Roll Over Roly - Anne Fine [2]
“What other box?”
“The one with my games and my jigsaw and my aeroplanes and my models and glue and my old binoculars and my giant red magnet and my football cards and my interactive dinosaur family and my racing cars and –”
“Your father only carried in one box,” Great Aunt Ada interrupted. “And your mother didn't bring in anything, except the cake.”
Rupert was horrified. All day. All day in Great Aunt Ada's awful, boring, stuffy house. No cassette player. No computer. No television, even. (That's why they'd packed the box.)
And Mum had told him only about a million times, “I know Great Aunt Ada isn't going to be the world's greatest babysitter. But, honestly, there's no one else. So be polite.”
Well, he would try. But not that hard.
“I'll manage,” he called out, adding a little ungraciously under his breath, “I suppose I'll have to, won't I?”
But she'd appeared in the doorway. She had seen his face.
“Look at you,” she said. “You look like a man sent to empty a bath with a teaspoon.”
He tried a little smile.
She waited.
He tried harder.
Still she waited.
The next smile came out almost properly.
“That's better,” she said. “Never forget:
When Sunny Smile from Castle Gloom is freed,
He unlocks Heart, who rushes to the lead.”
That made him laugh. (Though he had the good manners to wait till she was back in the kitchen.)
4 Don't Boast When You Set Off
IT JUST POPPED out of him.
“I'm bored.”
“I'll find you a job,” she said promptly, and opened a cupboard door.
Inside was the vacuum cleaner.
“You lift it,” she told him. “I'm older, so I'll just do the groaning.”
Rupert hauled it out.
“Do this room first,” said Great Aunt Ada. “Then go across the hall and do the other room, especially under Gordon's cage. And then, if you're still bored –”
Hastily, Rupert plugged in the vacuum cleaner and switched it on. The noise
drowned out her voice, and she went off. He started vacuuming. He didn't mind. He quite enjoyed it really – until Great Aunt Ada came back in again to tell him to go in straight lines.
“See?” she said, taking the cleaner. “Up. Down. Up. Down.”
“But, why?”
“So you can see exactly where you've been.”
“But I remember where I've been. Mum says I'm really good at vacuuming.”
“Don't boast when you set off,” said Great Aunt Ada. “Boast when you get there.”
Then she went back to the conservatory, and her book.
Rupert pressed on, trying to keep in straight lines, but not let the vacuum cleaner put Roly in so much of a frenzy that he barked, and fetched Great Aunt Ada back in again.
Roly raced round and round, leaping on chairs and crashing into little nests of tables.
“Why don't you just sit quietly on that rug?” Rupert suggested.
Roly ignored him, and skidded into the fireguard.
“Sit!” Rupert told him more sharply. But Roly just skittered back again.
“Please, Roly,” said Rupert. “This is impossible.”
Roly rushed round even faster, tangling himself in the vacuum-cleaner lead.
“Be a good dog,” begged Rupert.
Roly just whined and pawed at Rupert's new trousers. Rupert pushed him down and carried on vacuuming. Up, down, up, down (in case Great Aunt Ada came back in again), over the hall, and into the other room.
Roly raced after him, tangling himself back up in the vacuum-cleaner lead.
“Roll over, Roly!” Rupert told him, unravelling the loops. “Roll over!”
Roly just lay there staring, then raced further into the room.
Spotting the parrot suddenly, he changed his mind, skidded to a halt, and rushed off towards the back door.
“Come back,” pleaded Rupert over the
whine of the vacuum. “Roly, come back!” He was worried Roly would chew more of Great Aunt Ada's begonias. But Roly paid no attention. He just pretended that he hadn't heard, and charged off round the corner.
Rupert gave up, and went back to his vacuuming.
In the front room, the carpet was a mess. All round the cage were bits of grit Gordon had kicked off his tray, and seed husks he'd spat out.
Rupert turned up the vacuum to full power.
“Faster!” shrieked Gordon over the vacuum's roar.
“Oh, hush!