Chapter 11.
So life went on pretty much the same way it had been before. It wasn’t exactly the same, though. There had been some changes and Eddie and I argued about whether it was his lollipop that had done it. My bedroom was decorated in a different colour, but as it was a rather nice shade of lilac instead of pale green, I wasn’t going to complain about it. Eddie and I were amazed to discover that time had done a switch on us and we were back about three months before Mum had gone missing. It was weird living things over again. One bonus was that we knew what schoolwork to expect, although it wasn’t as much of an advantage as you would have thought. I still had to do the project on Fiji and my Maths wasn’t any better the second time around. We had both missed heaps of school stuff when Mum had gone missing so we had to learn it all again anyway. Eddie said we should use our knowledge of the future to bet on something and make lots of money.
‘We’re too young to bet, even if we had the money to begin with,’ I told him scathingly. ‘And anyway, I can’t remember anything that happened that we could bet on.’
Eddie had to admit that he couldn’t either.
‘It’s Friday the thirteenth,’ Dad remarked one morning at breakfast. ‘I hope that doesn’t mean the computers will crash all day. Some idiot is bound to have sent a virus round.’
Eddie gave a yelp of surprise and went pale.
‘It’s not that big a deal,’ Dad said soothingly. ‘We do have technicians who sort out that sort of thing for us.’
‘It’s not that,’ said Eddie, then sat at the table scowling until it was time to walk to school.
‘What’s wrong?’ I asked him.
‘I’ve just remembered. This is the day that Tyler arrives at the school,’ Eddie said wretchedly.
‘Well now you have a chance to change things,’ I pointed out.
‘I’m not sure how,’ Eddie replied gloomily.
‘You could do all sort of things,’ I told him encouragingly. ‘You could go up and thump him really hard when he wasn’t looking.’
‘Er, he might thump me back. In fact he probably will.’
‘Yes I know, but you would have done it first,’ I explained.
‘I can’t see that it would make a difference and I’d be bound to get into trouble.’
‘Well then, you could pretend you go to karate and tell him he’d better not come near you.’
‘It wouldn’t take him long to see through that. There are no karate classes anywhere near here.’
‘Oh well, if you don’t want me to help you I won’t bother.’
Eddie went quiet then stuck out his lip mutinously. ‘I’ll think of something myself,’ he muttered.
I found it hard to wait until after school to see what had happened. Eddie looked about as cheerful as he always did when I met him outside the gate, although he kept chuckling to himself, and finally I couldn’t wait any longer.
‘What happened today. Did Tyler come to school?’
Eddie laughed. ‘Yes. You won’t believe this, but Tyler arrived and this time she is a girl! She even looks a bit like him but she is quite shy. Things have totally changed this time around.’
Eddie didn’t stop grinning all afternoon but then Mum and Dad made an announcement that wiped the smiles from both our faces. We were sitting at the tea table after one of Mum’s fantastic dinners when Mum and Dad told us they’d had a letter from Aunt Daisy.
‘She’s an old cousin of mine,’ Dad said. ‘Her house is being demolished as part of a motorway project and she doesn’t want to go into an old people’s home just yet. So we thought she could come here and stay for a while.’
‘No way,’ Eddie howled.
‘No, no!’ I screamed.
Mum looked taken aback. ‘Why you haven’t even met her. I’m very disappointed in both of you. You are being very selfish and unkind,’ she said in a hurt voice.
‘It wouldn’t hurt you to be a little more charitable,’ Dad agreed.
Eddie and I groaned. It didn’t matter what we said, Mum was convinced Aunt Daisy would be a sweet little old lady. We couldn't tell her otherwise without explaining about the time shift and we didn’t think she would believe that either. She seemed to have lost that experience totally from her mind although Eddie and I still woke in the night occasionally remembering some of the worst bits of it.
‘It might not be so bad,’ Eddie said thoughtfully. ‘Tyler changed into a girl this time so maybe Aunt Daisy will turn out to be really nice.’
‘I certainly hope so,’ I said with feeling. ‘I don’t think I could bear it if she was horrible.’
‘Let’s keep our fingers crossed for a sweet little old lady then,’ Eddie suggested.
So we kept quite and waited patiently until one Saturday, a few weeks later, when Aunt Daisy arrived. We were appalled to find she was just as horrible as ever. She told Eddie his fingernails needed cutting, and told me I would get pimples if I ate pudding.
‘That’s only so she could eat my share as well as her own,’ I told Eddie in outrage, as we got ready for bed that night. He was sleeping in my room again after we had helped to tidy his one ready for Aunt Daisy.
He was sympathetic. ‘You don’t have to tell me how awful she is. I only hope Mum and Dad see it soon and get rid of her.’
