The Tip of My Tongue by Trezza Azzopardi

Author:Trezza Azzopardi
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: epub, ebook, QuarkXPress
ISBN: 111-1-11-111111-1
Publisher: Seren
Published: 2013-10-02T04:00:00+00:00

Twelve

For my birthday I get:

A big thick book called the Pears Junior Encyclo­paedia

A pair of boots which go all the way up the leg like Dick Whittington was wearing in the Panto last Christmas

A riding hat

A recorder for playing in the school orchestra

A gun

It’s not a real gun, only a pretend one, but it has a star on it like the Sheriff’s in Bonanza, and Geraint has shown me how to load and fire the caps. The smell is lovely when they go off, but after I do one whole roll, Aunty Celia says, That’s enough mayhem for one day, thank you, Enid, and puts the rest in her secret hiding place, which I know about on account of being a spy. It was Geraint’s old gun from when he was little but I don’t mind a bit. My mother always says it’s the thought that counts.

I want to wait for the postman for my dad’s card but Aunty Celia says Uncle Horace has to be in his works early and is taking me to school in the Rover as a special treat. Uncle Horace lets me sit in the front and he has covered all the seat and the floor with plastics. I feel a bit funny being on my own with Uncle Horace because even though I have been here for sixty-four days, he is always at his works or studying in his Study when he comes home so I do not really know him. He wears special gloves for driving, like the ones the murderers wear on telly, and he says, Would you like a sweetie, Enid? which makes me go on Red Alert.

No thank you, Uncle Horace, I say.

They’ll stop you feeling sick, he says, Go on, help yourself.

He leans over me and goes in the glove cupboard and fetches out a tin with all different fruits on the lid. I am double suspicious now because he is being so nice. Maybe they’re poisoned sweets and he is going to kidnap me?

Can you pass me one? he goes, so I think they must be not poisoned because I could give him a poisoned one if I wanted to, so I get one out for him and then I have a red one which is strawberry. Then I have a yellow one which is lemon, and then I have another lemon one because they are lovely and sharp, and then I’m going back in the tin to try an orange one and he goes,

I think that’s enough for now, Enid, don’t you?

He said I could help myself but he wasn’t really telling the truth. Geraint must get his lying off his dad. I keep the tin in my lap anyway because he’ll for­get about it in a minute and then I’ll have the orange one.

How are you enjoying school? he says, because adults always ask you that when they don’t know what else to talk about.

Mrs Reynolds says I have got a musical ear, I say, and then I laugh because it’s funny thinking of my ear playing the piano.

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