Favourite story

I finally read the end of that Patterson play. Charles Wallace handed the last few pages of the script to me, and said, "I can't fix that."
"Why not?"
"You haven't read it, Sandra. It can't be fixed. He can type that stuff but you can't speak it." It sounded like a challenge, so I told Charles Wallace to come into my room with a cup of coffee and a red pen. I then went in and settled in at my desk with the play.
The little twerp was right. I can only hope that it was a dream sequence: Michael Patterson grows up, and then becomes the first Prime Minister to get the Nobel Prize for Literature while simultaneously editing Macleans, Portrait, and The National Globe Star Sun. Then, the University of Western Ontario spontaneously changes its name to Patterson U. Charles Wallace came back with the coffee and then started puttering around in my books. He pulled one out, looked at a few pages, then said,
"Maybe this would work. You've got neat stuff in here." He had my copy of Poems Twice Told in his hands. Maybe he'd discover literature in all this and become normal. He started reading from one poem. "last, to him descend the/Murdering angels.' Cool!"
"You're right--that might work, although he'd probably notice if he died at the end of his own play."
"Don't the heroes always die in the stuff you read? Hamlet died, you said, and Macbeth, and in Lord of the Rings Frodo died," he said. There's hope for him yet, I thought.

Civil disobedience

We've been busted, sort of. Mirabell came over to speak with me and Charles Wallace after the play workshop yesterday.
"Try to make it a little less obvious, you two. That Patterson moron found his script."
"What was wrong?" Charles Wallace isn't very good at being disingenuous.
"Wrong? The bloody explosions, that's what! He didn't notice the line changes, but the explosions--just tone it down." Mirabell stormed off and Charles Wallace and I walked home.
"Well, what should we do now, Sandra? He's taken all the fun out of it."
"Saturday's Canada Day, so you can light off as many fireworks as you like. We'll just stick to fixing the script," I told him. For one thing, the ending had to go. And the middle.
My father's planning the whole North American holiday thing for the weekend, so we're having a barbecue on Saturday after the England game. Every night this week after dinner he's asked Charles Wallace if there's anything incendiary in the backyard, and where it is. My mother's invited the Andersons, with the added lure of Arne being ready to go on some sort of tour with Torvald McGuire and thus being out of commission. I told her to tell Mrs. Anderson to tell Duncan to bring April. Maybe Charles Wallace and I can quiz her on ways to fool her brother.

Pretty or not

Duncan and I don't start work at the library until after the holiday weekend, so I had the day free (except for having to get Charles Wallace after school). I went to my mother's office to do some photocopying and ran into Arne in the hallway. He didn't look very good.
"Torvald said I had to get some help, since he can't afford to have me miss any more work, and Huskuld's getting exhausted by doing two shows a night," Arne said.
"Help?" I don't think I sounded very sympathetic.
"Real help. I've got Magician's Block, and it's affecting my work," Arne explained.
"Magician's Block?"
"Yes. It's the sudden inability to perform illusions, and ever since the Limeys beat Sweden I've been trapped in a hell of reality. I can't even do a simple card routine." He was at the medical building to get a doctor's referral.
"I thought Mom was your doctor," I said. Arne shook his head violently.
"What, and have my sister-in-law doing prostate tests on me? No, I see Dr. Scholls."

Want a riot of my own

Another really long day. The England/Ecuador game started at 10:30 a.m., and my grandfather took me, Charles Wallace, and Duncan to the Waltzing Weasel for it. They had a special Ye Olde Royal Beefeater Bulldog Churchill breakfast feature: $8.95 for three eggs, bacon, sausage, ham, kippers, scones, jam, cream, trifle, baked beans, beans on toast, fried mushrooms and a grilled tomato. I think Charles Wallace took the remnants of ours back home later (he said he had something in mind for the kippers). The owner of the bar got a restraining order against Arne so there was no danger of him showing up. My grandfather was in a foul mood by the time the game ended, but it was England's fault.
After that Duncan and I went to Toronto to meet up with Enid at the main Pride parade (her boyfriend was helping someone synchronize sound for something that day). Duncan said he saw Howard, and much to our surprise the Milborough/Eastgate PFLAG was there (well, who knew we had one?), and Duncan said Connie Poirier and her son Lawrence were marching. When the parade was over, we were going to wander a bit in the west end but someone told us that the Portugal/Netherlands game was getting really ugly and that "Tiny Amsterdam" (as the city streetsigns called it) was basically a no-go zone. So we had something to eat and went to the Vatikan.

