by Jack Lasenby
“We saw Caligula be sick once,” said Lizzie, “and when he finished, he lapped it all up again.”
“We don’t talk about such things,” said Daisy, and the rest of us rolled our eyes and gasped at Lizzie, “Oooh! How revolting! Did you just stand there and watch him? Oooh!”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Why We Started Eating Fish and Chips for Lunch, Teaching Your Grandmother to Suck Eggs, and Why Alwyn Said, “Kst! Kst! Kst!”
“Tomorrow,” Jazz said, “we’ll buy sausage rolls instead of pies. And we’ll ask Mrs Doleman if she’ll sell us some beer. Everyone reckons she’s the local dropper.”
“Sausage rolls!” the rest of us shouted. “Beer!”
“‘Wine is a mocker,’” said Daisy, as we knew she would.
“‘Strong drink is raging!’” we finished the quotation from the Bible for her, and licked our lips.
“Mocker is a wine,” Alwyn told Daisy.
But, when we asked for beer, Mrs Doleman blew us up. “Who said I sell beer! Get out of my shop!” She grabbed a big stick, jumped the counter, and chased us, but we were already halfway down the road.
For a few weeks, we ate sausage rolls for lunch, till we couldn’t stand the sight of them. So we went back to eating pies till we got sick of the sight of them again. The Bogeyman, the Boggle, and the Boggart said they were sick of the sight of them, too.
Caligula, Nero, Brutus, Kaiser, Genghis, and Boris just scoffed down whatever we couldn’t eat. Nothing upset their tummies. Or, if it did, as the little ones said, “They just threw up and started all over again.”
Then Old Freddy Hapuka opened a fish and chips shop. Jazz was going to crack another tiny splinter off the diamond, but Peter and Marie had put the change into our Post Office Savings Account, and they said we still had enough left over to buy fish and chips for the rest of our lives.
On the way home from school, one day, we lay around outside the Haunted House, rubbing our tummies which were sore from all the fish and chips we’d eaten for lunch. The Bogeyman, the Boggle, and the Boggart lay around and rubbed their tummies, too. Caligula, Nero, Brutus, Kaiser, Genghis, and Boris finished eating the fish and chips we’d left over, and then they lay around and rubbed their tummies, too.
“Old Freddy Hapuka makes mighty good fish and chips!” growled Caligula, and Nero, Brutus, Kaiser, Genghis, and Boris growled back, “Mighty good fish and chips!”
Lizzie rubbed her sore tummy and said, “What say we go to Wellington and make the Prime Minister give us back all our treasure and our six billion golden dollars.”
Peter and Marie looked at each other. “It’s not a bad idea,” Peter said.
“But how will we get there?” Marie asked. Everyone stared at Lizzie since it was her idea.
“We’ll take the Rotorua Express,” she said.
Everyone grinned. “The Rotorua Express doesn’t go that way,” we told Lizzie. She was too little to know better. “The Rotorua Express goes to Auckland,” we said.
“We’ll make it go to Wellington,” said Lizzie.
“All right,” we all said. We didn’t want to make her cry. “We’ll make it go to Wellington.”
Jessie sat up. “And when we get there,” she said, “we’ll make the Prime Minister give us the ten per cent interest, too.”
“The ten per cent interest, too!” we all cheered.
“And,” Jessie said, “we’ll tell her off for pinching our treasure.”
“Borrowed – not pinched,” said Daisy. “She borrowed it from Aunt Effie.”
“When the Prime Minister borrows money from Aunt Effie,” Jessie told Daisy, “it’s the same as pinching it.”
Peter nodded. “I still don’t understand how the Prime Minister got it off Aunt Effie so easily.”
“That’s easy,” said Lizzie. “We know how she did it.” She looked around the other little ones.
They nodded.
“It’s easy,” said Jessie. “We worked it out.”
“In the story of Mrs Grizzle,” said Lizzie, “Aunt Effie made the minister christen her Brunnhilde, didn’t she?”
“Yes.”
“And dear little Euphemia was Brunnhilde’s mother,” wasn’t she?” Jessie asked.
“Yes,” we said. “We know all that.”
