I am in a total fluster now – who wouldn’t be?!
SLB is looking calm, as if this is normal – It’s so not! I nearly threw my baby brother in the bin. In fact, I kind of did, seeing as how he was in the recycling box when spotted, clean as that bin is. I check his Babygro for print marks* because we, the Quinn family, are big into all things criminal and detective and that would be a totes giveaway if this case ever gets to court. EEEK!!!!
I was so busy trying to look cool for Steve Bolton, going, ‘See how it’s, like, so second nature to me to look after Harry that I don’t even need to check where I’m putting him as I lay him down,’ that I messed up on the baby’s actual location. Not good. Unacceptable. V v (v) bad.
Dire, actually. Totes DIRE.
‘We will never speak of this,’ Bolton says, trying not to smile.
‘Thank you.’ I remain formal because this is an important moment in life, as well as in our non-existent relationship. ‘So we are agreed? And no harm has come to anyone.’
‘Agreed.’
I am scarlet, I just know it and MORTO too, and a vile creeping creature upon the face of the earth to do such a thing to a newborn babe.
Gran shuffles in. I drag in a breath and hold it = painful. Will Stevie Lee shop me to the adult(ish) person actually in charge? Now that I think of it, where was she when I needed her? EH?
Bolton keeps to the party line and says nothing. † He just continues coffee-making. Gran, though, can smell situations, so I worry what she’ll get up to. However, surely she knows that I totally fancy Bolton?‡ I may never know the (surely awful) truth, but she cuts me some slack and only asks, ‘How goes it all?’ We mutter nonsense that sounds like an answer.
Gran then glances at me and says, ‘Jen, you really should put Harry down in his cradle if he’s sleeping, otherwise he’ll get into terribly bad habits and want to be held all the time.’
I have to bite my tongue because if I tell her exactly why I’m holding the baby, she might banish me from my duties for evermore.
‘K,’ I say and pop the lil dude into his official bed. He’s not a bit bothered, doesn’t even give a sigh.
Gran is scouring the kitchen with some dark purpose, i.e. it looks like she’s considering rustling up some food. This is bad news for anyone who’ll have to eat the bizarro concoction she comes up with – once she boiled an egg and the Fire Brigade had to be called, no kidding: one of the more epic failures on a list of truly competitive failures for the Quinn family. Her last effort here in the main house was a liver curry (imagine!) because she thought Mum ‘needed iron’. We had no idea what had happened until we were sitting in front of the ‘meal’ and it was too late to retreat or escape the potentially deadly Connie Curry.
‘Interesting,’ Dad said, though without tasting the mix. The smell of it was darkly pungent and threatening enough to put him off that.
The rest of us were stifling screams.
Gran had a mouthful and said, ‘This doesn’t taste right.’
There was almost an audible family sigh as we all edged our plates further away from us, hoping that was the end of the incident and we could have chips and eggs and forget the horror.
Gran went to the fridge and came back with a large tub of orange yoghurt and added it to the curry, tasted it again and declared it a delight.
Here’s the weirdest thing – it did make the thing taste edible … v v strange indeed.
Still, it’s no reason to encourage her culinary adventures, truly.
