I Conquer Britain by Dyan Sheldon Page A

who started wiping out the Indians but she didn’t give me a chance.
    “I’m talking about everything. You people have no sense of the past whatsoever. In this country we respect the past. It means something. It’s part of who we are.”
    I made sure I didn’t look over at Caroline. “From what I saw coming from the airport, part of who you are, are baseball caps and
Gap
and
Nike
sportswear.”
    Behind me Robert whispered, “That’s two for our side.”
    Poor Old Mum didn’t hear him, she was talking too loudly. “Poppycock. That’s just fashion.” She banged her cane again. “I’ll have you know that I come from one of the oldest families in the British Isles.”
    Since this last statement didn’t really seem like it was connected to anything else, I just said the first thing that came into my head. Which was, “But everybody comes from the oldest family from somewhere.”
    She gave me a who-is-this-peasant-in-my-throne-room kind of look. “Pardon?”
    “You know what I mean. Everybody’s from an old family.”
    “I really must finish the chicken,” murmured Caroline, and she scurried to the other side of the kitchen, out of firing range.
    “Not as old as ours,” said her mother. “We can trace our line back to the reign of Henry II.”
    I looked over at Robert, but he’d turned his back on us, too, and was busy pouring the wine.
    “But in a way everybody can, can’t they? I mean it’s not like your family’s been hanging out here for hundreds of years and everybody else just got beamed down from some spaceship, is it? If you go back far enough everybody’s pretty much related, aren’t they?”
    Caroline’s mother turned to look at Caroline’s back and roared, “So where’s that grandson of mine?”
    Caroline straightened up with a sigh. “I told you, Mum, I doubt that he’ll be joining us tonight.”
    “Won’t be joining us?” barked Mrs Payne. “Why not? Didn’t you tell him I was coming?”
    Well, there was one reason.
    Caroline sighed again. “We hardly see him any more from one day to the next. I expect he’s got a girlfriend.”
    “Girlfriend?” Mrs Payne glanced over at me. “Well, I hope she’s suitable.”
    Robert passed by me with the filled glasses. “It’s a pity you don’t drink,” he whispered. “It really helps.”

Seeing the Sights and Stuff Like That
    T o make up for the barbecue, Caroline wanted to take a drive into the countryside and have lunch at a real English pub on Sunday. I’d seen real English pubs in movies and on TV. They aren’t all dark (so you can’t see who’s in there) and filled with gloomy men like a lot of American bars. They’ve got lights and pictures on the walls and carpets and women and stuff like that, and there’s always somebody in one corner playing darts. I thought the real English pub sounded like pretty good news. But the gods (as usual) had other plans.
    “Are you mad, Caroline?” demanded Robert. “In this rain? Are you going to build an ark to get us back home?”
    “I suppose you’re right.” Caroline sighed. “There really isn’t any point in driving miles when it’s raining like this just to sit in some noisy, smoky room, is there? One wants to be able to sit in the garden.”
    The one that was me would’ve been happy to sit in a noisy, smoky room, but it wasn’t my job to give Caroline a hard time. I figured she had her family to do that.
    “I know what we can do,” said Caroline. “Robert can take us on one of his world-famous tours.” She gave me one of her more encouraging smiles. “Robert’s something of a historian, you know. Xar and Sophie used to love his tours.”
    I wasn’t sure what
something of a historian
meant. It seemed to me that being a historian is like being a serial killer – you either are or you aren’t – but all I said was, “Really?”
    Robert didn’t exactly jump for joy at this suggestion. He didn’t want to do the tour. He wanted to work on
War and Peace in