Red Dirt Diary 3 (9 page)

‘Cake crumbs in the shape of Queen Elizabeth' by Mrs Flanagan tells of an amazing discovery at the CWA morning tea yesterday. When everyone had eaten a slice of Betty Simpson's ginger fluff sponge, the plate was covered in crumbs that looked
exactly
like Queen Elizabeth's head. Mrs Flanagan has included a photo and asked that I send a copy of the next
Bake
Tribulation
to the Queen herself! How exciting will that be?

Wes and Fez were late for dinner tonight. When Mum called them, they climbed through their bedroom window, traversed the wall outside using the blocks of wood they screwed in last night, winched themselves up to the roof, scrambled on their tummies along the top of the house, slid down the other side of the roof and abseiled down inside the old chimney into the dining room. It was amazing.

Mum was pretty mad. Not only were they late for dinner, but they'd knocked a dead magpie out of the chimney on the way down. Petal flapped up onto the dining table with fright and pooped on Dad's mashed potato.

Dad just scraped the mashed potato into the pig slops bucket and said, ‘Oh, well … I s'pose it could be worse.'

And he was right. Halfway through dinner the whole chimney caved in and made an awful mess of bricks, bird nests, soot and dirt. It took us until 9.30 to clean it all up.

This time tomorrow, Sophie, Peter and Peter's friend Xiu will be home from boarding school for the long weekend. I can't wait.

Friday, 8 June

Wes and Fez gave me their next manners column for the newspaper this morning:

We let the new carrier pigeons out of their coop today. They soared up into the air, around the school in a big loop and came back home again. What a relief!

The Colonel wriggled his hairy eyebrows up and down and said, ‘Well boil the billy and pour the tea! Looks like we have the right pigeons at last!'

I smiled and gave him the thumbs up.

Sophie, Peter and Xiu met us at the Hillrose Poo sign with the pig chariots this afternoon. Peter, Wes and Doris raced Xiu, Fez and Mildred back to the house. Sophie and I drove the ute in front of them so they had to gallop through a cloud of dust. Giggled all the way.

It's so good to have them home from boarding school, even if it is just for the long weekend. Us Westons are all born with red dirt between our toes. We belong at Hillrose Poo.

This evening when Mum called us all in for dinner, Wes and Fez took Peter and Xiu the long way round. They climbed up the tank stand onto the guttering, scrambled along the top of the roof on their tummies, slid onto the veranda roof, swung down on a rope and dived through the dining-room window. They were all late for dinner.

Fez said, ‘Sorry we're late, Mummy Darling Heart. Xiu had his undies on back to front and we had to wait until he put them around the right way.'

Good grief!

Saturday, 9 June

Wes, Fez, Peter and Xiu have spent the entire day making stuff in the machinery shed and digging ditches around the chicken coop (???). Xiu has brought a suitcase full of fireworks from his parents' pyrotechnics company in Kuala Lumpur, so things could get ugly before the weekend is through.

Mrs Sweeney, Mat and Lynette came over for the afternoon. Mum and Mrs Sweeney wanted to bake up a storm for the party tomorrow night — pavlovas, caramel meringue pies, apple turnovers and sausage rolls. We always have a huge bonfire with neighbours and friends to celebrate the Queen's Birthday.

Sophie, Mat, Lynette and I hid out in the tree house eating lamingtons. Sophie and Mat went feral talking about fashion and romance and LOVE. I thought it was going to be a total waste of time, until they started talking about
Miss McKenzie and Mr Cluff. Sophie said if we can't get Miss McKenzie to return to Hardbake Plains on her own, maybe we should convince Mr Cluff to go over to Scotland and bring her back.

It sounded like a great idea to me.

But then Mat started ferreting on and on about how romantic it would be and that they would probably be engaged on the wild, windy moors of Scotland and would then return to Australia to be married and Mat would be the chief bridesmaid and would wear a dress of rose pink satin and frangipanis in her hair and blah, blah, blah … spew, yuck, poo … blabber, blabber, blabber …

I grabbed Lynette and wandered over to Magpie's Rest to talk to Mrs Whittington and the pigs. Gertrude, Doris and Mildred are so much more intelligent than Matilda Jane the Mature.

Helped Mrs Whittington cut out red paper hearts for Valentine's Day. She gets a bit confused about celebrations but I don't suppose Queen Elizabeth would mind seeing love hearts everywhere on her birthday.

Monday, 11 June — 5 am!!!

Happy birthday, Queen Elizabeth.

Had the most amazing Queen's Birthday celebration ever. Dad, Peter and Xiu dragged dead trees from all over the place to make the mother of all bonfires. By the time everyone had arrived it was blazing like the sun.

The Sweeneys, the O'Donnells, the Simpsons, the Hartleys, Mr Cluff and the Colonel all came.

Gavin O'Donnell is still totally in love with Mat, even though she no longer likes him. He brought her a bunch of flowers and a box of chocolates and followed her around like a bad smell all night. Mat followed Xiu around like a bad smell all night, so it looked like a procession — Xiu, then Mat, then Gavin, then Gertrude, Doris and Mildred. Gertrude could smell the chocolates and wouldn't give up until she'd knocked Mat to the ground and scoffed the whole box. Mildred and Doris ate the flowers.

