flickery like Great-Grandmaâs bad eye. Old people always go wrong in the end and in that way Dad says they are just like everything else. Thatâs the thing about everything, Son: it all falls apart in the end.
I wait.
The cheetah cub jabbers his face in and out of the stripy stomach a thousand tiny times.
Come on come on come on you can do it.
But no.
After a bit the cub stops trying to get to the next scene altogether.
Â
When I was vertically a baby I posted some crackers into the video slot and ever since then I am sadly not allowed to touch either it or the DVD machine.
So I slide off the sofa arm and go for help which is called summering reinforcements.
The kitchen door is shut.
They are still talking behind it.
Mum says, â Of course I believe you, Jim. Thatâs why I see no harm in letting Miss Hudson talk to him.
â Whatâs the point? hisses Dad. â He ran away . . . straight into a fucking road.
Imagine the stillest thing you can imagine. A swing with nobody on it perhaps, or a hammer thatâs fallen down the back of a sofa. Thatâs how still I go when I hear him telling. Itâs in the past . Thatâs what he said. He said what I did was forgotten .
â And if thatâs the case, Mum begins.
â What do you mean if thatâs the case? Are you doubting me now, too?
Another thing that stays very still is a bear when it is asleep and Iâm glad Iâm not a bear because they hibernate in caves from the autumn right through the winter and all the way to the spring and sleeping is very boring. You just lie there with your eyes shut waiting until the morning. But hold on, maybe I am not right about bears because in fact they only have to go to bed once for the whole winter and then they are asleep and it isnât the bit when you are asleep that is bad, it is the bit when you have to go to bed and when you are lying there waiting, waiting, waiting, staring at the shadows on the floor and down one side of the picture, which arenât moving. I have to do that every day.
â Of course not, says Mum. â But if this is the situation we find ourselves in we donât have a choice. Weâve nothing to hide, for Godâs sake.
Butterfly woman starts planting more daffodil bulbs after that and I donât hear all of it, only the bit at the end where she says, â Consent of just one parent is sufficient. I canât hear what other horrible thing Dad says about me in reply to that because heâs using very evil muttering, which is not nice, because thatâs what Miss Hart says: Itâs not nice to mutter.
I back away from the door and up the stairs to my step. But Iâm so angry that he told on me, instead of keeping it forgotten like he promised , that I donât walk normally, no, no, no: again my feet by instinct go stamp, stamp, stamp .
Rabbits signal warnings of distress in much the same way.
But before Iâve even sat down next to the banister heâs out through the kitchen door and after me and I immediately feel two things at once. Shall I tell you what they are? Okay then, I will. First, I am cross with my feet for doing stupid babyish stamping again, because I know it drives him to destruction, and I donât want him to be angry with me again, because I suddenly remember the hot chocolate. And the second thing is the opposite, and itâs this. He made my feet stamp by lying and I donât care about having hot chocolate near the carpet, or even the snack and juice which he got wrong anyway, idiot.
Sadly itâs the second thing I feel the most and to prove it I look straight up at him as he comes across the hall and I lift my feet and do one big vicious thump with both of them at once. Take that, stairs.
Dad stops.
He is three or four steps below me and our heads are on roughly the same level which is called staring your enemy eye to eye.
I am so angry that my anger clips his because
I wait.
The cheetah cub jabbers his face in and out of the stripy stomach a thousand tiny times.
Come on come on come on you can do it.
But no.
After a bit the cub stops trying to get to the next scene altogether.
Â
When I was vertically a baby I posted some crackers into the video slot and ever since then I am sadly not allowed to touch either it or the DVD machine.
So I slide off the sofa arm and go for help which is called summering reinforcements.
The kitchen door is shut.
They are still talking behind it.
Mum says, â Of course I believe you, Jim. Thatâs why I see no harm in letting Miss Hudson talk to him.
â Whatâs the point? hisses Dad. â He ran away . . . straight into a fucking road.
Imagine the stillest thing you can imagine. A swing with nobody on it perhaps, or a hammer thatâs fallen down the back of a sofa. Thatâs how still I go when I hear him telling. Itâs in the past . Thatâs what he said. He said what I did was forgotten .
â And if thatâs the case, Mum begins.
â What do you mean if thatâs the case? Are you doubting me now, too?
Another thing that stays very still is a bear when it is asleep and Iâm glad Iâm not a bear because they hibernate in caves from the autumn right through the winter and all the way to the spring and sleeping is very boring. You just lie there with your eyes shut waiting until the morning. But hold on, maybe I am not right about bears because in fact they only have to go to bed once for the whole winter and then they are asleep and it isnât the bit when you are asleep that is bad, it is the bit when you have to go to bed and when you are lying there waiting, waiting, waiting, staring at the shadows on the floor and down one side of the picture, which arenât moving. I have to do that every day.
â Of course not, says Mum. â But if this is the situation we find ourselves in we donât have a choice. Weâve nothing to hide, for Godâs sake.
Butterfly woman starts planting more daffodil bulbs after that and I donât hear all of it, only the bit at the end where she says, â Consent of just one parent is sufficient. I canât hear what other horrible thing Dad says about me in reply to that because heâs using very evil muttering, which is not nice, because thatâs what Miss Hart says: Itâs not nice to mutter.
I back away from the door and up the stairs to my step. But Iâm so angry that he told on me, instead of keeping it forgotten like he promised , that I donât walk normally, no, no, no: again my feet by instinct go stamp, stamp, stamp .
Rabbits signal warnings of distress in much the same way.
But before Iâve even sat down next to the banister heâs out through the kitchen door and after me and I immediately feel two things at once. Shall I tell you what they are? Okay then, I will. First, I am cross with my feet for doing stupid babyish stamping again, because I know it drives him to destruction, and I donât want him to be angry with me again, because I suddenly remember the hot chocolate. And the second thing is the opposite, and itâs this. He made my feet stamp by lying and I donât care about having hot chocolate near the carpet, or even the snack and juice which he got wrong anyway, idiot.
Sadly itâs the second thing I feel the most and to prove it I look straight up at him as he comes across the hall and I lift my feet and do one big vicious thump with both of them at once. Take that, stairs.
Dad stops.
He is three or four steps below me and our heads are on roughly the same level which is called staring your enemy eye to eye.
I am so angry that my anger clips his because
Similar Books