Long day's journey into something

It's been a really long day. Duncan wanted to go into Toronto for the Dyke March. He said it was an important cultural event that he should see to understand a part of Canadian society.
"No, you just want to look at topless women," I said. Duncan didn't argue about that, and pointed out that he also wanted to go see his friends at the squat.
We met Enid and her boyfriend at the corner of Yonge and Isabella and settled in for the parade. Enid's boyfriend insisted on filming it, but he was only one of an army of guys filming, photographing, or recording the parade. Afterwards Duncan mentioned that he wanted to go to the squat with some toilet paper, and Enid's boyfriend said that he had a Costco card and a car and that it would be a great opportunity to get some interesting footage. We bought a lot of toilet paper and then Duncan tried to remember how to get to the squat. Luckily Bambi was at the corner with her squeegie when we were really lost, and directed us to the right place. Squeegiing topless gives you an even tan, I guess. Duncan hadn't mentioned exactly how rough the squat was: Enid's boyfriend thought better of filming, for one thing. Duncan dropped off the toilet paper, said hello to the people he knew, and said a slightly lingering goodbye to Bambi.
There was a cricket event going on in Sunnybrook Park in the evening, so Duncan and Enid's boyfriend went to it while Enid and I browsed records at Sonic Boom and then waited at the Second Cup at Bloor and Lippincott for them to come back. After that, Duncan and I went back to Milborough and went home.

So you go and you stand on your own

Yesterday I had my math and chemistry exams. Thanks, R. P. Boire, for maximizing my misery in a more efficient way than you've done already. Last night at dinner my mother stared suspiciously at my brother and me.
"Dr. Patterson says that his son Michael's play is getting a workshopped production in one of the public schools, and that Michael's thrilled with the student they got to play him. Funny thing, though, according to Dr. Patterson, this particular student already has an agent. Michael told him that the agent seemed competent, although she was dressed in an R. P. Boire uniform for some reason. Do you two know anything about this?"
"Er, I should have changed before I went to the rehearsal?" I asked.
"I really worry when you two start working together on something," my mother said.
Tonight's the prom. I sort of have a date for it, since Duncan's playing at it, but I guess I'll be spending most of the evening watching Jeremy do the sound (it'll give me a good view of Eva so I can make sure she doesn't use her targeting breasts on Duncan). Charles Wallace sulked a bit about not being able to go.
"You're too young, and anyway, you have to fix your lines. The scene where Michael discovers his vocation as a writer needs a lot of work. I want to see the first re-write tomorrow afternoon," I told him.
"When I asked you to be my agent, I didn't think you'd actually act like one," he said.

How can you lie there and think of England when you don't even know who's in the team

Arne had walked out of the England/Sweden game after the first half since no-one at the Three Kronen cared about it. I think Ivar had helped him out the door, too. Milborough was having a small town day, and the Swedish side of town was just down the road from the High Street today. Duncan walked over to the table looking confused until Arne tripped over him.
"That makes sense. At least he's not at my house with my father," Duncan said. I still have no idea how Arne made Mr. Anderson be his friend. My grandfather came back with the menus at that point, and said hello to Duncan and did he want a drink?
"Oh, sure, an apple juice or cider, whatever they have," Duncan said. My grandfather went back to the bar and soon brought back a pint and a half of lager, a cola type thing, and a pint of something else.
"Here's your cider, lad," my grandfather said. Duncan started to drink it, then asked me if it was alcoholic. I said yes, but at that moment Arne decided to do his "change a bill into pennies" trick. This time he changed a $10.00 into at least $5.00 worth of pennies over the bar, poker machine, and two tables of soccer fans.
"Magic show's up, Viking boy," came a voice from one of the affected tables. It was Constable Luggsworth.
"I'm an artist, you stupid cop," Arne said. "No prison can hold me!" Then he tried to do his "disappear in a cloud of dust" trick, but he tried to disappear right into Luggsworth. This was working out to be the shortest Arne encounter ever. Luggsworth took Arne out to the squad car, and we got food just as the second half started.
Duncan kept getting more depressed as the game went on, since the Trinidad and Tobago/Paraguay game was on one of the side televisions. My grandfather kept buying him pints of cider. By the time the game ended, Duncan was telling my grandfather all about being pushed into the goat pen.
"You're lucky, lad. When I was your age, we had no goat pen: we just kept the goat in a hole near the house. The leaky one-room house." Duncan went to the washroom and my grandfather said that Duncan was the best young man I'd ever gone with. "Holds his drink better than the last one, too." My mother arrived around this point to drive us all home.