We had the funniest singalong with Dad playing the violin and Mr Sweeney and Mrs Hartley playing guitars. The Colonel knew all these hilarious Scout songs with words like:

I'm glad I've made my peace with the Colonel. He really is incredibly kind and funny.

At midnight Dad played ‘God Save the Queen' and Xiu put on a fireworks display. It was incredible — sparkly fountains in every colour of the rainbow, exploding balls that threw out more exploding balls, stars that turned into silver puffs of smoke, howling rockets that went so high they disappeared, and little parachuting men that shot way up in the air then floated down to earth. What was truly amazing was that Wes and Fez sat quietly with Mum and Dad and watched … and nothing went wrong.

Except for when Mrs Whittington came out on the veranda of Magpie's Rest with a slingshot, yelled, ‘Shoot the blighters before they land!'
and started firing rocks at Xiu's little parachuting men. But that really wasn't Wes and Fez's fault.

The Queen's Birthday Disaster of Hillrose Poo, however,
was
Wes and Fez's fault — and Peter and Xiu's.

The guests had just left at 4 am when Peter whispered, ‘Foxes approaching.'

Xiu hissed, ‘Operation Boom,' and threw himself behind the lavender bush near the clothesline. Wes, Fez and Peter followed, so Sophie and I hid with them. We could just see the foxes creeping towards the chicken coop in the light of the bonfire.

Xiu struck a match and lit a piece of string that poked through the lavender bush. It hissed and sizzled, and began to sparkle its way across the yard towards the chicken coop.

Xiu leapt up and yelled something fierce in Chinese.

Gunther leapt off the veranda and ran towards the foxes, squealing and frothing at the mouth.

Fez leapt up and yelled, ‘NOOOOOOOO!!!!!'

Then there was an ALMIGHTY BANG. Rocks, splinters of timber, feathers, dust and dirt clouded the air.

The foxes could be heard yelping as they bolted away into the night. The chooks squawked and cackled hysterically. Flipper appeared through the dust, tumbling along the ground towards us at the speed of light. He bumped into Wes and sat there fluffing his feathers and quivering.

As the dust and smoke settled, we could see chooks running wildly around the yard. The chicken coop had a hole blown in the side. And Gunther lay on the ground, little bits of dirt and timber all over his lifeless body.

Fez ran towards him crying, ‘No, no, no, no, nooooooooo!!!!'

Wes ran behind yelling, ‘Gunther, darling Gunther!'

They threw themselves on him, sobbing uncontrollably and smothering him with kisses.

A hot, wet tear was just starting to dribble down my cheek, when Gunther groaned and opened his eyes. He squealed angrily, bit Fez on the ear, staggered to his feet, head-butted Wes and trotted off towards his bunnies. That pig is indestructible.

Well, almost. His tail had been blown off in the explosion and was left dangling on the chook yard fence, but other than that he seems fine.

Fez burst out crying again when he saw Gunther's tail.

Wes said not to worry because Gabby Woodhouse will be able to sew it back on using her first aid kit. They have stored the tail in the fridge in Mum's butter dish to keep it fresh.

What a night! I bet the Queen never has this much action at her own birthday party in Buckingham Palace.

8.20 pm

Convinced Fez that Gunther will have to live without his tail.

We buried it down behind the old pit dunny this afternoon, right next to Wendy the acrobatic sheep. Wes stuck a little cross on the grave that says:

 

RIP

Gunther's tail

May it curl with joy in Heaven

as it did on earth

 

Sophie and I said a prayer.

Peter and Xiu let off ten firecrackers, which I thought was in bad taste considering …

Fez said Gunther's tail was the most beautiful piece of pork he had ever seen, and burst into tears.

Tuesday, 12 June

Sophie, Peter and Xiu have returned to boarding school. It's not so bad though — they'll be back in less than four weeks for their mid-year break.

Gabby was really excited about Gunther's tooth marks in Fez's ear. She spent the whole bus trip this morning bandaging his head. He couldn't see a thing and walked straight into the flagpole when we arrived at school. Knocked himself clean out.

Mum had to come and take him to the doctor in Dubbo.

At lunch time, Mat painted my toenails (HUH?) then plucked my eyebrows. It was torture — both physically and emotionally — but it gave me a chance to talk to her about Sophie's idea for getting Miss McKenzie back.

Mat is so excited. She is going to wear a kilt to school each day and has promised to bring some of her mum's tartan ribbon for us both to tie in our hair. We will borrow Miss McKenzie's bagpipes from the school so that Nick can start
playing ‘My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean' every recess and lunch time. And I will try to drop comments and random facts about Scotland into everyday conversation.

We're hoping that all this stuff will brainwash Mr Cluff so that he decides to travel to Scotland in the holidays. Then he can bring Miss McKenzie back home to Hardbake Plains.

Plan B,
M
ISSION
M
C
K
ENZIE
, just
has
to work.

Wednesday, 13 June