As it was our third year, the studying became more intense. We
had to spend more time at home and ended up getting quite creative
with our home-based shenanigans. We invented incredible games like
‘who can get top of the stairs first’. Ollie always won that game, but
that all changed when we brought in rules about not elbowing people
viciously in the face.
We also played cards and I usually won because I had Muncho and
Rex spying on the others’ cards. It was easy! But, in some
inexplicable way, it did take some of the joy out of winning. We played
a lot of board games too. Kit was very good at board games like
scrabble and chess, he had a thinky sort of mind, but I always won at
monopoly because I had a win-y sort of mind and I’d been practicing
since my third birthday.
Rex started a prank war with Ollie that I had no idea would take off. All
he did was chop Ollie’s special sandwich cheese in an irregular way
and Ollie went ballistic. Next thing I knew, Ollie had changed the time
on all of my digital clocks so that one alarm went off every five
minutes of the day, instead of all at once when I wanted to enjoy the
sound while waiting for my slow eye to open. It was sweet revenge
indeed. Next Rex swapped the salt and the sugar so that Ollie put two
dozen teaspoons of salt in his tea rather than two dozen teaspoons of
sugar. It tasted much less sweet and Ollie was not happy. If there’s
anything you need to know about Englishmen, it is that tea is sacred
and not to be messed with. It’s how people know they’re English.
They drink tea and they go ‘ah, yes, now all is well and I’ve got my
bearings’. If you mess with their tea you’re basically insulting their
national identity and well as their sense of equilibrium. You just don’t
do it unless you want an almighty hullabaloo.
The prank war was actually a problematic time for me and my moral
code. Legumasaurus Rex could not be reasoned with and I hadn’t told
Ollie about Rex or Muncho, so I had to take responsibility for
everything they did. Generally Muncho’s pranks were so small nobody
realised it was a prank, like when he changed the way the loo rolls sat
on the holder, who cares about that?! Or one time he pre-sauced
Ollie’s chips all over rather than having a sauce oasis at the side of