Procedures for underground

Charles Wallace didn't have to be taken out of school today: the England/Sweden game was at 3:00 p.m., which gave me time to study in the high school library with Zenobia and Zapata beforehand. Jeremy Jones tried to thank me for my grade 9 notes, but at that point I was late for getting Charles Wallace.
We set out for the Waltzing Weasel after a stop at home so we could get our England kit on (Charles Wallace had the red shirt, I had the white) and my grandfather could make sure my mother knew to pick us up at 5:00 p.m.. Charles Wallace was still whining a bit.
"I hate sports. What's so important about soccer?"
"It's the easiest game to play, idiot. All you have to do is run around a lot near the ball. Charles Wallace, even I have a soccer trophy." He appeared somewhat mollified by that.
The Waltzing Weasel is on Milborough's High Street, on a strip with Championship Vinyl, Greenwood Stationers, the Ellesmere tea room, and Finch, Wilson & Coxwell: Barristers and Solicitors. The pub was filling up when we got in. My grandfather set Charles Wallace up with an NTN gameplayer, and we waited to get drinks. We had a bit of a problem there.
"A pint of lager, and a half of shandy for the lass," my grandfather ordered.
"Is she over nineteen?" the server asked.
"I was drinking lager out of a rusty can when I was 10--give the girl a half shandy, you mealy-..." The server scuttled away at that. Unfortunately the men around the bar heard that, and one of them pointed at me and asked,
"Aren't you the girl with the cracking bust what was in that play at the high school?" I turned red, and then my grandfather said,
"That's my granddaughter--she's got an 89 average at the high school." I wondered if I could stay in the women's room for the whole 90 minutes of the game. Luckily, after the kickoff, everyone (except Charles Wallace) concentrated on the game. It was hard not to get caught up in it. At half-time, Charles Wallace demanded food, and my grandfather went off to find someone with menus. Then Charles Wallace looked up.
"Look, Sandra, look who just came in," It was Duncan, who looked a bit annoyed.
"Great, it's Duncan," I said, but Charles Wallace still pointed at the door. "Oh hell." Right behind Duncan was a large man with a blue and yellow Viking helmet on. "It's Arne."

Fever pitch

I've been fairly busy the past few days. At least now with exams things will slow down. On Saturday I went to Toronto with Duncan and his parents to Barbados on the Water. On Sunday I got my grade 9 notes out for Duncan and settled in to study for my chemistry exam with my mother's help. Charles Wallace gave me a few tips for my pre-calculus exam on condition that I help him rework a speech from the play he's in. The rehearsal on Friday for it was interesting. I met Charles Wallace in front of his school, and he said, "Try to look like an agent."
"What do agents look like, anyway?" I asked. He didn't say anything but gave me a pair of sunglasses that I distinctly recall having been mine once (from a Burger King Kids meal circa 1998). I put them on and the two of us went to the rehearsal, which was being held in the library.
The director looked very familiar, and he started when he saw me. I glared at him and then walked purposefully to the non-fiction section where he went to hide.
"Mr. Mirabell, that's a really bad disguise. My uncle has better false moustaches, and he shops grey market."
"Well, what do you expect? I can't go back to work under my real name after that debacle. I'm reduced to midwifing that buffoon's semi-literate platitudes."
"With my brother in the lead." At that point Mirabell groaned.
"I can't get away from that damn family of yours, can I? Your uncle lends me substandard machinery, you manage to get fog poisoning, and now your brother is in this wretched excuse for a play."
"And I'm his agent," I said. Mirabell groaned again. "Don't worry--don't tell anyone why I'm here and I won't tell the school board you're here." He agreed. The students in the play sat at a table with their play scripts while Mirabell led the run-through, and I sat behind Charles Wallace. I thought the play read badly, but it sounded worse. Only Charles Wallace read without stumbling over any of the words. Three hours later Charles Wallace and I were able to go home.
Fortunately he didn't have a workshop today: I had two exams today and couldn't face the words of Michael Patterson after all that. When I got home I saw that my grandfather was back from Oshawa. He had decided that since England was playing tomorrow, he needed quality time with his grandchildren. He convinced my mother to take Charles Wallace out of school for the afternoon (cultural experience, he said) to join him, and me (I didn't have any exams scheduled) at the Waltzing Weasel for the game.
"But grandad, you hate the Waltzing Weasel," Charles Wallace said.
"No matter, lad, it's got a high definition big screen television and cheap bar snacks during the game. It's an important part of your ethnic heritage." My grandfather went out to get the paper at that point. Charles Wallace looked alarmed.
"Just look at it as a kind of school trip," I said.
"But it's sports," Charles Wallace whined.
"Sports, and important parts of our ethnic heritage like cheap bar snacks and beer," I reminded him. He cheered up a bit. I was happy since I was pretty sure there'd be little, if no, chance of Arne leaving his barstool at the Three Kronen for the game.

