Eating Things on Sticks

by Anne Fine

  ‘Whoops! Sorry.’

  I turned back to see Uncle Tristram staring at me in horror. ‘Oh, well done!’ he hissed. ‘That should cut both our life expectancies right down to fifty-seven seconds at most. Can’t you cancel the blasted thing?’

  ‘I could,’ I said. ‘But if it’s like our last one, it’ll make exactly the same noise. But even sooner.’

  He shrugged. ‘Oh, well. I suppose it had to happen sometime. Might as well get it all over with.’

  I panicked. ‘You’re all right. You don’t live here. But I am going to get mashed. I reckon it’ll be so bad I’ll end up begging to come back to you.’

  He scowled. ‘Well, don’t think I’ll be taking you on any more trips. I’ve had enough of holidays. Next time, we’re going to stay home.’

  Tipping his head back suddenly, he shut his eyes. ‘Yes! That’s the plan for next time. Stay in the city. Bliss! Utter bliss! Think of it, Harry! When we get hungry, we can shop in supermarkets or eat in restaurants. When we get bored, we won’t have to traipse up and down windy beaches, being pooed on by seagulls. We can go to the cinema, or swim in pools with flumes . . .’

  It sounded so tempting, my worries all began to fade.

  Uncle Tristram still looked ecstatic. ‘When we run out of money, I can simply go to a cash machine or step into the nearest bank. If we watch television, everyone on it will have proper heads and not just fuzzy grey blobs.’

  Feeling a little more in harmony with the universe myself, I punched the air and whispered, ‘Yes!’ just as the microwave went:

  Ping!

  Uncle Tristram broke off. ‘Well,’ he reproved me. ‘That should be loud enough to bring the wolves down on the fold.’

  We waited. And we waited.

  I crossed my fingers as the footsteps crossed the hall.

  The door flew open. There my parents stood.

  HOME AND DRY

  I don’t have to go into sordid detail, do I? I mean, you must have been through this sort of thing yourself. You’ll know the score. I don’t have to list all of their ‘How could you . . . ?’s, and their ‘Why in heaven’s name didn’t you . . . ?’s, and their ‘Surely it must have occurred to you that . . . !’s, and their ‘How do you think we . . . ?’s, and their ‘I simply can’t believe . . . !’s. It went on for ages. Absolutely ages. I was exhausted at the end.

  We gave as good as we got. Uncle Tristram was brilliant with all his ‘How on earth were we supposed to know . . . ?’s, and his ‘Why should we for a single moment think . . . ?’s, and his ‘You’re being quite unreasonable . . . !’s, and his ‘It’s not as if we were deliberately . . .’s.

  I backed him up. I came out fighting with my own ‘It isn’t our fault that . . . !’s, and my ‘Nobody told us . . . !’s, and my ‘You never said I had to . . . !’s, and my ‘Anyone else would have done the same . . . !’s, and my ‘I don’t know why you’re blaming me . . . !’s.

  In the end, everything calmed down a bit. Dad made some toast. Mum introduced a sour note by muttering, ‘Please don’t let Harry anywhere near the tea towels until that toaster’s been unplugged at the mains.’

  But I could tell the very worst was over.

  Phew!

  When Uncle Tristram was sure that we were pretty well home and dry, he reached for his jacket and car keys. ‘Well, that’s me ready for bed. Better be off.’

  I followed him back through the petunias to the car. ‘Thanks for the help.’

  ‘No problem,’ Uncle Tristram bragged. ‘My sister doesn’t frighten me.’

  ‘She does.’

  ‘Well, obviously,’ he defended himself, ‘when she is in one of her moods, even a Genetically Modified Giant Cockroach from the Planet Battle would take the long route round her.’ To cover his embarrassment at having lied, he reached in the Maverati’s boot to pull out my rucksack, and as he tugged away at it, one of the plastic bags that we had stuffed with Aunty Audrey’s leftover clothes split down the side.

  Out fell two pretty beaded purses.

  ‘Here,’ he said. ‘Give your mum one of these. She’ll love it. Tell her it’s a gift from your holidays. Then she can’t change her mind and start to sulk at you again tomorrow.’

  ‘She’s not like that,’ I said. ‘And anyway, they’re Morning Glory’s purses, so she ought to get the money for both of them.’

