Read Online I Conquer Britain by Dyan Sheldon - Free Book Online Page B

was like the Czar was missing in action for the last thirty years but Caroline still believed that he would suddenly return from the war.
    I would’ve been really happy to see him stroll into the dining room and sit down with us myself. In my mind, he’d already become the friend I needed. Besides, talking about his trip to India had to be at least a million times more interesting than talking about bean curd and rain.
    Even eating pizza with a knife and fork can’t take for ever (even if it seems like it does), and eventually lunch was over and Robert went back to his garret and Caroline got ready to go to her mom’s. She didn’t ask me to go along.
    “You must be tired,” said Caroline. “Perhaps you’d like a lie down whilst I’m out.”
    Whilst? Was that a real word? I decided not to tackle it. “Lie down what?”
    “Yourself. You know, have a little rest.”
    I just got there. Why would I want to go to bed when I just got there?
    “My gran says you’ll get all the rest you need when you’re dead,” I told her.
    Caroline showed me where anything I might possibly need in the next few hours was. That’s the water filter. That’s where the glasses are kept. That’s where the biscuits live. That’s the bowl of fruit. Tea and chocolate drink in there. Coffee in there. Small silver tea ball that looks like an owl for single cups in the spoon drawer. Milk in the fridge. She showed me how to switch on the electric kettle. How to work the coffee maker. How to light the stove. How to press the power button on the TV. How to work the remote. She left the number for emergencies and her mother’s number by the phone.
    “Just in case,” said Caroline.
    Just in case of what?
    “You never know,” said Caroline. “You have to plan for everything, don’t you?”
    My family plans for nothing – not even the worst.
    “But Robert’s here,” I reminded her.
    “Yes. Yes, he is,” she agreed. “But he’s working.”
    Obviously nothing – from earthquakes to invading armies – distracted Robert when he was working (which was about the only thing about him that reminded me of Sal).
    After she checked that the garden door was really locked and finally picked up her umbrella and left, I went up to my room to write some emails to the folks back home. To Jake to tell her I’d arrived in one piece (not that she’d worry if she didn’t hear from me since she knew she’d know pretty fast if I hadn’t) and to ask her why she didn’t tell me about the smiling and apologizing, and the plugs, and pizza with cutlery and the appalling gruesomeness of tea. To Tampa to let her know that I hadn’t run into Harry Potter yet. To Gallup to tell him about all the birds I didn’t see in the garden. And to Bachman to see if he’d met the Pitt-Turnbull yet and whether or not she looked like Barbie and was carrying a teddy bear.
    I put a CD in the stereo, turned it on, and sat down at the computer.
    I was still waiting for it to verify the password when I discovered that my room was right under Robert’s office. He started thumping on the ceiling like a demented rabbit.
    I turned down the volume.
    Thumpthumpthump. “Lower!” he shouted.
    I turned it down so low that the only reason I could hear it was because I’d heard it so many times before.
    When I finished my emails I realized I had a problem. Like, now what did I do? I’d planned to meditate to relax after all the stresses of the last twenty-four hours, but I was pretty sure that Robert would be thumping on the ceiling again by the third Om. On the other hand, there was no way I was going to stay in that room with nothing to do but count stuffed animals and shades of pink until I got some answers to my emails. So I went downstairs to see if there was anything to drink in the kitchen that wouldn’t strip paint.
    I found some green tea at the back of the cabinet and put the kettle on.
    It was really quiet. In our house the refrigerator always sounds like it’s about