Eating Things on Sticks Read Online Free

you.’
    She wasn’t wrong in that! All day I thought how sore my feet felt. She led us miles. Sometimes she stooped to gather scraggy green weeds and mucky-looking roots. Behind her back, Tristram kept winking at me as if to say, ‘Well, you and I will not be eating that! ’ But I was not so sure because I’d come to think that Morning Glory was more than a match for both of us, and we were her guests, after all.
    When we got home, we all sat on the sofa in a row. I thought I’d just check one more time. ‘So you really don’t have a telly?’
    She shook her head. ‘Not many people on the island bother. Since the last aerial blew down it’s been such a pathetic signal that you can’t even make out people’s faces. Everyone looks exactly the same. They’re all just grey and fuzzy blobs.’
    â€˜Well, what about getting a DVD player?’ She looked a little blank. I thought I would step back in time a little. ‘Well, don’t you even have a radio?’
    â€˜No, Harry. I don’t have a radio.’
    â€˜Or a computer?’
    â€˜No. No computer either.’
    â€˜Well, what do you do all day,’ I wailed, ‘except for picking weeds and thanking bits of yourself, and being in harmony with the universe?’
    Morning Glory turned to me and smiled as if I were some toddler who was getting overtired. ‘Tristram,’ she said to my uncle sweetly, ‘would you mind fixing supper? Take Harry with you. I know he’s missing his television and a few other things, and I’ve a plan to make him feel a little more at home here.’
    â€˜No problem,’ Uncle Tristram said. I think, like me, he thought that she was off next door – wherever next door was – to try to borrow a few electronic basics. He set to with a will to make the sprout salsa while I got on with rinsing the weird lumpy roots and the watercress. On the sly, while Morning Glory was gone, we both ate four pork pies. I must admit I thought it was a little odd that neither of us heard the front door opening or closing after she left us or just before she returned. But that was all explained when Morning Glory finally came back into the kitchen and took my hand to lead me into the living room.
    â€˜There!’ she said proudly, pointing to the wall.
    I stared. On it, in thick black charcoal, she had drawn a television, a DVD player, a computer and a radio.
    I didn’t really know what to say, so I kept quiet.

    â€˜Well?’ she said, twinkling away as if she’d given me the keys to my very own palace.
    I pulled myself together and tried to be polite. ‘They’re wonderful.’
    â€˜They are good, aren’t they?’
    â€˜But they’re not real .’
    â€˜Well, no,’ she said. ‘But does that matter? You’re only here a week. It’s such a lovely island it would be a waste of time to watch films, or play silly games on the computer. So these are simply to make you feel a little more at home.’
    I wondered suddenly if it was possible to swim to the mainland.
    â€˜Well, thank you,’ I said. ‘No one has ever given me anything like this in my whole life.’
    She looked amazed and delighted. ‘Really?’
    â€˜Really,’ I said with perfect confidence.
    She was thrilled, I could tell. ‘There!’ she said, ushering me back to the kitchen. ‘Now you’ll have something special to write in your daily diary!’ She noticed my baffled face. ‘Oh, it’s all right,’ she assured me. ‘I don’t read minds. It was Tristram who assured me that you won’t mind being left alone for hours if we’re busy doing other things because you spend a lot of time keeping your daily diary.’
    â€˜He said that, did he?’
    I turned to glower at Uncle Tristram, who was taking very good care to keep his head down over his chopped sprouts.

Monday

THE WALK TO