  He turned them over in his hand. ‘I don’t know,’ he told me dubiously. ‘Both of them look a bit tatty. They can’t be worth much.’ He thrust one at me. ‘Go on, Harry. Take it. I promise that when I sell all this rubbish to the vintage clothing shop, I’ll pay Morning Glory twice over for the other purse. You just tell Tansy it’s from both of us. Then things will be fair all round.’

  I couldn’t think of any reason to argue. So I went back inside the house.

  CLAIRETTE SHARD

  Mum couldn’t believe it. ‘Harry! But this is vintage Clairette Shard! And apart from one or two loose beads that can be fixed, it’s in pristine condition. It must be worth an absolute fortune! Where on earth did you find it?’

  ‘More to the point,’ my dad said, ‘how much did Harry pay for it?’

  Here is the proof that it’s always better and safer not to tell lies. I came quite close to choosing what I thought a sensible amount – a couple of quid or so – and coming out with that. Mercifully, Mum beat me to it. ‘Whatever Harry paid, it can’t be what it’s worth. If you go into one of those vintage clothes shops, you find these Clairette Shard purses are selling for three thousand pounds.’

  My mouth fell open. So did Dad’s.

  FURIOUS

  Uncle Tristram was furious. ‘Three thousand pounds? You should have simply snatched it back!’

  I held the phone a little further away from my ear to try to protect myself. It seemed to me that for the last two hours I had been trying to defend myself from quite unreasonable attacks.

  ‘How could I snatch it back? I’d only just that minute given it to her. “Here!” I’d just said. “This is a present to you from me and Uncle Tristram.” Those were my very words. How could I snatch it back?’

  ‘You should have tried!’

  ‘It wouldn’t have worked in any case. She was holding the thing as tightly as if it were a heap of crown jewels.’

  ‘It practically is crown jewels!’ he grumbled. ‘Three thousand pounds! It’s going to take me twenty years to pay back Morning Glory!’

  The phone went silent for a while, and then he started up again. ‘You should have snatched it back!’

  He had been good to me that night. So even though I only wanted to go to bed, I made one last big effort. ‘Look on the bright side,’ I comforted him. ‘It’s very nice to think that Morning Glory will end up getting this sort of money for all that rubbish in the bags. And if we hadn’t given this purse to Mum, you would have accepted any old stupid amount from the shop for the other one.’

  ‘That’s true enough,’ he said. ‘And probably for all the other stuff as well.’

  I waited, yawning, while he thought it through, and in the end, as usual, came up with one of his plans. ‘Listen to me, Harry. Tomorrow I’ll bring back the bags. Tansy can go through them for me and tell me what each thing is worth. And in return, I’ll let her keep the purse, and I’ll explain to Morning Glory that she is quids in, really, because without your mum, I’d have accepted tuppence.’

  ‘I think she’ll think that’s fair,’ I said (though I was really far too tired to think about anything any more).

  ‘Right, then,’ said Uncle Tristram. ‘A busy day tomorrow. Off you go to bed.’

  GOOD HOLS?

  Ralph was asleep. I woke him up by stumbling over his scout boots and falling on his bed.

  ‘Oh, hey!’ he said. ‘Good hols?’

  ‘Not bad,’ I told him. ‘How was scout camp?’

  ‘Pretty good. We climbed a mountain.’

  ‘So did we,’ I said.

  ‘We spent a bit of time in boats.’

 
‘Yes, so did we.’

  ‘It rained a lot.’

  ‘Ditto.’

  ‘My bed was damp.’

  ‘Mine was as well.’

  ‘The food was rubbish.’

  ‘Can’t have been any worse than ours.’

  ‘Good company, though.’

  ‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘I had good company as well.’

  ‘Well, he said. ‘Your trip sounds more or less the same as mine. So I might skip scout week and come along with you next time you burn down the kitchen.’

  ‘You’d be most welcome,’ I told him.

  Then I fell asleep.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ANNE FINE was born in Leicester. She went to Wallisdean County Primary School in Fareham, Hampshire and then to Northampton High School for Girls. She read Politics and History at the University of Warwick and then worked as an information officer for Oxfam before teaching (very briefly!) in a Scottish prison.

  She started her first book during a blizzard that stopped her getting to Edinburgh City Library and has been writing ever since. She has won many awards for her books, has twice been voted Children’s Writer of the Year at the British Book Awards and was the Children’s Laureate for 2001–2003.

  She lives in County Durham.

  www.annefine.co.uk