Mimi (8 page)

“Rotten lousy scumbags,” whispered Orla as she helped me to my feet. “Did you hear what the policeman said to his tummy? ‘You’re under avest.’”

And even though I was feeling very sad I just had to laugh, because I got that joke and it was really a silly one.

That afternoon I went straight to Aunt B.’s house. I didn’t stop at Mrs. Lemon’s shop because I was afraid if I got delayed Sarah would be waiting to kill me outside.

Emma answered the door. “Good day, Dig,” she greeted me, and then gave me one of her celebrity hugs. Emma and I are going to be celebrities when we grow up, so we have to practice our hugs. “How are you, darling?” she asked in a hoity-toity voice.

“I am absolutely shattered, my dear Dag,” I replied. “I have spent the whole day shopping. My poor legs are worn down to stumps, and my head is splitting!”

“What you need is an Indian head massage, my dear Dig,” Emma said. “And I am just the one to give it to you.” And then before I even had a chance to put down my bag, Emma shoved her fingers into my hair and started ruffling it all up.

“Stop,” said Aunt B., appearing in the hall. “Now, chop-chop, girls, we have lunch to make.”

Lunch was a chicken stir-fry that Aunt B. had prepared that very day at the butcher’s. She just loved her new job, and she told us all about how you made sausages and black pudding out of dried pig’s blood. Emma made a face at me when Aunt B. went to the door to let Sally in, but the chicken stir-fry, which I was given the job of stirring, certainly smelled yummy.

Emmett was with Sally and they had to set the table. Aunt B. put some stir-fry away for Conor. It was the nicest lunch I have had in ages — and to think that I made most of it myself. I might be a chef when I grow up — a celebrity chef.

We all washed the dishes together while Conor ate his lunch. He had a big bag of soccer gear with him.

“What’s in the big bag?” Aunt B. asked him.

“All the dirty jerseys of the soccer team,” he told her. “It’s my turn to wash them.”

Then we sat down to start our homework, which was a good thing because I had lots to do, and lines as well, for Ms. Hardy, but I had hardly gotten started when there was a ring at the door.

It was Dad! He didn’t look too happy — but then again, he never did look too happy these days. “OK, you three,” he ordered, “let’s go.”

“What?” said Sally. “It’s much too early. We never go home at this time!”

“Well, we do today, Sally. Say good-bye to your cousins and say thank you to your Aunt B. and get in the car.”

“What’s the rush, Paul?” Aunt B. asked Dad. “Horace can drop the children home later.”

“Thank you, but he will not, Betty,” Dad told her. “Those children are coming home right now. Mimi’s teacher rang me to come in to talk to her, and after I had seen her I paid a visit to Sally’s and Conor’s teachers as well, and I was horrified by what I was told . . . by all of them.” He sounded very annoyed.

Conor put his head in his hands and groaned. Sally closed her eyes tightly and pursed her lips, and I went red under my skin.

“OK, kids,” said Aunt B. in a surprisingly soft voice, “pack up your stuff and we’ll see you again next week. OK now, chop-chop.” And she helped me put my books into my bag and gave my shoulder a secret little squeeze.

I really would have liked to stay at Aunt B.’s house, but Dad was standing there with a face like thunder, jiggling the car keys.

It was a quiet drive home. The situation did not look too good. Sally had her arms folded across her chest and just stared out of the side window with her lips thin and her eyes black. Conor looked fed up and kept turning his eyes to heaven every time Dad muttered something.

Nobody asked Dad what the teachers had actually said. I didn’t like to think what Ms. Hardy might have said about me, but obviously I wasn’t the only one in the family who had been doing badly in school.

As soon as we were through the front door Dad ordered us upstairs to do our homework and do it properly and not to reappear until we had it done, and to show him our homework when we had finished it so he could check it — and if he was not satisfied we would be going straight up to do it again.

“Yes, sir,” muttered Sally, but I don’t think Dad heard her. Which was just as well because he was in a bad mood.

I closed my door, threw my bag in the corner and myself on the bed, and pulled Socky onto my hand. “Hi, Socky,” I whispered.

“Hi, Mimi,” whispered Socky, his mouth opening in perfect time with the words. I might be a puppeteer when I grow up (when I’m not being a celebrity), but I still have to get the hang of ventril . . . ventrilo-something-or-other. That’s when you talk without moving your lips. Your voice has to come out of your belly button, I think. It is very hard to do but you can do anything if you set your mind to it, I reckon. Anyway, that’s what Mammy says — I mean, what she used to say.

I could hear Conor opening his door and going downstairs.

“Is he dinished alldeddy?” said Socky, and I swear my lips didn’t move.

