When Alex came into her room after school today and found it once again tidy and spotless, she let out a little shriek.
Then, standing in the middle of the room, she said loudly, “All right, I admit you’re real. Are you satisfied now?”
I climbed out of my shoe box and down the Wall of Mess to the floor. Then I scurried from closet door to bed so fast it appeared as if I just popped up in front of her.
“Aye, I’m satisfied, and glad of heart to be acknowledged as real. ’Tis most unpleasant to be a living, breathing creature and be thought unreal. I’ve not come to harm you, miss, nor to make you angry. I came because I had to, and because I yearn to be of service.”
“I don’t understand the ‘I had to’ part. I’ve already told you, I’m not a McGonagall. I’m a Carhart.”
“Aye. And what was your father’s mother’s name before she married?”
“Chase,” the young snip said smugly. “And don’t say anything bad about my grandmother. She is a wonderful person.”
“I’m sure she is. But tell me…what was her mother’s maiden name?”
I could see Alex waver. “I don’t have any idea,” she said at last, sounding a bit irritable.
“Ha!” I cried, getting irritable myself. “No sense of family, have you? Rude, and irreverent as well. Well, I’ll tell you what you should have known all along. Your great-grandmother on your father’s side was a McGonagall—Agnes Ailsa Paisley McGonagall, to be precise.”
“So why did this relative of mine assign you to me?” demanded Miss Mess, stamping her foot.
As I am writing this down, I begin to see some of the problem. It’s not just that this Alex of mine is a messy young creature.
It’s that she has the same temper I do.
Fortunately, I was spared having to answer when her lout of a brother bellowed, “Hey, Al! Hurry up and grab your sneakers. We have to leave for soccer NOW!”
“We’ll talk about this later!” she said as she grabbed her trainers and raced out of the room.
I gathered from this that the Americans call trainers “sneakers.” What an odd term. But what in the world is this “soccer” she was running off to?
Well, leave that to solve later. Right now I am going to go out and look for some mischief to do.
I would like to pull a prank on Miss Alex, but I do not think it would go well. She is too angry about my being here to find it funny if I were to stuff all her socks into her pillowcase.