On Monday I got an e-mail from Alice. I was really excited. It was the first one I ever got. (Not counting all the ones I got telling me my messages to her were undelivered.) I scrolled really quickly through it, reading as fast as I could.
Dear Meg,
This is my first e-mail. I hope you get it. I had an ok weekend. Dad took me and Jamie lots of places. He never found out that we’d been to the zoo already. I had bribed Jamie with a whole packet of Star-burst, just in case. I knew it would work because as you know, Jamie would do anything for sweets. Dad was kind of sad though. Mum was kind of bubbly, and nice to Dad, but it didn’t help. Actually, I think that made it worse. Yesterday when Dad was going away, Jamie was crying. I felt like crying too, but I thought that would make Dad sadder, so I pretended to be happy. Afterwards I thought he might have been a bit insulted so next week I might try a kind of brave, sad look. When Dad was gone, Mum gave Jamie and me a big bag of sweets each. I know that’s what happens in films. She’s trying to make it up to us because now we’re kids from a broken home. She must be mad if she thinks a bag of sweets will make up for being away from home, and from Dad and from you. I’m a bit old to be so easily fooled. I don’t think Jamie even fell for it. School was a bit better today. A girl called Sophie shared her crisps with me, and we chatted in the yard. Have to go now. Tea’s ready. It’s pizza (again!!!!). I’ll ring you on Saturday.
Al xxx
I was all excited. When I’d finished reading it, I read it again a bit more slowly. Mum was nice and even stopped peeling the potatoes to show me how to reply. When she was safely back in the kitchen, this is what I wrote.
Dear Al
This is my first e-mail too. Well, the first one you might actually get. My weekend was real boring. Yesterday Dad made us go to Cratloe for a real long walk. It was pouring rain, but Dad just kept on saying “a bit of drizzle never hurt anyone, sure isn’t your skin waterproof?” That really annoyed me. We went off the track and got lost. Mum got cross and said ‘what if I had high heels on?’ Dad laughed and said she hadn’t worn high heels since the day she got married. Mum pretended to be even crosser, but I knew she wasn’t. Then they got all smoochy, (yuck) and I had to wheel Rosie’s buggy. That was very hard because the path was all bumpy. In the end Dad had to take over and Mum walked with me. She kept talking about feelings and stuff, so I ran after Dad and pretended I wanted to look for conkers. We didn’t find any, but at least it kept Mum off my back. We had pancakes for tea (yum). School today was still awful. Melissa is as smug as ever. Can’t think of any more to write. Looking forward to talking to you on Saturday.
Meg
At dinnertime, Mum kept going on to Dad about the e-mails. You’d think I’d discovered a cure for cancer or something.
‘Isn’t it great, Donal? Megan and Alice are e-mailing each other. Isn’t that a grand way of keeping in touch? Technology’s great all the same, isn’t it?’
Dad just kept on nodding. I was really cross, though. What good were e-mails? I wanted a real friend. One I could see, and mess around with and laugh with. Not one who existed only on a white screen, and through a telephone. What kind of a friend was that?
I felt like shouting all that out to Mum, when she kept on about the wonders of new technology and stuff, but I didn’t. I hadn’t been Mum’s daughter for twelve years for nothing. I knew she’d be sympathetic, but then I’d be rewarded with hours of speeches about feelings and stuff. It wasn’t worth it.
So I tidied up after the dinner, and played with Rosie and waited for bedtime.
When Mum came to tuck me in, I had a great idea. ‘Mum, you know how you think technology is so great?’
She looked at me suspiciously. ‘Yes.’
‘Well, if I had a mobile phone, I could text Alice whenever I liked. It would be a good use of technology, don’t you think?’
Mum laughed. ‘A good use of my money, you mean. Come on Megan. You know I don’t like mobile phones. We still don’t know what they do to your brain. A lot of people might be very sorry in a few years time. Very sorry indeed. I think you’d better just stick to the landline, and the computer.’
She kissed me, and went out of the room.
I snuggled under the blankets, and sighed. I love my mum, but she’s such a dinosaur it’s totally embarrassing. I was sure I lived in the most backward house in Ireland. If a huge volcano, like the one in Pompeii, erupted in our back garden, and covered our house with lava, it would surely fool the archaeologists in a million years time. They’d have awful trouble trying to decide when it happened.
They’d scrunch up their faces. ‘Hmm. Carbon dating says twenty-first century, and we have found a computer, but that couldn’t be right.’
The others would chorus. ‘No microwave oven.’
‘No mobile phones.’
‘No tumble drier.’
‘No pizza packets.’
‘No Playstation.’
‘No video.’
And then they’d go home and write their papers and decide we lived in the 1950s or some ancient time like that.
It’s just not fair.