gone.
It was true that Ben found her dreadfully dull, but he didn’t want her to know that. After all she was a lonely old widow, and her husband had died long before Ben was even born. Guiltily, Ben crept back to the spare room and waited and waited and waited for the morning.
At breakfast Granny seemed different.
Quieter. Older maybe. A little broken.
Her eyes looked bloodshot as if she’d been crying.
Did she hear? thought Ben. I really hope she didn’t hear.
She stood by the oven as Ben sat at the tiny kitchen table. Granny was pretending to be interested in her calendar, which was pinned to the wall by the oven. Ben could tell she was pretending, because there was nothing interesting on her calendar.
This was a typical week in Granny’s hectic life:
Monday: Make cabbage soup. Play Scrabble against yourself. Read a book.
Tuesday: Make cabbage pie. Read another book. Blow off.
Wednesday: Make the dish ‘Chocolate Surprise’. The surprise is that it isn’t made of chocolate at all. It is in fact 100% cabbage.
Thursday: Suck a Murray Mint all day. (She could make one mint last a lifetime.)
Friday: Still suck the same Murray Mint. My wonderful grandson visits.
Saturday: My wonderful grandson leaves. Have another nice sit down. Pooped!
Sunday: Eat roast cabbage, with braised cabbage and boiled cabbage on the side. Blow off all day.
Eventually, Granny turned away from the calendar. “Your mummy and daddy will be here soon,” she finally said, breaking the silence.
“Yes,” said Ben, looking at his watch. “Just a few more minutes.”
The minutes felt like hours. Days even. Months!
A minute can be a long time. Don’t believe me? Then sit in a room on your own and do nothing but count for sixty seconds.
Have you done it yet? I don’t believe you. I’m not joking. I want you to really go and do it.
I am not carrying on with the story until you do.
It’s not my time I’m wasting.
I’ve got all day.
Right, have you done it now? Good. Now back to the story…
At just after eleven o’clock, the little brown car pulled up in front of Granny’s house. Much like a getaway driver for a bank robbery, Mum kept the engine running. She leaned over and opened the passenger door so Ben could dive in quickly and they could zoom off.
As Ben trudged towards the car, Granny stood at the front door. “Would you like to come in for a cup of tea, Linda?” she shouted.
“No thanks,” said Ben’s mum. “Quick, Ben, for goodness sake get in!” She revved the engine. “I don’t want to have to talk to the old dear.”
“Shh!” said Ben. “She’ll hear you!”
“I thought you didn’t like Granny?” said Mum.
“I didn’t say that, Mum. I said I found her boring. But I don’t want her to know that, do I?”
Mum laughed as they sped off out of Grey Close. “I wouldn’t worry, Ben, your granny isn’t really with it. She probably doesn’t understand what you’re saying half the time.”
Ben frowned. He wasn’t sure about that. He wasn’t sure at all. He remembered Granny’s face at the breakfast table. Suddenly, he had a horrible feeling she understood a lot more than he had ever realised…
This Friday night would have been just as spectacularly dull as the last, if Ben hadn’t remembered to bring his magazine with him this time. Once again, Mum and Dad dumped their only child at Granny’s.
As soon as he arrived, Ben rushed past her into his cold damp little bedroom, shut the door and read his copy of the latest Plumbing Weekly from cover to cover. There was an amazing guide, with lots and lots of colour photographs, showing how to install the new generation of combi boilers. Ben folded over the corner of the page. Now he knew what he wanted for Christmas.
Once he’d finished the magazine, Ben sighed and headed to the living room. He knew he couldn’t stay in his bedroom all evening.
Granny looked up and smiled when she saw him. “Scrabble time!” she exclaimed cheerily, holding up the board.
The next morning the air was thick with silence.
“Another boiled egg?” said Granny, as they sat in her rundown little kitchen.
Ben didn’t like boiled eggs and hadn’t finished his first one yet. Granny could even ruin food this simple. The egg would always come out all watery, and the soldiers were always burnt to a cinder. When the old lady wasn’t looking, Ben would flick the egg gloop out of the window with his spoon, and hide the soldiers behind the radiator. There must be a whole platoon of them back there by now.
“No thanks, Granny. I’m completely full,” replied Ben. “Delicious boiled egg, thank you,” he added.
“Mmm…” murmured the old lady, unconvinced. “It’s a bit nippy. I’m just going to put another cardigan on,” she said, even though she was already wearing two. Granny trundled out of the room, quacking as she went.
Ben flicked the rest of his egg out of the window, and then tried to find something else to eat. He knew that Granny had a secret stash of chocolate biscuits that she kept on a top shelf in the kitchen. Granny would give Ben one on his birthday. Ben would also help himself to one from time to time, when his granny’s cabbage-based delicacies left him as hungry as a wolf.
So he quickly slid his chair over to the cupboard and stood on it to reach the biscuits. He lifted the biscuit tin. It was a big Silver Jubilee assortment tin from 1977 that featured a scratched and faded portrait of a much younger Queen Elizabeth II on the lid. It felt really heavy. Much heavier than usual.
Strange.
Ben shook the tin a little. It didn’t feel or sound like it had biscuits inside. It was like it had stones or marbles in it.
Even stranger.
Ben unscrewed the lid.
He stared.
And then he stared some more.
He couldn’t believe what was inside. Diamonds! Rings, bracelets, necklaces, earrings, all with great big
