Brilliant Read Free Page B

but he had to take it easy, stay in his house, and do nothing. So they’d gone to visit him with some DVDs and grapes.
    â€œI’m grand, I’m grand,” he kept saying.
    But he’d groaned when he was sitting down.
    â€œThat’s on the list,” said their mam. “Oh God, sorry, Ben.”
    They’d all started laughing, including Uncle Ben, even though laughing was agony for him, and even funnier—and even more agony.
    There was only one big groan, but every step had its ownsmall noises. Sometimes it felt like the stairs were a bit human. It was like walking down a nice giant, from the top of his head to his feet. He’d sigh and moan as they went, and then the last big groan on the second step—it was like the giant was pretending he was going to stand up and chase them down the hall.
    Now, they stepped right over the second step, first Gloria, then Raymond, so they wouldn’t wake the giant. But it was tricky. They had to make sure they didn’t put too much weight on the last step, because it had its own little squeak. If they went too quickly or went right over the last step, their feet would make too much noise when they landed on the hall floor.

    They were there now, in the hall. So far, so good. They listened. The mumbles were still coming from the kitchen. No one had heard them. Mission accomplished—so far. It was eight steps to the kitchen door. These were easy to do because there were no squeaky floorboards. Gloria and Raymond could walk quietly over the rug. But there was one big problem. The kitchen door was always open.
    They got down on the floor and started to slide.
    They didn’t mind things being serious. They knew that not everything could be funny. Laughing was only good when it was a bit of a surprise. They hated people who laughed all the time. They had an auntie called Deirdre who laughed at everything.
    â€œGood morning.”
    â€œGood morning—HAHAHAHAHAHAH!”
    She laughed at absolutely everything.
    â€œWe’ve no milk.”
    â€œNo milk—HAHAHAHAHAHAH!”
    They hated her. They didn’t hate
her
. But they hated when she laughed and she never stopped, so it was hard not to hate her a bit too. She always called Gloria “Glory-Be-to-God.”
    â€œHow’s Glory-Be-to-God—HAHAHAHAHAH?”
    â€œIt’s her nerves,” their granny told them once, after Auntie Deirdre had laughed when Raymond told her that his goldfish had died. “She’s always been a bit nervous,” their granny explained. “She didn’t mean to be cruel. Here.”
    Here
was their favorite granny word. It meant she was bending over to get her purse from her handbag, to give them money for sweets. Their mam called it bribery and she didn’t like it.
    â€œYou’re spoiling them.”
    Raymond and Gloria agreed, but they loved it. Their granny agreed too, but she didn’t care.
    â€œAh, now, a bit of bribery never hurt anyone,” she always said.
    Anyway, Raymond and Gloria knew there was more to life than laughing. When chatting turned into talking, when the grown-ups started getting serious—they didn’t mind that. They knew that food and clothes cost money, and that holidays cost money, and the thing that their parents spoke about as if it was a snake getting ready to bite, the mortgage. They knew about the recession, even though they didn’t know exactly what it was. They watched the news sometimes with their parents, even though it was boring. But their parents liked them to watch it.
    â€œYou’ll remember this,” said Gloria’s mam as they watched people celebrating in Egypt.
    â€œWhy will I?” Gloria asked.
    â€œYou just will,” said her mam.
    Gloria was snuggled in beside her.
    â€œIt’s a big event,” said her mam. “A revolution.”
    Her mam was probably right. Gloria saw things on the news, like the tsunami in Japan, and she knew