Far from the madding crowd

Charles Wallace and I were both pretty surprised to find Duncan in the kitchen last night. Duncan said that he thought someone knew he was coming back to Milborough, and was taking evasive action. Considering that Eva and Jeremy had just left the yard, that was a good idea. Duncan seemed really hungry, so I said I'd order pizza. Once that was taken care of, Duncan asked if he could have a shower, since it had been about a week or so since he had one. Charles Wallace thought that was cool (the not having a shower part), but didn't have a chance to convince Duncan not to wash since Duncan had bolted upstairs.
The pizza arrived, and all three of us ate. Charles Wallace kept asking Duncan questions about life as a squeegie kid.
"The next time you run away, Duncan, can I come with you? You do neat things," he said. Duncan had told us about his friends, especially Bambi the topless squeegier. By the time Duncan finished the pizza, it was fairly late. Even Charles Wallace was tired out. He went to his room and then Duncan and I went to bed. I asked him if he and Bambi were more than just friends, and he said no, since there's no running water at the squat.
This morning around 6:00 he said he was going to make a break for a double-double at Tim Horton's, then go back to Toronto for more squeeging and a quick trip to Barbados on the Water. He said he'd be back this evening, and I said I'd get his books out of his locker at the high school, and get my old notes out (I had pointed out to Duncan that I kept all my grade 9 class notes, and he said he'd probably need help getting through the exams). Duncan went through the window, and I went back to sleep.

Secret state

Well, Duncan's not here, but it seems everyone else in Milborough is. Charles Wallace was disappointed about Duncan, but decided to watch the yard anyway.
"You go and torture Arne in Magictown," he said. "I think I hear something in the rose bushes." I went to his room and sat at his computer, thinking about what to do to Arne Sim. Then I heard Charles Wallace yell. "It's Storm! She's in the lilacs!"
I went outside and saw Eva cowering in the lilac bush. Charles Wallace had one of his spare roman candles in his hand and a lighter. "I thought you only used your powers for good," he said to Eva.
"She only uses her powers for smirk," I said.
"That's not nice," I heard from the arbutus. It was Jeremy Jones.
"Sorry, Jeremy," I said. "Why are you all in my mother's greenery?" They both started some story about burglers, rogue senior citizens, confidence men, and mutant plants. "It's all right. Our plants are normal, my grandfather's in Oshawa, and no-one has any confidence in us." They seems satisfied, or at least Jeremy did. He whispered something to Eva, and they both left, although Eva kept looking back. Charles Wallace waved the roman candle meaningfully until we couldn't see them anymore.
"You've got a weird school, Sandra," he said. I agreed, and we went in. Charles Wallace had left the back door open, and when we went in we found Duncan there, getting some milk out of the fridge.

The spirit of solitude

Duncan's been negotiated back, and that makes me feel a lot better. I can put up with whatever Zenia throws at me today. Before I left for school I had to brief my co-conspirator. Charles Wallace was delighted.
"Cool! He's coming back! Can I see him?"
"Only for a little bit. I want to maintain your plausible deniability." He seemed happy at that, but then he thought a bit.
"Sandra, you know I won't tell on him, but would you do me a favour after you get out of school today?"
"What kind of favour?"
"Be my agent. We're meeting our director for that awful play today, and.." I cut him off.
"Charles Wallace, I'm not eighteen--how the hell can I be your agent?"
"Easy--we sign everything, then when it looks really bad, we reveal that everything's invalid since both of us are under eighteen! It's a great loophole." He was right, and since he wasn't a lawyer, and was under ten years of age, it sounded ethical enough. I agreed to walk over to his school after my last class.

