…the roof? (…shouts of “Ohhhh Nooooo!” (see what I did there?))
…the pavers below (…crazy-paving since demise of TheChinlessWonder)?
…good Gawd! Wywyum’s tirade! …not only badly written (…although to be expected from The Infamous TrypeWriter)! …but totally “as if”
Oooo! …just wait till Jugleen sees the soize of Richard Thwaite’s 100-500mm Zoom lens! (…croikey)
CLICK!!!
Who on earth, in the middle of a row with a thirteen-year-old, leaves her alone in the house to go and buy some fish-and-chips? She’s practically certain to do something stupid, irrevokable or both.
Let’s face it, that’s pretty much a given under normal circumstances, let alone when under the influence of Stimpleton.
Just so.
If Andrew, his squeeze and Nic’s mother take as gospel everything Mia says in a snit, they are in for a difficult ten years or so, and she will become a bluddy nightmare. And if she hasn’t learnt from yesterday that the “I haven’t got any mam—ma-a!” card is the one to play whenever she wants something, she’s very stupid.
(anyone who recognises the quote, Bravo!)
FHB, AICMFP.
Which Nanny Discourse will not let me post as a standalone.
Oh well. Apparently 13-y-o girls should be able to entertain whom they please in an otherwise empty house; so I expect it’s safe to assume they never exaggerate or say things purely to wound. Unlike their Evil Stepfathers, natch.
Not sure what that stands for, but FHB is right. Bravo! Now name the child?
And I Claim My Five Pounds.
Could I have reliably named the brat (ahem!) I wouldn’t have weaselled around with the author, now would I? 
Expect I shall suddenly remember at 3am. Or I could look it up.
"she was a very appalling little creature.
…
“Her strongest weapon was that in some mysterious way she had found out that a very small girl who had lost her mother was a person who ought to be pitied and made much of. She had probably heard some grown-up people talking her over in the early days, after her mother’s death. So it became her habit to make great use of this knowledge.”
Lottie!
Yup. But I found the quote aw’f’ly apposite, somehow.
Miss Minchin had the right idea.