Chapter 6: Early Wednesday Evening November 24th

I was still hugging Nana goodbye when we heard the front door open and shut. Dan came into the kitchen with a bag of ice dangling from each hand.

“Mmm! Something smells good.” Dan sniffed the air and then his eyes lit up when he saw the covered trays.

“Fresh biscuits?” he asked. But then his pleading expression turned into a pout because Nana had crossed her arms and stood herself between him and the biscuits.

“They’re for tomorrow,” said Nana.

Dan kept pouting, but Nana didn’t budge.

Dan sighed and turned towards me.

“I come bearing gifts,” he said, holding the ice bags out towards me.

“I don’t want them,” I said and pointed at the cooler. “Put the ice in the cool box.”

Dan stooped down to kiss Nana as he walked past her. She patted his arm and they exchanged greetings. Dan spent a few seconds tipping the ice into the cooler. I watched him for a moment, but then I figured out what was coming and backed off to the sink where I picked up a wooden spoon.

Dan stood up and walked towards me with his arms spread wide.

“So how’s about a nice hug from my little sister?” he said, a grin spreading all the way across his face.

“No! No!” I shrieked and tried to hit his hands with my wooden spoon. “Keep those cold mits away, you overgrown lump.”

I didn’t have a lot of luck in actually whacking his knuckles, but then I didn’t expect to. In fact, I failed spectacularly because Dan easily snatched the wooden spoon out of my hands. What I did achieve was that I stopped him from laying his cold hands on me and since that’s all I was trying to do, I was happy.

Dan proved to me that I was right about his intentions when he laughed and rubbed his hands against his jeans to warm them.

“Listen to you! Someone’s been spending too long with Nana. You’ve gone all Lanky on us.”

I blew a raspberry at him.

He grinned and reached out to flick a finger at my ear. I squealed and ducked, which I did well enough to avoid getting my ear flicked. Unfortunately, I hadn’t spotted that the ear flicking was a fake and ducking the way I did left me open for his real move. He reached down and gave me a thwack on my undefended backside with the wooden spoon. He called out “Ekky Thump!” at the same time as he hit me.

You probably don’t know about Ekky Thump, so I better tell you. Ekky Thump was a made up martial art in an episode of The Goodies, where they took the mickey out of everything to do with Lancastrians. Dad has a copy of the episode and watches it every so often. He thinks it’s very funny. Mum says that proves that he isn’t a true Lanky because, when she saw it, she thought it was a documentary. She even says that with a straight face which makes Dad laugh more. The bit I most remember about the program is they keep hitting each other with black puddings. Black puddings are like big sausages, only made with completely gross ingredients like congealed blood. Dr K, if anyone ever offers you a piece of black pudding, turn around and run away as fast and as far as you can. It’s totally disgusting.

“Hey!” I glared at Dan and rubbed my abused bum. “Ecky Thump? I’ll give you Ecky Thump.”

But Dan hadn’t stuck around to celebrate his little victory. He’d darted over to the other side of the kitchen. He was stealing a biscuit from the rack, completely ignoring Nana’s attempt to drive him off by flicking a tea towel at him.

“Hey!” I called out. “Those are for tomorrow. Leave them alone.”

I charged across the room and launched myself at him. I beat my fists against his broad back and cried “Leave it alone! Put it back!” while I did so. I saw an opportunity and snatched the forgotten wooden spoon out of his hand. Despite all of my efforts, Dan managed to steal a biscuit. He turned towards me and made a big deal out of biting a little bit off the biscuit, right in front of my face. Remember, these were proper English biscuits which are like cookies only better. He closed his eyes and gave a little pleased moan as he chewed and swallowed his mouthful of biscuit. I couldn’t blame him for that. Nana’s biscuits really are incredible – particularly when they’re still warm from the oven.

Dan’s eyes were closed while he savoured the biscuit and I saw a chance for revenge. I yelled “Ekky Thump!” and hit his arm with the wooden spoon. His eyes popped open in surprise. He moved towards me, waving the half-eaten biscuit menacingly. I squealed and ran away, running all the way out of the kitchen, through the entrance hall and into the living room. Dan had chased me for about two steps and then suddenly changed direction. I didn’t realize he’d done that until I arrived in the living room from the entrance hall at the same time as Dan entered it from the hallway. Realizing I was running straight towards him, I squealed again and changed directions. That left me running straight at the couch. I jumped up onto the couch and tried to take shelter there, but Dan was having none of it.