Formal feeling

Duncan remembered to call tonight. He's staying in a squat in Toronto, so I can't be annoyed that he called collect. He said he was starting his life as a fugitive. I pointed out that fugitives usually didn't post their movements on their friends' blogs. Then he admitted that he kind of wanted to be back here, and when I told him that if he missed his exams they'd make him repeat Grade 9 if they ever found him, he said he'd come back. I said that he could hide out here if he didn't want to go straight back to his house, since my mother'll be on duty at the hospital again tomorrow, and my father had a meeting of his pretend baseball league. Duncan said that sounded all right, and that he'd be here around 8:00 tomorrow night.
I didn't feel as bad today as I did yesterday, since I had heard from April what Duncan was up to. Jeremy Jones was really nice and sympathetic: he walked me home today, even though it was a bit strained with Eva muttering "manstealer" every few minutes.

Academy fight song

I was too upset to post anything last night. Duncan didn't leave a message at 8:00 p.m. like he said he would, so what was the point. Charles Wallace tried to cheer me up by showing me his Sims and making bad things happen to his Arne Sim. It was a good effort.
School was horrible. Eva must have some contagious disease, since Zenia was smirking all day too. The teacher they hired to replace Mirabell in English decided to go all hippy and make us share our feelings about our friend the missing student.
"How do you all feel about this? Anyone?"
"I'm certainly not going to tell you how I feel, and at the moment, I don't care what people who barely know him feel," I said. Then Steve Harper started.
"You're just upset since you drove him out of Milborough," he said. The teacher looked at him. "Not literally, just in a metaphoric sense."
"Shall I drive you out of here? Not metaphorically, but in a literal sense?" I asked Steve. He was about to answer when the teacher got nervous and sent us both to the principal's office, after using the class phone to call in a "3-23."
The principal was ready for us. "Ah, a "3-23"--blatant contempt for teaching professionals. Isn't this the second time you've been here for one of those, Sandra?"
Steve was gloating. I was glaring. The principal noticed both. "Oh, if this were fiction, you two deadly enemies would realize you actually liked each other and start happily dating." This was getting ridiculous.
"I'm sorry if you have trouble telling the difference between fiction and reality, but.." I got cut off there.
"Really, Sandra, do you want to make your problems worse?" The principal had a point, even though he was a buffoon. I shut up, Steve stopped audibly gloating, and we listened to the principal deliver a few bromides from the "Calming Surly Students" course he took recently. Luckily, since English was my last class of the day, I could go home after this.

The robber bride

I thought things would start to get quieter today. I was wrong. My grandfather left this morning to go to Oshawa for a week or so to see some of his old friends from his local, and Arne's hiding somewhere. When I got to school Zenobia told me that Zenia said that I'd bought Duncan a killer whale pattern Razr to replace the one his cousin threw at the whale.
"That's so untrue, and pretty evil, too," I said.
"Well, Zenia never saw a couple that she didn't want to uncouple," Zenobia said. I didn't see Duncan at school, so I thought he must have taken to his bed again.
Then my parents seemed kind of distracted. My mother's annoyed since Dr. Patterson has left funeral pre-planning pamphlets all over the lobby of the medical building and near her office.
"I can't get him to realize that it's all about location. Location, location--why would I want funeral advice near my office?" Meanwhile my father phoned my aunt the lawyer about getting what sounded like a "legal declaration of non-fraternity." Charles Wallace was busy blue-pencilling his script from Michael Patterson. After my father got off the phone with my aunt, and Charles Wallace took his script up to his room, the phone rang. My mother answered and talked worriedly for a bit. After she hung up, she asked me if I knew where Duncan was.
"I thought he stayed home in bed--he was pretty upset about the whole Marineland thing."
"No, Miranda says he disappeared this morning, and he doesn't seem to have any money or anything. I told her that you'd tell us if you knew where he was." This was serious. I told my mother I'd certainly let her and my father know if I knew where Duncan was. I went up to my room, telling Charles Wallace along the way that I didn't feel like fixing prose tonight.