But to our horror, Mum and Dad thought Aunt Daisy was wonderful. She went all helpless when Dad was around and then pathetically grateful when he lifted her sewing basket for her or took her to the park in the car. Mum cooked all sorts of special treats for her and we got used to hearing, ‘don’t touch that! It’s for Aunt Daisy.’
Aunt Daisy was skilled at making us seem in the wrong. If we did anything even faintly noisy like watching TV or listening to the stereo she would grimace and clutch her ears and say, ‘oh my poor ears. They can’t take this noise. But don’t let that worry you, dears. You carry on and I’ll go to my room.’ Then of course we would be told off and have to stop. Or she would say, Jean can you fetch my cardigan for me? I would ask Poppy only I can see that she is far too busy to be bothering with an old woman like me.’
So I’d get told off for being inconsiderate.
Aunt Daisy liked the house hot. She complained about draughts if we opened the doors or windows and it was like a steam bath inside the house. Eddie and I would have to strip half our clothes off when we got home from school just to be able to breathe. Mum and Dad told us off for complaining.
‘Old people feel the cold. Their blood is thinner. You can always go and play outside if it bothers you,’ Dad said unsympathetically. We reckoned he and Mum must be getting old as well if they could put up with that heat, although I did notice that Mum sneaked the window open in the kitchen whenever she was working in there.
Around that time Mum got sick of hearing Eddie and me moan about Aunt Daisy whenever we could get her on her own. She decided she needed a break and took a part time job at the restaurant, which meant that Aunt Daisy looked after us when we came home from school each day. It was horrendous. She would interrogate us about our homework and banned us from the kitchen. We had to take turns at distracting her while the other sneaked in and grabbed whatever food was in reach. Then Aunt Daisy would greet Mum with a whole string of complaints against us and Mum would look all hurt and sad and tell us off.
Then Aunt Daisy would go helpless and old and Mum would rush round doing things for her and neglecting us. We always seemed to be hungry, with Aunt Daisy being so horrible about food. She’d say sweetly, ‘I’m not surprised Eddie hasn’t had much tea. He ate such a lot of cake this afternoon. It’s not good for his teeth, you know.’
Eddie would protest that he hadn’t even touched the cake, which was true. Aunt Daisy had scoffed it herself. But it was no use. Mum and Dad believed everything Aunt Daisy said and we were the ones in the wrong. One day Mum was working on a recipe for a little blueberry pie. She’d made one to try and was leaving it to cool on a rack on the table. She warned us not to touch it on pain of death. Aunt Dais
y ate it then said it was Eddie. Poor Eddie got into big trouble and whatever he said only made it worse.
‘It wasn’t me. It was Aunt Daisy. She’s just blaming it on me.’
Aunt Daisy gasped. ‘Oh dear. That boy has real problems with the truth. Don’t you think he’d be better off at boarding school?’
Mum went all tight-lipped and cross and Dad sent Eddie to our room where he gave him a big lecture about lying. Eddie moaned about it when I smuggled a bread roll in to him at bedtime.
‘She’s horrible. I can’t bear it. We have to do something about it.’
‘I know.’ I was getting frustrated as well. My room wasn’t really big enough to share properly. Eddie and I had dragged a bookcase in the middle so each of us had a space we could call our own but it was very cramped. I was tired of knocking my elbow on it when I got dressed, yet every day Aunt Daisy seemed to have become more of a permanent fixture in the house.
‘We should kill Lazy Daisy and bury her in the garden,’ Eddie muttered darkly.
‘The garden. That’s it!’ I sat bolt upright in excitement. ‘Eddie, why don’t we send Aunt Daisy to the future?’
There was silence as Eddie digested this then a huge smile broke across his face. ‘Do you think we could?’
‘I don’t see why not. We could get her to sit on the swinging seat with some thyme and give her a push and hope for the best.’
‘They’d make an awful fuss if she went missing,’ Eddie said thoughtfully.
‘But she doesn’t have to go missing, at least not as far as Mum and Dad are concerned. What we’ll do is pack up her bags and toss them on the seat with her. Then we can say she went off on a holiday and no one will ever know.’
‘It might work except for one thing. She never goes down to the garden,’ Eddie objected.
‘We’ll have to make sure she wants to,’ I said fiercely.
That was the hardest part of all. We reckoned once she was there we could easily throw some herbs at her and shove her off but it was getting her there in the first place that was the problem. We tried being super nice to her.
‘Aunt Daisy, it’s a lovely day. Would you like to walk down to the herb garden with Eddie and me?’
‘Oh no, dear. It’s far too cold for me out there. But if you and Eddie are feeling energetic I have some letters that must be posted today.’
