My Nonno loved Mussolini – Elise Pulbrook

Gunnas-Masters

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer.

I don’t remember Nonno singing to me as a child, but he sang to me as an adult. He sang about Mussolini. He sang from his kitchen chair with his oxygen mask at the side of his face, tubes from his nose, wearing his navy dressing gown, sunglasses and Nonno hat. It was an anthem he’d learnt as an adolescent, living in Soveria Manelli, a small farming village in Calabria, at Italy’s toe.
The song was rich and powerful. He became full of life and inspiration when he sang the Mussolini anthem. He told me it was sung by the masses when Mussolini came to visit their village. The people wore red, wore flags and cheered for their icon. My Nonno sang loudly. He had a wonderful, deep singing voice. He would bellow this song, of which I can only remember the tune and the way “Mussolini” was expressed with clarity and pride. Nonno would explode into life, this song being the climax of this boyhood story, and then he would retreat. He would fall back into his chair and back into the world of his kitchen table in Thornbury. This is where he sat, where he wheezed and where he coughed. This is where he struggled and moaned and where he would violently clear his throat before he spat into his jar.
According to Nonno, after the “bastardi” killed Mussolini, he was “cut open”. In describing the autopsy, Nonno would pretend to open his guts like he was gutting a pig. He’d then profess, “Inside Mussolini, theya found double brains”. Nonno would make sure we all knew, “Mussolini was a very smart man”.
My cousins and I heard the same Mussolini stories when we visited Nonno in the months before he passed.
When he repeated these stories to my step cousin, Adrian, he was entertained and laughed. When the story was told to my cousin Vanessa, she was horrified. Horrified that her Nonno adored a man that was demonised in her year 12 history class.
The stories have helped me understand. They’ve helped me understand the husband and father my Nonno had been. For my Nonna, my mother and her siblings, Nonno’s household had been a traumatic regime.
My Nonna is a profound woman. She feels alive from green smoothies made in her Vitamix. She doesn’t make lasagna and her friends at the Lalor bowls club call her Joan. She’s a champion bowler.
When my Nonna Gianna took her children away from the regime, there was one point when they lived in a house infested with cat sized rats. They lived in a flimsy cottage on a run down farm in Koo Wee Rup, Victoria’s asparagus country.
When they were living at this farm, my Nonno asked whether my Nonna was embarrassed. They had lived like kings in a double story terrace on Nicholson Street, Fitzroy, a few blocks down from St Brigid’s church and school. My Nonna makes sure we all understand that she and her children were living with rats and they were happy.

 

 

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Writing Group – Laura Brinson

Gunnas-Masters

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer.

Out of the window I see galahs all rise up into the air together, a milkshake of grey and pink. Wings spread, dark-tipped feathers fan out and crests ruffle as a contest for the perfect spot erupts. Two birds somersault together, intertwined. They disappear behind the burnished winter leaves of the pin oak. I had two coffees today and sponge cake with cream and lemon spread. I feel all jangley. I watch the galahs settle again. I settle too, and in the quiet rustle of a room full of people, I bow my head over my notebook…..there was an elderly lady, Mary, who lived in the flat below mine. I would sometimes see her sidle out of her door in the morning, closing it quickly when she saw me coming down the stairs. Newspapers, magazines and sales catalogues spilled from boxes balanced floor to ceiling forming a tunnel into the flat. She was tiny and bent over with osteoporosis so she had to twist her head round awkwardly to look up at me. Sometimes she didn’t bother looking and just waved her hand and scuttled back into her flat. Her verandah, below my balcony, was piled high with plastic bottles and glass jars which she would sort, and, from time to time send crashing down – or perhaps it was the cats that sent things flying. Plastic chairs were stacked precariously along the corridor, saucers of milk lined up beneath them. The cats sat on the chair seats, disconcertingly at eye level, watching as I made my way past and on up the stairs. One day volunteers organised by the local council arrived and cleared her flat, taking away skip after skip of debris. Then Mary too was taken away. A neighbour knocked on my door to let me know that Mary’s funeral was on Thursday. We decided to go together.

 

 

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The Boy, His Zoo and the Search for More – Lara Irvine

Gunnas-Masters

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer.

Once upon a time there was a boy who lived in the most remote part of Australia. It was a dry and marvellous place, with great hills of sand and long flats of stones, and every now and then a storm of rain that would light everything with green for weeks at a time.

