The Northern Clemency by Philip Hensher Page B

guess what she was doing? She was making notes in her little book.’ Making notes.” He broke into hilarity.
    Jane flushed, picked up her notebook and hugged it to her. “I couldn’t care less what someone like that says about anything I do,” she said. “Whoever he is.” She knew who he was: they’d thrown a stone at her.
    “Making notes, though,” Daniel said, subsiding. “It was dead funny.” He leant back in his chair, took a satisfied look at the complex sandwich he’d put together, with ham and sandwich spread, cheese and salad cream, all bursting out from the sides, then took an enormous bite. Much of it fell out, splattering his red shiny shorts and his brown legs.
    “That’s disgusting,” Jane said. “You know what? Dad came home this lunchtime.”
    There was a noise from upstairs, a little thud and a door opening—Tim coming downstairs. “I thought he’d gone out,” Jane said. “I haven’t seen him all day.”
    “Upstairs reading his snake books,” Daniel said. “He’s made himself a sandwich, though.” He nodded at the mess on the work surface. “He’ll not have been starving.”
    “That was me,” Jane said. “I was saying, I thought you’d gone out.”
    “No,” Tim said. “I was upstairs in my room. Can I have a sandwich?”
    “Make it yourself,” Daniel said. “Upstairs with your snake books?”
    “Yes,” Tim said, and then, in a singing tone, “Do you know—”
    “Probably not,” Daniel said.
    “Do you know what the most venomous snake in the world is?”
    “No,” Jane said, with a feeling she’d been asked this before.
    “Lots of people would say the cobra or the rattlesnake. But it’s not. It’s the inland Taipan. It can get up to eight feet long. If it bites you you’re bound to die. It’s brown, it’s called Oxy, Oxyripidus something. Oxyripidus—Oxy—I’m almost remembering it—”
    “Where’s it live?” Daniel said.
    “Australia,” Tim said.
    “Just so long as it doesn’t live near me,” Daniel said.
    “It wouldn’t hurt you,” Tim said. “It’s quite timid, really. It would avoid you and it’s probably more scared of you than you would be of it. You wouldn’t have to worry about it even if you were in Australia. Most people think snakes would attack you but they wouldn’t, really. They only bite if they’re in danger. I like snakes. I wish I could have one. Do you think if I asked they’d let me have a snake in my bedroom? I’d keep it in a glass case. I wouldn’t let it out and it wouldn’t have to be venomous—or not very.”
    “What do you mean, ‘if’ you asked?” Daniel said. “You ask them all the time, about once a week, and they always say no. You’re not getting the most venomous snake in the world to keep under your bed. Face facts.”
    “I’d save up,” Tim said, reciting his case stolidly on one note, “and I’d pay for it myself. I wouldn’t want an inland Taipan—I wouldn’t want any venomous snake, really. And I’d buy the mice with my pocket money. They don’t need to eat very often, it wouldn’t be expensive. I wish I could have a snake. It’s not fair.”
    “I dare say,” Jane said. “Go and make yourself a sandwich or something. I’m going to watch the telly.”
    “There’s nothing on,” Daniel said. “It’s rubbish.”
    “It’s better in the holidays,” Tim said. “There’s stuff on in the mornings. For children.”
    “It’s still rubbish.”
    “This boy told me a joke,” Tim continued with his dull reciting voice, though the subject had changed.
    “What boy?” Daniel said.
    “This boy I know,” Tim said.
    “You haven’t seen anyone for five weeks,” Daniel said.
    “Yes, I have,” Tim said, not crossly, but setting things right. “I saw Antony last week. We went to the library.”
    “Did smelly Antony tell you a joke?” Jane said incredulously. Tim occasionally gave the impression of a rich and varied social life once out of sight of his family, but Antony