Tao (8 page)

Even though it was getting a bit late, Paul said that Mimi and I should take Sparkler for a walk because he and Kate had lots of boring adult things to discuss. I wondered what they were. At home, I would have stayed outside the door and eavesdropped.

“I bet they are talking about us,” said Mimi as soon as we were outside the gate. “Do you ever listen outside the door when adults chat, Tao?” she asked me.

“No, of course not,” I said. “Do you?”

Mimi didn’t answer straight away. I must have grinned when she said, “No, I don’t either. Of course not,” because she smiled and added, “Well … sometimes.”

“Me too,” I laughed.

Sparkler was one of those silly dogs who pulls at the lead and sniffs at everything and wraps the lead around poles and trees, so we weren’t getting very far. Then she did a poo!

“Ah, no! I hate that!” said Mimi, and she pulled a plastic bag out of her pocket. “You hold the dog,” she said and handed me the lead.

She put the bag on her hand and, with her nose all wrinkled up, she picked up the poo and tied it into the bag. She held the smelly bag by the tips of her fingers.

“That is gross,” I said, and held my nose.

“I hate dog’s bottoms,” she said. “They should stick a cork in them!”

Luckily there was a dog-poo bin on the next pole so she could get rid of the stinky bag.

“This bully called Sarah used to call me Stinky Chinky at school,” said Mimi, “after my mammy died.”

She was quiet then.

“Were people not nice to you when your mammy died?” I asked her.

“Yeah, they were,” Mimi said, “except for Sarah. Everyone gave me hugs and sweets and things. Miss Lemon, who owns the shop, used to give me free sweets every day. She still does sometimes.”

“We should go there,” I said, but Mimi just smiled.She was thinking of something else.

Sparkler had stopped to check out another amazing smell, so we had stopped too.

“They kept saying how sad it was for me to lose my mother,” said Mimi, “but I didn’t lose her … she was run over by a bus. Adults say really stupid things sometimes. And they were always talking about me like I wasn’t there,” continued Mimi, “saying things like ‘the poor child, to have her mother taken away so young’ like she was grabbed out of my hands or something!”

“Were you very sad?” I asked her. “I would be.”

“Yes,” said Mimi, and I could see that she was sad just thinking about it. “Everyone said that Dad was ‘beside himself with grief’. What’s that supposed to mean, anyway?”

I shrugged. I didn’t know what it was supposed to mean. We turned and started walking home.

“He used to cook us burnt pizza every day for months afterwards, but it got better after a bit,” said Mimi and then she added, “I like your mum. She is not like your dad, is she?”

“How do you mean?” I asked her. I sort of knew what she meant, but I was surprised when she said it.

“You know,” she said, “the way he’s all smart and serious and Kate is … well, she’s a bit mad, isn’t she? In a nice way. It’s hard to imagine them being married.”

“Well, they were,” I said a bit sharply, “until Jo came along. She wrecked everything.”

“Do you hate her?” asked Mimi.

“Yes,” I said. “I do.”

“Then I hate her too,” said Mimi.

“But you haven’t even met her!” I said. “You might like her. She’s quite nice, you know.”

Mimi laughed when I said that.

“Make up your mind!” she said.

Even though I was a bit cross with all this talk about Jo, I had to smile because what I had said sounded stupid even to me.

But I didn’t want to talk about it anymore, so I asked Mimi did the girl still call her Stinky Chinky?

“Sarah?” answered Mimi. “No, I said I’d punch her lights out if she didn’t stop bullying me. She’s sort of a friend now.”

We were nearly home and it was getting dark. I smiled at the thought of Mimi beating anybody up. But I didn’t say anything.

That night before I fell asleep, Conor said, “Your mum is like our rock group … loud!”

He didn’t say it in a bad way, but I said, “She’s not always like that.”

“She’s probably a bit nervous meeting all of us,” said Conor.

I hadn’t thought about it like that. I had thought that I would be the only one nervous about meeting Mimi and her family.

“Don’t get me wrong,” continued Conor. “I think she’s cool … as George would say.”

I had never thought of Kate as being cool either. Still, if Conor thought she was, then … maybe she was!

“So, this mouse of yours…” Conor started saying.

“Rodent?” I asked, as if I had more than one.

“Yeah,” said Conor. “Who is looking after him?”

