Read Online Whistling for the Elephants by Sandi Toksvig - Free Book Online

black pallor developed all over her, as if it were the plague she
needed rescuing from, not drowning. Not surprisingly, none of the girls wanted
to save her and there was an almost entirely male pass rate for Boat Safety in
town. Not that it mattered at the certificate ceremony. Reverend Harlon was
supposed to call out the successful students, but no one could understand a word
he said so in the end a lot more kids got a certificate than should have.
    That
was my first outing with the Dapolitos. Then there was the time I went to
dinner.
    ‘Hey,
kid,’ Aunt Bonnie yelled as I cycled past for the twentieth time one afternoon.
‘You want a meatball wedge?’
    I had
no idea whether I did or not but I nodded. I just wanted to come inside their
house.
    ‘The
kids are watching TV … in the den.’ Aunt Bonnie nodded into the dark
interior.
    I knew
it. What a great place. They didn’t have a lounge. They had a den. A dark, snuggly
place for baby lions. That was the first time I ever saw a colour TV. It was a
huge wooden box with a panel of three lights at the front — green, blue and
red. We sat on their endless sofa (dark wood with quilt-pattern cushions from
the Pioneer collection — Sears, Roebuck Catalog 1961) and watched Gilligan’s
Island followed by I Dream of Jeannie. Aunt Bonnie was unpacking
things from a large brown cardboard box.
    ‘Donna
Marie,’ she would call and toss cellophane packages at her daughter. ‘Eddie J.’
More packages rained down on the sofa. Clothes, endless clothes. Donna Marie
opened her packets. Shorts. Shorts in bright colours, and really soft. Not
tailored at all. Shorts with pockets. And T-shirts, striped T-shirts to match the
shorts. Maybe six or more sets in different colours. It was the most fantastic
box of clothes I had ever seen.
    ‘Excuse
me, Mrs Dapolito,’ I said quietly.
    ‘Mrs Dapolito!
For Christ’s sake, Aunt Bonnie.’ Aunt Bonnie dragged on her Salem cigarette. ‘Everyone
calls me Aunt Bonnie.’
    ‘Where
do you get such a box?’
    ‘Sears,
Roebuck. Goddamn finest store in the country. Here.’ She tossed a catalogue the
size of a small child at my feet. Then my new-found aunt went into the kitchen.
She returned with great submarines of bread overflowing with Italian spiced
meatballs. Wonderful food that you just couldn’t eat neatly. Food that you ate
with your hands! In the lounge. The den! On the settee. Not at a table. I ate,
I looked at pictures of smiling girls in shorts in my catalogue and on the TV
Barbara Eden came out of a genie’s bottle with a bright green face. I had died
and gone to heaven.
    Uncle
Eddie sat silently in a huge reclining chair with a great footrest. He didn’t
really watch but occasionally he would click his fingers to show he wanted the
channel changed. He was definitely in charge of the TV. Looking back, maybe it
was a testosterone thing.
    Father
rang the doorbell and Aunt Bonnie went to answer.
    ‘Good
evening, Mrs Dapolito,’ he whispered. ‘I was wondering if you might have seen
my daughter, Dorothy?’
    ‘You
got a problem with your voice?’ asked Aunt Bonnie straight out.
    ‘Yes.’
    She
shrugged. ‘Too bad. She’s in here.’ Aunt Bonnie nodded toward the den. Father
was unmoved.
    ‘Perhaps
you might call her?’ he suggested, it never occurring to him to enter someone
else’s home without prior arrangement.
    ‘Hey,
kid, your dad’s here,’ Aunt Bonnie yelled with a paint-stripping voice.
    ‘You
have been most kind.’
    Father
was cross. I knew he was. I had eaten between meals. I had red sauce down my
tie.
    ‘They
have colour TV,’ I said as we walked home.
    ‘It is
vulgar,’ whispered Father, even less audible than usual.
    I didn’t
think so but I didn’t say anything. I thought I’d never seen anything more
exciting in my life, but I knew Father wanted me to stay away. He never banned me,
or anything as straightforward as that. I just knew I wasn’t to go to the Dapolito
family. At home Father sat