Francesca Finch opened a tin of clear wood varnish with the end of an old spoon. She looked over to her daughter. She was lying on her front on the living room carpet looking through old photograph albums. Francesca expected questions but didn't receive any. She'd returned to work two days after her Dad had died. The news had got to her boss and she sent her home with three weeks of compassionate leave on full pay.
'Take more if you need to,' her boss had said. 'You've more than earnt it.'
Bunny sat up and watched her Mum varnishing a stick back chair in the middle of the kitchen. She had her curly blonde hair in a ponytail and had changed into what she called her hobbyshop dungarees. She was always pulling things out of skips. The bike Bunny rode came from a skip, the desk in her bedroom came from a skip.
'I'm not having four perfectly good chairs go to the tip,' her Mum said. 'It's elm wood. Made before a disease killed most of the elms in the sixties and seventies. These will live to seat another bottom. Many hundreds of bottoms if I've got anything to do with it.'
Bunny reached for her dictionary. Elm. A tall tree with rough leaves.
'Who would pronounce vanish like varnish?' Bunny asked her.
Her mum smiled. She looked up from the chair and considered the question for a second. 'A posh sort I'd say.'
There were many questions that Bunny wanted to ask her Mum. Why didn't Grandma let Granddad watch the colour television in the living room? That was near the top of the list. She loved her grandparents equally, or so she thought before her Granddad died. She hadn't wanted either of them to die but knew that Granddad would have a great time living with her and Mum. They could've watch a whole tournament of snooker together on a big colour television rather than the small black and white one in the kitchen Grandma made him watch it on. She imagined going into town with him to choose a colour television for his room so he no longer had to watch variously shaded grey balls being hit around a grey table. She'd been closer to him than she had been to Grandma. This was overwhelmingly obvious to her now. Her Mum had been closer to him.
Bunny opened her dictionary to a random page while she waited for her after school Statistics class to start. Pages 320 and 321. It began with Headstone, ended with Heebie Jeebies and had Hearse, Heartache and Heatstroke in between. She wanted to tear those pages out. When she got an answer she liked, her dictionary was a pack of tarot cards. When she got an answer she didn't like, the dictionary was just a dictionary. Miss Button walked in and greeted Bunny in her soft Edinburgh accent. She had freckles like her Mum. They'd met once or twice at a parents' evening and Bunny's Mum thought she looked like Kelly MacDonald but Bunny didn't know who that was.
Miss Button noticed that Bunny always had a dictionary on the table during her Statistics lessons. It made her like her even more. She didn't need to encourage Bunny to do Statistics as an extra subject. She knew she'd want to be there.
'Who knows where Barry is?' She asked at the beginning of one lesson.
Bunny's year had a Barry in it.
'He doesn't do Statistics, Miss,' one boy said.
Bunny put her hand up, then put it down again. Her teacher encouraged her to speak.
'Barry's in South Wales. Barry the place. Barry the person is probably at home.'
'Thank you, Bunny. Who would like an all expenses-paid trip to Barry to weigh and measure pebbles? That is, I'm sure for all you nascent statisticians, a rhetorical question.'
Bunny had two words to look up and a trip to tell her Mum about.
Three things have changed since Granddad died, Bunny wrote in her diary. Mum has been having long (really long) cups of tea by the window. That's the first one. She said she used to smoke way way way (three times) before I was born and although she didn't miss smoking, she missed the moment of calm and reflection. She's also started making big meals in the slow cooker on a Sunday afternoon. She always puts in mushrooms and I like mushrooms but slow-cooked mushrooms taste funny. Funny throw up not funny ha ha (I didn't tell her this). She'll divide it up and put it in plastic containers we get from the Chinese and we'll have it for the following week. Last night we had a jacket potato and bolognese. Tonight we had pasta bolognese. Tomorrow we might have rice bolognese or maybe switch to the slow cooked lamb tagine she made a few Sundays ago and put in the freezer. That's the second thing. The third thing is she's talking more to my Godmother more now than she ever did before Granddad died. She's Bunny Sr, I'm Bunny Jr. Mum named me after her. She's an aunt but not an aunt if you know what I mean.
'Your Godmother lives in Barry,' Bunny's Mum said.
'I know. That's how I knew where Barry was.'
'I named you after her.'
'I know.'
Bunny had told her Mum as soon as she got home. She needed written permission for her to go so after supper, Bunny got the permission slip out of her bag. She filled it out and signed it and underneath wrote:
Dear Miss Button,
I was giddy with delight when Bunny told me what you've got planned for your Statistics class and I give my overwhelming approval. One of my oldest friends lives in Barry and when I tell her the important statistical analysis that will take place on her beach, she will fall about in similar crazy delight. I wish I could join you.
Yours Most Ecstati(stics)cally,
Francesca Finch
'Couldn't you have written something normal?' Bunny asked.
'Abso-bloomin'-not.'
At the end of Bunny's Statistics lesson, in which the class learned about the differences between mean, median and mode, Miss Button gathered all the permission slips so our trip to Cold Knapp Beach in Barry could be signed off. Having read what Bunny's Mum had written, she photocopied the slip and wrote a little note of her own and passed it to Bunny to give back to her Mum.
...I wish I could join you.*
Yours Most Ecstati(stics)cally,
Francesca Finch
*Why don't you? There's a seat and a bag of Jelly Babies with your name on it.
When Bunny got home, her mum was standing at the window with a cup of tea. She passed her the note from Miss Button and kissed her on the cheek.
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