“Are you finished already?” I could hear Dad saying in an astonished voice.

“No,” snapped Conor. “I just have to put all the soccer jerseys in the wash. It’s my turn to wash them.”

“Conor does not know how to kut on the hoshing hachine,” said Socky. He sounded really quite convincing.

“Leave it,” said Dad roughly. “I’ll do it for you. You don’t know the first thing about putting on a wash. Now get back upstairs.” I could hear Conor tramping back up the stairs, and then Dad calling out, “Sally! Mimi! If either of you has any washing, throw it down now. I’m putting on a wash!”

I threw down my fluorescent red T-shirt and Sally flung a load of black clothes.

“You’re welcome!” said Dad sarcastically as he picked them up off the hall floor.

“Thanks, Dad,” I said, but Sally just flounced back into her room, slamming her door after her. She was in one of her moods.

I went back into my room too and sat down to do my homework. I didn’t want to do it, but I decided I’d better or Dad might just kill me, so I threw Socky on the bed and opened up my math book.

Would you believe it? Fractions for homework. Fractions were invented by some evil madman who got his kicks out of making schoolchildren miserable.

“If there were twenty-five sweets in a bag and Anne ate three-fifths of them, how many sweets were left?”

I mean, who cares? Why didn’t she just eat all the sweets like a normal child? Then the problem would have been easy. She was probably one of those horrible girls who always saves some sweets for later so that they can suck them slowly in front of you when you’ve finished all your own, and you just feel like smacking them.

Anyway, there was no point in getting all worked up over some greedy little girl, so I just got on with the problem. Three-fifths of twenty-five — I mean, how hard can that be? Too hard for me! So I texted Orla.

Divide by the bottom and multiply by the top and subtract your answer from 25. Easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy. Luv u Orla.

That didn’t sound too hard. So I had to divide twenty-five by five, which was the bottom of the fraction. If I’d had the sweets it would have been easier — because dividing is pretty tricky when you haven’t done it for as long as I hadn’t. So I started doing it on my fingers, but that didn’t work so well because I don’t have twenty-five fingers.

Then Dad called us down for dinner, which was a relief because I was starving — but it did make me lose count. At this rate I was never going to get my homework done.

Dinner was a sad, quiet affair. Dad had made some sort of pig swill that was meant to be a stew, and you would have had to be starving to eat it. Or afraid that your father was going to kill you if you didn’t. I was both. So I managed to get it down. Conor, of course, shoveled it in. I seriously think that he has no taste buds at all. Sally pushed her stew around the plate and ate the odd forkful. The fight seemed a bit knocked out of her — or else she just wanted to get away as quick as she could.

“So how’s the homework going?” Dad asked no one in particular. So no one in particular answered. Dad seemed to be enjoying his dinner — he was already taking seconds. You can see clearly where Conor gets his sense of taste. “Conor? Any problems with your homework?” he asked the top of Conor’s head. (When Conor eats, his nose nearly touches the plate.)

“No,” said Conor.

“OK. How about you, Sally?”

Sally grunted something that nobody caught and Dad didn’t ask her again.

“Do
you
need any help with your homework, Mimi?” Dad turned to me. He was trying to be helpful, and Conor and Sally were being so rude to him. I felt sorry for Dad, so I said that I
did
need help with math . . . which was true, actually.

So after dinner when the others had gone back to their rooms to finish their homework or whatever they were doing, I brought down my math book and sat down with Dad at the kitchen table. Mammy used to help me every day with my homework, and although we’d sometimes end up shouting at each other, I’d have done anything to have her back for one minute, even of shouting.

I was thinking about this while Dad read out the question. “Three-fifths of twenty-five. Right. First things first. Do you know what a fifth is?” he asked me.

“Not really,” I had to admit.

“That’s no problem,” said Dad. “It’s easily explained. Imagine a pizza.”

“I’d prefer not to,” I said with a little smile. The pizza that jumped into my mind was as black as an old tire . . . and it suddenly reminded me of Sparkler. “Hey, Dad — did anyone feed Sparkler?”

“Don’t worry about Sparkler; I’ll give her the leftovers of the stew later on. Now imagine the pizza is cut into five slices. Can you picture that?”

Poor old Sparkler was what I was thinking about, having to finish off that stew — but I didn’t say it.

“Now picture this. There are twenty-five olives on the pizza. How many olives on each slice?”

At this stage, I was seriously sorry that I had asked for Dad’s help at all. “I don’t like olives,” I said.

“Well, bits of pineapple, then. It doesn’t really matter if it’s olives or pineapples or lumps of rock!” said Dad, and his voice was getting a bit louder. So I was glad when at that very moment the doorbell rang.