Lizzie said, “And dear little Euphemia grew down while Brunnhilde grew up?”
“Yes.”
“And then Brunnhilde – who was really Aunt Effie – didn’t become a witch after all,” said Jessie. “And dear little Euphemia pinched her heroic name Brunnhilde off her, and Aunt Effie became Euphemia again, but she hates it, so she called herself Effie, and that’s why Euphemia’s The Name We Dare Not Say.”
Peter and Marie looked a bit dizzy, but they nodded and said, “I suppose that’s what happened.”
“And then,” said Lizzie, “Aunt Effie’s dear little mother Euphemia who was now Brunnhilde grew up again and used her witch’s magic to buy all the votes and become the Prime Minister!”
“And that’s why Aunt Effie had to give all our treasure and six billion golden dollars to the Prime Minister,” said Jessie. “Not because she’s her best friend, but because she’s her mother!”
We stared at Lizzie and Jessie.
“She can’t refuse her mother anything,” said Lizzie.
“You’re right,” we all said. “Brunnhilde, the Prime Minister is Aunt Effie’s mother, so Aunt Effie can’t refuse her anything.”
“But,” said Isaac, “even if she is her mother, why does she keep pinching all our money and treasure off Aunt Effie?”
“Because she’s the Prime Minister, and the Prime Minister has got power, and power corrupts,” said Colleen sententiously.
“And absolute power corrupts absolutely,” said Jazz, even more sententiously.
“Whatever we do, we mustn’t let Aunt Effie know we’ve got all that money in our Post Office Savings Account, as well as a sugarbag of diamonds,” said Marie, “or she’ll just take them off us and give them to her corrupted mother. Look at all the pies, and sausage rolls, and fish and chips, and soft drinks that just one tiny chip off just one diamond has bought. They’re very powerful, diamonds. Perhaps I’d better look after them.”
“Power corrupts,” Jazz said. “So, since I must be corrupted already, I’ll continue to look after them myself.”
“Still, we’ll buy Aunt Effie a bottle of Old Puckeroo for her birthday,” said Lizzie. “Won’t we?”
“Of course!” everyone said. “Aunt Effie’s all we have. We’ll buy her a bottle of Old Puckeroo for her birthday, and for Christmas, but we won’t tell her where we got the money from.”
“Tell her we got it from selling empty beer bottles,” said Alwyn.
“That would be dishonest,” said Marie, who never told a lie.
So we collected a few empty beer bottles, sold them, and made the lie into the truth, at least that’s what Alwyn said, and Marie looked uncomfortable.
“You’ve all forgotten something,” Daisy said one day. “If Brunnhilde the Prime Minister is Aunt Effie’s mummy, she must be our great-great aunt.”
“Or maybe our great-great-great-grandmother.”
“She can call herself what she likes,” said the little ones. “She didn’t say we were her grandchildren, that time we saved her from the Auckland Casino. She said we were her dearest friends.”
“She pinched our treasure,” said Jessie.
“We’ll see,” we told each other. “We’re not sure if we want a great-great-great-grandmother. Having Aunt Effie’s enough.”
“Anyway,” Lizzie said, “we’ll go to Wellington, and tell off the Prime Minister.”
“Are you allowed to tell off the Prime Minister?” asked the Bogeyman, who could be a bit timid, if he wasn’t feeling well. He rubbed his tummy, groaned, and lay back.
“Are you allowed to tell off your great-great-great-grandmother?” asked the Boggle.
“What if Mr Jones gives you the strap for
being rude to grownups,” said the Boggart. “He might give us the strap, too.”
We looked at each other. Caligula, Nero, Brutus, Kaiser, Genghis, and Boris looked at each other, too.
“We don’t know if you can tell off your great-great-great grandmother, but we do know you can teach your grandmother to suck eggs,” said Jessie. “Aunt Effie told me. Whenever I ask her if she’s sure our treasure’s safe with the Prime Minister, she says, ‘Go and teach your grandmother to suck eggs.’”
“We’ll take the Rotorua Express to Wellington!” everyone said. “We’ll get our treasure back off the Prime Minister, and the six billion golden dollars she pinched off Aunt Effie.
