Mimi Read Free

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