He roared and took a flying leap right up into the air and over the top of me. I promise you that seeing all thousand pounds of Dan flying through the air and about to land on you is about the scariest thing in the world. I screamed – loudly.

Of course, I’ve been wrestling with Dan since I was born and in all that time he’s never really hurt me – not badly anyway. I’ve scored a few bruises occasionally, and I always end up squished, but I totally trust him not to actually hurt me. In fact my brain wasn’t really scared as he flew at me. Most of the little Becs inside my brain were rolling about inside my skull and giggling with glee. But it’s no fun, wrestling with Dan, unless you play the game, and the game is that you have to be scared when he jumps on you, so I was cheerfully being scared.

Dan landed with his legs and arms on each side of me to absorb most of his weight, and then he dropped down on top me. The impact cut off my scream and drove most of the breath from my body. It was enough to thoroughly squash me down into the cushions of the couch but not enough to turn me into a Bec-flavored pancake. About the only part of me that could move was my right hand which was still holding the wooden spoon.

I could pivot my wrist enough to slap him with the spoon. It had about the same effect as slapping an elephant with a feather but I did it anyway. At the same time, I was yelling, “Get off! Get off me, you great ox!” I also called him a few other names, like oaf and troll and so on. I wasn’t being mean. He knew I wasn’t being mean.

Dan mostly ignored all of that, though he did twist around a bit so that he could knock the wooden spoon out of my hand. It flew over the back of the couch, hit the wall and then clattered down to the floor behind the couch.

Dan shifted and lifted his top half up so that his face was about eight inches above mine. His stomach and legs were still pinning my hips into the couch so I was still thoroughly caught, but at least it was a bit easier to breathe so that was a good thing.

“Now, where was I?” said Dan with a big grin. “Oh yes, I was enjoying a nice biscuit. To the victor goes the spoils.”

Somehow, Dan had managed to preserve his half-eaten biscuit in one hand through all of that. Now he produced it and held it in front of his nose. He took in a huge sniff through his nose to absorb the smell of the freshly-baked biscuit. As he inhaled the smell of the biscuit, he closed his eyes, so he didn’t notice until it was too late that his hand had moved a bit. The biscuit was waving right in front of my face. I lifted my head and used my mouth to bite most of the biscuit out of his hand. His eyes popped open in alarm and he stared in horror at the tiny corner of biscuit that was left between his fingers. He hurriedly stuffed the last little bit of the biscuit into his mouth so that I couldn’t steal that as well. I giggled through a mouthful of biscuit as I hurried to chew and swallow so that I could speak.

“I got the spoils, so I guess that makes me the victor.” I giggled up at Dan as I said it. He poked his tongue out at me in reply.

I heard a loud sigh, and then Nana said, “How the furniture in this house doesn’t end up as matchsticks is beyond me.”

I poked my head out from under Dan’s arm and grinned at Nana. She was standing there with her purse under one arm and her car keys in her hand.

She looked at me curiously. “Do you have everything under control there, Bec?”

I grinned again. “Oh, yes.”

I split my legs and wrapped them out and around Dan’s waist, digging my heels into his back, and at the same time I used my one free hand to get a good grip on the front of Dan’s shirt.

“See? I have him completely trapped.”

“Well, good then,” she said with a mischievous smile. “I shall leave you in charge until someone more responsible comes home.”

Dan turned his head sideways to look at Nana. “Are you saying I’m not responsible?”

Nana shook her head and made that “tut, tut, tut,” noise with her mouth.

“I suppose you’re responsible enough for small things, like washing dishes and mowing lawns, but I would expect someone who was properly responsible to look after his little sister better than that.”

Dan pouted. “I look after her.”

He brushed some biscuit crumbs off my cheek with his spare hand.

“See? I wipe her face when she makes a mess. I even change her nappy when she poops in her pants.”

He looked me in the face and grinned. “Do you need changing? Have you pooped your pants?”

