Mimi by John Newman

“Because I’m a bad person, Conor.”
    Conor didn’t say anything then. Nobody did for a few seconds. Then Granny said, “That’s nonsense.”
    And Daddy said, “Don’t be silly.”
    And Grandad said, “Why do you think that, Sally?”
    Granny wasn’t happy about that. She put down the teapot with a bang and frowned at Grandad.
    But Sally was looking straight at Grandad and everyone was just waiting, frozen like in a photo, and the room was so quiet that the hum of the fridge seemed loud. Then Sally did a big sniff and whispered in a hoarse kind of voice, “I was the last person to see Mammy before she died.”
    “We know that, love,” said Dad in a gentle voice.
    On that Saturday I was playing in the tree house, and I don’t know where everyone else was when Mammy left on the bike.
    “We were having a fight,” continued Sally. Tears were spilling silently down her face. “Well, I was fighting with Mammy. She wasn’t taking it very seriously.”
    “What about?” asked Grandad, and put his hand on top of Sally’s hand.
    “I wanted a stud in my nose and Mammy wouldn’t let me,” Sally said in a half laugh, and wiped the back of her other hand across her snotty nose.
    “And rightly so!” said Granny. “Disgusting things, those nose studs.”
    “Anyway, I got mad and — and —” And now Sally got really upset and she pulled her hand back from Grandad’s and covered her face, and her voice got loud and all cracked, and I started crying a bit too, and then she said that she had shouted at Mammy that she hated her, and that was the last thing she said to Mammy before she left the house and got run over. And now did Conor see what a bad person she was? Then Sally threw her head down on her arms and cried and cried.
    For a long time there was silence around the table, just Sally weeping and Daddy rubbing her back in circles, and then after a long time Grandad said, “And what was the last thing your mammy said to you?”
    I wished he’d just be quiet and stop asking these terrible questions, and I think I wasn’t the only one because even Daddy looked funnily at him — but Sally lifted her head and, in the saddest voice, said, “Well, you know Mum.” She sniffled in a bit of a funny way and she wasn’t crying so hard now. “Mammy just laughed and shouted back at me, ‘And I love you too, daughter!’ and then she blew me a kiss and went. That made me even madder,” said Sally with a sort of half laugh and half cry.
    “She had already forgiven you,” said Grandad in a soft voice, and smiled. “Now blow your nose, child.”
    Granny pulled a tissue out of her sleeve and handed it to Sally, and she blew her nose like a trumpet.
    “So, spy,” Sally turned to me, “now you know all my ‘dark secrets.’”
    Everyone looked at me then, as if it was my turn to say something.
    “Nose studs get all snotty,” I said. “I’m glad you didn’t get one.”
    And then everyone laughed, even Sally. . . . Even Conor.
    “You said what you said with your head, love, not with your heart — so it doesn’t count,” said Dad. And Conor told Sally that she wasn’t bad, just bad-tempered, and Granny made a fresh pot of tea because nobody had drunk theirs, and she managed to find some éclairs from somewhere that Sally hadn’t eaten, and Grandad joked that the woman was impossible and she was obviously stashing away cakes now and no wonder she was so fat! And even Granny laughed.

The next day in school I was very tired. Dad had said that I could stay in bed because of the long night, but I went to school anyway. By recess I felt so sleepy that I just wanted to fall into a bed.
    I get cranky when I’m tired. Maybe if Sarah had known that she would have left me alone, but she just could not keep away.
    “Here they come,” sighed Orla as the big bully and her lapdogs walked across the yard toward us.
    “Hi, Specs. Hi, Crybaby,” she called before she even reached us.
    I looked at the ground. Orla, of