Janie pulled at the baby’s shirt and half sat him up. This favoured the neck rather than the ears but still left the mouth intake in doubt.
‘Oh, maybe I can!’ said Janie suddenly, as if answering a comment. The twins giggled and jumped up and down. Janie drew the tin can a few inches away from the baby’s face and narrowed her eyes. The baby immediately started to choke and spewed up what was unequivocally broth.
‘That’s not right yet but I’ll get it,’ said Janie. She spent half an hour trying. At last the baby went to sleep.
One afternoon Lone watched for a while and then prodded Janie with his toe. ‘What’s going on there?’
She looked. ‘He’s talking to them.’
Lone pondered. ‘I used to could do that. Hear babies.’
‘Bonnie says all babies can do it, and you were a baby, weren’t you? I forget if I ever did,’ she added. ‘Except the twins.’
‘What I mean,’ said Lone laboriously, ‘When I was growed I could hear babies.’
‘You must’ve been an idiot, then,’ said Janie positively. ‘Idiots can’t understand people but can understand babies. Mr Widdecombe, he’s the man the twins lived with, he had a girl friend once who was an idiot and Bonnie told me.’
‘Baby’s s’posed to be some kind of a idiot,’ Lone said.