Mimi (2 page)

Also, my teacher, Ms. Addle, says that she wants the children in her class to read everything they can get their hands on — newspapers, comics, the backs of cereal boxes, the ads on the bus stop, signposts . . . everything we see. She didn’t actually mention diaries but I bet she would have if she had thought of it.

But the most important reason I have to read Sally’s diary is to find out what her dark and dreadful secret is.

Sally often mentions her “dark and dreadful secret” to her diary, but she never says what it is exactly, except that it is shameful and dangerous. But yesterday Sally told her diary that she would tell the terrible secret to it soon, so you can understand how excited I am as I sit on her bed with her diary on my lap.

I’ll straighten out the bedcovers before I leave — I am very careful to cover all my tracks, like a good burglar. I open the diary to the new page, and I read yesterday’s entry:

I drop the diary as if it has burned my fingers! How dare Sally accuse me of reading her diary? I nearly grab a pen and write on the page some terrible things about her before I remember that then she would know for sure that I have been looking at it.

But she does know! Suddenly I feel terrible. I put my face in my hands. I can feel my cheeks burning. How did she find out? I am always so careful to leave everything just as I find it, and she is always out of the house when I read it.

Right then I do feel ashamed and like a sneaky nosy parker. How can I ever talk to Sally again or look her straight in the eye? She’ll never forgive me. I would never forgive me if I were her.

Then I think, maybe she doesn’t really know that I read her diary. Maybe she is only trying to trap me. I decide not to say anything at all, just to carry on as normal. And if Sally accuses me to my face I’ll cry and call her a liar. So I put everything back where it was — and just in time, too, because I have hardly finished straightening out her duvet when I hear her key turning in the front door.

Sally says nothing to me all that evening. Maybe she doesn’t know it was me who read her precious diary after all.

Dad makes us pizza for dinner as usual. I used to love pizza, but now I am sick of the sight of them and Dad always leaves them in too long and they get all burnt and hard. “Sorry about that, kids,” he mutters as he serves us a half pizza each. He doesn’t seem to mind as he chews on his own piece of pizza as if he were chewing an old shoe.

Conor doesn’t seem to mind either — he just eats away and talks to Dad about the soccer tournament and doesn’t seem even to notice that Dad is barely answering him.“Liverpool are away to Man U on Wednesday, Dad,” he says, his mouth half full.

“Is that so?” mumbles Dad as if he is living on another planet.

“Should be a close match. Man U will miss Rooney — he’s pulled a hamstring.”

“Is that so?” answers Dad, but I don’t think he’s even listening. Conor might as well be talking to himself.

Sally and I don’t eat Dad’s pizza if we can help it. Sally usually just walks over to the back door, opens it, and tosses her pizza out to our dog, Sparkler. After a bit I do too. Dad doesn’t seem to care — but Sparkler is delighted. She never gets sick of pizza. When Mammy was alive, Sparkler used to charge around the house, jumping on everybody and licking them. Or she’d find her leash and pull it around in her mouth until somebody took her for a walk. Now she’s never in the house and nobody bothers with her much, and she’s gotten so fat from all the pizza that I don’t think she could actually walk very far anymore.

After dinner Dad wanders off to look at some old photos, and that just makes him sadder. Conor takes his plate up to his room and starts playing his drums. He does that every evening now. He is the worst drummer in the world, and he is also the loudest. The noise he makes is so loud that I have to turn the TV volume up to its highest and Sally has to turn her CD player as high as it will go.

We live in a sad house but at least it is not quiet!

My friend Orla is very jealous of me because she has to be in bed by nine thirty every night and I can stay up as long as I like, but tonight I am tired and there is nothing on the TV so I go to bed at ten thirty. Orla is jealous too because I can just throw my clothes wherever I like and Aunt B. will pick them up in the morning. Aunt B. comes every day when we’re in school and cleans the house spick-and-span, and every evening after school we mess it up again.

I used to find it hard to sleep with all the noise in our house. But you can get used to anything, and after a few words with Socky my eyes begin to close and my thumb slips into my mouth. “Good night, Socky,” I tell my sock puppet, and he nods and says, “Good night, you.” And then I slip him off my hand and tuck him under my pillow.

Before Mammy died I had gotten too old for Socky, but Mammy always used to look for him when she tucked me in. “Ah, poor Socky!” she’d say, and she’d pull him out, all dusty from under the bed, and then she’d put her hand into him and talk to him in her silly voice: “So, Socky, has Mimi got too big and grown-up for you, is that it? And I suppose she’s too grown-up for a tickle from her old friend Socky too?” And then she’d tickle me to death with Socky on her hand. When she’d leave the room I’d throw him under the bed again. But since Mammy died I am not too old for Socky anymore.

The last thing I do before I drift off is to whisper “Good night” to the picture of Mammy on my nightstand, and I ask her to mend Daddy’s broken heart. That makes me cry a little, but next thing I’m asleep.

Tuesday is Aunt M.’s day. Aunt M.’s full name is Marigold. Both my mammy’s sisters are named after flowers — Aunt M. and Aunt L., whose full name is Aunt Lupin (“Aunt Loopy” my dad used to call her before Mammy died) — and my mammy was named Poppy. Daddy has only one sister, Aunt B., short for Betty — “Which is not a flower, thank you very much,” she says!

