, hoping to read something good today? Hoping to stick your nosy-parker nose into some juicy secret? Sorry to disappoint you, but I won’t be telling any more secrets until I have hunted you down and dealt with you as you deserve! No mercy for sneaky spies.
I can tell you I didn’t like the sound of that.
I wish that I had hair as black as Mimi’s. Black is the only color I want in my life. I love going to Aunt B.’s and chatting with Emmett. Aunt B. is so cool — always stern, no nonsense. I’m going to be like Aunt B. when I grow up, and everyone will be scared of me. Nobody will dare to spy on my diary.
I’m so angry now, and I’m really afraid that I’ll be caught if I don’t stop but I just can’t stop. Nobody would like me if they knew. I wish Dad cared. Why didn’t Mammy take more care on the bike? I hate my life. Good-bye, spy.
When I had put away the diary super-carefully I brushed my hair in front of Sally’s mirror. Sally loves my long, straight black hair. Black as black. But I hate it. I wish I had blond hair like Sally’s (her hair is blond under the black dye). And I wish that I hadn’t gotten slanty eyes — but Orla says she would love to have eyes like mine.
Wouldn’t it be cool if people could swap body parts? I’ll swap you my nose for your ears — or my sticky-out belly button for your sticky-in one?
I decided there and then never to read Sally’s boring diary ever again. What’s she afraid of, anyway? And why is she always angry? I hate black!
I really wanted to tell somebody about Ms. Addle and her contraptions, but Dad was just sitting looking blankly at the television. I bet if I switched it off he wouldn’t even notice. So I rang Granny — and boy, was she interested!
She asked me heaps of questions and made me repeat the bit about Mr. Masters getting all panicky, and then she made me tell the whole story over again to Grandad. In the end I was about two hours on the phone but it was really good to talk.
“Did you tell all that to your daddy, Mimi?” asked Granny in the end. I told her no, that he wasn’t in the mood, and she said to put him on the phone, so I handed the phone to Dad and told him Granny wanted to speak to him.
Dad sighed really loudly and took the phone. Even then I could still hear Granny giving it to Dad in a very loud, cross voice. Dad just kept saying, “Yes.” “Yes.” “I know.” “I will.” “I will.”
When he put down the phone, he sighed again and pulled me over to him and I sat on his knee.
“So you had an exciting day in school today, did you? Well, I want to hear all about it.”
When I had finished telling Dad the whole story, he laughed, and that was the first time I have heard him laugh since Mammy died. Then he gave me a big hug and told me to run along to bed.
Weekends have become so long and so boring since Mammy died. We never do anything anymore. When Mammy was alive we always had family fun on the weekend. We used to go swimming on Saturdays — not anymore. If it was nice on Sundays we went for a hike, Daddy and Mammy and Conor and Sally and Sparkler and me. Actually I never really liked the hikes, but the funny thing is I really miss them now. All we ever do in our house now is watch television and fight and listen to very loud music while Conor goes crazy on the drums.
But this Sunday is going to be different.
Aunt L. and Uncle Boris and wee Billy have come all the way from Belfast to Granny’s house for the weekend to celebrate wee Billy’s first birthday, and all my aunts and their husbands and my cousins will be there for a big knees-up, says Granny (whatever a “knees-up” is).
We almost didn’t go because Dad said he didn’t feel ready for a party quite yet, but first Granny and then Aunt L. got on the phone to him and told him what for! “You owe it to those poor children to put a brave face on things and start living again,” I heard Granny say. I heard her say that because I listened in very quietly on the upstairs phone. Do you know what? I think I would be a good spy.
So now we are all in the car and on our way. Dad is still not too happy about it — he keeps sighing — but Sally and I are delighted. Sally keeps saying she can’t wait to see “wee Billy” in her best Belfast accent. Conor pretends he doesn’t care, but I know he’s hoping that Nicholas will take him on his motorbike if Granny doesn’t have a holy fit about it. I’m holding the big fire engine that Sally and I bought this morning for wee Billy.
We are the last to arrive. Every inch of the kitchen table is covered with cakes.
“Your granny has been baking all week,” Grandad whispers loudly to me, “and that’s only about half of the cakes she has baked, but she’s eaten all the rest herself. No wonder she’s so fat!” And he winks at me.
“I heard that, old man!” calls Granny from the hall.
Uncle Boris grabs me from behind and swings me right up into the air. “How’s my wee lass?” he roars. Granny says that Uncle Boris does not know how to talk — only how to shout.
In the living room, Aunt L. is having a very serious talk with Daddy. Sally is holding wee Billy, and he is trying to pull her nose off. Sally is different when she is with babies; she forgets to be cool and serious. I wish Sally was always like that, laughing and giggling.
Conor and Emmett are out looking at Nicholas’s motorbike, and Aunt M. is talking to Aunt B. about her favorite subject — weddings! Uncle Horace and Uncle Boris are talking about money. I go and look for Emma — but she finds me first.
“Hi, Dig. Still having trouble with those windy bottoms, lovey?”
