May Contain Nuts Read Free Page A

nuts.’
    â€˜Well, we don’t know whether he is or not, we’ve never exposed him to them. It’s just not worth taking the risk, is it?’
    â€˜Er … no, well, it is a worry I suppose …’
    â€˜Oh dear. “May contain nuts.” He can’t have these either,’ she said, reading the warning on another packet from the sideboard.
    â€˜Well, no, but then that is actually a packet of nuts.’
    â€˜Oh yes, so it is. I suppose they can’t be too careful.’
    With the intellectual credentials of our ‘approaching gifted’ son clearly established, Philip took his chance to counterattack by demonstrating the nascent genius of his own four-year-old who was bashing a plastic tyrannosaurus rex against a stegosaurus that had dared stray onto the wrong part of the coffee table.
    â€˜That’s very good, Gwilym,’ said Philip, leaning in through the open French windows, holding his smouldering cigarette at arm’s length outside. ‘The tyrannosaurus rex is the carnivore, isn’t he?’
    Gwilym made an exploding noise as the two dinosaurs collided.
    â€˜And what is the stegosaurus?’
    â€˜A herbivore!’ lisped little Gwilym proudly and there was a light ripple of applause from the assembled adults.
    â€˜And what is an oviraptor, Gwilym?’ prompted Philip.
    â€˜An ommyvore!’
    â€˜That’s right. An omnivore. Good boy.’
    â€˜He certainly has a very good vocabulary for a four-year-old,’ said Sarah.
    â€˜Well, Gwilym’s report from the institute singled out his particular aptitude for dinosaur-based play, so we are taking the opportunity to teach him about predators and the food chain.’
    â€˜Yes, well, why not?’
    â€˜Careful, darling. You blew some smoke in just then—’
    â€˜No, Gwilym, the herbivore can’t eat the carnivore, can he?’ interjected Philip. ‘Play properly, darling!’
    â€˜No, exhale outside, and then talk into the room,’ ordered Ffion.
    Gwilym ignored his father, and, turning the food chain on its head, he granted the plant-eater the power to savage the normally unassailable tyrannosaurus rex. ‘Grarrr! Grarrrr!’ roared the veggy, who’d finally cracked after millions of years of never eating meat, not even at Christmas. Ffion tried to deflect attention away from the slightly strained atmosphere that had developed due to two differing male interpretations of prehistory.
    â€˜Yes, well, of course, we’re very lucky our children are “exceptionally gifted”. But you can’t guarantee good news from the institute. The Johnsons had their five-year-old assessed and they were told that she was, er, “able”.’ She whispered this word in case the children overheard.
    â€˜I’m sorry, I didn’t know,’ said Sarah.
    A shudder went round the assembled adults at the thought of such a heartbreaking misfortune befalling any parent. We all knew there was a statistical risk when we decided to have children; we all knew there was an outside chance of having a child that might only be ‘able’ rather than ‘gifted’ or ‘approaching gifted’, but you just pray it’s never going to happen to you. David glanced at me, but I quickly looked away. For five years we had kept the secret of our eldest child’s assessment result. It wasn’t fair, Molly was actually very bright – she just didn’t do well in exams.
    â€˜I’m just grateful that the institute said that Gwilym was “exceptionally gifted”,’ said Ffion, forging on and finding anopportunity to slip in the detail that her youngest had scored higher than ours. There was an embarrassed pause filled by an embarrassing husband.
    â€˜Oooh, here it comes, the French horn! Who does the French horn represent, Alfie?’
    â€˜The wolf !’
    â€˜I think that Alfie is probably “gifted”