Nana reads her horoscope in The Herald every morning. She always says that she doesn’t really believe in horoscopes and that she only reads them for amusement and Grandad always says, “Don’t listen to her, of course she believes them, every bit of them, Years ago she grabbed me on the street, a perfect stranger, because she’d read in her horoscope that morning that that was the day that she was going to find her dream man. She dragged me kicking and screaming to the nearest church.” When he says that Nana always goes,”Humph!”
The second time he told us, Janice and I went and got their big family photograph album and there was Nana in her wedding dress. So we said, “So how come Nana is wearing a wedding dress?” and Grandad said, “She put in on in the shop before she came out to catch me.”
“Yeah, but she’s got bridesmaids too,” we said. We knew that Nana wouldn’t do anything like that.
“Those are her sisters. She had them doing weight training and judo so that they could help her on her big day. You don’t think that she could take me on her own do you? I was Mr Muscle back then.” And Nana nearly exploded, “Don’t listen to your Grandad. He’s just a big fibber. The only thing he’s said that’s true is that I did catch my dream man. He’s just taken a whole heap of training that’s all.”
I’m Peter and Janice and I are twins. We come and stay with Nana and Grandad for a fortnight every school holidays. “To get spoiled,” Mum says. We do lots of things and go to lots of places. The day before yesterday we went to the Westfield Mall in Henderson and Nana bought us this game thingy called Boggle. It has sixteen bits like dice but with letters on them. You shake them up under this clear cover and when they fall into their little tray you look for words. Something a bit like Word Find. The game does have rules but we don’t use the rules when playing with Nana. How can you play against someone who knows every single word that’s even been thought of and knows all the oldie things like RSVP and SPQR and today things like 2G2BT or 4COL? You could never win in a million years.
We were playing last night and it was getting a bit late—we’re allowed to stay up later in the holidays—and Grandad said, “If my favourite witchdoctor has learned enough from casting those bones I’ll put the jug on. I think it’s about high time we had a bit of supper and went to bed?”
And Janice got on her high horse, “Nana is NOT a witchdoctor!” Sometimes Janice is a bit slow. She missed the ‘favourite’ part which changes everything but I said, “What’s casting the bones anyway?” I shouldn’t have asked. It set Grandad off.
“ A lot of people—your Grandma included—believe that everything that’s going to happen is already written in a book somewhere and that there’s ways of getting a sneak view at what it says there. The most popular way has always been looking at the livers of dead animals. But your Nana and I have worn out our welcome at the S.P.C.A.—-it was messy anyway.—Blood everywhere and me always left to do the cleaning-up”
Nana gave him that special look and head-shake that people reserve to show their disapproval of, and disbelief at, other peoples ‘impossible’ children. And he went on, “Another way is to throw down a handful of small bones to see what sort of pattern they make and that’s sort of what your grandmother has been doing tonight. While you sprouts have been looking for words, your grandmother has been reading the text messages from her familiar…He’s a dead Chinaman who lived hundreds of years ago.” Again, Nana said nothing. She just shrugged her shoulders and let out her breath in a way that said ‘What can ya do with such a man?’
We know that Grandad just enjoys having us on and although Nana insists that you can’t see the future and couldn’t change it if you could, Janice and I can see that, if that book does exist, it will have it written that when we go home and take the Boggle with us, Nana will go out and buy another one.