Jubilee by Shelley Harris Read Free Book Online Page B

(‘ Now do the thing with your shoulders … No! Like this! ’). Satish tried to imagine what was going on in there. They could be acting the song out in dance, like Pan’s People.
    Cai put his fingers down his throat and mock-puked. Quickly, Satish did the same. Then, as David Soul turned his attention to rain and stars, Cai put his hands together: index fingers forward – a pretend gun – and levelled it at Satish. ‘I’m Starsky,’ he said.
    ‘What?’
    ‘I’m Starsky. You’re Hutch. OK?’ Cai started doing the tune from the programme. He pointed at the door with his gun. ‘In there.’
    And then Satish realised what he was supposed to do. He didn’t watch the programme much. He hoped he’d remember enough.
    They crept up like the cops did on TV: one each side of the door, guns pointing up. Mandy hit a particularly tricky high note. Cai nodded towards the door handle. Satish pushed it gently down, hoping the girls’ attention was elsewhere. He gave Cai the thumbs up, and Cai jumped round, aiming a kick at the centre of the door. It burst open and they rushed in, more or less as Starsky and Hutch might, accompanied by the gratifying sound of Sarah screaming. She lowered her arms from the beseeching position they’d been in. The door rebounded and knocked Cai into Satish, but he quickly righted himself and held up his improvised gun again, pointing it at the girls, then into the corners of the room.
    ‘What the hell are you doing?’ shouted Sarah.
    Satish crouched under the window ledge and then sprang up, aiming a few shots into the street. Cai threw open the wardrobe and hauled out a jumper, pointing his gun at it.
    ‘Wankers!’ Sarah said, checking the door.
    Satish got the record player in his sights and squeezed off a couple of rounds. Cai leapt onto the bed and then sat down hard on it. Satish remembered that: Hutch jumping on the car in the intro sequence.
    ‘Just get out! Get out !’ Sarah howled at them then, quieter, to Satish, ‘You just bloody get out!’
    Behind her, Mandy was corpsing, looking at Satish, and then looking away. The boys retreated a safe distance, then both lifted their guns once more – simultaneous, Satish felt warm with it, and fired one last time. They clattered downstairs, turning to each other as they reached the sitting room, landing there for want of a better place. As he entered, Satish could hear his mother talking.
    ‘Of course the children will eat them! Satish loves them. Satish, don’t you love your chakli?’
    Satish’s mood flattened. He wished he’d stayed to fight with the girls. Most of all, he wished that Cai had. Instead, his friend was beside him, and Satish wondered whether there’d be a price to pay for this later on. He answered his mother with careful neutrality: ‘Yeah, I suppose so.’
    ‘He does not suppose so . He loves them! Takes them from the kitchen all the time when I am making them. They are a lovely snack.’
    Miss Bissett gave an exasperated sigh. ‘I’m sure they are lovely,’ she said, ‘but they’re not British food, are they? Do let’s remember this is a particularly British celebration.’
    ‘I live here. I am British now. She’s my Queen too.’ There was a shifting in the room. Sima looked at the floor. Above them, Satish could hear movement as Mandy and Sarah’s performance resumed. Even as his abdominal muscles crunched, he sensed that the conversation had moved beyond food and even felt, though this may have been a retro-fitted response, an untrustworthy memory, that his mother had been quite clever. With those final four words, she had occupied the territory of patriotism. Mrs Miller, hostess and mediator of disputes, stepped in.
    ‘Of course she is, Neeta. You say they’re crispy snacks for the kids? Looking at this list, there’s lots for everyone already, so if the children really don’t like them, there’s plenty more to eat. It’s another reference to the Empire, really, isn’t it?’ This to Mrs