He reached down and hooked a finger underneath the waistband of my jeans and pulled – which created about a one inch gap between my skin and the waistband of my jeans. He pretended as if he was going to check for a smelly nappy. I squealed at the threatened invasion of my private places but there wasn’t much else I could do about it. Dan was leaning on one arm and my other hand was firmly knotted in his shirt. I couldn’t even twist out of the way because my legs were wrapped around his waist.

In the end, all I could do was tighten the grip of my legs around his waist and pull myself more tightly up against his body. I could feel my heart thumping in my chest and a heat spread across my stomach where it was pressed against Dan. I know that Dan was teasing and wouldn’t have really done anything rude like that, but it had still made my heart skip.

“Thank you for making my point for me,” said Nana with a chuckle. She turned and started walking towards the door.

“Bye, Nana! See you tomorrow,” I called out from my position underneath Dan.

Dan looked down at me. “Trapped, am I?”

Then he stood up. And naturally, since I was clinging to him, I went up as well. I slipped a bit and squeaked. I had a choice of letting go and sliding down to the floor or clinging on more tightly. I chose to hang on. I squeezed my legs around Dan’s waist as hard as I could and grabbed onto his shoulder with my spare hand to make sure I didn’t slip again. I was giggling pretty uncontrollably by that time and it was all I could do to hang on to him.

During all of that, Dan had been walking through the living room after Nana. He reached out and held the door for her.

“See you tomorrow, Nana,” he said and stooped down to kiss her cheek – which had the effect of tipping me upside down. I squealed and hung on. Then I giggled some more as he straightened up and used my back to push the door closed behind Nana.

“You know,” he said, in a conversational tone. “It’s just as well you have me completely trapped, because otherwise I could do this.”

He stepped into the middle of the entrance hall and spun quickly in a circle. That made me squeal some more. I was panting for breath by the time he stopped spinning – mostly from a mixture of screaming and giggling at the same time.

“ ... or I could do this!” he said.

He pressed me against the wall and leaned into me. Then he pressed a bit more.

“Aaaaaah!” I wailed, as all the breath was squished out of my body. I flailed helplessly against his back with my hands and with my heels as I felt myself flatten out. I went way past pancake stage until I was as flat as one of those French crepes. It’s good that I’m pretty limber because his waist was pressing my legs into a sideways split that would probably hurt some people.

Then, just when I started to run out of breath, he eased back from the wall and I could breathe again.

“Brute!” I scowled into his face. Then I pointed at the wall. “Look what you did!”

All my flailing around had knocked one of my pictures off its little nail. It was the one of Faith and Danielle. Well, actually it was a copy of the one of Faith and Danielle – I gave them the original so they could hang it up in their room.

It was only a sketch stuck on a cardboard backing, so it wasn’t damaged or anything. The sketch lay flat on the floor and I couldn’t reach it from my position hanging on to Dan. I reached down with one arm and flexed my hand open and shut to emphasize that I couldn’t reach the sketch where it lay.

“Down! Can’t reach! Lower!” I said.

Dan did as instructed and bent over, therefore lowering me enough that I could reach the sketch and pick it up from the floor. Naturally that involved me being more or less upside down as I clung to him, but that was okay. It was kind of fun, actually. Then he straightened up again and moved me close to the wall so that I could re-attach the sketch to its little nail.

Once I was satisfied that it was hanging securely and sitting straight, I wrapped the arm I’d been using back around Dan’s shoulder and tucked my head in against his chest with a satisfied little sigh.

I felt a hand pat my back and then we were moving again as Dan walked back to the couch and sat down. I had to unwrap my legs from behind him at the last minute to avoid getting them trapped. I curled my heels around so they were back under my hips but otherwise didn’t move. This all resulted in Dan sitting on the couch with me sitting astride his lap – still curled up against his broad chest.

Dan wrapped his arms around me and I nestled happily in the warm hug.

We sat there in silence for a little while.

Quietly, without warning, and for no reason whatsoever, tears suddenly spilled from my eyes. The first thing Dan probably knew about it was when his shirt started getting wet. He used a single finger to lift my face off his chest so that he could see for himself that my face was wet with tears.

“Hey!” His voice was soft and full of concern. “What’s with all the tears?”

I tucked my face back down against his chest.