The boy had parents who loved him very much, and they did everything they could to make him happy. They read in a book that children should go to school, so they built him a school of his very own. They saw in a documentary that said children like zoos, and so they built one and imported animal after animal to fill it. They had heard from an expert that that children like toys and games and playgrounds, so they bought all that they could and filled the house with plastic gizmos and gadgets and whatsits and sports gear of every different colour.

The boy tried very hard to make use of all these things, but it was never quite right. He tried to play soccer with the panda, but the panda made a terrible goalie. Whenever the ball flew towards him he would roll on his back and cover his face with his paws.

He tried to fly a kite with a meerkat for company, but the wind was too strong and the meerkat was too small so both creature and kite sailed away over the sand dunes and were never seen again.

Every day he would try a new activity with a different animal, but it never worked. The giraffe was hopeless at hockey, the cheetah was no good at checkers, and the day he tried to cuddle up with a peacock to read a book was a complete disaster. He was still finding feathers in his ears weeks later.

His parents, as previously mentioned, loved the boy very much, and so they noticed these efforts and became puzzled by them. One day, his mother asked,

“Why are you so unhappy my dear? You have your own zoo, you have your own school, you have your own toys and games and playgrounds. You have everything a boy could wish for. Why do you always seem so sad?” His parents both looked at him, waiting for the answer with concerned faces.

Because of that, the boy had to think very hard. He knew he had everything a boy could wish for, and he didn’t want to seem ungrateful, so he was arranged his thoughts carefully before he spoke them out loud.

Finally he said, “Mum. Dad. I have my own school, my own zoo and all the games and toys and playgrounds a kid could wish for. And I have two parents that love me, which is a very special thing. But I think I might be happier if I had someone else to play with. I would very much like a friend please. Someone who can kick the ball back to me when I play soccer, who has opposable thumbs to hold a hockey stick, and who is heavy enough that they won’t blow away in a strong gust of wind.

That night, after the boy had gone to bed, his parents sat down for a long talk.

“You know,” said Dad, “We live here in the remotest part of Australia because it’s quiet and peaceful, and we have a lot of space. But because of that choice, our boy has become very unhappy.”

They talked through many different ways to fix the problem. Should they send the boy to boarding school, with other people his age? No, they decided, they would miss him too much. Should they import more children, so that the school they had built would be filled with friends and playmates? No, they decided, the adoption process would probably involve a lot of paperwork, and nobody enjoys that. Finally, they settled upon a plan and told the boy over breakfast the next morning.

“We are going to go on a holiday,” said Dad. “A great long holiday,” said Mum. The boy wasn’t sure where this was going, and continued to eat his Sugar Blams while staring at them over the bowl.

“We’re going to see all the different parts of Australia, until finally, you choose your favourite and we’ll live there from then on.” So the family entrusted the school to a caretaker and the zoo to a keeper, and set off around Australia.

First they went to all the National Parks, and each day the boy would join all the other kids on camping trips to play games and learn about wildlife with the ranger.

Then they went to the cities, to galleries and museums where the boy learned about art and dinosaurs and science in the education rooms, with huge groups of schoolchildren who had come by bus for the day.

Finally, they took a long cruise around the whole coastline, stopping in at little ports and seaside towns along the way. The boy spent every day in the kids club, where the children played games and put on shows every day.

Unfortunately, each time the boy left a group or an education room or a kids club, the supervising adult would take his parents aside and whisper quietly, “Please don’t bring him back. He’s a bit of a shit and the other kids don’t like him.” The boy, it turned out, was rude and mean and bossy and selfish, and very hard to love for anyone other than his devoted parents. At the end of the holiday, they pretended to forget about asking the boy where he wanted to live. All three went back to the school and the zoo in the most remote part of Australia, and the boy returned to playing with the various animals in the zoo. They, at least, were unable to complain.

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OF COURSE I CAN – Naomi Terese

Gunnas-Masters

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer.

I press GO too hard, I press STOP too hard, I turn too hard and I laugh too hard. Even though I have broken a bone in every area of my clumsy body, one day they let me have a turn of riding the postie bike.

The biggest of my brothers decided to teach me how to fang the postie around the footy oval near our house. It was my first time. He was dinking on the back, patiently requesting I calm the fuck down. I was not very good at it. He held so much hope. Too Fast. Stop. Too Fast. Stop. Too Fast.

