From Rex Zero, King of Nothing
SUNDAY
Armistice Day and the sun is shining! Its cold in my room at the top of the house but not cold enough to catch your death.
“Im really worried about going to the service with Dad tomorrow,” I said to Mum the night before, when she came to tuck me in.
“Its important for your father, Rex.”
“Then why is he so crabby?”
“He always gets that way around now.”
How can I explain to Dad that even though Ive been practicing and practicing Im not ready?
You see, Im afraid Ill faint.
Im sure Ill faint.
I climb out of bed and shiver until Ive put on my robe and slippers. I look at myself in the mirror on the wall. Then I take a deep breath and hold it.
I watch the second hand on my bedside clock. After thirty seconds Im dying, but I hold on. Forty seconds and Im going to burst. Fifty-three seconds! But thats it. The best I can do. I stagger back to bed.
How will I ever hold my breath for two whole minutes?
Thats what you have to do on Armistice Day if you go to the service up at the War Memorial. I saw it once on television. At exactly eleven oclock on the eleventh day of the eleventh month, everybody at the service has to hold their breath for two minutes of silence. Even if youre only eleven and your father suddenly decides youve got to be a man and youre not ready.
I sit on my bed and try to think of an illness I can pretend to have that I havent pretended to have recently.
Thats when the caterwauling starts.
I tiptoe down the stairs to the second floor. Its Dad. I tiptoe along the hall to the staircase that leads to the main floor. My three older sisters are eavesdropping there.
Annie Oakley turns and glares at me.
“Shhhhhh,” she whispers.
“Dont shhhhhh so loudly,” says Letitia.
“God, you children are hopeless!” says Cassiopeia, the eldest.
We might end up having World War III right here on the stairs, but my fathers voice interrupts the whispering war.
“Two-thirty?” he shouts. “Two-bloody-thirty-o-bloody-oclock?”
“Darling,” says Mum.
“Dont darling me,” says Dad. Then Rupert the Sausage starts to cry. He cries all the time. I lean way over the railing and I can just see him at the end of the hall in the kitchen in his high chair. My little sister, Flora Bella, is standing beside him. It looks as if she just poured orange juice on his head.
Dad marches out of the kitchen and down the hall. We skitter back up the stairs to the landing. He opens the door to his study, which is right at the bottom of the stairs. He doesnt notice us. Hes dressed for the big event in a blazer with his war medals on it and a weird little soldiers cap Ive never seen before. He shouts back down the hallway.
“Two-thirty! Is nothing sacred?” Then the study door slams shut behind him.
Its the day of the truce, but you wouldnt know it at our house.
Dad wont come out of his study and Mum is fuming, and its all because they changed the ceremony up at the War Memorial to the afternoon.
“Its so people can go to church,” Mum explains to us as she swabs up orange juice and tries to stop the Sausage from crying. “Its not usually on a Sunday.”
“Yes it is,” says Annie Oakley. “Every seven years its on a Sunday.”
“Well, I just wish Daddy would make us breakfast,” says Cassiopeia. “Sunday is his day to make breakfast—the only day he makes breakfast.”
“Oh, for Gods sake, young lady,” says Mum. “Youre twenty years old. Make it yourself.”
“No, its the principle of the thing,” says Cassiopeia. “He wont let us off the hook when were in a bad mood.”
“We could make breakfast together,” says Letitia hopefully. “It would be fun.”
Meanwhile, Annie has gone and got her bow and arrows from the front closet. She stomps past us toward the kitchen door. “Good idea,” she says. “Ill go kill us a cat.”
“Dont you dare!” says Mum.
“Okay, a squirrel,” says Annie, and slams the back door behind her. Its ten oclock on a Sunday morning and there have already been two slammed doors. This is getting interesting.