The Minnow Read Free Page B

I doubt it. I’ve just been mooching around. Mooching and pottering. Mum used to say they were one-and-the-same, but I disagree. Pottering is when you actually do something, like pottering in the garden, whereas mooching is when you’re thinking about it. I’m getting very good at both.
    Jonah cooked fish and mashed potato for dinner tonight. I washed up and now we’re sitting on the couch. Sometimes I wish we had a TV.
    â€˜You say something?’ asks Jonah.
    â€˜I’m tired,’ I say, ‘I think I’ll go to bed.’
    I sleep in Jonah’s room. He sleeps in his parents’ room. I hear him crying some nights. We don’t talk about it.
    There’s a loud knock on the door. ‘We should make a run for it,’ shouts the Minnow, jabbing me in the ribs. ‘It’s the police .’
    I’m way too comfortable to move.
    â€˜I’ll get it,’ says Jonah. He gives my belly a gentle pat before he gets up to answer the door.
    â€˜Hello,’ says a man’s voice.
    â€˜Hello,’ says Jonah.
    The man introduces himself and his partner. They’re detectives from West Wrestler. His partner is a woman.
    There’s a pause, then the woman asks, ‘Are you Jonah Whiting?’
    â€˜Yes,’ answers Jonah.
    â€˜Does a Holly Thomas live here?’ she continues.
    â€˜She does.’
    â€˜Can we come in?’ asks the man.
    The Minnow has stopped swimming and whispers to me to be quiet. I wait for someone to speak. Jonah breaks the silence.
    â€˜Is something wrong?’
    â€˜We’d rather speak to Holly,’ says the female voice.
    â€˜Well, she’s asleep,’ says Jonah.
    The couch is old and soft with a really high back, so I’m invisible from the front door.
    â€˜Okay,’ says the woman after a short pause, ‘we’ll come back another time.’
    â€˜Can I tell her what it is about?’ asks Jonah.
    â€˜It has to do with Bill Hamperton,’ says the man.

‘I hate Mrs Peck,’ I say, flopping onto Nana’s bed. Nana is sitting in her armchair, reading or doing the crossword, I can’t tell which.
    â€˜I’d rather you used an alternative to the hate word,’ she says, throwing me her thesaurus.
    I open it and choose a few that I like. ‘Abhor, despise, detest, loathe. Be hostile to, have an aversion to, recoil from…’
    â€˜Tom! Stop being annoying and fetch me another snifter,’ she says. ‘And don’t tell.’ I sit up and feel around under her pillows until my hand finds the bottle.
    I love Nana. I love Papa, too.
    Jonah thinks it’s strange that I love someone who died before I was born. When I told him that I also loved the Minnow and that, strictly speaking, I hadn’t met her yet, Jonah rolled his eyes.
    â€˜Well, Jonah, that’s profound,’ I said, letting him know that I clocked the eye-roll. It annoys me that someone as smart as Jonah can be so narrowly matter-of-fact sometimes.
    â€˜Profound?’ he said.
    I could tell he was irritated with the word, but I didn’t care. I love it. I also love the word ravenous, but profound is up there as one of my favourites. So I let it hang. I’m much better than he is at taking the high ground.
    â€˜You know what I mean,’ Jonah said, after a lengthy silence, ‘it’s different .’
    Different. The extent of Jonah’s argument.
    â€˜Of course it’s different ,’ I replied, giving the word the same emphasis. ‘But if I’m honest, Jonah, I’d have expected you, of all people, to understand.’
    Anyway, where was I? Oh, that’s right: Nana.
    Nana is the best. She is wise and warm and totally adorable. Right now she’s throwing back her fourth gin. Neat. Before lunch. Bill says she’s pickled.
    She used to smoke but she was told to stop, so she did. Just like that. ‘If you had told me it would be that easy,’ she had