Inside my skull, I stared with confusion at the little girl with tears running down her face. She’d been so happy a moment ago, and now she was crying. It didn’t make sense.

“I don’t know,” I mumbled.

“You haven’t actually pooped in your pants, have you?”

I giggled through my tears and slapped his chest. “No!”

“Well, that’s good. Because that would be embarrassing. You’re too old for me to be wiping your smelly butt and changing your diapers. Besides, I don’t think they actually make diapers in your size.”

I giggled again. My eyes were still leaking tears but my mouth was laughing.

Dan wasn’t finished. “Are you sad about what’s happening in France?”

“What’s happening in France?”

“All those children are being brought up to speak French. It’s a kind of brain-washing. France is full of deluded people who’ve been brain-washed into speaking French. I think it’s very sad. It’s kind of like a cult – a cult of frenchness.”

I was laughing big belly-laughs now. I grabbed two handfuls of Dan’s shirt and buried my face into his chest to try to stop the laughs.

“Mind you,” he continued. “This frenchness cult is a very old one. France has been around for over a thousand years. That’s over a thousand years of delusion. Think of the millions of people who’ve lived their entire lives, trapped in the cult of frenchness. That makes it even more sad, doesn’t it? No wonder you were crying.”

By this time I was laughing so much my stomach was hurting. I slapped Dan’s chest.

“Stop it! It isn’t funny,” I wheezed. I was desperately trying to stop laughing before I burst open and spilt my insides all over Dan and the couch.

I pushed myself away from Dan’s chest and scowled at his face. He was lying back with a gentle smile on his face.

“That’s better. No more tears. I like your smiley face better than your sad face.”

I poked my tongue at him.

He tilted his head to one side and looked at me.

“Are you worried about Angie? Is that why you were crying?”

I searched around inside my skull and couldn’t come up with a definite answer.

I shrugged. “Maybe. She’s hurt. She’s at the hospital.”

Dan gently pulled me back down against his chest and stroked my back.

“You don’t have to worry. It’s nothing serious. She hurt her arm. Little kids get hurt all the time. When Tara was Angie’s age, she was up to the hospital nearly every month, what with one thing or another. You didn’t have the same problem. Every time you fell over, you bounced up again without getting hurt. I’m quite convinced that your entire body is made of rubber.”

I lay there and thought about that while Dan stroked his hand up and down my spine.

“Nana’s getting old,” I said. “Her hands were really bad this morning.”

Dan chuckled, which did interesting things to his stomach. Since I was lying on his stomach, I got bounced up and down a bit.

“I dare you to tell Nana she’s getting old. She’ll bite your head off. As far as she’s concerned, she’s started a new part of her life and she’s enjoying every minute of it.”

“Yes! But she’s still getting old. Earlier today she let me boss her around. She never used to let me do that.”

“You used to try to boss her into letting you eat sweets or bake mud-pies in her oven. Of course she never let you get away with that. Maybe today you were telling her to do something that she knew was the right thing to do.”

“Maybe.”

I snuggled into Dan’s chest and let the rise and fall of his chest calm my busy brain.

After a moment, I stirred. “Dad will be home soon, with Tara. I should start cooking dinner.”

“Dad said he would call when he was ready to leave the hospital. Has he called yet?”

“No.”

“Then there’s no hurry. We can rest for a little while.”

“Okay!”

I smiled into his chest and rested.

A short time later, I wriggled to ease a crick in my neck. Then I spoke softly into the silence.

“Mum said you were going out.”

“Yes!”

“Say hello to Pearl for me.”

“I won’t be seeing Pearl.”

I blinked and pushed myself away from Dan’s chest so that I could sit upright in his lap.

I frowned at Dan.

“Where’s Pearl?”

“She’s gone home to her family for Thanksgiving.”

“So who are you going out with then?”

“Katrina, from the restaurant.”

“So why did Pearl dump you?”

Dan looked puzzled.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m hoping you weren’t stupid enough to dump her.”

“Nobody dumped anybody.”

“But why are you going out with this Katrina girl, when you’re dating Pearl?”

“I’m not really dating Pearl. I’ve just gone out on a few dates with her, that’s all.”

“Dan!” I waved my arms in exasperation. Then I grabbed him by his hair just above the ears on each side of his head.

