Binny for Short by Hilary McKay

Author:Hilary McKay
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books

Chapter Twelve

“That Gareth comes round nearly every day now,” remarked Clem one morning as she and Binny washed the breakfast things together. “Over the fence and straight into the house like he owns it.”

“I know,” agreed Binny, “and then he stares around like a visitor at a zoo or something.”

“He’s very polite,” said Clem. “Too polite.”

“Only to you. But he’s nice to James. He eats his lettuce.”

“I know. Did the dandelions work?”

“Hope so,” said Binny.

They both laughed callously.

“What did he water it with this morning?” asked Clem.

“Old sneaker soup from the old sneaker he found on the beach. He soaked it in bath water and strained off the juice.”

“You should warn Gareth, Binny.  That’s the worst yet.”

“Mmm,” said Binny. She had no intention of warning Gareth. He had not warned her the day before when he had given her a chili to munch. Besides, what use was an enemy that you had to look out for? She and Gareth had been excellent enemies since their trip to the gorse moor. Perhaps because they had shared a secret.  And perhaps also because they had both realized how very differently they each saw things. (Binny’s long look at a huge tame dragon. Gareth’s glimpse of a small wild adder.) Somehow they were bound even closer by mutual misunderstanding.

It led to a lot of testing.

Every day there was something new. Gareth had kindly loaned Binny his giant water squirter, and encouraged her to lie down on her back and fire it up the chimney.

“It’ll clean it, you see,” he explained, and added, having begun to understand the state of the family’s finances, “That will save you having to pay someone to come!”

Gareth’s method had cleaned the chimney beautifully, mostly all over Binny, who had had to be hosed down in the garden. It took three washes to get the soot out of her hair and because of this, before she handed the water squirter back, she had topped up its reservoir with duck-egg blue paint.

“Did it work, then?” asked Gareth, as innocently as if  he had not witnessed the hosing in the garden.

“Not very well. I thought it would be more powerful, being so big.”

“More powerful?” asked Gareth indignantly. “It’s only the biggest you can buy!”

“Well, it doesn’t seem to work very well when you fire it straight up,” said Binny, and prudently retired to the shelter of the apple tree while Gareth pumped the water squirter to exploding point, fired it upward, and turned duck-egg blue.

No one except Binny witnessed this pleasant event (although it was very obvious to Gareth’s family that something catastrophic had occurred on their patio). Binny’s family knew nothing about it at all, which was why Clem asked, “Why don’t you ever go to Gareth’s house instead of him always coming here?”

“I don’t want to, that’s why,” said Binny.  The patio had scrubbed clean quite well, but there was also the day of the helicopter flight on her conscience.

“James doesn’t ever go there either.”

“That’s because he’s mad at them because they called him a girl.

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