“Jo,” I told him, even though I didn’t like mentioning her name.

“Your dad’s girlfriend?”

“S’pose so,” I muttered, but there must have been something in the way I said it because Conor was quiet for a bit and then he said, “Would you like your dad to come back and live with you and Kate?”

“Yes, I would,” I said and for no reason my eyes suddenly started to water. I was glad it was dark.

Conor didn’t say anything else for a long time after that. Neither did I.

“’Night, Tao,” he said at last.

“’Night, Conor,” I said, but I lay awake looking into the dark for a long time before I eventually drifted off.

On Easter Sunday, Mimi’s grandparents held a big party in their house for all the family.

“It’s in your honour, Tao,” said Grandad when we arrived, which was a bit scary.

I had met most of Mimi’s uncles and aunts and cousins already, but Kate had to be introduced to them all so there was another big round of hugs.

Aunt M (whose real name is Marigold) arrived with her husband Nicholas. No one called him Uncle Nicholas. Maybe he was too young. She was pregnant, but she still arrived on the back of Nicholas’s motorbike and Granny flew into a rage about that.

“That is the most irresponsible thing that I have ever heard of,” she told Aunt M, who completely ignored her and walked straight over to Kate and gave her a big hug.

“You’ll find that we’re not all as hysterical as my mother,” she said to Kate. Granny looked fit to burst. Nicholas just stood there looking at the floor.

“Hi, Tao,” Aunt M said to me and ruffled my hair. “Are you surviving in that mad house?”

“Hi, Aunt M,” I said shyly. Aunt M is a very pretty lady and I never know what to say to her.

“Aunt M and Granny don’t always get on,” Mimi whispered to me. Then she asked me did I want to feel the baby move in Aunt M’s tummy? I didn’t know what to say when Mimi said that. I think I went bright red, but Mimi didn’t seem to notice.

“Tao wants to feel your tummy,” she told her aunt and she put her two hands right on the middle of Aunt M’s big round belly.

“No…” I started to say, but I was too late.

“Of course you can,” said Aunt M and took my hand and placed it on her tummy. I was like Nicholas, staring at the floor. Then something moved under my hand. It was weird – it was like an alien under her skin.

“Did you feel that, Tao?” asked Aunt M. She had a kind voice. I nodded. “That was the baby kicking.”

“Weird,” I mumbled and everyone laughed.

I’m not sure that I liked the feeling but I smiled and she let go of my hand.

The last guests to arrive were Uncle Boris and Aunt L (short for Lupin – all the aunts except Betty are called after flowers) and a toddler called Wee Billy. He was about the same age as Rachel and Roger and just as mad. They had driven down from Belfast.

“How’s my wee lass?” roared Uncle Boris and swung Mimi into the air.

“And this must be the wee laddie?” he roared at me and putting down Mimi, he grabbed me under the arms and lifted me right up and swung me around. He was a very big man.

“Don’t even try it!” laughed Kate when he put me down and turned to her. Uncle Boris hesitated a moment then looked around the room. His eyes were twinkling … then he grabbed Kate in a big bear hug and lifted her off the floor! Everyone laughed then.

“Imagine having to live with that man!” said Aunt L as she shook my hand and then hugged Kate.

The best part of the day was the egg hunt. All the adults sat on the patio and drank wine while the children searched the garden for eggs. Kate sat beside Paul and every few minutes I could hear her big laugh.

“She hasn’t snorted yet,” said Mimi, who had decided to help me look for eggs because she was a champion egg-hunter … or so she said.

“She will. Just wait,” I said. I hadn’t found any eggs yet, but Mimi kept spotting them in the most hidden away places.

“You missed that one,” she said as she pulled a little egg out of the frame of the garden bench, where I had just looked.

Sally was helping Wee Billy, who was haring around the garden like a wild man, screaming his head off.

“Oh, please don’t give him any more chocolate,” moaned Aunt L. “He’s as high as a kite.”

Conor and Emmett were wandering around with a bag for eggs as well, but they were chatting away and weren’t really looking.

Emma was trying to find more than Mimi and kept shouting at her every time she found an egg.

“Have you found any yet, Dig? You blind old fool!” she yelled.

“More than you, Dag!” Mimi shouted back. “We call each other Dig and Dag,” she explained to me as she picked another little egg that I had completely missed out of a daffodil.

