Short story

I wrote this story for my grandson, Menzies (Ming), about twenty years ago, when he was five or six. Every word is true.

Menzies loved to think.

His teacher thought it was wonderful.

His mother didn’t.

It made him ask too many questions.

……………..

Menzies lived on a farm with his mum and his dad, Anthony.

He called his dad Anthony, because that’s what his mum called him.

Doc and Inky lived there too.

They were sausage dogs.

Inky had white eyebrows.

She was old.

But Doc was black all over, even his eyebrows.

Inky was Doc’s mum.

That was funny because they were exactly the same,

Except for the eyebrows.

……………

Menzies wondered about everything.

Sometimes his mum said, “Oh Menzies! For goodness sake!”

And sometimes his dad said, “Go and ask your mum.”

Menzies did his best thinking on the loo. Naked.

He could think better if he was naked…..on the loo.

“Mum, come here. I want to ask you something.”

She’d have to sit on the floor outside the loo

While he wondered about things.

“Why do I have hands?” he’d say.

“Does poo come down from my head or up from my toes?”

“Are Pokemons real?”

“I want them to be real.”

“That’s my boy!” said Anthony.

………………

Sometimes he wondered while Mum was driving him to school

in the little red bullet.

Anthony said it was like a bullet ‘cause she drove it so fast.

One day on the way home from school

the car drove through a thick white mist.

He wondered if Digimon was true.

…………….

His teacher, Miss Lindy, said they were having a Grandparents’ Day soon.

They had to write invitations.

She gave them green paper with spaces for the words.

She told them, “On the top, you write, “Dear Nanna or Pop or Grandpa

or whatever you call your grandparents.

Menzies thought and thought.

He knew Grandma lived in a house with red bricks,

but what about Grandad?

Grandad’s picture was on Grandma’s bedroom wall.

His face was big and smiling.

Grandma said he died.

Menzies wondered where he was.

Mum said he was her dad.

She said he used to do a funny walk like Charlie Chaplin, that made her laugh.

She said he talked on the radio with a posh voice.

She said he used to be a teacher, then he stopped so he could fix people’s backs.

He had to go to Canada for a long time, to learn how.

She said he was big and tall, but not as big as Uncle Mark.

He’s HUGE!

…………………

Menzies wondered why his grandad died.

Did he live in heaven?

He’d be too big to sit on a cloud, ‘cause he’d fall through.

If he got too close to the sun he might melt.

Did he fix people’s backs in heaven?

Uncle Brin fixes people’s backs now.

………………

Mum works at the university.

She teaches big people.

She doesn’t fix people’s backs.

Sometimes she takes Menzies when there’s no school.

School’s OK but university’s better.

Menzies could do stuff in Mum’s office, and discuss things with her friends.

Some of them wondered about things too.

He liked to pull a chair over so he could climb up and watch the big people having school.

There was a little glass window high up in the door,

and if he stool on tiptoe, he could see inside the whole room.

Once there was a really pretty teacher with big hair and big boobs.

He liked watching her.

Anthony said, “That’s my boy!”

………………….

Some nights Mum took Menzies outside to look at the stars.

Once, the moon was broken.

It was just like a tiny fingernail.

The next time she took him out at night, the moon was huge!

He thought Anthony had fixed it.

“That’s my boy!” said Anthony.

………….

Menzies liked his friends to come over.

One day his mum asked nine at once.

She said it was to get it over in one go.

After a while Menzies wished they would all go home.

“I wish they’d be dead,” he whispered to his mum.

……………….

It was good living on a farm.

One of the cows was called Reject.

It was big and old and when Menzies was little, Dad would lift him up

so Reject could suck his fingers right up to his elbows!

“That’s my boy,” said Anthony.

………………

Menzies could nearly touch the sky on his trampoline.

Higher and higher he’d fly with his Pokemon friends whooping beside him.

They’d laugh and shout and poke him in the ribs.

In the summer, Menzies turned into a fish and swam laps under water in the round pool.

He didn’t know how to do it on top yet.

Sometimes his fingers got all wrinkly if he stayed in too long.

Anthony said, “That’s my boy!”

………………..

Menzies didn’t believe in eating.

Anthony said it must be against his religion.

Even after he was born in the hospital, he wouldn’t suck.

The fierce nurses pushed and pulled till his little mouth was shaped like a bee sting,

but nothing worked.

He just didn’t like it.

When they tried bottles he just chucked them over the side.

Everyone told his mum what to do.

“Try this. Try that.” But nothing worked.

He just didn’t believe in food.

The doctor said he’d be OK when he was bigger.

One day when he was four, he ate twelve Wheatbix!

“That’s my boy” said Anthony.

………………

Mum decided Menzies needed to play lots of sport.

She took him to soccer and sometimes he kicked the ball very far.

Once he forgot which way, and kicked a goal for the other side!

She took him to Tai Kwan Do, but when Greg quit he didn’t want to go any more.

Next it was basket ball.

There was a hoop on the pepper tree near the wash house.

Bang! Bang! Bang! He practised,

Anthony said, “That’s my boy.”

…………………

Sometimes when Grandma came over for Sunday roast, they all played Uno.

Menzies had to stand beside Anthony to show him what to do.

Grandma loved to play Old Maid, but she always screamed when she got the Old Maid card.

Menzies giggled.

She also liked to play Croquet in the back yard with all the cousins.

…………………………

Menzies sat at his desk in school, pushed his tongue between his teeth,

held his pencil just so, and wrote on his green paper,

“Dir Gaandad, I’m soree yew diyed”

The End.