Granny

 

by Michal Reiben

lemon tea

My mother-in-law, Granny as everyone calls her does her best to eat healthy foods and she also belongs to a nudist club. We live way out in the country in a cottage that has a large overgrown garden full of tangled thickets and tendrils growing in every direction. Sometimes when Granny comes to visit us and the sun happens to be shinning she’ll drag a battered deck chair way back to the end of our garden and place it hidden between tall stinging nettles and the bordering beech hedgerow. Then she peels off her clothes and plumps her naked bulky body down into the deck chair.  

Our next-door neighbor is a retired colonel who is a keen gardener and a gentleman. Whenever he meets you he lifts his hat and says, “Good morning or good afternoon,” depending on what time of the day it is and then he goes on to discuss the weather. Every day he tends to his garden lovingly, and nature yields herself to his tender touch and attention. As a result, he has neat raised beds of vegetables and fruit bushes.

Today Granny is spending some time in our cottage. Since the countryside is bathed in brilliant summer sunlight she is taking this opportunity to sunbath. She can feel the sunshine wrap her body in warm rays. It’s so pleasant. Her eyelids flutter as they close. She appears to be sleeping.

On the other side of the hedge, the Colonel with prunes in hand and gloves on is attending to his raspberry bushes. He wrenches vigorously at a stubborn weed, finally, it comes out by its roots,  goes sailing over the beech hedgerow, and lands on Granny’s ample bosom. Granny leaps into the air and shrieks in wild panic. The Colonel peeps over the hedgerow to see who is shrieking and upon seeing the naked image before him his mind reels. He turns bright red and stammers, “I-I-I’m so-so sorry madam.” Then he hastily makes a retreat.

When I hear Granny’s scream, I’m worried something awful has happened to her. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up and my pulse quickens. I bolt out of the cottage and down the weedy garden path towards Granny and find her standing by the deckchair, clutching her clothes to her naked body and looking bewildered.

“Granny, what happened?”

“Your neighbor threw some dirt on me.”

“The Colonel? He was probably gardening to energetically. I’m sure he didn’t do it on purpose.”

“He did apologize but it was very embarrassing!”

As I am helping Granny back into her clothes I begin to giggle through my nose and shortly I find myself writhing with laughter.

“Sorry, Granny but I can’t help thinking about how surprised the Colonel must have been?” I splutter.

Granny who loves a good laugh and has laughter lines from her gift of smiling easily tips back her silver head and joins me. Together we howl with laughter until tears roll down our cheeks and we can hardly breathe.

 

Sleepy Heads

by Michal Reiben

cocoa made with water and no sugar 

It’s seven-thirty and as none of us are tired, we are standing on the landing outside our dormitory. Instead of pajamas, we are all dressed in underpants. It’s one of Matron’s ways of saving on laundry since most of us wet our beds. I scrutinize my roommates; Doppy, is clumsy and has a big head, Matchstick Legs is skinny, Chompy hardly ever talks, Ginger Nut has bright ginger curly hair, Little Pat’s face is speckled with freckles, and as for me, Maggie, I’ve always got scabs on my knees and splinters in my hands. As usual, we are all feeling hungry and so our talk naturally turns to the subject of food.

“We, Chompy and me, managed to break into the basement store-room by way of its tiny window. We were so disappointed to discover it was full of apples, nothing else. We gorged on apples until eventually, we began to throw up!” reveals Ginger Nut.

“The older boys found some rusty sardine tins on a rubbish heap.  Later they all became sick because the sardines had gone off and they ended up in a hospital,” pipes up Doppy.

“What treatment were they given in hospital?” asks Little Pat.

“They had to have their stomachs pumped!” 

The image of the older boys ‘having their stomachs pumped’ in our young minds is so awful that it completely dries up our conversation. 

We are close to the small back staircase; whenever one of the boys feels the urge to pee he swaggers over to the staircase and pees down the banisters then as he returns he gives a gleeful guffaw!

We all come from broken homes however this is a subject we never discuss. Mouths begin to gape in yawning. Gradually as each child becomes so drowsy that their eyes begin to close and open like elevator doors, they shuffle off into the dormitory, topple into bed, and succumb to the call of sleep.

Leaving Pinehurst

by Michal Reiben

mint tea

Anna’s beloved grandparents, her plump grandmother, and her bony grandpa find her in the common room.

She’s delighted at their unexpected visit, rushes up to them and hugs them.

“Granny, did you bring me something to eat?” she immediately asks.

Her granny groans at the effort of bending over and searching through a bulging carrier until she finally produces two large bars of halva from out of it. Anna quickly snatches the halva bars from her, rips the paper off one of them, and gorges herself. She can’t contain herself because as usual, she is hungry. She loves Pinehurst but because of the rationing, ever since WW11 they are frugal with food. As she greedily starts gulping down the second bar, her grandparents watch on with expressions of disdain on their faces however she pretends not to notice. She finishes off the two large halva bars within a few minutes.

“Thanks, Granny that was so delicious.”

Anna’s granny begins to shuffle around nervously and seems to have something on her mind. After a while, she stops in front of her, looks her straight in the eyes, inhales a deep breath, and says, “Anna, I’ve got something important to say to you,” she takes another deep breath.  “Your father and Andrea are getting married soon. You’re a lucky girl to be having such a wonderful stepmother.”

