Scarlett sighed.
Georgia said, “I don’t want to talk about that! It was very sad, and the other rats bit her and I had to go wake up Daddy on Sunday! That was abadthing, not an interesting thing.”
“It was pretty gross, yeh,” Duncan said. “The other rats were eating Gladys, so Dad took her out of the cage so they couldn’t. He used his hand to do it, too. Hisbarehand.” He looked quite pleased about it.
“You weren’t even there,” Scarlett said.
“You told me, though,” Duncan said, “so I could imagine.”
“Theyatethe other rat? That was their friend?” Finlay looked delighted.
“Less about the eating,” Zane said. “Aswe’reeating, and some people may have delicate stomachs.”
“Do you have a delicate stomach, Daddy?” Georgia asked.
“No,” Zane said. “I’m a rugby player. We’re not allowed to be delicate.”
“Oh,” she said. “What does it mean, then?”
“That people don’t want to talk about bloody dead half-eaten rats and cats pooing in shoes at the dinner table?” Scarlett said.“Honestly.You’re all barbarians.”
“Or we just don’t have delicate stomachs,” Finlay said. “If nobody has a delicate stomach, what does it matter?”
“Because it’srude?”Scarlett asked.
Georgia said, “It was sad when Gladys died, but then it was sad in a nice way when we had the tangi,” as if that hadn’t registered. But then, she’d been wrestling with twirling her fettuccini, which had resulted in a noodle ball about the size of an egg. She’d tried to cram the whole thing into her mouth anyway and Zane had had to help her out, which had been a messy business and was why he hadn’t responded quickly enough to the bloody-dead-rat talk.
“You had a tangi for arat?”Finlay asked.
“You have a tangi when you love somebody and they die,” George said, “and Gladys was a very nice rat, so people loved her. She was my favorite. She liked to run up your arm and sit on your shoulder. I only know that from when I visited Mum’s classroom, though, because we can’t have the rats at home. Snowball would eat them. It would be interesting to see if they could run away before he got them, but Mum keeps them at school instead, so I’ve never found out.”
“What did you do for the tangi?” Olive asked. “This is a topic of general interest, I think, because I’m interested, and I’m usually not.”
“Dad took her out of the rubbish bin,” Duncan said, “and put her in a box and dug a hole in the garden to bury her. And Georgia and I made a cross and put her name on it, and we put it on the grave after Dad covered up the box with dirt.”
“And Dad sang a waiata tangi,” Georgia put in. She was wrestling with the broccolini now, and Zane reached over and cut it for her. His Nan was still ignoring all of them, but then, theywerehis kids, and he knew how to manage a group. Although a group of rugby players was different. They wanted to be there, which meant they had to listen to you. Something to consider. Maybe his leadership skills weren’t actually all that.
“I didn’t think All Blacks sang songs,” Finlay said. “That’s not very tough, singing songs.”
“It is if you’re Maori,” Scarlett said. “Maybe you don’t know as much as you think you do.”
“Scarlett,” Zane said in a warning tone. She shut up, though she still looked mulish.
“It was a very sad song,” Georgia said, “because it was about being sad that somebody died. I cried, but then I felt better because Dad gave me cuddles. It’s the first time I ever knew anybody that died.”
“Well, the first time you knew a rat that died, anyway,” Duncan said.
Scarlett said, “Excuse me? Ourmumdied.”
“I didn’t know, though,” Georgia said, “because I was little. So Gladyswasthe first time.”
“Did you get to see your mum’s body?” Finlay apparently decided it would be a good idea to ask next. “I didn’t get to see my stepdad’s body, because he was in Africa, and they didn’t exactly find his dead body anyway. So I’ve never seen a dead human body.” He sounded quite disappointed about it.
“Finlay,”Skylar said. First time Zane had heard her sound sharp.
“What?” he asked.
“I’ll explain later,” she said, “why that question was completely inappropriate. Take it from me that it was.”