“No, dear. I’m much better now, thank you. Except for my big toe,” I tell her.
“Oh dearie, dearie me, that sounds bad. You’d better show it to me.”
So I sit on the floor and pull off my shoe and sock. My big toe is shiny blue — I colored it with a fluorescent blue marker before I came. “It got stuck in the tap when I was having a bath. What will I do, Dag?”
“Do you always stick your big toe up the tap when you have a bath, Dig?” asks Emma.
“Of course.”
“So do I. But this looks bad, Dig. Will I chop it off, lovey?”
“If you must, dear. Will it hurt, Dag?” I ask as Emma pulls a big plastic ax from wee Billy’s toy bag.
“It will hurt a little. Be brave, Dig.” And she starts chopping and I start yelling. Wee Billy hears the racket and wiggles out of Sally’s arms and totters over to us. Then he falls on top of me and tries to eat my toe. Sally runs over and grabs him and she falls on top of Emma and me and soon we are all rolling on the floor, giggling and laughing, and wee Billy thinks it’s a great game.
When we stop all tired out from laughing and wrestling, I notice that all the adults have stopped talking and are watching us and smiling, and Aunt L. has her arm around Daddy’s shoulder and I don’t know if he is smiling or crying. I think that he is doing both.
Then Aunt B. claps her hands and tells everybody
to come and eat, chop-chop.
When wee Billy had blown out his candle five or six times (Grandad kept on relighting it and all the children helped wee Billy with the blowing), and everybody had sung “Happy Birthday to You” about five times, and wee Billy had put both his hands in the icing and wiped it all over Sally’s face, Aunt B. made her announcement. “I have got a morning-only job in Besco supermarket, in the meat department,” she said.
“Chop-chop!” shouted Emmett, who had been finishing off everybody’s wine when they weren’t looking and whose eyes looked all glassy. If Aunt B. found out she would kill him.
Then Aunt B. looked at me, then at Sally, and then at Conor and said, “Which means I won’t be able to come over to your house in the mornings anymore to put manners on the place.”
“Chop-chop!” shouted Emmett again, and Aunt B. gave him one of her looks.
“A toast to Betty the butcher!” called out Uncle Boris, lifting his glass of wine, which distracted Aunt B. and saved Emmett.
“Chop-chop!” shouted everyone, and lifted whatever glass they were holding, and then wee Billy said his very first words: “Chop-chop!” And everybody clapped and laughed.
As we were driving home I asked Sally if she would wash our clothes now because she was the oldest girl, and she thumped me on the arm.
“Yeah, that’s right, Mimi, Sally will have to wash our clothes now,” said Conor from the front seat, just teasing.
“I hate you, Conor,” snarled Sally. “I hate you both!”
“Take a joke, Sally!” Conor snapped back, but Sally would not take a joke. She just sat there with her arms folded and her lips thin and stared out of the window.
Nobody spoke after that. Dad just drove the car.
Monday is Granny’s day. It is usually a good day, but this Monday was a bad day.
First Bad Thing: I woke up dead late and I couldn’t find my shoes for ages — but they were behind the sofa where I kicked them off last night, so that was OK.
Second Bad Thing: There was no milk in the house and I had to eat my cornflakes with water on them. Ugh!
Third Bad Thing: The car ran out of gas on the way to school, and Sally and I had to walk the rest of the way. Sally was raging. “This is so embarrassing!” she shouted at Dad. “You don’t care about us at all, do you?” And then she slammed the car door shut and stormed off without waiting for me.
“Sorry,” muttered Dad, looking totally fed up.
Fourth Bad Thing: My new teacher is horrible. Her name is Ms. Hardy, and she is the total opposite of Ms. Addle. By the way, Ms. Addle had a baby boy, Roger, and she sent us all her love. Archibald (that’s what everyone calls Mr. Masters now, behind his back) came in and told us. He was trying to be all strict and businesslike, but he couldn’t help smiling when he told us that Ms. Addle had had a boy. “And she sends you all her — cough, cough — love. Ms. Hardy will be your teacher for the next three months and you are to be very good for her. Is that clear?”
“Yes, Mr. Masters,” we all answered together.
Fifth Bad Thing: Ms. Hardy does not like pupils to be late, and I was very late.
“And your name is?” was the first thing she said to me when I burst into the room at five past ten.
“Mimi.”
“Well, Mimi, you are over an hour late. I take it you have a good excuse,” she said in her cold, hard voice.
So I told her about waking up late and losing my shoes and Dad running out of gas, and she just looked at me and said nothing. When I was finished she just wrote something in her notebook and told me to sit down.
Sixth Bad Thing: Sarah was her usual disgusting horrible self during recess. “So Crybaby overslept and lost her shoes and Daddy let the car run out of gas, did he? So what excuse is it going to be tomorrow, Crybaby? The bed exploded? An elephant sat on the car? Your thumb fell off from all the sucking? I don’t think Ms. Hardy likes you very much, Crybaby,” and she punched my arm and ran off cackling with her gang.