“And we’ll’ll teach her to suck eggs,” said the little ones.
“And ask her what about the ten per cent interest,” said Jessie who wanted to have the last word.
“Tsk! Tsk! Tsk!” said Daisy who always liked to have the last word.
“Kst! Kst! Kst!” said Alwyn who always had the last word.
Glossary
The rest of us got sick of Daisy being bossy and thinking she was smart, making up the glossary in the other Aunt Effie books, so we all had a go at writing it this time. It took us ages, looking up the dictionary, arguing what things mean, and asking Aunt Effie questions till she’d say, “Here, give it to me! I might as well have done it myself in the first place!” We like it when we get Aunt Effie so mad that she says that.
Achilles’ Heel A famous Ancient Greek, Achilles, could only be hurt through his heel. An infamous Ancient Greek called Paris shot him in the heel with an arrow, and Achilles died which is very sad because he was beautiful and brave, even if he was a bit up himself.
New Zealand once had a famous light cruiser called the Achilles, which helped defeat an infamous German pocket battleship called the Graf Spee, during the Second World War.
Aroint thee! “Get out of the way!”
Bevin harrow A toothed framework, made by Mr Bevin, and dragged over ploughed paddocks to break up the lumps of dirt.
binnacle The housing for a ship’s compass. Binnacle is a very handy word, if you’re looking for a rhyme for pinnacle.
blunderbuss A short gun with a large barrel that fired all sorts of bits and pieces. It’s also another name for a school bus that goes the wrong way and gets lost.
Bogeyman Everyone knows who the Bogeyman is.
Boggart Like the Bogeyman and the Boggle, but a lot scarier because there aren’t many of them around.
Boggle Like the Bogeyman, but a bit scarier.
Boston Crab, Indian Deathlock, Half-Nelson, Octopus Clamp, Granny Knot Useful wrestling holds that Aunt Effie used to put on us for being naughty.
britching Harness for a working horse.
Bugaboo A spook who lives under Aunt Effie’s enormous bed and tries to grab our ankles with his bony fingers.
bulwarks The side of a ship above the deck.
butter cooler Before everyone got fridges, you dug a hole in the garden and kept the butter down there so it didn’t go bad. Milk had to be scalded, so it didn’t go off, and you got lovely thick clotted cream to go on top of scones and jam that you ate in front of the fire on a Sunday night.
cascara sagrada A foul medicine that makes you run to the dunny.
castor oil Yellowy, runny, and stinking, the worst medicine ever invented by mingy grownups for punishing poor innocent children.
caul A piece of the amnion, a membrane-like bag the baby grows in. When it’s born, a bit of the membrane – a caul – is sometimes found on the baby’s head. Some say it’s good luck, and that the baby will never drown.
Chinese burn A torture where somebody twists the skin on your arm by wringing their hands this way and that.
Chink Rude slang for Chinese, probably about as bad as Chow.
clipped wings When you clip the tips of the longest feathers on one wing, a chook can’t take off but lurches sideways.
contumacious Jessie reckons it means something delicious, like pineapple chunks in ice-cream, but it really means stubborn.
creosote Stinky brown oil from coal tar.
crupper A strap that goes under a horse’s tail (poo!) and stops the saddle sliding forward.
dags Lumps of wool and dung. Poo! Aunt Effie tells us, “Rattle your dags!” when she wants to hurry us.
dental nurse The School Dental Service began in 1921 and was extended to all schools in 1935. Ow!
discombobulated A long lovely word that only means upset.
Double-Happy A cracker with a decent bang.
drench Liquid medicine for animals that you pour down their throats, like pouring castor oil into dear little innocent children.
D-ring A D-shaped metal ring on a saddle, handy for tying things to.
dropper Hopuruahine was a dry area – that meant it had no pub, so there were always sly groggers or droppers who sold booze illegally.
eiderdown A thick quilt stuffed with feathers, used before duvets became popular.
