Young Mungo

The narrative flashes back four months. Mungo is worried that his mother is dead because he and his siblings haven’t seen her for days, but Mungo’s sister Jodie believes she’s just on another bender. Jodie notes Mungo’s facial twitch, which the doctors have advised her to ignore. But Jodie knows that Mungo likes when she touches the twitch because he likes human contact. Mungo picks at his skin while he twitches, which gives him scars. Jodie notes that her brother is handsome in an unusual way, and that his smile endears people to him because he smiles so rarely. Jodie also has a tic: She often ends a sentence with a loud laugh that puts people off. Jodie and Mungo play together and watch TV; afterwards, Jodie helps Mungo with his homework. Then, Jodie leaves for work and a night out, but assures Mungo she’ll see him tomorrow.

Mungo starts drawing, but feels bad that with their mother missing Jodie has to take on all the household work. They live on the third floor of a four-floor building, and the neighbors take turns cleaning the front and the stairwell. Mungo decides to help Jodie out by cleaning the stairs, but he doesn’t know how to clean well and uses Jodie’s shampoo, making the stairs sticky.