Before I go to Aunt M.’s I have to drop in to Mrs. Lemon’s shop for a Spiff bar and some free sweets. I love Mrs. Lemon.

Sally has detention today, so I am first to arrive at Aunt M.’s apartment, which suits me fine because Sally keeps giving me these looks where she makes her eyes all narrow, and although she hasn’t said anything I think she knows that I am the one who read her diary. So just at the moment I prefer to keep out of her way.

Aunt M.’s apartment is on the third floor, so I take the elevator. Her apartment is almost new, and even though Grandad says that you couldn’t swing a cat in it, I think it is just perfect. Granny isn’t too impressed with it either. She wonders where the children will play, but Aunt M. just says that she has no intention of having children for years and years, if ever, and Granny says, “We’ll see about that.”

“I’m not even married yet and you’re going on about children already!” shouts Aunt M. She and Granny are always fighting.

Aunt M. will be married next September, to Nicholas — and he’ll be dropping in later, says Aunt M. when she stops hugging me, so Conor will be pleased. Aunt M. always hugs me when I come on a Tuesday. If Sally is there with me, and she is in the mood, we have a group hug.

Aunt M. is very short — I’m nearly as tall as her — and she smells of those little blue flowers that I love, so I take a big sniff and say, “You smell lovely, Aunt M.”

Aunt M. is an engineer, whatever that is, and Tuesday is her only half day, which is why she takes us after school on Tuesdays. Aunt M. is not one for baking, but she still has lots of goodies for us from the shop. So before
Southsiders
starts, Aunt M. and I have a good gossip and stuff our faces with sweets and bars and wash it all down with Coke, and then at three thirty we sit down on her white leather sofa and watch
Southsiders
together. Because Aunt M. misses every episode except Tuesday’s I have to fill her in on what’s been happening.

“Well, you’ll never guess,” I tell her. “Blackson — you know Blackson, the one with the ginger hair.”

“The one who’s going out with Ginger, the skinny girl with the black hair?”

“Yeah, well you’ll never guess,” I tell her. “Blackson walked into the pub, unexpected, and there was Ginger kissing guess who?”

“OH MY GOD!” screeches Aunt M., covering her mouth with her hand. “Who?”

“William!”

“No! Is he the one with the fair hair and the mustache who I fancy?”

“No, not him.” Aunt M. is always getting the people in
Southsiders
all mixed up. “No, Gregory is the one you fancy — there’s William!” I tell her, pointing at the screen, because William has just appeared . . . and he doesn’t know it but Blackson is coming up behind him looking very mad indeed.

“OH, MY GOD! I CAN’T LOOK!” screams Aunt M., covering her eyes with a cushion as Blackson raises a big stick and is about to bash William on the head. . . . And then there’s a commercial break.

Of course during the break Sally arrives. She stuffs a candy bar into her mouth and says, “I suppose you’re watching that rubbish
Southsiders.
”

Then Aunt M. wants to show her her wedding dress before Nicholas arrives.

“I suppose it’s white,” Sally grunts, but Aunt M. just laughs.

So I am left watching the rest of the show on my own, and it’s just not the same. I could kill Sally . . . if she doesn’t kill me first for being a nosy-parker spy.

At last Aunt M. remembers me, but no sooner has she sat down again than Nicholas and Conor arrive at the same time, and suddenly Aunt M.’s cozy little apartment seems crowded with noisy people. Everybody has forgotten about
Southsiders,
and William will just have to bleed to death on his own because Nicholas has decided that I have watched enough TV.

“I wonder, will this round helmet fit on Mimi’s square head?” Nicholas shouts, and pushes his motorbike helmet onto my head back to front. He says I have a square head from watching too much TV but it’s not true — I check my head regularly in the bathroom mirror and it is as round as it always was.

I can’t see a thing with the helmet backward on my head, and then he starts to tickle me. Nicholas has the longest fingers that dig right into you and tickle you to death, and I’m nearly feeling sick with giggling when at last he stops because he has to talk seriously about motorbikes with Conor.

“Give me back my helmet, Squarehead,” he says, and pulls the helmet off my head.

But before he goes he has to give his “fiancée” (that’s what he calls Aunt M.) a big sloppery kiss, and Sally groans, “Oh, give me a bucket!” and Conor just goes red and looks down at his shoes until they’re finished.

I wish every day was Tuesday. So does Conor because Nicholas takes him on a ride on the back of his motorbike. Sally loves Tuesdays too because she thinks Aunt M. is cool (I know that because I read it in her diary). So I am always sad when we have to go home to our sad house at six o’clock.

Today Dad is at least awake. He’s just staring at the telly, although it is not even switched on. “Help yourself to pizza,” he says, but even from the hall I can smell it burning.

Anyway, I’m still stuffed from Aunt M.’s and I still have my Spiff bar left, so I toss my pizza out to Sparkler, and so does Sally. Conor takes his black pizza up to his room and the drums start, and Sally’s music starts blaring and I have to turn the TV up all the way to hear anything.