her. And she doesnât have anyone else in Samsara. And she
doesnât
come here all the time. Be nice to her.â
Mum leaves us.
âGrandpa walked to the shop,
â Xander whispers.
âDonât say that,â I tell him.
â
Grandpa walked to the shop.â
Xander knows he is not allowed to utter this phrase. Itâs forbidden within our family, liable to cause eruptions of temper and sadness.
Here is why . . .
Grandpaâs funeral wasnât a good one. I shudder at the memory. First thing in the morning, we drove Grandma to the crematorium, which was more than a hundred kilometres away. We had to stop twice for Xander to get out of the car and pee. By the time Xander had yet another toilet emergency, we were running late.
âCould you stop the car, Dad?â
âHold it in for a few more minutes,â Mum said. âWeâre nearly there.â
âBut my bladderâs going to explode.â
âThink of something else,â Dad said.
âI
canât
. If we donât stop soon Iâll have to go in Grandmaâs purse.â
But I knew how to distract him. When I discovered that Xander could do incredible sums in his head, I used to show him off, as if he were some kind of human computer. Kids at school were amazed. They used calculators to check the results. Xander was right every time.
Mum and Dad didnât like it when I made Xander do the sums in front of other people. They said that Xander was not a performing monkey, he was a human being and deserved to be treated as one. I was not to treat him like a sideshow attraction. There were exceptions to this rule, however. If it was important to take Xanderâs mind off something, I was allowed to ask him difficult sums.
âWhat do you get if you multiply 137 by 38?â I asked.
â5206,â Xander replied.
âAnd what if you multiply 892 by 63?â
â56,196,â said Xander.
I kept asking him difficult questions, which he answered effortlessly.
âHis grandfather could do that too,â said Grandma. âIt was as if Reginald had a computer in his head.â
âWhy did he want to be created?â Xander asked.
â
Cremated
,â Dad corrected.
âWe often talked about it,â Grandma said. âReginald didnât want to be buried in a coffin in the ground. He wanted his ashes to be spread somewhere special.â
Grandma dabbed at her eyes but didnât cry. She was hiding her feelings.
At the funeral home, sisters, brothers, cousins, uncles and aunts flocked to Mum and Grandma to embrace them and tell them how sorry they were. Xander joined in, overdoing the hugging. He doesnât know when youâre supposed to let go. He even hugged one of the funeral directors. There were public toilets, but Xander wandered off and peed in the garden, before anyone could stop him. To make matters worse, Xander peed on a special area called âthe memorial gardenâ, which probably meant heâd urinated on someoneâs grave.
People glared at Mum and Dad as though they were terrible parents. They gave apologetic looks and Dad fetched Xander. Mum didnât realise, but she had sat on one of Xanderâs wacky balls. A bright green ball stuck to her like a bunny tail. I hastily removed it from her backside before people saw. You shouldnât attend a funeral with McDonaldâs balls stuck to you. People might think of hamburgers and you really donât want that happening at a cremation.
Mum, Dad, Xander, Grandma and I sat in the front row of the overcrowded chapel. Mum was getting ready to make a speech about her dad. I could see she was nervous. A fountain tinkled in a little rock garden directly outside the chapel.
Sad music played. The minister said some gentle words about Grandpa, even though he never knew him. He said a bit from the bible that involved Hittites, an ancient tribe famous for hitting people, and everyone