Open Features: What Have You Done?
Miriam McAtee tells of a hoax that worked.
My twin brother and I walked into the lounge arm in arm, tattoo emblazoned on his arms and forehead and my hair spiked and coloured red and yellow.
We were quite a sight.
“Mum, look! Don’s had a tattoo done and I’ve dyed my hair!” I announced brightly as we entered the room.
My mother was sitting in her favourite chair in the middle of asking her friend Liz a question, a cup of coffee held in elegant hands. She normally sits very upright, my mother does, back straight up like the Queen, but now she staightened up even more if possible and her eyes blazed at us. Her cup clattered on the saucer and she hastily put them down. Mother looked really rattled. Her face paled, her groomed hair seemed to spike up like mine.
A few seconds passed then in a taut voice she said, “You did WHAT?”
For several moments, the room was very quiet. Even the fountain outside the open window seemed to sense the drama in the room and held still and stopped trickling. Liz, normally chatty, gasped wordlessly.
Then I started to giggle, and my brother, trying to stay serious caused the railway line tattooed across his forhead to buckle and undulate wildly. He looked grotesque.
“It’s the latest thing, Mother,” my brother told her. “We are all doing it. What do you think?”
He stumped forward towards her across pristine carpet in his clumpy soiled jogging shoes.
My mother arched away from him, her nose wrinkling eyes shocked. “You’re limping!” she gasped inanely. It seemed that was all she was able to say.
“Yeah, my mistake,” my brother told her. “ I got a tattoo done on the sole of my foot as well. It hurts like...” He stopped in time, grinning.
At this stage, I thought that my mother had had enough and it was time to go so I pulled my brother away and we left the room as fast as my brother’s limp would allow.
**
A short time later, my brother and I waltzed back into the lounge again, still arm in arm.
Mother and Liz were still there. My mother, still white, was holding herself upright but seething with the anger she was trying to keep in check till she could lash out at us as soon as her friend left.
On seeing us, they both stopped talking. It went very quiet. I knew that Mother was about to explode and tell us to get out of her sight till she was ready to deal with us in private.
Then...
“What...?” came faintly from my mother.
“What’s happened?'' Liz asked, mystified.
This time what they saw was me with my hair light brown again curling normally around my face, though a trifle damp, and my brother with his arms and face scrubbed and clean.
“April 1st today, Mother,'' my brother announced.
“April Fool Mum!” I cried
