The Art of Being Emily - Katie MacAlister Page 0,132
staring at Aunt Tim with my mouth hanging open right in front of him.
“You are like so completely insane if you think I'm going to even get near something so icky as that!”
“What's icky?” Ruaraidh asked, poking his fork into the pancake stack and taking a bunch of them.
“Haggis,” Holly answered, because she was his almost GF.
“Haggis? There's nothing icky about it.”
You see what would have happened if I had wanted Ruaraidh as a BF? I'd have to dump him, because there is no way in the world I could ever kiss a guy who ate sheep's innards in a stomach. BLECH!
“Well, I don't care what you guys eat,” I said, sitting back down to my pancake although I gave it a good hard look to make sure Alec didn't slip any sheep organs into it, “but I can tell you right here and now that I'm not eating it. I'll have pizza, thank you.”
Alec frowned. “It's traditional to eat haggis on Burns Night—”
“Oh, Alec, don't bother. It's all right, girls. When you go to the store to pick up the haggis, you can get yourselves a pizza. Better make it two. Perhaps Fang and Devon won't be into traditional Scottish fare, as well.” Aunt Tim turned to me. “If Holly warms up the haggis and does the neeps and tatties, do you think you could do the soup? It's cock-a-leekie.”
I jumped up from the table and threw, positively THREW down my napkin. “I do not want to know what part of a sheep goes into that!”
Then I ran away then, because you know, a girl can only take so much ick at breakfast.
BTW, Aunt Tim told me later that cock-a-leekie soup is made with chickens, not sheep's thingies, like I thought.
Off to the store to buy the sheep barf in a bag for the weirder members of the family, and pizza for those of us who are normal.
and I think that was really noble of you, Em. To give up a hunky guy just because you weren't madly in love with him—well, that just takes balls, grrl. OMC! Balls! Hahahahahah! Anyway, I think you did the right thing. And you never know, maybe you'll meet someone else while you're there, maybe one of those guys in kilts you're always going on about, although I have to say, I don't really see what's so hot about them.
You just have to trust me on this, Dru. When you're standing around in Scotland, guys in kilts are v. hot.
I just wanted to let you know that Devon and Fang are here (yay!) and I was right—they didn't want any haggis either, although both of them had just a little tiny taste because Alec made such a big deal about it being a tradition and all. I'm starting to think that maybe Alec isn't deserving of the Hottie Older Man title.
Anyhoodles, Holly gave Ruaraidh the sweater she knitted for him.
“What's this?” he asked, winking at me, which made me feel all weird, because I knew full well he knew that we were knitting sweaters for him. “For me? I thought you were knitting this for yourself!”
Holly blushed and got all girly and stammered out that she thought he'd like it.
“It's very nice, thank you,” he said, and kissed her on the cheek, which almost made her faint dead away. I had to pinch her arm so she would remember to breathe. “And what's that you have, Emily?”
OK, now here's the thing: my sweater didn't...um...quite turn out. It definitely doesn't look like Holly's. For one thing, somehow the back part of it got crooked. And there's the problem with the sleeves, and the holes and curled parts and stuff, so in the end, I decided that it was too embarrassing to give it to him. Not just because I didn't want him any more, but because Holly's sweater looked so much more like as sweater, where my sweater looked like...um...have you ever seen a tea cozy? Old ladies use them on their tea pots to keep them warm. Anyway, my sweater kind of looked like a jumbo tea cozy. So when Ruaraidh asked me what was going on with it, I tried to play it very coolio.
“Oh this? It's my sweater,” I said, pulling it on over my sweatshirt. I gave him what Brother calls my pugnacious look, and dared him to say anything mean about it. “Nice color, huh?”