Mimi Read Online Free PDF Page A

the television. I bet if I switched it off he wouldn’t even notice. So I rang Granny — and boy, was she interested!
    She asked me heaps of questions and made me repeat the bit about Mr. Masters getting all panicky, and then she made me tell the whole story over again to Grandad. In the end I was about two hours on the phone but it was really good to talk.
    “Did you tell all that to your daddy, Mimi?” asked Granny in the end. I told her no, that he wasn’t in the mood, and she said to put him on the phone, so I handed the phone to Dad and told him Granny wanted to speak to him.
    Dad sighed really loudly and took the phone. Even then I could still hear Granny giving it to Dad in a very loud, cross voice. Dad just kept saying, “Yes.” “Yes.” “I know.” “I will.” “I will.”
    When he put down the phone, he sighed again and pulled me over to him and I sat on his knee.
    “So you had an exciting day in school today, did you? Well, I want to hear all about it.”
    When I had finished telling Dad the whole story, he laughed, and that was the first time I have heard him laugh since Mammy died. Then he gave me a big hug and told me to run along to bed.

Weekends have become so long and so boring since Mammy died. We never do anything anymore. When Mammy was alive we always had family fun on the weekend. We used to go swimming on Saturdays — not anymore. If it was nice on Sundays we went for a hike, Daddy and Mammy and Conor and Sally and Sparkler and me. Actually I never really liked the hikes, but the funny thing is I really miss them now. All we ever do in our house now is watch television and fight and listen to very loud music while Conor goes crazy on the drums.
    But this Sunday is going to be different.
    Aunt L. and Uncle Boris and wee Billy have come all the way from Belfast to Granny’s house for the weekend to celebrate wee Billy’s first birthday, and all my aunts and their husbands and my cousins will be there for a big knees-up, says Granny (whatever a “knees-up” is).
    We almost didn’t go because Dad said he didn’t feel ready for a party quite yet, but first Granny and then Aunt L. got on the phone to him and told him what for! “You owe it to those poor children to put a brave face on things and start living again,” I heard Granny say. I heard her say that because I listened in very quietly on the upstairs phone. Do you know what? I think I would be a good spy.
    So now we are all in the car and on our way. Dad is still not too happy about it — he keeps sighing — but Sally and I are delighted. Sally keeps saying she can’t wait to see “wee Billy” in her best Belfast accent. Conor pretends he doesn’t care, but I know he’s hoping that Nicholas will take him on his motorbike if Granny doesn’t have a holy fit about it. I’m holding the big fire engine that Sally and I bought this morning for wee Billy.
    We are the last to arrive. Every inch of the kitchen table is covered with cakes.
    “Your granny has been baking all week,” Grandad whispers loudly to me, “and that’s only about half of the cakes she has baked, but she’s eaten all the rest herself. No wonder she’s so fat!” And he winks at me.
    “I heard that, old man!” calls Granny from the hall.
    Uncle Boris grabs me from behind and swings me right up into the air. “How’s my wee lass?” he roars. Granny says that Uncle Boris does not know how to talk — only how to shout.
    In the living room, Aunt L. is having a very serious talk with Daddy. Sally is holding wee Billy, and he is trying to pull her nose off. Sally is different when she is with babies; she forgets to be cool and serious. I wish Sally was always like that, laughing and giggling.
    Conor and Emmett are out looking at Nicholas’s motorbike, and Aunt M. is talking to Aunt B. about her favorite subject — weddings! Uncle Horace and Uncle Boris are talking about money. I go and look for Emma — but she finds me first.
    “Hi, Dig. Still