He jumped ship as the postie approached catastrophe – better one maimed child than two. I was forced to rely on my poor instinct to remain upright.  I pressed GO. Really hard. I should have pressed STOP. Really hard.

I plunged forward blindly and careered over a 6 metre deep embankment into an open water drain. Fwoof!  Gone. I went down as fast as lightening. Shaking bushes, slipping on grass, face forward towards an inevitable walloping.

I determinedly stayed on and rapidly approached the zenith of my humiliation.

The Biggest Brother flailed toward my assistance. The stress of potential damage to his bike and the incredulous belief that I still grasped the handlebars caused him an internal explosion.   He collapsed into the muddy channel.  He couldn’t breathe.

The postie paused briefly before I gave it the berries again. Really kicked it hard in the guts.

It became my moment of unexpected glory. I shot up the other side of the ditch, but unlike my descent, I’m riding like a boss, no outward appearance of any calamity. Mounted with dignity, I pop a few monos, hurtle through more bushes and even more mud before being expelled gracefully on the high side with both wheels off the ground.

I land and hinge my head to notice The Biggest Brother’s hilarious distress and feel the swarming glee of accomplished success. I twinkle at my sudden cleverness and shrug my shoulders nonchalantly.

“What? ”

 

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Hold Tight – Robert Glavich

Gunnas-Masters

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer.

Once upon a time there was the feeling of falling. She held tight and laughed, falling to Earth. David seemed happy, though focussed on not letting go. They were a long way up, in a time and place when safety was a minor concern.

David was thinking of death. If he plummeted and it all ended now what would become of him? What would life be then for Sara? God figured in David’s scheme of things. How the Universe moved and evolved meant nothing to him without Good overlooking every motion, every action, every thought.

Sara always found this perverse. Her smiles were expected by all those around her, she infected people with her joy. Every day she woke and realised how much David had become infected too. Not with joy, but what she came to call his God disease.

If David desired so much the Nirvana of God, he spoke of it often enough, then why not just get the fuck there? It’s just too strange. So bizarre to see people living in anticipation of death.

So as she falls all this flows through her and she thinks “One day, one day honey, if you don’t shut up about God and this perfect after life, I’m going to make your God disease terminal.” And that’s when she realised she was not really joking.

In that moment of joy and the sensation of falling, she had transformed. Because of that, she now knew that her life with David would change. What would she do when this short precipitous fall had ended? She now had only moments more to decide, and it was enough.

The pace at which she felt all this, played her thoughts through her heart was terrifying. The smile vanished. The joy froze in her heart. She knew it was over.

The man she had only seconds before radiated love for, was looking like a stranger. Because of that she would let go. Better her than him. His pain at losing her would be a shadow of the loss if she were to abandon him. Until finally as they drew to safety she thought, “Fuck. What an idiot I can be.”

Her life would never be the same. David would break and heal. Letting go would certainly have been fatal, but heartbreak isn’t. With a huge sigh of relief she reached the end of the ride. A simple carnival flying fox had been cause of her greatest epiphany. Her narrow brush with death.

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Devotional – Catherine Lockstone

Gunnas-Masters

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer

Loved denied
or deferred
often has so much more
power
than the love
quietly lived
day after day
Measured not in stolen glances
an heart flutters
but in dryer loads folded
and cat boxes scooped
The devotion and care
taken to do chores
with the only reward
to do it again
tomorrow
Maybe this is the slow love
the less showy love
the longer burning love
The fireworks
and palpitations
are all fine
Love must always start
somewhere
Like the big bang
this theory holds
that the initial excitement is
no more than
a catalyst
for the more mundane acts
of love
and devotion
Maybe our poetry needs to encompass
the school runs
on cold, wet mornings
or the interminable mowing
Perhaps it is epistles
of praise
for bin collection
and bread runs
And perhaps I
can encourage my unruly heart
to skip a beat
or two
for these devotionals
lovingly rendered
No flowers
or chocolate tchotchkes
required.

