Story by Sandshoe

BREAKING NEWS: Sister Yvonne gets a new job.

Foodge was up early with the Guide out of the middle of The Clarion.

Flat Out Like A Lizard Drinkin’s tipped to run better than she did in Cawfield’s The Crescent Moon he read out aloud.

Paper Roses was playing on the juke box.

P-a-p-e-r R-o-s-e-s his Uncle Merv was crooning in the way someone

mopping does. A-l-w-a-y-s m-a-k-e m-e b-l-u-e. Foodge set his uncle straight.

“Uncle Merv, the word’s cry.”

“It’s my spin on it. P-a-p-e-r R-o-s-e-s A-l-w-a-y-s m-a-k-e m-e b-l-ooo-ooo…

Ok Foodge, if he’s singing he’s happy mopping. One more ‘p’ than moping. We don’t want the right words. Nobody pays Merv a lick of sauce so blue is fine. Blue makes the sun shine for Merv. Cry implies mopping with only one ‘p’. We can afford the second ‘p’.

Arch the Accountant from Whizzzzzz Accountancy dropped in, always on the fly, Arch the Hell’s Angle who got ambitious to help the petite

bourgeoisie. It was on his t-shirt.

“Where’s Angler and Gib?”

“Cannot rightfully say, Mr Arch. They’re waiting, I know that much.”

Merv was contemplating Nurse Barbara as if he had never seen her before. His glasses steamed up from the steaming hot water he poured into the mop bucket.

“Why?’

Now condensing steam was running off Merv’s glasses and leaving him a

pane of opportunity. He had bought an especially large pair of glasses for this very purpose of seeing. “Pres Nurse Barbara,” Merv said.

“Yes” she answered mistaking Merv’s declarative as precedent to a summative.

Merv said they were going to Bondi. Nurse Barbara pointed out to Merv straight off going is not waiting, not with the other.

“It’s true, Nurse Barbara!” Sister Yvonne had slipped out of the local vet surgery. Everybody was getting out and about. Yes, Sister Yvonne had slipped unexpectedly and as suddenly into a new career and the old veterinarian’s surgery, the Pigs’ Knob, Sister Yvonne, back from the United States of America, a Veterinariae Medicinae Doctor.

She was carrying a ladder. “Chooks,” she said in passing, “Angler and Gib are going to Bondi. They’re waiting at Hornsby.”

‘They’re out of town? Is that where it is?”

“That’s for sure,” Merv was witness. “Went south. Good as flew.”

Therese Trouserzoff made a surprising appearance on the street pavement. She strummed a uke and she sang, “Why,” she couldn’t help

her important self, “don’t they go to Bondi if that’s where they’re going instead of waiting at Hornsby?”

Someone ought give Therese the bestest job ever. She has us all to support. Retro.

Arch shrugged his craggy, leather-clad shoulders. “You blokes ever been before?” He meant the femmes as well. Merv was shoo-ing him, neverthelessness out the back door pronto tonto. “There’s nothing in Horns…” Arch’s words faded and Merv came back in the front door. He was carrying held up before him a tourist promotion package.

“LOOK!” he said, “Fallen off the back of a truck! At the front door! Lying on the ground! Even a map! Good money in this sort of publishing! How to get to Hornsby! Up and offed they did. Angler and Gib.”

GO TO HORNSBY! DON’T WAIT!

WAIT UNTIL YOU GO TO BONDI!