Salt and Pepper
Short Stories and Poems
Susan Sowerby
Table of Contents.
Short Stories.
Boiled Fruitcake
The Angel in the old Spring Cart
Something Different
Twist
The Pinchbeck Mystery
Relentless
The Jenuine Junkyard Dog
See also, Saltwater in the Soul, young adult/adult novel with the Seven Daughters of the Sea, ceramic mermaid illustrations by author.
https://www.susansowerby.com.au
Poems
What Ned Said.
Iraqi Sister
Bush Neighbours
Dragonfly Smoke
Vampire in a Bottle
The Search of the Fool
Boiled Fruitcake
Susan Sowerby
Humorous
‘Grandar, Grandar! Max’s dad is stealing your water!’ The wild shriek seemed to emanate from beyond the horizon’s green curve. The old farmer looked fearfully in its direction and chewed nervously on his strand of straw. Without a doubt his peace was about to be shattered. Only two forces in the universe possessed that power; his neighbour and his grand daughter.
Peace meant everything to old ‘Grandar’ Johnson. He played symphonies to his cows on an battered old record player in order to soothe them in the milking shed. The latest craze, Elvis Presley, with his wild rock n roll, was definitely not his style. Cows were peaceful creatures which is why Grandar liked to hang around them. He liked his foolish dog, Ronald, his ancient hat, his philosophy books and his clumsy round toed boots, but most of all, he liked his peace.
Soon the noisy, diminutive speck exploded into full view. Her pink nylon dress already displayed several rips and even from a distance, he could see grass stains on her knees. An eighth birthday had done nothing to make her more lady-like. Her grandfather watched as she became more of a tom-boy each time she visited. The fact that her mother continually dressed her in pink nylon frills was beyond his comprehension, especially when her one burning ambition was to become a "roarin, ridin cowgirl." He’d often complained that she attracted more trouble than Elvis did fans.
‘Grandar! My Grandar, I’m with you today,’ she handed him two rather battered and shaken slices of Grand-mem’s famous boiled fruit-cake. Without drawing another breath, the she managed, ‘Grandar, what will you do to Max’s dad? There are five rabbits over there, is that cow pregnant and why haven’t you got a horse yet?’
Grandar sighed with resignation. The mosquito had found him. Wearily, he took the peace offering. ‘How can Max’s dad be stealing my water?’ How, also, could his own wife do this to him? Grand-mem had got rid of her this time, but even two slices of her amazing fruit cake were no payment for such a cruel trick.
‘He is stealing it!’ the invader shouted, offended by his disbelief. ‘He is! he is!’
‘Show me Jube.’ said Grandar, finally sorting the right command. Her father had christened her ‘Jubilant Julie,’ which convenience had shortened to ‘Jube.’
‘Over here Grandar!’ Without hesitation, Jube plunged across the muddy swamp. She knelt down by the fence. Her pink knickers were in the air as she jammed her head down what appeared to be a hole. ‘He’s pinching it, isn’t he? He definitely is!’ her muffled yell echoed back.
Puffing profusely, Grandar caught up with her. With a sinking feeling, he inspected the long drain from which Jube lifted her eager, mud spattered face. A deep furrow had been freshly dug right up to his fence line where it was artfully hidden behind some bushes.
‘Well begger me, he is too!’ He scratched his head with concern. Water to his farm was as blood to his body.
‘What will you do about it Grandar? What will you do, what will you do?’
‘Well I don’t know, Jube. Perhaps we’d better sit down and think about it.’
‘That’s not doing something. Why don’t we blow him up - his horrible kid, too.’
‘What have you got against Max?’ Grandar asked, surprised.
‘Lots,’ Jube revealed mournfully as she washed her face in the spring pond and wiped it on her dress. ‘I saw him throwing baby rabbits against a tree today and I asked for one as a pet, but he said, ‘Rack off, squib, they’re vermin, like you.’I waited till he put a board on the bramble-berries and climbed up so he could get all the best, then I sneaked up and pushed him in. He chased me and when I got caught in the fence he spat in my face. He’s a maggot, and now his rotten dad is stealing your water.’ She bounced up and down like a boxer, and smacked her fist into her hand. ‘Let’s fight ‘em Grandar, let’s fight.’
Heart of a lion, thought Grandar, applauding her David and Goliath stance, but a wispy eight year old girl and an elderly man against a champion ex boxer and his very aggressive teenage son, did not hold the best odds.
‘No,’ he grinned, ‘Lets be clever. Brains are often greater than brawn.’
‘What’s brawn?’ asked Jube, equally unsure of what brains meant.
‘Strength, muscles, force.’