 

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Dear Perth Gunnas – Gina Sanderson

Gunnas-Masters

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer

We live on a beautiful farm north of Perth in Chittering, about 35 minutes past the Swan Valley. We have just completed our hand built mud brick art studio and love inviting others to share in this amazing and creative space. To all the Gunna’s in today’s workshop, you are welcome to come up and spend a weekend. Give yourself some time to write or just take a break and enjoy the peace and quiet. Our next project is building accommodation but for now there are two beautiful revamped caravans available.
Check out the website: http://www.chitteringacres.com.au/
Contact us on FB: Chittering Acres Studio, or email Gina: sanderson_gina@hotmail.com

 

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Do I Look Like I Give a Fuck? – Sonja

Gunnas-Masters

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer

Today I went to a Gunnas Writing Masterclass.  I was terrified, intimidated and overwhelmed… until I arrived at the class and started chatting with some fellow ‘Gunnas’.  Then Catherine worked her magic and got me thinking.  A lot.  And laughing.  A lot.  Two of the many things which stuck with me from today were ‘how many people in your life really love you just for who you are, not for what you do for them and vice versa’.  The other was about not giving fucks.

I don’t give many fucks, but I’ve come to realise there’s a difference between not giving fucks and not caring.

From a young age, much to my mother’s disgust, I never gave a fuck.  Not about what I should do because I was a girl – if anything, if it was ‘meant to be for boys’ I was in.  Playing with cars, building with Lego, climbing, digging in the sand… and while the other girls had prissy pink bikes with streamers on the handle bars, I had a kick-ass BMX.  I’m sure Mum would have been delighted if I was more feminine.  If I were more inclined to knit, bake and sew than to go to the speedway or fishing.  Actually, she’ll hate this piece just based on the amount of fucks I’ve thrown around.  Sorry, Mum.

As an adult, my non-fuck giving isn’t much different.  I still don’t conform to what I should or shouldn’t do just because I’m a female, but also, there are some jobs I’m happy to hand over to someone else – whether they’re male or female – if they’re more skilled or able than I… or what ever reason I choose.  It’s also extended to not giving a fuck whether people approve of me or who I am.  I know I’m a good person.  I am compassionate, I am caring – I am a decent human being who doesn’t go out of their way to cause pain to others and I’ve even been known to go out of my way to help others.  So, if someone chooses to judge me based on my age, my fat, the fact that I have tattoos or which area I live in, I don’t give a fuck.  I save the fucks I give for those I care about.  Anyone else can go take a flying jump.

I am one who has people in my life who I love for who and what they are, and I know there are those who feel the same for me.  This is what keeps a smile on my face when things may seem a little overwhelming.  The knowing that they’re there.  That wherever they are, if I need them, I have them and they have me.  It’s taken a lot of years to smarten up to this idea and realise it, but by Christ, it’s worth it now.

Also, I need to shop for a tiara… but that’s a whole other subject.

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I Left My Haight in San Francisco – Xan Ashbury

