The Simpsons is my favourite. It always seems to be on when Dod lets me up the steps to watch television at six o’clock. It’s funny. Bart is funny, Homer is funny. But watching television isn’t better than reading a book. No way. It is nice to be up the steps and out of my room for an hour every day though. It’s different.
We normally watch The Simpsons and then a show called The Weakest Link. A woman asks loads of questions but I never know the answers. Dod knows some of them some of the time. I think he is clever. He reads lots of things, but not books. Just normally loads of pages with loads of words and numbers on them. I’m not sure what they are.
I always feel a bit sad when I have to go back down the steps but today it has gone past seven o’clock and Dod hasn’t told me to go down yet. He is in the room next to me. I can hear him with plates and stuff. It’s the first time he has ever left me alone in this room. I click at the buttons of the remote control to see if there are any other cartoons on but I can’t find any.
‘Betsy.’
‘Yes.’
‘Come in to me here.’
I walk out of the television room and then stop at the door of the kitchen where Dod is.
‘Come on – you can come in.’
I step inside. I’ve never been in the kitchen before. It is all white. The table in the middle is white, all the little doors around the walls are white, the walls are white.
The smell is delicious. It makes me lick my lips.
‘I’m cooking a stir fry.’
Dod tilts the pan he is holding towards me and I see loads of different colours in it. I think they’re all different types of peppers; red, green and yellow ones. I take a step forward and breathe in the smell again. The closer you are to it, the nicer it is.
‘I’ve decided I’m going to teach you how to cook with me after we watch television every evening. How about that?’
I don’t answer him by talking. I just throw my arms around him and squeeze him tight. Really, really tight. Like I do when he buys me books. I’m really happy. It means I get to spend more time out of my room and up the steps with Dod. I’m becoming a big girl now. I squeeze him even tighter.
‘Whoa, whoa; careful, I’m holding the pan.’
‘Thank you, Dod.’
I smile a big huge smile.
‘Okay, sit up here.’
Dod puts down the pan then grabs me and sits me up on the counter where all the food is.
‘I really trust you now.’
I smile again.
‘I think you are getting old enough to be able to do things around the house, so you don’t have to spend too much time down in your basement, what do you think about that?’
I feel really excited. My belly has that fuzzy feeling it can get sometimes when things are good.
‘What would you like me to do?’
‘Well, has cooking come up in any of your books?’
I nod my head.
‘Sometimes. Some books talk about making breakfasts and dinners but I don’t know how to do it. It doesn’t say how to cook in the books, just that dinners are cooked. That’s all… I think.’
Dod laughs a little at what I’m trying to say. I feel a bit embarrassed.
‘Well, see these books here?’
Dod reaches past me and to four really big books. They’re huge. Really thick. There must be a million words in them.
‘Well, I know you like reading, so maybe you can read some of these and they’ll teach you how to cook.’
I take the first book off him. It says Gordon Ramsay: Easy on it. I flick through it then nod my head.
‘I can read this. Thank you, Dod.’
‘Great. Soon you’ll be like my little housewife.’
I look at Dod and am not sure whether to laugh or not. I’m not sure if he was making a joke. Then he leans towards me and kisses me on the lips. That’s weird. He hasn’t done that before.
‘I think you’re old enough to be a little housewife now,’ he says.