The Little Old Lady Who Broke All the Rules Read Online Free PDF

there was one of those strange protuberances for plastic cards. Diamond House had transformed the kitchen into an impregnable fortress! Disappointment washed over her and it was a good few minutes before she was able to gather her wits together and leave. But she didn’t give up; instead, she pressed the elevator button to go down. Perhaps there was a larder or storage area in the cellar.
    When the doors of the elevator opened downstairs, she hesitated for a moment, not sure where she was. At the far end of the corridor she could make out a weak light from an old-fashioned door with a pane of glass at the top. This door was also locked, but the master key worked. Cautiously, she pushed open the door and a cold, invigorating winter air blew in. Lovely, here was a way out! The chill helped to clear her mind, and all of a sudden she remembered she had the old key from her parents’ home. It was very similar to the master key with a triangular bow. If she switched keys, she was sure nobody would notice the difference. Martha closed the door to the outside, turned on the light and entered another corridor. On one of the doors was a sign which read: GYM—FOR STAFF ONLY. Martha unlocked the door and looked inside.
    There were no windows and it took a while before she could find the light switch. The fluorescent lights blinked to life and she could see skipping ropes, small weights and exercise bicycles. There were benches beside the walls, a treadmill and weird contraptions she didn’t know the names of. So DiamondHouse had cut back on prophylactic exercise for the residents, but at the same time had a gym just for the staff! The old people had repeatedly asked to get back their own exercise room, but the new owners had said no. Martha felt like kicking in the door, which would be rather difficult at her age, but instead blurted out all the swear words she could think of, arched her back like a cat and made a threatening gesture with her fist.
    ‘You’ll pay for this, just wait!’
    Back upstairs she put the old family key under her door and pulled it as hard as she could to bend it out of shape. Then she hung the crooked key in the key cabinet, so that nobody would be suspicious if it didn’t fit. She hid the master key in her bra, went to bed and pulled the covers up to her chin. The first step in a revolution was to be able to move about freely. And now they could do just that. Shutting her eyes, and with a smile on her lips, she fell asleep and dreamed of a gang of oldies who robbed a bank and were hailed as heroes when they got to prison.

Five
    The plans for the future that Martha and Brains concocted grew increasingly bolder. Their vision had given them a new energy and they were becoming all the more daring. Meanwhile, the retirement home was still cutting costs. The management stopped providing buns with the afternoon coffee, and coffeewas limited to three cups per day. When the old folk came to decorate the Christmas tree, they got another shock. The management would no longer supply the decorations.
    ‘I bet they have Christmas trees with decorations in prisons!’ Martha said, seething.
    ‘And not only that. They even let the inmates go out on trips to see the shop windows in the Christmas season,’ said Brains, as he got up and did his best to storm out of the room. After a while, he returned with a Bethlehem star he had made from silver tape.
    ‘This star is as good as any,’ he said, reinforcing it with some pipe cleaners and then taping it onto the top of the tree. Everyone applauded, and Martha smiled. Brains might have turned eighty but there was still a little boy inside him.
    ‘Surely a star for the tree can’t cost much, can it?’ said Anna-Greta.
    ‘They are just stingy people who begrudge everything for others. I can’t see things getting any better here; in fact, it’s the opposite. Brains and I met some other members of the new management yesterday and proposed some improvements, but they