Free The 10 P.M. Question by Kate de Goldi Page A

shirt printed with a joke Frankie had been puzzling over for some hours: . . .
why, wye, wai, Delilah
. . .
    “Why do you want to know more about the Aunties? Why would you want to go there?” Frankie said, backing away to receive the ball.
    “Because I don’t have any aunties,” said Sydney.
    “They’re
great
-aunts, anyway,” said Frankie.
    “I know,” said Sydney. “But they’re so funny. And so
fat
. It must be so satisfying
looking
at them.”
    Well,
no,
thought Frankie,
satisfying
was not the word that sprang to mind. But Sydney was right, the Aunties were certainly fat — they were enormous; they were
obese
— but he was used to it. It was somehow typical of Sydney to think that their size was interesting. He knew she wasn’t being rude.
    Sydney had met the Aunties on her third visit. She and Frankie and Gigs had been walking up the hill from the pool, practicing Knob-Shine. There was a loud horn blast behind them and the Aunties pulled over in Alma’s black Morris Oxford.
    It was a Thursday, so Frankie knew the Aunties were returning from a movie and shopping. Their weekly timetable was set in concrete. Frankie knew it as well as his own routines because he’d stayed with the Aunties for long periods when he was younger. He knew their peculiar habits like the back of his hand. He knew that the trunk of the Morris Oxford would be stuffed with groceries and wine bottles. There would be sweet treats and library books and a new gadget for Nellie from the Hardware SuperStore.
    Frankie knew exactly the contents of the grocery cartons and the types of sweets (chocolate ginger, Liquorice Allsorts, Curiously Strong Peppermints). He knew that the library books would divide pretty much into three categories — romance novels for Nellie, biographies for Teen, thrillers for Alma — and that there would be a pile of magazines, including
Majesty
because all the Aunties followed the doings of the British Royal Family.
    On Thursday they usually dropped off groceries at Frankie’s house, but they didn’t stop for tea or cake because Thursday was the night they had their old friend Maurice Pugh for curry and cards. Maurice Pugh was a curry addict and a recovering gambler. He could still eat as much curry as he liked, but he could only play cards as long as he didn’t bet on the result. Maurice had told Frankie once that this had robbed card playing — and life — of much of its excitement, but the upside was that now he had enough money to buy food. Maurice Pugh had, apparently, once lived for an entire year on donated fruitcakes.
    The Aunties had been to a film at the black-and-white festival. They leaned out the windows of the Morris Oxford, telling Frankie and Gigs and Sydney all about it. An oldie but a goodie, they said. A classic. Nellie had gotten hiccups from crying. (Nellie nearly always cried, especially when the music swelled. Film music was better back then, they all said — something Frankie had heard them assert about a million times.)
    Of course, once the Morris Oxford roared away, Sydney poured forth a torrent of questions. What were their
names
again? How come they all lived together? Hadn’t they ever had husbands? What was their house like? Did they dye their hair? Where did they get their clothes? How come they were so
fat
?
    “It’s because they
eat
so much,” said Gigs. “Their dinners are
massive
.
Feasts
. It’s like the Romans. Awesome.” Sydney said she was going the next time they visited. Definitely.
    Sydney didn’t wait for invitations anywhere, Frankie noticed. She just invited herself. And why not take her to the Aunties? As Uncle George said often enough, they were more entertaining than two weeks at the circus. Might as well share it.
    But since then, the book project had taken up most of their time after school and on the weekends. Sydney had been over five times now. Not that Frankie was counting. Gordana was counting, though — he could tell. Gordana was practically