“Dan, you are such an idiot.”

Dan blinked at me in surprise. I sighed and tried again.

“Do you like Pearl?”

“Yes!”

“Do you want to have Pearl as your girlfriend?”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe? Maybe isn’t good enough. It has to be yes or no. You’ve had long enough to decide – so decide! If you don’t want her to be your girlfriend, then you have to tell her that and stop messing her around. If you do want her to be your girlfriend, then you have to tell her that, and cut out all this fooling around with every girl who points a pair of D-cups at you.”

Dan was looking puzzled. I used my hand-holds to shake his head a couple of times.

“Dan, when will you get it through your thick skull that Pearl is different from every other girl you’ve ever gone on a date with? She doesn’t use their rules. She doesn’t understand their world. Those bimbos all have so much blood going through their boobs that they don’t have anything left to make their brains work. They’re all butterflies. They flit from one idiot jock to the next idiot jock without a care in the world. It’s about time you stopped being one of the idiot jocks. Butterflies might look pretty, but they’re only around for a day or two and then they’re gone.”

I let go of the handfuls of Dan’s hair I was holding and smoothed his hair back down. My hands kept playing with his hair while I thought about what to say next.

“Pearl isn’t a butterfly. She’s this ... She’s this treasure that hides in an oyster on the bottom of the ocean, waiting for someone special to come along and find her. Pearl shared something special with you. She thinks it was special anyway, even if you don’t. Pearl thinks that doing that and going on dates with you implies some sort of commitment. And now, the first time she isn’t around, you go and betray her with the first slut who flashes her tits at you.”

“I think you’re judging Katrina a bit harshly.”

“Really? Whose idea was it that you go out on this date?”

“I asked her.”

“I didn’t ask you who asked who. I asked you whose idea it was.”

“She may have said something about it before I asked her.”

“Exactly! Dan, I’ve seen Katrina at the restaurant. She’s exactly the type that I’m talking about. I bet you weren’t even looking at her face when you asked her out.”

Dan blinked at me. I wasn’t sure if I was right about that or not, so I moved on.

“Anyway, aren’t you supposed to be a duty manager at the restaurant?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Isn’t there supposed to be some law about managers not having sex with the workers?”

“There isn’t actually a law...”

“What will happen the next time you tell her to do something that she doesn’t want to do. If you make her do it, she’ll complain that you’re picking on her because of the sex, and if you let her off, the other workers will complain about favoritism. The only way to avoid that would be to have sex with all of them.”

That might not have been a particularly clever thing to say. Dan’s eyes kind of lit up at the thought. I even felt a stirring in his jeans, down where I was sitting. For the first time, it occurred to me that maybe the way I was sitting wasn’t terribly ... um ... suitable. Sitting astride his lap and facing him, like I was, meant that my, you know, my groin was all stretched out and pressed against him. I mean, if anyone saw me sitting like that, they’d probably think ... well, I guess it’s just as well I was wearing jeans. I could feel my face heat up as I blushed.

I pushed against his chest so that I slid back from him a little bit. Now I was sitting astride his thighs rather than directly on his lap.

That business had made me totally lose my train of thought. I slapped Dan’s arm in frustration. Dan seemed to think I was hitting him because of the other thing and he started to apologize, so I stopped him with my fingers over his mouth. I wanted to pretend it all hadn’t happened so I didn’t want to talk about it. I tried to get the conversation back on track.

“Dan! That would include Dorothy, who’s like fifty, and that Martin guy, who probably wouldn’t object too much, and also the cook. What’s his name?”

“Alistair?”

“Alistair. He would definitely object. He has some very sharp knives that he would probably stick into you if you even suggested it.”

I could see the excitement progressively disappear from Dan’s eyes as I said all that.

I sighed and dropped my eyes down to my hands, which were resting on the outsides of my thighs.

“I suppose...” Dan’s voice was hesitant. “I suppose you’re right.”

“Dan, I’m totally right and you know it. You’re not being fair to Pearl.”

“I meant about the work thing, but you might be right about Pearl as well.”

The phone rang and I slipped off Dan’s lap to run across the room and answer it. It was Dad telling me that he and Tara were about to leave the hospital. He also said that Mum and Angie had gone in to see the doctor a few moments ago so they would be a while longer.