Eureka Stockade, Ballarat, 1854 An armed rebellion by gold miners (diggers) against unfair laws. Some people call it the beginning of democracy in Australia; some say Australia has yet to become a democracy.
fadge A sacking bale for holding wool, often a half bale.
flitch A heavy split or sawn length of timber.
galoshes Aunt Effie’s favourite footwear after gumboots. Now very fashionable in the New Zealand Unbearable Art Awards.
gig umbrella A gig was a light cart for carrying people, and a gig umbrella was bigger than a golf umbrella. The ribs, like the stiffening in Aunt Effie’s corsets, were made of whalebone.
Girls Crystal A popular comic for girls. Boys never read it, not where they could be seen.
Gulliver’s Travels The best travel book ever written. Tell your mum and dad and teacher that they’ve got to read it to you.
haka A dance which Aunt Effie claims to have made famous before the All Blacks found out about it.
halyards Ropes for raising and lowering sails.
horse pistol Not a pistol used by horses, but a large pistol carried on the front of the saddle.
ink pencil A pencil with dark lead that you licked and which made blue marks that you couldn’t get off, so your tongue and lips looked tattooed.
iron Before electricity, irons for pressing clothes were heated on top of the coal stove.
kindling Fine split wood for lighting the fire. Aunt Effie uses lots of it every morning, and guess who has to chop it….
kingaseeny A school game where you all line up and try to get past the person who’s “he”. If they catch you, you have to go “he” as well. It goes on till everyone’s caught, then the last person goes “he” for the next game. Also called kingyseeny, king of senny, king o’seni, and bull rush – but kingaseeny is the only proper name for it.
konaki A beauty sledge made from a forked tree.
Lane’s Emulsion A horrible medicine that looked like sloppy condensed milk.
Leviticus A book in the Bible, one that Daisy says is really exciting.
lip Cheek.
malediction A curse. Something you say when things go wrong.
Massey’s Cossacks Badly behaved farmers who rode to Wellington in 1913 to try and stop workers from protesting.
metalled road An unsealed road covered with small broken stones.
Mills and Boon Books of vulgar romance that are not read by real jokers.
mites Tiny eight-legged insects that make chooks scratch themselves.
Moko Man A friend of the Minister of Education, and one of the signatories of the Treaty of Waharoa.
Mooloo The bovine mascot for Waikato rugby.
morepork The native little brown owl.
multi-tasking A terrifying ability that proves the superiority of witches over the rest of the population of Waharoa.
nugget To blacken with shoe polish.
Old Puckeroo Aunt Effie’s favourite medicine which she says is not for children.
ordure A word that Daisy uses because she doesn’t like saying the real word for sheep muck or cow muck in front of the little ones.
Parrish’s Chemical Food A disgusting patent medicine which tasted like rusty railway lines.
Phantom Drummer, The A really scary wireless programme back in the 1940s. So many people dropped dead with fright while listening to it, they don’t make programmes like that any more.
Pig Latin The Maoris were the first people to discover Captain Cook, a well-known pig farmer in the old land of Waharoa. Captain Cook spoke to his pigs in Pig Latin which is still used by members of parliament when calling each other names.
pikau A sack with a couple of ropes going over your shoulders; sometimes a pikau’s a split sack slung over a horse’s back.
ploughline A handy light rope used for plough reins.
Pom Slang for British.
Post Office School Savings Account Lots of kids used to have savings books, and the postmaster used to come to school and bank your money for you each week. It was supposed to make you into good savers, but we used to take out our money for buying pies.
pounds, shillings and pence Money in the old style before dollars and cents became fashionable.
Primer One What’s now called Year One or the New Entrants class, another case of pretentious language in the Waharoa Ministry of Education.
Proverbs Another book in the Bible. Daisy reckons it’s a really good read. She would!
ragwort A yellow-flowered weed that kills stock. Alwyn says, if the Ragwort Inspector finds any on your farm, she makes you eat it.
Red Baron Baron Richthofen was a Baddy who shot down a lot of Goodies and led the German Flying Circus in the Great War.
Red Squad A shameful bunch of thugs employed by the Waharoa Police Force in the Muldoon War of 1981.
scow A large, flat-bottomed sailing ship, able to sail in shallow waters. See the Margery Daw in the other Aunt Effie books.
Scowegian Sailors’ slang for somebody from Norway, Denmark, or Sweden. Also: Scandiwegian and Scandihoovian.
