… well, I guess … we could try her.” He showed the card to Jenny.
“Do you know her …?” said Jenny, surprised.
“No, I don’t think we ever used her, but …” He turned the card over so that Jenny could see the writing on the back.
Jenny squinted at it. “Is that …?”
“Yes.”
Jenny thought for a while. “Well then, I guess it must be OK. Although, looking at the state of that card, I think Mrs Stokes might be quite old now.”
Jenny was right. When Alfie first saw Mrs Stokes, he didn’t think he’d ever seen anyone so ancient. She made his oldest grandparent, Grandpa Bernie, look like a member of a boy band. She had a Zimmer frame, two hearing aids and – although Alfie didn’t know how tall she might have been before – seemed to have shrunk with age to the size of a munchkin. And it took her so long to walk up the drive that, by the time she was actually inside the house, Alfie wondered if it was too late for his parents to go out.
How on earth, he thought, is she going to look after me? And, more importantly, make sure I get through all my routines?
The first problem, in fact, was making Mrs Stokes understand what a routine was.
“Shoe-bean?” she said loudly to Stephen. “Your son has a bean in his shoe? Baked or haricot?”
“No,” said Stephen, sighing. He bent down to her ear, which Alfie could see was very small and poking out of her extremely white hair. She was sitting in the kitchen, drinking a cup of tea that Jenny had made, and into which Mrs Stokes had put a seemingly endless amount of sugar.
“ROO-TINE. I said I’d like Alfie, if possible, to stick to his usual routine …”
“Oh dear, dear, dear,” said Mrs Stokes, looking with concern at Alfie. “I’m so sorry.”
“Pardon me?” said Stephen.
“That’s all right, love,” said Mrs Stokes. “I’m a bit deaf myself.” She pulled Stephen’s face down by his ear and shouted into it: “I’M SO SORRY!!”
“Ow!” said Stephen, pulling away and rubbing his ear. “What about?”
“Your son having to have a poo-team,” said Mrs Stokes. “I’ve never heard of that before in such a young person. So, where are they? How many people normally help him go to the toilet?”
Alfie’s dad frowned and whispered to Jenny: “I really don’t know if we should go out and leave Alfie with her.”
“Why are you bothering to whisper?” said Jenny.
Stephen looked at Mrs Stokes, who was happily smiling at him. “Good point,” he said in a normal voice. “Maybe I should just call it off after all.”
“Well, OK, phone your boss and—”
But, as she was saying this, Stephen’s phone rang.
“It’s him,” he said, looking stressed. “He’ll be asking why we’re not there already. Pre-dinner drinks started at six …” And he dashed off into the hallway, apologising to his boss in hushed tones. Jenny exchanged a glance with Alfie.
“Mrs Stokes,” said Jenny, crouching down. Alfie noticed that the old lady was dressed a little bit like the Queen – all in green, with a necklace of pearls – but as if the Queen bought her clothes at Oxfam. “Alfie doesn’t have a poo-team. He has routines.”
“Oh, I see. Where did you get them from, Topman?”
Now it was Jenny’s turn to frown. “Sorry, not quite with you, Mrs Stokes.”
“His new jeans. I prefer Primark myself.” She took a sip from her cup. “Lovely spot of tea. Can I have another?”
Alfie watched all this with increasing horror. He looked at his stepmum, but she was writing something down on her phone. She held it out to Mrs Stokes. It said:
MRS STOKES, WOULD YOU MIND PLEASE SWITCHING YOUR HEARING AIDS ON?
The babysitter seemed to consider this for a while. Eventually, she said: “Well, OK. I don’t know why you think that’s important seeing as we’ve been having such a lovely chat. But you’re the boss. Hold on a minute.”
She reached into her ears with both hands and made a series of tiny adjustments to the bits of plastic inside. Her fingers were stiff and Alfie became concerned that she might get them stuck in there. The whole process probably took about three minutes, but appeared to Alfie to last at least an hour.
Suddenly, there was the most terrible high-pitched squealing.
“WHAT’S THAT NOISE?!” shouted Alfie.
“I DON’T KNOW!” replied Jenny loudly. “IT SOUNDS LIKE MY OLD JESUS AND MARY CHAIN RECORDS!”
“IT SEEMS TO BE COMING FROM … HER!!” said Alfie, pointing to Mrs Stokes.
“Sorry, dearies,” said the old lady. “If I switch them both on together, they do tend to feedback a bit. Hold on a mo.”
At this point, Stephen came back into the room. “WHAT’S THAT AWFUL NOISE?!” he shouted.
“IT’S MRS STOKES’S HEARING AIDS!” yelled Alfie.
“WHAT?”
“MRS STOKES’S HEARING AIDS! THE THINGS SHE PUTS IN HER EARS TO HELP HER HEAR!!”
“I CAN’T HEAR YOU!” Stephen bellowed.
Mrs Stokes herself seemed impervious to the sound, fiddling and fine-tuning inside her ears again.
“DO WE HAVE TO GO TO THE DINNER PARTY?” shouted Jenny.
Stephen made a face, meaning, Yes, probably – but I’m still not happy with Mrs 2,000 Years Old here. (Alfie was quite good at reading his dad’s expressions.)
Jenny thought for a moment and then passed Stephen the card, the old one with Mrs Stokes’s name on it and the words in case of emergencies. She raised her eyebrows meaningfully. Alfie watched his dad look at the card for a while and then come to some sort of a decision.
“OK,” said Stephen. “Fine.” He turned towards the old lady. “MRS STOKES! MRS STOKES! WE’RE GOING OUT NOW!!!”
Mrs Stokes nodded and smiled, oblivious to the fact that the feedback from
