Blanked

We Buttons went into town the other day to do some shopping. Tom was salivating at the thought of all the food he was going to buy and Betty was excited about the ice-cream she was going to smear all over everything.

I told Tom and Betty to go on ahead because I needed to feed Dolly before I got her out of the car and into the pram. So off they happily went.

I fed Dolly, loaded her into her chariot, and struck out towards the centre of town. It suddenly occurred to me that I had no idea where Tom was headed and annoyingly I had his mobile in my bag. After fifteen minutes or so, I gave up trying to guess and was about to head back to the car, when I caught sight of a flash of bright pink through the window of a delicatessen. It was Betty’s pink bandanna, and sure enough, there she was, sitting in her pushchair facing towards me and eating her ice-cream. I waved frantically at her through the window and thought she might excitedly tell Tom (who was busy tasting cheese at the counter next to her) that Dolly and I were outside.

However, Betty remained expressionless and very coolly continued to eat her ice-cream, and stared straight through me, as if deliberately pretending that she had absolutely no idea who I was. This charade went on for several long moments before I decided to battle with the pram past all the disturbed-looking people in the shop to tell Tom that I had found them.

I can only assume that Betty was pretty annoyed that I had gate-crashed her little adventure with her dad as when I approached them, Tom was heavily engrossed in trying some salami and still hadn’t noticed me, but without even looking at me Betty quietly said: ‘Go back outside mummy’.