May Contain Nuts by John O'Farrell Read Free Book Online

but I ignored the first one as I was confident I didn’t want a bigger penis. Underneath, the second little yellow envelope glowed with the maddeningly enigmatic title: ‘Test results – interesting!’ ‘Interesting’ could mean anything, though the upbeat exclamation mark obviously meant that Bronwyn had done well. The first thing I noticed was that everyone’s email address was on the one message, when I had presumed that Ffion would just send me Molly’s result. After madly clicking I found that the results were not on the email itself, but in an attachment. I double-clicked, yes, yes, I don’t care if some attachments may be unsafe blah blah blah, I don’t care if my computer gets hepatitis B, just let me see the result. My eye went straight to Molly’s name. It was as I had sensed from her demeanour after the exam. She had done really badly. Far worse than I had feared. I winced as I read along her scores: less than 50 per cent in every paper and a disastrous performance in the maths when she needed to be averaging 80 per cent and above to be sure of getting a place.
Eng
NVR
Maths
Average
Bronwyn
87%
88%
87%
87% (excellent!!)
Eliza
82%
80%
74%
78% (very promising!)
Henrietta
70%
58%
82%
70% (very good!)
Druscilla
66%
58%
67%
63% (good!)
Fleur
77%
59%
50%
62% (not bad!)
Jemima
66%
60%
51%
59% (getting there!!)
Kirsty
54%
61%
39%
51% (improving!!)
Molly
44%
49%
23% (!)
38% (disappointing!)
    I looked again at the scores and my disappointment turned to indignation and then anger. It was only then that I realized the children had actually been listed in order of merit. Ffion had taken the trouble to arrange them into her own little league table, with her child at the top and my child at the bottom. I felt myself shaking with fury. How dare she send this to everyone to show how clever her Bronwyn was and how badly my Molly had done! My God, Molly had even done worse than Kirsty ‘Two plus two equals twenty-two’ McDonald, I realized, looking at the chart once again. She’s much smarter than Kirsty, I thought, and easily as clever as Bronwyn. Molly’s actually very bright; she just doesn’t do well in exams.
    Ffion had even gone in for a little editorializing. Her daughter, she thought we might all like to know, was ‘excellent’, while my daughter – it was there for everyone to see – was ‘disappointing’. And her disastrous maths result merited an exclamation mark. Yes, how fucking amusing, Ffion, she only got 23 per cent! Oh and there was a postscript to the message. ‘Could everyone let me have the £1.07 towards the tin of Quality Street I bought for the winner.’
    I checked Molly’s totals with a calculator. It wasn’t 38 per cent, it was 38.66 per cent, so it should be rounded up, not down. Molly had actually got 39 per cent, not 38 per cent. Not content with putting Molly bottom of the league table, Ffion had cheated her out of a percentage point as well. I angrily clicked the file closed but then realized David would want to see it and I called him into the office.
    â€˜Well?’ I said angrily, as he stared at the computer screen.
    â€˜I didn’t enquire about penis enlargement, it’s just spam …’
    â€˜No, the one underneath. The test results.’
    â€˜Oh God, how did she get on?’ He clicked calmly and therefollowed a long silence. ‘Oh shit. Oh dear. What was she doing? 23 per cent in numeracy!’ he shrieked.
    â€˜You don’t have to read it with Ffion’s punctuation.’ He saw the tears dripping on to his desk and put his arm around me to comfort me, deftly wiping the salty water from the immaculate polished teak.
    â€˜Look, it was only a mock test. Far better that she does this now than when it comes to the real thing.’
    â€˜Oh, come off it, David, she’s never going to make up all that ground in a couple of months.’
    In my fury I wanted