Monday “You wanna come and shoot some rocks off the wall?” says Todd. “Me an’ some of our many kids with made-up names are headin’ out now.”
“Damnit Todd!” I snap. “I ain’t got time for shootin’ no rocks. I’m starting a new job with Fox News. I gotta know all that fancy stuff. Pakistan, the bailout, healthcare, Beyonc?, Goldman Sachs, suchlike and et cetera. Or else the commie liberal elite is going to tear me a new one.”
I’m holed with my top advisers: a man called Derek who turned up yesterday sellin’ encyclopaedias, and Billybob Jones, who won a rosette at the Wasilla Country Fair for identifying livestock.
“Razorback!” they’ll shout at me, or “Planet Earth!”. Then they’ll tell me the answers and I’ll write them down on a white index card and put it in a pile. I wish I’d paid more attention to this sorta stuff before.
Tuesday “But Sarah,” says Todd, kicking his way into the room over a mountain of index cards. “You ain’t been out to shoot rocks in a week.”
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I put my fingers in my ears. “Fanny Mae ain’t a person,” I say. “The Bush Doctrine legitimises preventative war. The red wattle hog can reach 1,500lbs.”
“You ain’t eating,” he says. “You ain’t sleeping. And how come you’re waving that gun around?”
“It’s for Derek,” I say. “So he don’t leave.” Derek looks towards the door. “You can keep the encyclopaedias,” he says. “Please. I got a wife.”
Wednesday Today I got to fly to New York, which is known as the Big Apple but apparently isn’t one. There’s so many index cards out in the hall that Todd, Track, Trig and Topper have to bring in the snowplough. “Healthcare,” I tell them. “Job creation. The capital of China is Beijing. Terrorists now come from Yemen.”
“What’s a Tux?” shouts Billybob. “Is it one of my kids?” I ask.
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Thursday That all went okay, even though they wouldn’t let me take on my cards. I was surprised by the lack of livestock questions.
I got talking to Bill O’Reilly, the host. “You were great,” I told him. “Billybob can name a goat faster ’n you can spit, but whoever does your briefing is smarter.”
“It’s autocue,” said O’Reilly. “That’s a pretty name,” I say. “Where’s she from?”
Friday Back home to Wasilla, where Todd and eight or nine of the kids snow-shoe to the airport. Derek escaped last night, they say. Tunnelled out under the index cards. “I don’t need him anyhow,” I tell them. “I got this stuff licked. Chrysler! Basra! Hamid Karzai! Piece of cake.”
“Hell,” says Todd. “You sound clever enough to be a liberal.” I guess I’d better stop.
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*according to Hugo Rifkind