Gangsta Granny

“Well,” said Raj. “Even more reason to put them on special offer. OK, Ben, this is my final offer. Buy one box of Cornettos, I will give you ten boxes absolutely free!”

“Really Raj, no thanks,” said Ben. He peered into the freezer cabinet to see what else might be lurking in there. It had never been defrosted and Ben wouldn’t have been surprised to find a perfectly preserved woolly mammoth from the Ice Age inside.

“Hang on,” he said, as he moved a few frost-encrusted ice lollies out of the way. “It’s in here! Plumbing Weekly!”

“Ah yes, I remember now,” said Raj. “I put it in there to keep it fresh for you.”

“Fresh?” said Ben.

“Well, young man, the magazine comes out on a Tuesday, but it’s Friday today. So I put it in the freezer to keep it fresh for you, Ben. I didn’t want it to go off.”

Ben wasn’t sure how any magazine could ever go off, but he thanked the newsagent anyway. “That’s very kind of you, Raj. And I’ll have a packet of Rolos, please.”

“I can offer you seventy-three packets of Rolos for the price of seventy-two!” exclaimed the newsagent with a smile that was meant to entice.

“No thanks, Raj.”

“One thousand packets of Rolos for the price of nine hundred and ninety-eight?”

“No thanks,” said Ben.

“Are you mad, Ben? That’s a wonderful offer. All right, all right, you drive a hard bargain, Ben. One million and seven packets of Rolos, for the price of a million and four. That’s three packets of Rolos absolutely free!”

“I’ll just take one packet and the magazine, thank you.”

“Of course, young sir!”

“I can’t wait to get stuck into Plumbing Weekly later. I have to go and spend the whole night with my boring old granny again.”

It had been a week since Ben’s last visit, and the dreaded Friday had rolled around once more. His parents were going to see a ‘chick flick’, according to his mum. Romance and kissing and all that goo. Yuckety yuck yuck.

“Tut tut tut,” said Raj, shaking his head as he counted out Ben’s change.

Ben instantly felt ashamed. He had never seen the newsagent do this before. Like all the other local kids, Ben regarded Raj as ‘one of us’ not ‘one of them’. He was so full of life and laughter, Raj seemed a world away from parents and teachers and all the grown-ups who felt they could tell you off because they were bigger than you.

“Just because your granny is old, young Ben,” said Raj, “doesn’t mean that she is boring. I am getting on a bit myself. And whenever I have met your granny I have found her to be a very interesting lady.”

“But—”

“Don’t be too hard on her, Ben,” pleaded Raj. “We will all be old one day. Even you. And I’m sure your granny will have a secret or two. Old people always do…”

4 Mystery and Wonder (#ulink_cdb8544c-5e5b-56a9-a6e7-b7c3bd97310a)

Ben wasn’t at all sure that Raj was right about Granny. That night it was the same old story. Granny served up cabbage soup, followed by cabbage pie and for dessert it was cabbage mousse. She even found some cabbage-flavoured after-dinner chocolates* (#ulink_2330fe94-2887-5aa8-a20d-c16cdbf531af) somewhere. After dinner, Granny and Ben sat down together on the musty sofa as they always did.

“Scrabble time!” exclaimed Granny.

* (#ulink_402d4117-2691-5b82-a184-511b489a837a) Cabbage-flavoured chocolates are not as nice as they sound, and they don’t sound that nice.

Great, thought Ben. Tonight’s going to be a million times more boring than last week!

Ben detested Scrabble. If he had his way, Ben would build a rocket, and blast all the Scrabble boards in the world into outer space. Granny pulled out the dusty old Scrabble box from the sideboard and set up the game on the pouf.

What seemed like decades later, but was probably just hours, Ben stared at his letters, before scanning the board. He had already put down:

(double word score)

(this had to be checked in the dictionary)

(triple word score)

(Granny had disallowed this on account of it not being one word).

He had an ‘E’, an ‘M’, an ‘I’, a ‘U’ and a ‘D’. Granny had just put down ‘Murraymint’ (double word score) so Ben used the ‘T’ at the end to form the word ‘tedium’.

“Well, it’s nearly eight o’clock, young man,” announced Granny, looking at her little gold watch. “Time for your beddy-byes, I think…”

Ben groaned inwardly. Beddy-byes! He wasn’t a toddler!

“But I don’t have to go to bed until nine o’clock at home!” he protested. “And not until ten o’clock when I haven’t got school in the morning.”

“No, Ben, off you go to bed, please.” The old lady could be quite firm when she wanted to be. “And don’t forget to brush your teeth. I’ll be up soon to give you a bedtime story, if you like. You always used to love a bedtime story.”

Later, Ben stood at the sink in the bathroom. It was a cold damp room with no window. Some of the tiles had fallen off the wall. There was just one sad little frayed towel and a very worn bar of soap that looked like it was half soap, half mould.

Ben hated brushing his teeth. So he pretended to brush his teeth. Pretending to brush your teeth is simple. Don’t tell your parents I told you, but if you want to try it for yourself, all you have to do is follow this handy step-by-step guide:

1) Turn on the cold tap

2) Wet the toothbrush

3) Squeeze a tiny amount of toothpaste on to your finger and place finger in mouth

4) Move the trace of toothpaste around your mouth with your tongue

5) Spit

6) Turn off the tap

See? It’s so easy. Nearly as easy as brushing your teeth.

Ben looked at himself in the bathroom mirror. He was eleven years old, but shorter than he wanted to be, so he stood on his tiptoes for a moment. Ben was aching to be older.

Only a few more years, he thought, and he would be taller and hairier and spottier, and his Friday nights would be very different.

He wouldn’t have to stay at boring old Granny’s any more. Instead Ben would be able to do all the thrilling things the older kids in the town did on Friday nights:

Hang around with a gang of friends outside the off-licence waiting for someone to tell you off.