Читать книгу What Not to Do If You Turn Invisible - Ross Welford, Ross Welford - Страница 20

Anyway, Mrs Abercrombie was at the party with Geoffrey, her three-legged Yorkshire terrier, who was doing his bad-tempered snarly-gnarly thing – and I have a new theory about this. I think the reason he’s so snappy is because she never lets him run around. She is forever holding him in one arm. I’d be annoyed if I was forever pressed into Mrs Abercrombie’s enormous chest.

Gram looked nice. ‘A veritable picture’, as Revd Henry Robinson said.

She sipped from a glass of fizzy water and smiled gently whenever people spoke to her, which is about as far as Gram’s displays of happiness go. She hardly ever laughs – ‘Ladies do not guffaw, Ethel. It’s bad enough in a man. In a woman it is most unseemly.’

(Personally, though, I have my own idea and it has nothing to do with being ‘unseemly’. I think, deep inside, Gram is sad about something. Not me, not Great-gran, but something else. It could just be Mum, but I think it’s more.)

The vicar was the last to leave. He played ‘Happy Birthday’ on the piano then a classical piece off by heart, and everyone clapped. Old Stanley clapped very enthusiastically, and shouted, ‘Bravo! Bravo’, until one of the nurses calmed him down like a naughty child, which I thought was a bit mean.

Gram seemed flustered as soon as Revd Robinson had gone, and there were only me, Gram and Great-gran left as the care assistants were clearing up.

‘Goodness me, look at the time, Mum! That was quite a shindig!’ ‘Shindig’ is a Gram sort of word, meaning party, but it was only one in the afternoon. I think parties must get earlier and earlier the older you get.

Honestly, if I hadn’t already suspected something was up, then Gram’s bad acting would have alerted me. She couldn’t wait to get away.

Anyway, the ‘look at the time’ remark seemed to have an effect on Great-gran, like switching off a light. The distant gaze returned to her face along with the constant nodding, and that was that.

Well, pretty much.

As I leant in to kiss Great-gran’s papery cheek, she whispered in my ear, ‘Come back, hinny.’

‘Oh yes,’ I said. ‘We’ll be back soon.’

Great-gran’s eyes darted to Gram, who was halfway to the door, and it’s the way she did it: I knew instantly what she meant.

Come back without her is what she meant.

That is the weird thing that I told you about. That, and the whole tiger thing.

Just what was going on? And whatever it was, why was Gram so worried about it?