Minnie liked school a lot, and already enjoyed learning letters and how to spell her name. She mixed up some words, of course. Hope laughed so loud when Minnie came home at Christmas, after they’d done the nativity, and told her emphatically that she’d spent the morning telling the ‘big story of cheeses …’
When Minnie was FIVE, she proudly told everyone her full name and address. Because she could. She chatted to anyone she met. Once, when Hope took her into a public toilet and they were dutifully washing their hands afterwards, a middle-aged woman came out of the next cubicle, and Minnie said, ‘Well done, good girl,’ to her as she approached the sink.
When Minnie was SIX, she could dress herself and was starting to form her own style. She would add little flourishes, a bow here, a hairclip there, and she’d borrow a scarf from Hope and wear it as a belt. She noticed when other people wore interesting clothes; she was observant about things of beauty. On the way into school one day, she suddenly stood stock still, yanking Hope’s hand back and looking up; and she said, ‘Stop, Mummy, I have to get my eyes full of sky coz I won’t see it again ’til playtime …’
When Minnie was SEVEN, she was very much in love with her group of friends, especially with a little chap in her class called Majeet who wore a navy-blue turban. He was clever and liked words, just like her. The junior school had a prize-giving each year, to encourage the children to be confident enough to walk across the stage. Of course, they structured it so that each child received a prize for something, however arbitrary. One time, they gave a book voucher to Danny Eccles for ‘Using His Handkerchief Regularly’. He was delighted. This year, the legitimate prize for ‘Best Reader’ went to Minnie. Hope and Doris were there, bursting with pride, as she walked across the stage to collect it from the headmistress. Halfway over, however, Minnie stopped and turned to the audience, and said, in a very nervous, wobbly voice, ‘I can’t have this nice prize without saying thank you to Majeet. He reads with me, and it’s for him too. Thank you, Majeet. There he is, that’s him.’ She pointed at him and everyone clapped, and then she continued on to the headmistress. Minnie’s little heart was giant.
When she was EIGHT, Minnie started to be grumpy occasionally and she would lose her temper over unlikely things and stomp off like a teen. Hope tried to clamp down on this bratty behaviour by encouraging her to manage her temper and stay calm. Hope completely recognized herself in eight-year-old Minnie when she took her to one of Doris’s Pentecostal church services one Sunday. The service was loud and boisterous with lots of wonderful singing, and when the preacher was going at it full pelt with the fire and brimstone, several of the older ladies in the front pews started in with the garbled ‘speaking in tongues’ and Minnie suddenly stood on the seat of her pew several rows back and said in a strong, authoritative voice, ‘Carpet-level calm, please, people!’ and sat back down again, mission accomplished. Hope wanted to die a thousand deaths.
When Minnie was NINE, she had a few bouts with ill health; she was extra tired sometimes and short of breath. Hope waited to see if it would pass, assuming she had some kind of infection. Hope lived in fear that Minnie might ever be ill, because the doctor’s would be the riskiest place, with the questions they might ask about her genetic background, so Hope was pleased when it seemed to pass. Perhaps it was because she felt under the weather that Minnie started to fixate on how bodies work and she became anxious about Hope or herself possibly getting sick … or worse. Minnie asked lots of questions about dead Grandad Zak that were hard for Hope to answer, but she did, as honestly as she could. Hope tried to alleviate Minnie’s worries by reassuring her that nothing bad was going to happen, and even if it did, someone would come to help …
‘What if you got poorly?’ Minnie asked.
‘If I was just lying on the floor?’ Hope replied.
‘Yes, if I couldn’t wake you up, like Nanna Doris couldn’t wake him up?’
‘Well, OK, you would call 999 on the phone, tell them our address, which you are very good at knowing, and then you would wait …’
‘Would you still be asleep on the floor?’
‘Er, maybe, yes.’
‘So … I could eat all the biscuits until the people came …?’
Minnie was going to be OK.
When Minnie was TEN, she started to ask more about her father. She knew he was called Isaac and that he lived in Africa. Hope was longing to tell her all the beautiful things about him: his courage, his kindness, his eye with a flash of green lightning in it; but she only told her tiny fragments, for fear she would want to find him and that wasn’t the promise she’d made to Isaac. Minnie often asked questions about her father when she was in the front of the car with Hope. That way, she could say difficult stuff without having to look at her; it made things easier. Hope answered as best she could whilst she navigated annoying traffic all the way to Nanna Doris’s house.
When they walked in, Nanna said, ‘Did you have a good journey?’
And Minnie replied, ‘Yeah. Mum saw a lot of people on the way called twat.’
When Minnie was ELEVEN,
