KidsPlay

By © Sarah Golding  2021

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CAST
Kid - Kayla 

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Hello. I am five. It is my birthday in 27 days and three hours and seventeen minutes and I am soooo excited and mummy says allllll the time ‘kids are so expensive’ and ‘money doesn’t grow on trees’, but I know there’s like a plastic tree in the play room at play group and …well, all money is plastic now isn’t it? - I know this because I put mummy’s purse with all her money in my dress pocket and it went in the washing machine and it all came out the same as it went in. Grandpa said we would get done for money laundering if the police found out, and laughed for some reason, so when uncle Jack comes over (who is a police man), I say in a big loud voice and staring at mummy ‘Uncle Jack, we don’t wash our money here!’… and he looks at me strangely, and mummy laughs nervously, but I think I got away with it. 

Uncle Jack is grandpas son and mummy’s brother. Grandpa is living with us and gets up at four o’clock in the morning. He said ‘They say The early bird catches the worm’. And I say, I’m not a bird, and I don’t like worms, so I wake up late. My mummy has a big wibbly tummy and orange hair like an oompah loompah because ‘bottles’ she says. ‘I just left it on too long’ she said. So I said well, why are you putting bottles on your head mummy, that takes a lot of balance. And she says her catch phrase ’ if I am being honest..I don’t know I should match the drapes’  and grandpa said ‘she doesn’t match the drapes ‘ and I said but the curtains are brown grandpa and he said ‘exactly’. Mummy then got cross with him for being inappropriate which is a big word. And grandpa said ‘bottles…let me try’ and tried to balance my water bottle on his head and it fell bop bop bop onto the floor and splashed cceverywhere. Mummy went a bit crazy. Is she? Maybe. It was only some water though….if I am being honest - which is, as I said, a phrase my mummy uses a lot. ‘If I am being honest yes I could do with another glass of wine. If I am being honest yes you are a lazy. So and so’. And like …what is a so and so? 

And uhmm…why can’t we wear dresses we like to school and not school uniform hmm! You’re only young once I think, as grandpa keeps telling me. My grandpa is 75 and he is sillier than me. Mum says it is because the dementors are settling in so I got a Harry Potter wand just in case. But he can also still run faster than me, and likes lollies and naps and sitting down with an eeugffffff sound, and says ‘who is the parent here, me or you? ’ when we are playing teatimes and I say ‘not me I am granddaughter and you are grandpa so there’s no parents so let’s…FOODDD FIGGHTTT!’ And we do and mummy gets cross because ‘mess!’ She says, but me and grandpa laugh a lot and tread bread into the floor being crazy pigeons.

One day I was putting makeup on Grandpa and he was talking and said something about humanitarians, and I said ‘is a humanitarian someone like a vegetarian but eats humans’? And he said ‘cannibal’. And I said ‘I don’t know if a bull can eat a human. Maybe that’s in an 18 film and I can’t watch those yet’. Not for 13 years, and I said you’ll have to stay with us til we can watch those scary films holding hands and he said he’d tryyyy.

Grandpa is full of very very very bad jokes, and we were playing in mummies pile of sheets on the landing, and being ghosts and grandpa says ’wooooooooo…. what kind of streets do ghosts haunt?’ And I didn’t know and said ‘I don’t know grandpa’ and he said ‘dead ends…wooooooo’ annddd we laughed and woo’d and woo’d and laughed, and grandpa said I have a ‘dirty laugh’, and so I went straight to the bathroom and put some soap on my tongue to clean it, and it was horrible and I felt sick. And there was an ant on the sink and I said to grandpa….’ooh do ants get sick, grandpa?…and he said ‘no they have ant-ibodies’ and laughed a lot, and I don’t know why. 

Mummy came up the stairs clomp clomp clomp with more piles of sheets to see what we were doing, as grandpa was laughing so hard he couldn’t breathe, and mum said in a w panicky way ‘can you breathe? Dad? Answer me!’ and then ‘no you can’t you daft old swear word’ and she breathed hard and looked worried as he laughed and then grabbed his chest and his face changed. And his face blued. And grandpa pretty much died for about a minute mummy said, and she hit him on his chest, she hit him and hit him and then she breathed into his mouth and said ‘come on dad, come on’, and then he was flopped like a doll and mum sat back on her knees. 

We all were quiet, and suddenly like a volcano exploooooodinggg pcchhhhoowwww…..he coughed and went red and blue and all sorts of colours and then just had a little sleep. Mummy said ‘you’re not going to do that again are you? No Liz you’re not.’ And it made me slowly shake my head. Don’t you hate it when someone answers their own question? I do. Mum said ‘what have you been doing?’ And I said ‘nothing mummy, but it is so hard to know when you’re done. Doing …nothing’. And she smiled and patted my hair and changed grandpas trousers and pants while he was asleep, cos he had a wee accident. As in wee wee, not small or yes in french. And when she was done, we had a cuddle and mum said ‘goodness me, you people, you’ll be the death of me, if I could count on my fingers the number of times I’ve been so worried about grandpa laughing himself to the grave with you around. And I said. ‘Goodness mummy no. And…did you know that There are three types of people mummy? Those who can count and those who can’t. 

She was silent for a bit. 

And then looked at me, smiled, turned to see the trail of Lego to my room, and started to complain about the mess, with all the sheets all crumpled, some with eye holes, and the big piles of Lego toys and traps me and grandpa had made for the naughty bears. She was cross and said ‘how am I going to get the hoover in there?’. And I said …what are you talking about mummy, it’s as easy as a walk in the park….’Jurassic park’ she said, and I giggled. I then started to raaaa like a dinosaur and woke grandpa, and grandpa became a scary Tyran- I -saw -it Rex and mummy put her hands on her ears, and shouted ‘STOP SHOUTING’ over MY shouting ….which was ANNOYING. 

Later when I was tired I went to bed and told grandpa ‘my name, Liz is short for Lizard not Elizabeth’ and he stuck his tongue out quickly in and out like a lizard a lot, and I did and we did that just blinking our eyes thing for ages. And then I said some things dreamily but I don’t know what I said. Because…I wasn’t listening to myself. (Yawns) Goodnight.