Desperate times call for desperate measures, and if starting to Fall in Love with someone who is being stalked by Catriona Hendley isn’t desperate times I don’t know what is. So even though the book says that constructive spells (like making someone have a hormone rush every time he sees you) should be made during a full moon, I called an Exploring Other Dimensions Night last night. It was a new moon, so I decided to think laterally the way Sigmund is always telling me to. I reckoned we could trick the Other Dimensions into thinking there was moonlight. We rounded up every candle we could find (including a Frosty the Snowman one left from Christmas, a pack of birthday candles and Calum’s skull candle, which he wouldn’t be needing since he wasn’t home). Then we waited till Disha’s parents went to bed so we didn’t have to worry about being interrupted. That got us to one in the morning. Disha’s mother is a phenomenal snorer (MUCH worse than Sigmund). Her snores are to ordinary snores what a nuclear bomb is to a slingshot. We left the transom over Disha’s door open, and as soon as we could hear the earth-shaking snorts and wheezes that meant Mrs Paski had passed out, Disha started lighting the candles while I started lighting the incense. The candles were going out as fast as she was lighting them, so we shut the window (Disha’s father believes in AIR the way my father believes in Freud). Her room looked well wicked when we were done. Holding hands, we sat in the middle of the floor with our eyes closed. I started the incantation. “Pray to the moon when she is round—” But I didn’t get any further, because Disha told me to be quiet and listen. I didn’t hear anything. Disha said that was exactly what she meant. Her mother had stopped snoring! Disha has a more pessimistic nature than I do. She immediately decided that this meant her mother was getting out of bed to come and check on us. I said not necessarily (if I didn’t have such an Artistic Soul I might consider being a solicitor, since I also have a very logical mind). I said maybe Mr Paski rolled her out of bed to shut her up. That’s what the Mad Cow used to do to Sigmund (though lately she just makes him sleep on the couch, which is pretty bloody inconvenient if you want to sit up late watching a film). Anyway, Disha started blowing out the candles in a frantic sort of way. We just got them all out when a sound even more horrific than Mrs Paski’s snoring shattered the peaceful silence of the night. Disha clutched my hand. Her palms were already sweating. “Oh my God!” she whispered. “We’re being burgled.” I told her that it definitely wasn’t the house alarm. I’m an authority on house alarms. Ours was always going off till Sigmund ripped it out in a fit of temper, so I know what they sound like. This was more like an air raid siren. It wasn’t easy getting to the light switch because of all the candles. Every time we took a step we knocked another one over. We were still groping around in the dark when Mr Paski started running through the hallway shouting, “Fire! Fire! Everybody get out of the house!” We didn’t need to be told twice. I once put the iron on my hand (I was thinking of something and wasn’t looking), and Disha once set her shirt on fire with a candle, so we both knew the agony of burning flesh. We trampled over the candles and hurled ourselves through the door. Mrs Paski had a blanket over her shoulders and a pair of high heels on her feet, but Mr Paski was just wearing pyjama bottoms, a ratty old Pink Floyd T-shirt and one sock (God knows what he’d been up to!). We all ran into the road to wait for the fire engine. Every time we heard a siren Mr Paski shouted, “There they are!” But they weren’t. Disha wanted to go back inside to save her new leather jacket, but her mother wouldn’t let her. There was a bit of an argument about that, but then Mr Paski started ranting and they both shut up. After a while Mrs Paski said she didn’t see any smoke. Mr Paski told her that was the most dangerous kind of fire, the kind without smoke. Mrs Paski pulled her blanket tighter and sniffed. She didn’t smell smoke either. Mr Paski said he smelled smoke. He asked me and Disha if we smelled smoke, and we said we guessed so since agreeing was a lot easier than disagreeing. Mr Paski started standing on one foot. I wondered if he’d ever done yoga. After another while, one of the neighbours poked his head out of an upstairs window. Mr Paski explained about the fire. The fire engine was there in minutes. Apparently, in all the confusion, neither of the parent Paskis thought of actually ringing the fire department!!! By then half the road was out on the street. Disha and I were just about to go next door for a cup of tea when a fireman came out of the Paskis’ with Frosty in one hand and the skull in the other. Apparently the smoke from all the candles set off the alarm in the hall. Mrs Paski mumbled something, and then she started laughing. Mr Paski didn’t laugh. (He didn’t laugh later either, though Disha and I did.) Mrs Paski told him to look on the bright side. If Calum had been home, he would have been filming the whole thing.
The MC and Sigmund weren’t laughing either when I got home. Nobody told me, of course, but Nan broke her elbow falling off a bus yesterday. Apparently that’s where they went rushing off to last night – the hospital. They had to put a pin in her elbow to hold it together. I didn’t quite get the whole story. Sigmund and the Mad Cow were busy moving their stuff out of their bedroom so Nan could sleep in there so all I got was a garbled account from Nan. She kept laughing and saying I should’ve seen the other guy (I presume she meant the pavement). They must’ve given her some heavy drugs for the operation. The major part of the story is that Nan and Mr Kipling (her cat) have moved in with us until her elbow’s healed enough for her to be on her own (which could take MONTHS considering how old she is). Her arm’s all wrapped up in plastic like a hunk of meat. It looks really GROSS. Sigmund’s wigged out completely. “Is this what Jesus would do if He broke His elbow?” he kept asking. “Move in with His son?” I hope he remembers this when he’s old and feeble and wants to move in with me!