Gunnas-Masters

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer

Eight years ago I was thought I was going to lose (in no particular order) my baby and my home and my marbles.
In the end I lost none of those. But I did leave half my name in San Francisco airport.
You see, back in 1993, like any well-travelled, free spirited, authority-averse, screwed-up-by-broken-family 19-year-old I thought it would be great to change my last name to Haight-Ashbury, after the San Francisco district at the epicentre of the flower power movement of the late 1960s.
It was my sister’s idea and it fitted the bill. Our family name was Haigh. All we had to do was add a ‘t’ and a hyphen and the Ashbury.
I pretty much hated my dad at that point and I liked the irony of a double barrel name that was the compete antithesis of what most double barrel names represented.
It was a subversive way of wearing my ideology on my sleeve – and in this case, my student card, driver’s licence and passport as well.
The man at the deed poll office was good enough not to venture any sage advice about how perhaps when the time came to get a proper job, having the name Haight-Ashbury on my CV – a name that was now synonymous with drug-fucked hippies – would not be a good look.
He probably should have said that because the thought had never occurred to me. Fortunately for him, he didn’t because I think he could tell from my Violent Femmes t-shirt and nose ring that I wasn’t someone who would care to be lectured.
And when I got married in 1999, my husband was a bit miffed I wouldn’t be trading in my juvenile, gimmicky name for his sensible family name. But like the man at the deep poll office, he knew not to push the issue.
Seven years into our marriage, I got itchy feet. So I shoehorned my husband, our toddler and a baby names book (I was pregnant again) into an old campervan to spend six months on the road, to culminate in blissful week in an apartment in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco.
Except we never quite got there.
Life on the road took its toll. After vomiting after every meal throughout the first and second trimester, I was no little miss sunshine. And the fact that my husband didn’t have any sympathy for my situation – because I refused to take medication for the nausea – made me even crankier.
He grew up in a medical family, in which drugs were offered at the first sight of any ailment.
I grew up with a mother who, even if I was half dead, would administer garlic – and possibly aloe vera. And this had served me perfectly well. I might have chosen to be a Haight-Ashbury but there was no way I was going to take any so-called harmless drugs for morning sickness. You say harmless, I imagine missing limbs.
The week before we were due to hit the city of my dreams, we did the ultimate tree-hugger’s pilgrimage – we visited the giant sequoia trees in the mountains a few hours south east of San Fran.
And it was while communing with nature that I started to feel the “call of nature”.
Only it turned out it wasn’t really a toileting issue – it was an impatient baby wanting to pop out nine weeks early.
What ensued was a quick trip to the nearest hospital and quick birth and a quick look at my tiny, weeny baby before he was intubated, pumped with drugs to make his heart and lungs work and put inside a glass box in the neonatal intensive care unit. There I was, terrified – feeling like the life had been sucked out of me.
But also relieved that my love-hate relationship with pregnancy was over.
When the doctors wanted to know if I had taken any drugs, I couldn’t help wonder if the old Haight-Ashbury name had thrown up a few red flags. (As I later discovered, most of the premmie babies in the NICU were “drug babies”. Fresno, 40 minutes away, was officially the crystal-meth capital of the world. )
I told them I hadn’t taken anything since trying acid, twice, in 1993, and that I hadn’t even had a coffee in seven months. They took a blood test anyway.
The next few months were a blur of hand scrubbing, cuddling, sobbing and expressing milk every four hours. The days and nights were filled with watching monitors blink and bleep. Of holding Carter’s tiny hand through scans, echocardiograms, blood tests and blood transfusions.
Nearly every day there were conversations with our insurance company, which was refusing to pay up – and we’re talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars. Perhaps they looked at my hippy name and mistakenly took me for pacifist.
This fight (which I won), this overwhelming desire to stick it to the man, was driven not by hate but the passionate love you feel for your own flesh and blood.
Although the nurses in the Neo Natal Intensive Care Unit didn’t make it easy for me by constantly playing those two types of music – Country *and* Western. Not recommended listening for fragile, sleep-deprived or depressed mums. (“I lost my wife, I lost my job and then my dog died . . .”)
Finally, Carter was fit to travel, our bills were paid and we were ready to leave the hospital and the US of A.
Oxygen bottle – check
Freshly polished resuscitation skills – check
Tickets for a business class flight to Sydney – check
And so there I was in San Francisco airport, baby in my arms, checking in an esky, packed with 30 litres of frozen breast milk.
I still had my marbles, I still had my house and I vowed to leave the Haight behind in San Francisco, so many years after that Summer of Love.
Since then, I’ve just been Xan Ashbury.
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Concocting a Compromise – Rebecca Psanoudakis

Gunnas-Masters

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer

Once upon a time there was a girl called Judith and a girl called Mary-Lou. They were best friends. They were inseparable at school and on the weekends. They shared sandwiches at lunchtime and swapped notes during class. They told the other kids at school that they were almost cousins. They shared a desire to express to the world how close they were. It wasn’t enough to be together on weekend sleepovers or afterschool play overs, they wanted to live together, share every waking moment together and then wake up in the morning and tell each other their dreams. Everyday at school whom ever came first would wait for the other at the school gate. One would not want the other to be lonely for too long.

Once they had disclosed their strong yearning to be one the best friends spoke for hours in a day, between classes and then after school dawdling home, chattering about how they ‘should have’, if God had been kind, been born as Siamese twins.

“But where in this perfect paradise,” Judith would say to Mary-Lou, “Where would we be joined?”

“Oh Judi Perdi, at the hip of course!” replied Mary-Lou all matter of fact.

“Oh of course, silly me.” Judith would whisper under breath, somehow her friend always had a way of making her feel stupid.