Considering herself to be low on all the mentioned attributes, Jube looked at her Grandfather with trusting eyes, but he just kept chewing away on his straw. After a while, she volunteered impatiently, ‘We could put a bucket full of cer-ment where the water drains out.’
‘Wouldn’t work,’ grunted Grandar, ‘the ground’s swampy and my water will just seep around it into that big ol’ drain Ed Ransom’s dug. Very sly! He wants me off my little patch. He wants my house for Max, too. My farm’s the best in the district. I won a prize for it once,’ he added proudly.
‘How dare he do this to my Grandar!’ Jube shouted, clenching her fists fiercely, ‘he’s a bad man!’ She gagged on ‘baaaad’ as though something revolting had stuck in her throat.
Her grandfather glanced at her warily. It had never been a safe thing to be thought ‘bad’ by Jube.
‘Durned hombres,’ she muttered dangerously, holding her hands at her sides like a cowboy ready for the draw.
‘No Yankee movie lingo around here Jube. We can’t shoot them, we need a real solution.’
‘But we’ll git ‘em, won’t we? Tell us a plan Grandar, Tell us, tell us!’
‘Now look here young lady, I need time to cook it up.’ He had no idea what he could do. ‘I certainly don’t want to spend my holiday nest egg on a large dam I don’t need.’ The spring pond was fine for his small thirty acre holding. The rest had been sold to his ungrateful neighbour some years before and he was saddened to see that land degenerate.
‘How long does an idea take to cook Grandar?’ Jube wanted to know.
‘About as long is a piece of string.’
‘What?’
‘Well, a piece of fish might take five minutes, while a really good boiled fruit cake can take as much as four hours.’
Jube thought for a moment. ‘Don’t like fish. I’d rather have boiled fruit cake.’
‘Then fruitcake it is.’ Grandar sighed, relieved to be let off the hook if only for a moment. It irritated him that no clear solution presented itself. It irritated him even more to think he had already fought for his land in the war and believed he should not have to do so again. He was further irritated when he admitted to himself that he did not want to lose the tremendous faith and adoration his grand daughter heaped on him. If he didn’t come up with something, his pride would be seriously dented.
She burst out, ‘What are you thinking Grandar? Are you thinking? What is it? Tell me, tell me!’
Grandar looked up to see her balanced precariously on a corner post, sharp barbed wires leading from it in four directions. She dance
d on one foot, then the other in an awkward, angular kind of ballet. ‘Get down, Jube, if you want to live to reach womanhood. Heaven help those men is all I can say!’
The bull in the paddock behind her watched with a jaundiced eye and pawed his territory wrathfully. ‘For goodness sake, get down, you’re giving me the willies,’ he shouted.
‘Willies? How many willies can one man.’
‘Jube, get off!’ he yelled, ‘though perhaps you are living proof that we can’t go before our time.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘I shouldn’t tell you this, but a friend of mine who flew a bomber during the war was shot down in France. He crashed his plane along some telegraph wires to break the fall. As he hung upside down underneath with his foot caught in the fuselage, fourteen German bombers flew over and used him as target practise. Not one of them hit him. He regards that as proof we can’t go before our time.’
‘No it isn’t. It proves that we won the war because the Germans couldn’t shoot straight!’ Satisfied with her own explanation, she leaped, landing with her face dangerously close to a large green cow plop.
‘Grandar!’ she squealed, ‘Look, a ‘shroom. I squashed it wiv me face!’
‘That’s right. For goodness sake, go pick mushrooms!’ At least it would give him time to think. What could happen to her doing that? ‘Er, not in the bull paddock,’ he added quickly.’
She accepted the mission with gusto. Ronald made crazy circles around her, appearing ecstatic to be in the presence of someone as idiotic as himself. She returned in far too little time, her frilly knickers showing beneath her bunched up dress which was laden with every kind of fungi she could lay hands on - plump field mushrooms, bloated over ripe green puff balls and a smattering of psychedelic psilocybin.
‘We’ll have to sort these for dinner,’ Grandar warned her, ‘They aren’t all edible.’ With every reject, he desperately racked his brain for a viable water idea. The bunch of psilocybin, he quickly cast aside.
‘Why can’t I eat these?’ Jube retrieved one and held it up by its knobbly stork.
‘You can’t eat it because you’ll grow fluorescent hairs out of your eyeballs!’
Jube considered this for a while and decided to err on the side of caution. ‘Can you eat one Grandar, so I can see what it looks like?’
Just then a roar echoed across the valley. Ed Ransom was crossing the swamp on his brand new tractor with Max balancing on its tray. He was crossing the line too. ‘Git orf the land ya useless old bastard.’
