You’re going to be fine.
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I am, see?
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You will. I came to tell you stuff. Listening?
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Jumble sale shoes. I know you’ve got acrylics somewhere. Paint them.
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The shoes. Flowers and dragons like you draw up your arms. They’re really good by the way. No one in school draws like you.
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We are. You just have to be good-different. Stop hiding the whole time. Everyone loves your drawing.
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We still like painting, reading…
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It’ll happen when you’re 11. The letters un-jumble and it makes sense.
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Honestly.
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And at Christmas - tell Mum it’s your idea - Keeping him away from the booze makes him cross - no point. Give him a drink as early as possible. By lunchtime he’s unconscious and you put him to bed. Looks like he hit his head real hard but he woke up.
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It’s OK. He doesn’t remember a thing. Works every year.
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Stuff heals. It gets better. Everything. Life is excellent. People say you’re pretty, won’t believe it but you are. And we live on a good street in a warm house by the sea.
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Honestly, cross my heart.
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There’s one last thing. Listening?
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Learn to laugh silently, no sound what so ever. I know you can’t imagine it - but she gets her revenge and it’s going to be funny. Takes years. You must play along or it won‘t work. So laugh silently.
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Just one example, then. Do you go to the car-boot sales yet?
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On a Sunday in June, only 7AM but it’s so hot! She spots a koi carp in the road.
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Like a giant goldfish. This one was huge. Probably dropped by a heron or something.
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She moves it onto the verge and keeps walking. It's still there at 1.30. Been baking up on that verge all morning in full sun. Smothered in ants, horrible.
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She wraps it in a Tesco bag and a bin liner - it stinks. As soon as you get in she starts frying onions, making pastry, white sauce. Dad eats fish pie for supper.
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She made us a separate one.
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