So we had to trail down to the post office and buy the stupid stamps for her letters and that wasted the entire afternoon. It wasn’t as if they were even important anyway. They were only complaining letters that she wrote to all the factories that made things like food or soap or paper tissues. She used to complain that she had bought something and it wasn’t satisfactory. Then the factory would send her a free sample back. It was a bit dishonest because it was Mum and Dad who had bought the stuff in the first place and it wasn’t even true because there was nothing wrong with it. But it did mean Aunt Daisy had a string of parcels arriving nearly every day.
We tried bribery.
‘Aunt Daisy, there are heaps of raspberries ripe and Eddie and I are going to go down the garden and eat some. Would you like to come?’
‘I’ll have mine here, dear. You can pick a bucketful then your mother will be able to use them for jam. I’ll have a bowl with a little cream. You don’t need any. You’ll get fat. And Eddie won’t eat his tea so he’d better not have any either.’
So we picked a bucket of raspberries and ate handfuls of them to spite her. Of course that gave us each a bellyache which didn’t improve our tempers one bit.
Finally I had a brainwave. ‘I know how to get Aunt Daisy down to the garden.’
‘How?’ Eddie wanted to know.
‘Watch me. You’ll see.’
I spent the next couple of weeks on the swinging seat whenever I had a moment to spare. Whenever I was called inside I would say, ‘I’ve been sitting on the swinging seat, reading a book… or doing my homework, or whatever.’ I told Eddie to tell Aunt Daisy I was on the swinging seat whenever she asked for me. Eventually it worked. Aunt Daisy decided that if the swinging seat was such a great place to be, then she would be the one to monopolize it, not me. For a couple of days I would say things like, ‘I’m going down to sit on the swinging seat, but first I will put my bag away.’ Then Aunt Daisy would trot down there and plonk herself down so that when I arrived she could look all virtuous.
‘I’m resting my weary bones, dear. The fresh air is so good for me. Run along and tidy your room.’
One afternoon, when we knew Mum would be working late, we waited until Aunt Daisy was sitting on the seat then I cunningly asked her about the herbs. She loved to show off what she knew and never tired of instructing us in anything she thought we were ignorant of.
‘What’s this herb called, Aunt Daisy?’
‘Let me see, give it here. Why, that is thyme. Fancy not knowing that. Your mother has neglected your education.’
Meanwhile Eddie rushed back to the house and hastily packed Aunt Daisy’s bag with all of her clothing he could find. He arrived back panting and gave me a thumbs-up.
‘Now, Eddie,’ I called. Eddie tossed Aunt Daisy’s bag onto the seat beside her and together we gave the swinging seat an enormous shove.
Creak went the seat as it swung high in the air.
‘Stop that at once,’ cried Aunt Daisy. ‘What is my bag doing here?’
Creak
‘Stop pushing me. I am far too old for these games, you naughty children.’
Creak
‘That is far too high. I will get your father to punish you when he comes home. Good heavens. What on earth is that? Oh!’
And with a final exclamation of surprise, Aunt Daisy vanished. Eddie and I lost no time in racing back to the house. We ran into Aunt Daisy’s bedroom and packed up the last of her things. I knew Eddie would have forgotten to look in the bathroom and nobody leaves without his or her toothbrush. We filled a rubbish bag with the stuff we collected and quickly shoved it under my bed.
‘I’ll get rid of it on Tuesday when the rubbish collectors come,’ I said with a sigh of relief.
‘We’ve done it. We got rid of Aunt Daisy,’ Eddie exclaimed.
‘And there is no way she can get back,’ I sniggered.
Eddie and I giggled and I had to sit down because my legs had suddenly gone all wobbly.
Mum and Dad were a bit surprised that Aunt Daisy had gone off without saying goodbye.
‘She was in a real rush. She had the chance to go on a holiday at the last minute,’ I explained.
‘Well I suppose she had become a little eccentric in her old age,’ Mum excused her. ‘You’d better move back into your room again, Eddie. Did Aunt Daisy say if she was coming back soon?’
‘I don’t think that’s very likely,’ I said confidently, as Eddie smothered a chuckle.
‘Do you suppose she’ll be a food taster?’ Eddie asked me as we pulled the sheets off his bed.
‘Maybe they’ll make her work in the kitchen.’
‘I guess we’ll never know.’
But we did find out one day. Mum came rushing in from the garden looking quite pale.
‘I have just had a vision,’ she said. ‘I was sitting on the swinging seat and I suddenly saw Aunt Daisy through a faint mist. She had grown enormously fat and was being pushed along on a trolley by what looked like a robot. Isn’t that peculiar?’
‘Amazing,’ I agreed. ‘Maybe you should start writing Science Fiction books instead of recipe books.’
Mum smiled back. ‘Oh, no. I’ll leave that to you, Poppy. You’re the one with all the imagination.’
So I did.
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