Anna feels stunned by this news but keeps silent. Her brain stirs in panic. She knows her grandparents are thrilled, for at long last they will have a daughter-in-law, although, for her, this is not good news; she doesn’t want a stepmother. Also in her heart, she realizes that from now on her life will change radically and she’ll be taken out of Pinehurst school. Anna looks up at the enormous window of the common room.  It consists of multiple little window panes joined up together. Quite a few of the panes are broken. If a kid is caught ‘red-handed’ breaking a window he is made to pay for it out of his pocket money but on the whole the culprit remains unknown. She dreads the thought of going out into the world that exists beyond that window, for she knows that out there she’ll be a misfit. Consumed with grave misgivings and a heavy heart she slowly accompanies her grandparents out of the school building and towards the gravel driveway where their car is parked. Thoughts flutter around inside her head like a trapped butterfly. “What will happen to me now, what sort of life lays ahead of me?” 

The Haunted Hollow

Michal Reiben

Snake-bite cocktail 

The day is bathed in sunlight, and sweet smells of spring fill the air as Doppy and I are strolling to the crater which we kids call, The Haunted Hollow. The path we are following runs through a tangle of woodland and tinder, on our way, we also have to cross a large sewer. We carefully tip-toe endeavoring not to get our soaks and sandals wet in the polluted, foul-smelling water, although Inevitably they do become somewhat damp. Soon we arrive at the top of the crater, on its steep slopes Rhododendron bushes grow in thick perfusion. We slide down in between the web of bushes and knotted roots to the bottom of the crater which is overgrown with a mass of bamboo plants.

“Let’s build Wigwams,” I suggest.

“Go ahead, I’m tired. I’ll just pick one of those Giant Rhubarb leaves and go to sleep underneath it.”

With so saying Doppy leans over the snake pit and picks one of the gigantic leaves which grow up from inside it. The leaf looks like a giant’s hand with stubby fingers. He places the leaf upside down on the ground.

“Be careful a snake doesn’t bit you,” I said,

Doppy looks around and finally picks up a pathetic looking stick from off the ground.

“If a snake shows up I’ll fight it off with this stick,” he said and waves it around. 

Then he slowly crawls underneath the leaf until only his feet are poking out.

I busily set about building a wigwam, cut bamboo sticks and branches from the Rhododendron bushes with a knife I’d previously stolen from the dining room. After a while I pause from my project for a few minutes, glance over at Doppy’s leaf, notice it’s been turned over, and that he is nowhere in sight.

“Doppy, Doppy,” I shout.

He doesn’t answer.

All of a sudden I see a large grey snake with black zigzag patterns along its back, appear over the top of the snake pit. As it slithers in coils along the ground, it’s scaly skin shines in the sunlight, and its black tongue flicks in and out of its mouth. In a panic, I flee with my heart racing. I scramble up the crater’s wall, pull at roots and branches. I am scratched but don’t feel a thing.

The awful picture of Doppy being devoured by snakes in the snake pit conjures itself up in my mind.

By the time I arrive back at school I’m panting and my ribs are heaving up and down. I immediately make my way to the kitchen, for its Doppy’s safe-haven. He is the only child Matron allows into her kitchen, save for her children, because he is bullied by older kids. I stand at the door and peer in, and am overjoyed to see him placidly sitting on the kitchen floor munching a crust of bread. The burden that had been weighing me down evaporates.

“Doppy, why didn't you tell me you were leaving?”

“You were busy and I was bored.”

“An enormous snake slid out of the snake pit. I was petrified it might have bitten you.”

“You needn’t have worried, I’d have whacked at it with this stick,” he said banishing his little, useless stick at me.

A Fun Day

by Michal Reiben

home-made lemonade

It is one of those spring days with warm rays of the sun. I walk to my favorite tree the majestic Wellingtonia tree, climb up its branches, sit in his great arms, and dangle my feet, watching. I love trees they become my friends. After a while, I climb down and amble over to a field where horses are grazing. They begin to run and I run with them. A soft wind strokes my face and tousles my hair. At the end of the field a stream winds, it looks welcoming, refreshing. I sit on the stream’s bank. It’s pleasant here, roots reach down to the water and from above rays of light filter down through the trees leaves. The air is laced with the fragrance of moss and damp leaves. Further upstream is the leaky dam we kids had once built. It holds back enough water to form a pool in which we’d swim. Otters also swim in the pool and there are leeches which we’d catch and keep in jars. I catch a glimpse of two Kingfisher birds as they fish. They have vibrant plumage, bright blue underparts, and bright lower underparts. I hardly breathe, so as not to spook them. When they take flight I get up to leave. Brush wet leaves and dirt from the back of my trousers and wander back to school. I join some other kids on the back lawn which is speckled with daisies. We make daisies chains and search for four-leafed clovers.

There is a sudden downpour of rain. We are delighted. Strip off our clothes accepts for our underpants. Stretch out on the large flagstones laid out between the school and the scraggly lawn. It’s wonderful to feel the rain pelting down on our bodies, while from beneath we feel heat evaporate from off the flagstones keeping us warm.