“Too much chocolate will give you windy bottoms, Dig,” shouted Emma from the top of the garden. “You know how you are!”

The adults on the patio laughed when they heard that.

“That is so true,” said Aunt M, popping a chocolate sweet into her mouth.

“Go easy there, Marigold,” said Granny. “That baby fat is hard to shift.”

Aunt M gave her mother a look and popped another sweet into her mouth. “Well, you’d know all about that, Mother, wouldn’t you?”

“Wooooh!” said everyone together and Kate let out a big snorting laugh.

“Yes!” said Mimi loudly. “She really does snort!”

Well, that really set Kate off and soon everyone was laughing their heads off.

I was sorry when the day was over and we had to go home.

Conor spent the night with his cousin Emmett, so I was alone in his room. I was half asleep when the door quietly opened and Mimi tiptoed in. She sat down on the end of my mattress.

“I can’t sleep,” she said. “I had too much chocolate. It makes me hyper.” Then she started giggling and farted. “It makes me do windy bottoms, too,” she laughed.

“That’s not good for the planet,” I said.

“My daddy likes your mum,” she said then.

I was quiet when she said that.

“They’re still downstairs talking away,” continued Mimi. “You can hear them in my room if you put your ear on the floor.”

“What are they saying?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” said Mimi. “They are talking too quietly.”

Well, that wasn’t much use.

“How do you know that they like each other then?” I asked her.

“Oh, you know…” said Mimi. “Girls just know these things.”

Mimi went back to her own bed soon after that but I lay awake for a long time, just thinking. I wished that Kate and I weren’t going home tomorrow.

On the plane home, Kate asked me lots of questions.

“Weren’t they a lovely family, Tao?”

“Yes.”

“Isn’t Mimi a pet, Tao?”

“Yes.”

“Nice house haven’t they, Tao?”

“Yes.”

“Sally might be all prickly on the outside, but underneath she’s a marshmallow, would you agree, Tao?”

“No.”

“As for Conor – you really hit it off with him, didn’t you, Tao?”

“Yes.”

“Mimi’s grandmother thinks you’re a dote, Tao.”

“She thinks I’m a what?”

“A dote,” said Kate. “It means you’re a pet.”

“Oh … that’s OK then.”

“Paul isn’t a bit like your dad is he, Tao?”

“How do you mean?” I asked suspiciously.

“Well,” said Kate slowly, and I could see that she was choosing her words carefully. “He’s … different, that’s all.”

I knew that wasn’t all but I didn’t want Kate to say any more.

“I s’pose so,” I said and I pretended to read the comic I had bought in the airport.

Kate sighed and opened her book. The plane landed soon after.

Jo dropped Rodent back that evening. It was the first time she had ever come to our house. Kate was first to the door, but I was right behind her in the hall.

“Oh, hello,” said Kate, surprised. Even from behind I could see her stiffen. “Tao,” she called. “It’s for you.”

“I’ve brought back your mouse,” Jo said to me. She had to put her head to one side to see around Kate.

“Excuse me,” said Kate, and she turned on her heel and walked straight past me into the kitchen and closed the door behind her. Her lips were thin and her face was white.

“Did you have a nice time in Ireland?” asked Jo, as she handed me the cage. Her face was red. I couldn’t understand why Dad hadn’t come himself.

“Why didn’t my dad bring Rodent back?” I asked her.

“He was busy,” she said. “Anyway, Rodent is back home now and might I say he was a very popular guest in our house… Weren’t you, Rodent?” she said to Rodent who was peeping his head out of the straw.

“Bye now,” she said in a cheery voice that sounded put on. “See you on Saturday and you can tell me all about your holiday.” Then, as she turned to go, she stopped and said, “Oh, I nearly forgot. We got Rodent a little toy.” She handed me a plastic bag with some sort of ball in it. “The twins loved watching him play in this.”

“Thanks,” I mumbled and she was gone.

I put the cage back up in my room before going down to Kate. Rodent was glad to see me and came straight into my hand when I opened the cage door.

“Hi, Rodent,” I said, “welcome home,” and I petted his back. His coat looked nice and shiny. I could see that he had been well looked after, but he was obviously happy to be home. At least I think he was because he kept twitching his nose. The ball in the bag was one of those clear plastic ones that you put a mouse in and they can run around the floor and not escape. I thought that I would try it out later on.