“Losers,” said Orla, but I’m not so sure. Maybe it’s me and Orla who are the losers.
Seventh Bad Thing: Mrs. Lemon gave me no free sweets again. Why is everyone being so horrible?
Eighth Bad Thing: There was a power outage when I was at Granny’s house. It happened one minute after Granny had put the buns in the oven. So no cakes. Can you believe it? And that’s not the worst part . . . no telly either. How will I find out now if Ginger will be found in time before the tide comes in and drowns her?
Actually it wasn’t all bad, because Grandad sent me up to the attic to find a lampshade he had thrown up there about ten years ago. He gave me a flashlight and I had to climb the stepladder and pull myself up through the hole in the ceiling and then he shouted up to me to be careful and to step only on the wooden beams or else I’d fall through the roof.
Granny was chatting with Sally in the kitchen, so she didn’t know what we were up to or she would have had a fit. Anyway, I found the lampshade — but much better I also found a box of toys that my aunts and my mammy used to play with when they were little girls.
It was mostly dolls.
“The ones with missing heads or arms or legs belonged to your mother,” explained Grandad when I spilled them all out on the living-room floor. “She loved to play doctor, and that always involved amputating some poor doll’s head or leg or whatever.”
Another good thing in a day full of bad things was that Grandad forgot to give me my chess lesson.
Ninth Bad Thing: Grandad crashed the jalopy into the pillar when he was reversing out of the gate. I was sitting in the back with Granny and Sally; Conor was in the front.
“Oops,” said Grandad.
“OOPS!” screamed Granny. “Is that all you can say? Oops! You could have killed us all!”
Grandad didn’t answer that, and we three children stayed very quiet. Grandad and Granny got out to inspect the damage. “Not too bad,” said Grandad. “Just a broken taillight.”
But Granny was speechless with rage. All the way home Grandad drove even slower than usual. He stopped at all the red lights. The atmosphere in the car was awful — nobody said a word. How many bad things can happen in a day?
Actually a lot of bad things can happen in one day — too many for one chapter!
Tenth Bad Thing: Dinner. I usually don’t care whether the pizza is burnt or not because I don’t usually eat it, but today I was so hungry because I’d had no sweets or cakes that I ate my dinner and it was like chewing a tire.
Sally was hungry too and she was still cross with Dad about this morning. “This is horrible,” she told him. “Disgusting, gross, vile, poisonous, inedible gunk! Can’t you cook your children anything else except pizza? And you can’t even cook pizza properly! I hate you!” And she flung the rest of her pizza in the trash (which was a pity because Sparkler would have enjoyed it). Then she ran out of the kitchen and up to her room and slammed her door so hard that the pictures on the wall shook.
She cried for hours and hours. I had to turn the telly up to top volume so as not to hear her. I wish Mammy was here.
Dad was upset too. He just sat in his chair and said nothing, but his forehead was all wrinkled up and his eyes were black and his lips were very thin. And he kept sighing.
Conor just disappeared up to his room and started hammering away at his drums.
Eleventh Bad Thing: The house is very messy because Aunt B. didn’t come to tidy up. The breakfast bowls and plates are still dirty, and there seem to be a lot of lost clothes and shoes on the floor. The curtains have not even been opened in most of the rooms. Our house is turning into a dump.
Twelfth Bad Thing: The doorbell rang. Mona and Brian were standing at the door when I opened it. They are our neighbors and they are very nice people, but as Granny would say they keep themselves to themselves so we don’t see too much of them — except in the summertime when they are out in their garden having barbecues. They have a little baby called Barry.
“Hello, Mimi,” sai
d Mona. “Can I speak to your father, please?” She was very red in the face. Mona is the kind of woman who blushes all the time.
I stood behind Daddy when he came to the door.
“Hello, Paul,” said Brian (Paul is Daddy’s name).
“Hello, Brian. Hello, Mona,” said Dad. “What can I do for you?”
“Well,” began Brian, “I don’t know where to begin, but . . .”
“We know how difficult it must be for you since Poppy, you know, passed away, but . . .” And then Mona went even redder and just looked down at her shoes.
“It’s just that . . .” began Brian.
“We can’t sleep!” blurted out Mona.
“And Barry can’t sleep either,” said Brian, “and it has to stop!”
“What has to stop?” asked Dad, looking puzzled — but I knew what they were talking about.
“The racket!” said Mona. “The awful racket every evening: the telly at top volume and the music at top volume and worst of all the drums . . . on and on nearly all night, every night. Bang, bang, bang, bang, on and on!” Mona was really red in the face.
Brian just nodded and nodded and looked very serious.
“Oh,” said Daddy. And then he just stood and listened, and sure enough the telly was roaring in the front room and Conor was going mad on the drums and Sally had decided to turn on her music — at top volume. The house sounded like a carnival.
Dad bent his head to one side like a bird listening for worms. “It is noisy, isn’t it?” he said, as if he was only noticing the noise for the first time.
“Yes!” said Mona and Brian together.
Now it was Daddy’s turn to go red in the face.