Free Tao by John Newman Page A

got Rodent a little toy.” She handed me a plastic bag with some sort of ball in it. “The twins loved watching him play in this.”
    “Thanks,” I mumbled and she was gone.
    I put the cage back up in my room before going down to Kate. Rodent was glad to see me and came straight into my hand when I opened the cage door.
    “Hi, Rodent,” I said, “welcome home,” and I petted his back. His coat looked nice and shiny. I could see that he had been well looked after, but he was obviously happy to be home. At least I think he was because he kept twitching his nose. The ball in the bag was one of those clear plastic ones that you put a mouse in and they can run around the floor and not escape. I thought that I would try it out later on.
    Downstairs, Kate was sitting at the table, sipping a mug of her herbal tea. She still looked very pale.
    “Sorry about that,” she said when I came in, but I didn’t know what she was sorry about. “It’s just that when I opened the door and there was the rat … I mean mouse. And Jo. I felt a bit faint.”
    “Are you all right now?” I asked her a bit crossly. She didn’t have to explain everything.
    “I hope Jo didn’t think I was rude?” she said.
    “I hope she did,” I said and went out into the garden to practise my keepie-uppies.
    It was Dad’s fault for not bringing Rodent home himself.
    The next day, I was at David’s house with Kalem playing Wii games. They had questions too.
    “So what was Mimi like then?” asked Kalem.
    “What he really wants to know is what was Emma like,” teased David.
    David and I were playing boxing and it was hard to concentrate and answer questions. The best way to win Wii boxing is to throw punches as fast as you can and not bother about defence. We were both boxing like madmen and moving closer and closer to the telly. In a minute one of us was going to end up boxing the box!
    After three rounds, we were both exhausted and collapsed on the couch.
    “Loser!” said David.
    “I’ll beat you at golf,” I told him.
    “I’ll beat you at tennis,” he answered.
    “I’ll beat you at basketball,” I said.
    “I’ll beat you at…”
    “Oh, shut up you two!” shouted Kalem, who never plays Wii, “and tell us about your trip and Mimi and all that stuff.”
    “Is she taller than you?” David wanted to know.
    “No, she’s the same height,” I told him. “Well, I’m probably a bit taller.”
    “Yeah, sure you are,” jeered Kalem.
    “What about the vampire?” David asked. “Are they bite marks I see on your neck?” And he tried to pull down the collar of my shirt to look.
    “Get off,” I cried and pushed him away. “Anyway, Mimi is coming over with her dad in June, so you can find out everything for yourself.”
    “Is the vampire coming?” asked David. “We’ll have to get garlic.”
    “Sally’s a vegetarian,” I said, “so there goes your vampire theory.”
    “That’s just her disguise,” said David, making big boggly eyes. “A vegetarian by day … a blood-sucking vampire by night!”
    Kalem sighed and shook his head slowly.
    “David,” he said.
    “What?” said David.
    “You’re an idiot.”

Chapter 18
    Paul had decided to bring Mimi over to visit me for the long weekend in June. Conor couldn’t come because he had to study for his tests and Sally had to stay in Ireland to look after her garden and her hens, which Mimi said were turning out to be more trouble than they were worth. Their granny and grandad would move into their house to look after them while Mimi and Paul were with us. Mimi said that she was glad she wasn’t staying at home because it was going to be fireworks between her granny and Sally because her granny thought that being a vegetarian was codswallop and young bones needed meat.
    “Sounds like war!” said Kate.
    I think that Kate was more excited than I was about Paul and Mimi coming over. Every evening she was on the phone to Paul and they would chat for hours.
    “I think your