Tuesday, July 27, 2004

Endless fun

Emilia believed in giving her children everything she did not get as a child. When other kids hauled up shrivelled little lunch tickets from their pockets and queued up for the refectory, her children solemnly stayed in the corridor and carefully divided their daily ration of chewing gums, crisps and jelly bears between them.
When other kids complained of homework and piano lessons, her children quietly rubbed their thumbs, stiff after yet another long evening of PlayStation. Sometimes on Saturday afternoons they would pretend to go to the cinema or the fun fair, but instead sneaked off to the library to catch up with their maths.
Emilia’s children were never allowed to taste liver, spinach, cabbage or peas. One day they stole a bag of oat flakes and hid it under a loose floorboard, but they went back to Delhaize and paid for it the following day.
Her son became junior assistant to the deputy chairman of the steering committee for polyester. Her daughter took to internal audit. Emilia used to pretend that this was the whole purpose of the exercise.


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