Neville the Less

by Robert Nicholls

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  Terrible Bill stepped into the Home Country driveway. He’d spent some luxurious moments raking at the soft flesh of the paperbarks. But they weren’t the trees he was dreaming of. Those trees were on the other side of the house. The hard-barked, many-branched bottlebrush. He could hear the Flying Foxes there. He’d never taken on a Flying Fox before. They were always awake and screechingly active. In the past, invariably, either he or the Fox had backed down. Maybe tonight would be different.

  He stopped and lay down in the driveway. Something was odd. Something smelled funny.