The girls would not be able to say whose idea it was as all their words jumbled together snowballing them along the path of witchcraft. Free time had meaning and over a course of a week between them they had collected rose petals, black lawn beetles, bull ants, empty snail shells, a matted fur dreadlock from Judith’s tabby cat Feral and fleas off Mary-Lou’s dog Douglas, a garlic bulb, soya sauce and brown sugar, fish emulsion, blood and bone, sand and pond water from the duck park across from Mary-Lou’s house. After the week of planning and hording the ingredients for the magical concoction they sneaked out Judith’s mum’s good Jamie Oliver mortar and pestle outside to the garden setting, down the side of the house next to the compost bin. Mary-Lou and Judith added all matter to the mortar. Mary-Lou took charge with the pestle and crushed away until anything alive was dead, black and slimy.

Mary-Lou sucked hard on her cola chuppa chup, then moved it swiftly with her tongue to the cushion of her cheek, “It’s about compromise Judith.”

A droplet of sweet dribble escaped her mouth falling into the mixture, she stopped pummelling briefly, weighing up her unforseen human error, she shook her head at herself, then looking her friend directly in the eyes, “That’s ok. Um anyway like I said, compromise. We will need to give up something of our self, if we want to be one with the other. It’s that simple.”

Judith felt a wave of anxiety creep into her armpits and her sweat tear up and slide down her arm, “I’m just not sure what I want to give up of myself. Is it forever? Can we go back to being how we are if we don’t like being one?”

“Oh Judi Poo it’s fine. I have been giving this a lot of thought and I’ve got this. You know how you are always complaining about being a blood nut?”

Mary-Lou takes the lollypop out of her mouth, she had more to say than Judith wanted to hear, Judith rolled off the concrete garden seat onto the ground resting her forehead on her arms like she did while playing heads down thumbs up at school. She sniffed at her armpits for B.O. and relaxed with relief at getting a whiff of Mum deodorant instead.

“Yes Mazza. You try having an orange fro and see how you like it.” Judith grumbled into her chest.

“It’s not a fro Ju. You’ve just got out of control curls, I’ve told you before you need to comb your hair with a rake not a bristle brush and use conditioner; the two in one doesn’t cut it. But it doesn’t matter anyway; this is why we are doing what we are doing, it is perfect for the both of us. You’ve got great legs, they’re really fast, you won last years Year 6 Champion Girl and I reckon you will do it again this year. And my legs are pins, they nearly snap in half walking down Monument Hill and Mum still won’t let me shave them and I’ve never had a bad hair day in my life. So we compromise, your head for mine.”

Judith looked up at her friend grinning from ear to ear, Mary-Lou shot her a wink and smugly plopped her cola lollypop back into her mouth.

“My arms sore, your turn.”

Judith pulled herself from the ground and took the pestle from her bestie.

“Wow you can’t even see any legs in here.” Judith bent down and peered at the black muck her nose an inch away, “or heads.”

“That’s the magic JuJu, it’s become one.” Mary-Lou shook her head marvelling at her own genius.

“I reckon it’s done Mazz.”

“Just another five minutes, it’s about the balance, the combining of us. Our energy.”

“Yeah but there’s not much of a balance in the end is there? When we are one ‘being’, we will be mostly me and only your head.”

“It’s in our intention. Mum said Wayne Dwyer says there’s power in intention and if we intend to be one and balanced and then that’s what we will be.”

Mary-Lou peered up at the sun, “Yup, that’s it. It’s ready.”

“Wow, so what do we do now?”

“ Easy there’s nothing to it. All you need to do is eat this.”

 

Judith didn’t have a strong stomach at the best of times. It’s why she always turned down her friend’s offer of a strawberry cream chuppa chup, not because her friend was making a subtle jib at her complexion but because she had really bad gag reflex. Judith heaved a little, “Me? Shouldn’t it be the both of us? Aren’t we going halves?”

“Well technically we aren’t going halves are we? We will be my head your body so that’s like one fifth or even one sixth of me compared to nearly all of you.”

“So you are saying I’m having most of it and your gonna have a bit.”

“Yeah yeah.”

“OK your right Mazza, fairs fair. So you will have to go first coz you’re the head right and you just have to have like a mouthful and I have the rest?”

“Yeah, that’s right you have all the rest.” Mary-Lou nodded excitedly, it was coming together perfectly, she couldn’t believe her friend was falling for her plan.

 

Judith picked the teaspoon up off the table and slowly stirred the concoction, she spooned the goo onto the teaspoon and swooped it to hover in front of Mary-Lou’s perfect lips, “You first.”

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