I hung up the phone and told Dan what Dad had said. I moved into the kitchen and started separating out the hamburger patties, ready to grill them.

“I’m going to start cooking dinner. We’re having hamburgers. Do you want some?”

“I better not. I’ll be eating with Katrina.”

I shrugged, but put two burgers out for him anyway.

“Are you still going to go out with her? I thought I convinced you not to cheat on Pearl.”

“Yes! I promised to take Katrina to see Frog Rock play. I’m not going to break that promise but I won’t do anything else with her.”

“Who are Frog Rock? I’ve never heard of them.”

“They’re a local cover band. Apparently Katrina knows the bass guitarist. They have a gig in that new place that opened up on Lafayette Street.”

“What time is the gig?”

“They go on at ten. They have to finish by eleven thirty because another band is starting at midnight.”

“So even if they go a bit over time, you can still be home by midnight.”

“You don’t get to set a curfew for me, Bec. Don’t push your luck.”

“But if you have a curfew, because of tomorrow being a big day or whatever, then you have a reason for saying no when she starts poking her big tits at you and inviting you back to her place for a coffee or whatever.”

I rolled my eyes to emphasize that I knew “coffee” is code for sex.

Dan shrugged. “I already told you I’m convinced. Don’t you trust me?”

I rolled my eyes back at him and changed the subject.

I started up the grill and got the burgers cooking while Dan sat at the kitchen table and watched. We talked about general stuff while I set the table and got the bowl of salad out of the fridge. The fridge groaned in relief at being unburdened of some of its load.

I timed it pretty well because the burgers had about a minute more to cook when Dad and Tara came in. They burst through the door in the middle of some conversation about a movie that had been on TV last weekend. They were both carrying bags of groceries.

I stood beside the stove and directed traffic, getting Dad and Tara to put the cold things into the cooler and the buns for the hamburgers directly onto the table and the rest of the things into cupboards.

“You’re such a bossy boots,” grumbled Tara. “Who put you in charge?”

“Nana said I was in charge until Mum gets home,” I said.

“To be perfectly accurate, Nana said you were in charge until someone more responsible came home.” Dan pointed out with a grin.

I sniffed. “That’s what I said.”

Dan looked at Dad and laughed. Dad was busy arranging things in the cooler and didn’t seem to have heard our little conversation. I laughed too. I’d tried to have a dig at Dad and he hadn’t even noticed. What a waste of a good teasing.

I pointed at Dad and Tara and put on my bossy voice. “Now go wash up, both of you. Dinner is in two minutes.”

Dan was sniffing at the scent of freshly cooked hamburger.

“Now that I think about it, maybe I could do with a burger. I need something to keep me going until later. Would you mind throwing another one under the grill for me?”

I smiled at Dan and then waved the tongs mystically over the grill. I said “Shazam!” and tapped the tongs against the grill. Then I calmly started lifted the cooked burgers onto a plate.

By the time Dad and Tara returned and sat down, I had everything ready. I had plates of sliced tomato and sliced cheese and the buns were all set out and ready to be used. The ketchup bottle was standing ready as well, except that we call it tomato sauce – even if the label on the bottle says “Ketchup.” I grabbed a bun, assembled a burger on a plate and handed it to Dad. I put together a second burger for Tara and then a third for Dan.

Dan looked down at the burger in front of him, then up at me. “Shazam?”

I grinned at him. “I have magic powers.”

I winked at him and took a bite out of my own burger.

That was the end of any conversation for some time. Mum always says that the greatest compliment a cook can get is when everyone goes quiet and concentrates on eating. I chewed on my burger and enjoyed the compliment.

I also enjoyed my burger. I mean, I really enjoyed my burger. The difference between my burger and the sort you get at a fast food place is like the difference between a diamond and a lump of coal. They’re both made out of more or less the same ingredients but ... well, you know.

The patties weren’t those thin and lifeless things you buy in supermarkets either. Mum makes batches of patties from scratch and freezes them until they’re needed. She uses a secret recipe – yes, I know what it is, but it really is a secret so don’t bother asking. Since Tara and I helped Mum make this batch of burger patties, I guess I can take a little bit of the credit for the silence.