I rest my head on my hand and I stare at the clock on the mantelpiece. It’s only five past nine. I could be playing Tekken on my PlayStation, or prepping the guns to find the enemy with Jake, or I could just be at home on my own in bed. The rest of my class aren’t stuck in all weekend like this – Rebecca will be going to town with her sister, Tom Jenkins will be going to the cricket with his dad, Harry Giles will be—

‘If you had to do one of them, which one would you choose?’

‘Wha-what?’ I jump out of my daydream.

Granddad’s stopped being a dolphin and is staring right at me.

‘My list of chores – if you had to do one, which would you choose?’

‘So it is a list of chores?’

Granddad grins as he pushes himself out of his chair.

‘Yes,’ he says. ‘And if you had to do one, which would it be? I’m not saying you have to do one, just . . .’

‘Hypothetically?’

‘Yes.’ Granddad looks surprised.

‘It’s okay, Granddad,’ I say. ‘I’m not dumb – I know what “hypothetically” means, I just can’t spell it.’

‘I know this,’ he says. ‘So . . . hypothetically, which one would you choose? But we must discount cutting the grass because it is wet.’

‘Okay.’ I peer across at the list. It would be good to do something outside just to get out of here, but if we can’t cut the grass . . . ‘Okay,’ I say. ‘If I really, really had to . . . I’d . . . clean the patio slabs.’

‘Excellent!’ Granddad claps his hands. ‘Excellent! You get the detergent and the buckets and I will get the overalls.’

‘What? No! You said “hypothetically”! And you were asleep!’

‘I know this.’ Granddad grins. ‘But I also know that you are bored.’

‘Yeah, but—’

‘But nothing. Come on. Your grandma would be pleased.’

‘That I’m cleaning the patio?’

‘That you are doing something with me.’

I look at my books.

Of Mice and Men or clean the patio.

Algebra or clean the patio.

History or clean the patio.

‘Of course we could always try che—’

‘Okay! Okay!’ I jump up. ‘I’ll clean the patio.’

‘Wonderful!’ Granddad smiles.

I follow him into the kitchen and we put our shoes on by the back door. I stop.

What am I doing?

He said ‘hypothetically’.

Granddad whistles happily as he walks down the garden path.

I shake my head.

How did I fall for that?

Early Alarm

‘One kilo of round steak, four tablespoons of stone ground mustard, six slices of bacon, two onions (chopped), four cloves of garlic (minced), and cabbage, cabbage, lots of cabbage – you can never have enough cabbage, Felix. Now chop it into tiny pieces.’