Читать книгу ‘… then he ate my boy entrancers.’ - Louise Rennison - Страница 96

Doorbell rang. I looked down the stairs from the safety of my bedroom.

Mutti answered. Uh-oh. It was one of our beloved boys in blue. And as policemen go, he didn’t look pleased. Now what?

I scampered down the stairs to give my mutti moral support. Although, as it happens, basooma support would have been more appropriate. Hasn’t she got one single piece of clothing that doesn’t reveal far too much flesh?

I put an interested look on my face. It’s the one I use when Hawkeye asks me where my homework is. It usually results in double detention, but you can’t have everything. The constable looked at me, and it wasn’t his guardian-of-the-community-and-servant-of-the-people look.

He said to Mum, “Good evening, madam, can you tell me if you know this person?” And he held up Grandad’s O.A.P. card, the one with the photo of him with the earring in.

Don’t ask.

Mum said, “Yes, it’s my father…Oh My God, is he all right?”

The officer said, “Yes, he is, madam, but he is a danger to himself and others.”

I said, “You can say that again, officer. I don’t need a helmet and truncheon to figure that out.”

Mum said, “Shut up, Georgia.”

Which I think is probably abusive behaviour, but I let it go.

It turns out that, for once, the officer was the bearer of glad tidings. Grandad had set out on his six-hundred-mile bike ride to the Lake District and fell off at the end of his street. But not before he knocked the policeman off his new community bike.

“I’d only had it for a week, madam.”

I tried to look concerned.

The policeman opened his notebook. “The gentleman we have now positively identified as your father was wearing Lycra shorts and kept falling off his bike. I asked him to walk a straight line.”

Mutti said, “Oh my goodness, had he been drinking?”

The officer said, “I don’t know, madam, but he refused to walk the line on account of an old war wound. Then he said…” The officer looked down at his notes again. “…‘Do you want to come back to my place, constable, and have one for the road?’”

You have to give Grandad full marks on the lunacy scale.