Read Online Aunt Maria by Diana Wynne Jones - Free Book Online

mad in no time—all the clothes we’d got muddy in the dark and a whole row of Aunt Maria’s sky-blue, baggy knickers that Chris calls “Auntie’s Baghdads.”
    While we did that, Mum said, “Now I’m going to find that cat. It didn’t go far.”
    She did find it, too. She called to us gently from the shed at the back behind the gooseberry bushes. Chris and I were doing an Arabic dance at the time, with the washing bowl and a pair of Baghdads. Chris still had the Baghdads on his head when we went over. He saw the gooseberry bushes and said, “ That’s where the orphans are cloned from!” The ghost and Aunt Maria between them have a bad effect on Chris. He’s never sane now unless he’s out in the town.
    â€œHush!” Mum said, and stood up holding the gray fluffy cat. “Chris, you look an utter ass! This poor beast is starving. She’s skin and bone under this fluff!”
    â€œShe?” I said.
    â€œYes, it’s a female,” Mum said, and she tipped the cat upside down in her arms to show us. That cat is soppy . She lets you do anything with her. She lay on her back in Mum’s arms, bending her front paws about and purring like a heavy motorbike. The only things she doesn’t like are Aunt Maria and Elaine. Elaine put her head over the garden wall at that moment. That cat heaved out of Mum’s arms and hid in the gooseberry bushes. Elaine didn’t see it. She was staring at Chris with a pair of the Baghdads on his head, uttering her most clock-striking laugh.
    â€œGood Lord, my lad!” she said. “You look like a ghostly court jester!” Chris went a little pale at that and stared, rather. But Elaine looked at Mum then. “You shouldn’t do any washing,” she said. “I told you to give it to me.”
    â€œOh, that’s all right,” Mum said. “Mig got herself so muddy it had to be done by hand.” Meaning, she is not going to let Elaine do her any favors.
    â€œBe sure you give me the next lot then,” Elaine commanded. Two-line smile, meaning This Is an Order. “I’m coming in this afternoon to sit with her while you’re out.”
    â€œOh? Am I going out?” Mum asked sweetly.
    â€œYou’ve got to buy Naomi more clothes,” Elaine said, and bobbed out of sight behind the wall.
    â€œSo I have!” murmured Mum. “Mig, how would you like a sack with holes in it?”
    â€œShe could manage with that hall rug,” Chris said, “that we have to roll up every night.”
    â€œYes, if I cut a hole in it for my head,” I said.
    Mum bent down and held out her arms coaxingly to the cat. “Disobey Elaine!” she said. “Good heavens! She’d beat us insensible with her torch. Or if we really annoyed her, she might even set Larry onto us.” I’ve never heard Mum be so catty, not ever!
    Talking of cats, the cat came leaping into Mum’s arms, and it was starving. It ate two raw hamburgers and drank a bowl of milk in three minutes flat. The first thing Mum did when we were out that afternoon was to buy a whole cardboard box full of cat food. She’s talking of taking the cat back to London with us. She says it’s so affectionate. She keeps saying, “I can’t think how it comes to be a stray! I thought gray Persians were rather valuable.” She also sits it on the drain board and spends long ages rubbing the sides of its flat whiskery face. “Kutchi-wutchi-wutchi,” she murmurs, staring deep into its glassy yellow eyes. “You do remind me of someone, but I can’t think who!”
    It’s a terribly boring cat. About as interesting as a floppy cushion. But Chris and I look after it almost as eagerly as Mum does. We all know we’re defying Elaine and Aunt Maria.
    But of course we obeyed Elaine by going shopping for a new skirt for me. I wish Mum had defied Aunt Maria and let Chris come, too.