‘A Merry Christmas to you too!’ Grandar shouted back in as genial a tone as he could muster. More questionable language followed.
Jube joined in with a cheeky, ‘and a happy New Year as well, so there!’
Ronald punctuated her greeting with sharp barks, then, he crouched down and growled. The men were carrying something in a knapsack. His nose twitched as the wind bore it some very interesting information.
Jube and Grandar watched as Ed proudly parked his shining farm vehicle near their dividing fence.
‘He’s making sure we admire that new fandangled thing,’ muttered Grandar.
Ed patted the tractor lovingly, then walked with his son to the farthermost end of the drain. They opened the knapsack and drew out what appeared to be several sticks of gelignite.
Grandar’s eyes narrowed. ‘So they’re going to blast a dam to receive my water.’
‘Varmints!’ growled Jube, trying hard to squint like a cow-boy.
Carefully, they dug into the bank at the edge of the swamp, and placed their prize in it. Ronald growled even louder. He’d never liked Max.
‘Fetch!’ muttered Grandar wickedly. He didn’t, for a moment believe that Ronald would obey since he hardly ever had before, but to his surprise, the rogue was off like a gunshot.
‘He thinks it’s what Grand-mem gives him as a treat!’ Jube squealed with laughter, ‘those bungers look exactly like a bunch of hot dog sausages.’
Ronald arrived over the bank just as Ed and Max lit the fuse and beat a hasty retreat. They froze as Ronald’s strong jaws closed around the string and he reefed the bundle free. Ed had made the mistake of dipping his home made explosive in some old tallow his wife kept in the tin at the back of their stove. He’d had the idea it would keep out any seepage from the swamp. The fat was not fully rendered down, so the tantalising smell of sausage still lurked therein. They chased the renegade Ronald, cursing, trying to stamp out the fuse with a dance macabre,
‘Stop the bastard!’
‘Call yer dog!’
‘No, don’t call yer dog!’
But Ronald was too fast. Flattening himself under the fence, he made it to safety, his prize clutched firmly in his drooling mouth.
Ronald - DROP IT!’ roared Grandar from a little way up the hill. But of course he knew he wouldn’t. Jube, ever wanting to be helpful, rushed to the pump-house where the dog lowered his head stubbornly.
‘No, Jube. For God’s sake run,’ bellowed Grandar, beside himself with horror, but Jube was as stubborn as Ronald.
‘Do what Grandar says!’ his self appointed sergeant barked, glad to force obedience on one of lesser rank. Picking up a stout stick, she gave Ronald a resounding whack over his spotted nose. ‘Drop it, mutt!’ He howled and let go, leaving for home and mother, suffering badly from the shock of having obeyed twice in a day.
‘For God’s sake run,’ wailed Grandar, searching for words she’d understand. ‘That thing will blow your silly head right off your shoulders. Run. Don’t worry about me.’
Jube ran, but towards Grandar and attempted to push him up the hill with all her might.
‘Geddown!’ he bawled at the top of his voice.
A bang to shame any bang ever heard in the valley rattled windows for miles around. Jube and Grandar hit the ground, Jube lying protectively over her precious Grandfather like a match-stick trying to cover a log. Another all resounding bang sent the cows stampeding as a huge pall of flame burst skywards. The forty-four gallon drum of fuel lifted the pump-house roof into a nearby gum tree and set it dramatically alight.
Max and Ed, already half way up the opposite hill and still running, were alarmed by the power of their home made job. When they glanced back, they were mortified to see burning debris from the gum tree raining down on their pride and joy. The tractors’ vinyl seat cover bubbled and flared skywards to join the conflagration.
‘Holy sh…!’ screamed Ed.
They turned and raced down-hill towards it, hollering and frantically waving their arms as though they expected Grandar and Jube to do something. When they saw the upset jerry-can on the back, furtively leaking fuel into the tray, their direction changed abruptly once again. Another loud report, obscenely amplified through the tractor’s exhaust pipe hastened them on their way.
Cautiously, Grandar and Jube sat up, brushed themselves off and did a quick check to make sure all body parts were still attached.
As the dust cleared, they looked down on a great gulf where the rustic pump house once clung to the bank. The spring pond had been extended by several yards, the water already seeping into its new premises.
Grandar let out whoop, ‘The scoop on my old tractor will quite easily rearrange that rubble to make a very viable dam.’
Jube gazed at her Grandfather with astounded admiration. ‘Wow Grandar. That was one boiled fruitcake of an idea! However did you cook that one up?’
‘Heh, heh, heh,’ Grandar tipped a few clods off the brim of his hat. His grin would have put the Cheshire cats’ to shame. ‘Piece of cake!’ he chuckled
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