Whether tis nobler

I hate stupid teenage girls who wave their breasts at guys and just smirk. I've just gotten back from Tim Horton's and Duncan's belated birthday-type gathering. Eva spent the whole evening plastering her chest in Duncan's face, with occasional side swipes to Jeremy, who she's supposed to be dating. Jeremy put up with it, and occasionally looked at me sympathetically when Eva's chest made Duncan strain his eyes. Of course, it was a bit of a job to get Duncan to show up anyway.
When I got home from school Charles Wallace called me into his room and showed me the top videos of the day from You Tube. Three of them were of Duncan getting his cell phone eaten by a killer whale at Marineland.
"Fish fone?" I asked. Charles Wallace said that that one was rated #2.
"Only the one with the guy dancing in Dundas Square got ranked higher for the week." I looked at a few others.
"'Jaws Call Home,'oh, and here's one from Japan: 'Baby prank on fish boy.'" At that Charles Wallace ran to leave a message for Duncan about that one. It was getting to be time to go to Tim Horton's, so I walked over to Duncan's house to go over with him. His mother said he was in bed, but I was welcome to see if I could get him out of it. That seemed like an odd thing to say, and an odd place to be at the hour, but I went to his room and found him with the blankets pulled up over his head, face down.
"No, it can't be time for the baby to sleep, no, no..." he said weakly. I told him I didn't have any infants on hand and he had to get up to go to Tim Hortons. He asked me if I'd seen the videos. I said yes, Charles Wallace pointed them out to me. "I've got to move, change my name, I can't go to Barbados anymore, Aunt Perdita's there, I think I'll go to Caracas, or somewhere where they don't speak English or Japanese and no-one has internet access." He was moving, at least, and after a bit I got him out the door and into Tim Hortons, whatever good that did me with Eva wandering about as if she were led by her breasts' sonar.

Red card

It's finally quiet around here. It's been a long day. Today we had the traditional Sunday roast, and my aunt and uncle and Enid were here. My grandfather watched the morning soccer game, and everything seemed fine as dinner started. About the time my father put the knife to the roast, Arne turned up. As soon as he stumbled into the dining room, my grandfather stood up and pointed at him.
"You hooligan! You threw cheap Scandinavian beer at my car!" Arne froze.
"It's not cheap, it's over $10.00 a six pack!" Then my mother started.
"That's my car, Dad, not yours," The three of them went on. My father looked like he wanted to die right there. Then Arne pulled himself together and said he was leaving.
"I'm going, don't worry. Just remember this, Don," and then he started singing "Everything I Do, I Do for You." He hit a high note badly as the front door shut. My father still looked stunned,
but said,
"I have no brother. Roast beef?" Dinner was kind of anticlimactic after that.

A small part of a foreign field forever English

The England game's over: they beat Paraguay 1-0. My grandfather's back from driving around the neighbourhood with the flag, and apparently, according to him, a pair of hooligans threw beer cans at him. One hit the car, and my mother's outside looking for dents. Strangely, my grandfather was really sure that the beer cans in question were Banks and Carlsberg. I think Arne's back.
Charles Wallace is insisting I help him find an agent. He says he wants to act, too, since I did it, and this Michael Patterson person is really leaning on him hard to play his younger self in some autobiographical mess he's writing up. Charles Wallace says the script is a bit weak, and the Michael Patterson character is a bit of a wimp, but he's sure he can fix the bad spots and improvise a bit.
"Listen to this speech, Sandra: 'I do not deign to enter into hostilities with such as you, my tormentor, for to accede to violence is to become violence.'"
"You're right, that is crap. Are you sure you can fix this mess?" He said yes, but he asked if I'd help him. I said yes.

World in motion

I hate planning things, since they always fall through. Duncan's birthday is Sunday, and I had started making plans with Enid for something in Toronto. Then Duncan's relatives from Barbados were coming to Canada on Sunday, and he had to go with his parents to Toronto to meet them. All right, I thought, I'd just have something for him here, on Saturday. Just as I was about to start planning that, my mother announced that my grandfather was coming on Friday night and would be staying with us, and my aunt in Toronto, for a month. My grandfather's lived most of his life in Ontario, but he was born in England, and ever since he retired from GM (and after my grandmother died), he's been more or less living in whatever is the ancestrial home in the North Riding. He's about as English as Arne is Swedish, and as it's World Cup time, we'll be doing the full ethnic thing: watching soccer, Sunday roast dinner, and all that sort of thing. And we'll be watching the England games here, as my grandfather called Milborough's one attempted English pub "shite" and "a mucky cheap mess." On the other hand, he was right: The Waltzing Weasel is pretty awful.
So my mother's got the England flag out to put on the car for the games. England and Sweden are in the same group, but my father said not to worry about the Swedish flag, since Arne no doubt would turn up with it whenever he resurfaces.

Dusted

It's going to be an uphill battle keeping Eva off Duncan. I went to the band rehearsal yesterday, and I practically had to manacle her to keep her hands to herself. April was trying to keep some sort of order, while Jeremy fought with the sound and Becky McGuire kept running off with Luis the keyboardist. I was trying to be helpful, and gave a few requests, but Eva kept on saying, "It would help if you suggested things people actually know. There's a reason cowboys don't bring their girlfriends along on the roundups."
"Whatever, never mind," I said, and the cycle started anew.