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Poêléed foie gras, goat tagine, roquette fig salad, sherry trifle, serrano ham, lobster in ginger…..

Manon was going over her holiday menu and lists, wondering how on earth she would manage to cater for all tastes. What a houseful it was going to be.

…..scallion soy sauce, steak and kidney pie, wild mushroom soup, ostrich fillets with dauphine potatoes, rhubarb crumble….

…..Cuthbert! OY! Manon grabbed the boy as he rushed past grabbing a hot mince pie on his way to the stables.

Here, take this with you, she said, thrusting a basket towards him, crushing the pastry he was clutching, and spilling hot mince all over his hand.

AAArrgghh! MaNON! Cuthbert licked his burnt palm and glared at the cook.

Manon gave him a swift slap round the back of the head and said, That’s your own bloody fault for nicking it in the first place. Go and pick the mushrooms for the soup, and some rhubarb for the crumble, and bring me some greens, too.

Cuthbert groaned, But MaNON……..

Bugger off and do it! Ask that Bill to help you, he just went outside, hurry and you’ll catch him.

“Sand! I may have got the riddle, thought Sanso, but I didn’t get the POINT of the riddle being there in the first place!”

Becky had been flicking through the wads of typed pages as she lay on the sofa, sipping hot lemon and honey, and sneezing. The sneezing! Jeeze, the sneezing had been going on for days. What with all the sneezing and sleeping, she felt more blinked out than blinked in lately.

Sand, sand sand…… Hhmmm, Becky was wondering why the sand syncs were coming in again. She blew her nose, and picked up another wad of typewritten pages, opening at random.

“Illi was bored with the deserted island and the sand dragons. She wanted some action, some surprises, some…..well, some life!”

Wow, I’d forgotten all about Illi, thought Becky. She imagined the calm quiet beach, Illi’s island get-away. Well, before she’d conjured up the sand dragons it was quiet, anyway. Becky thumbed through the next pile of papers.

“Arona pulled out a well worn map from her bag. The map had been a gift from a traveling wizard who visited the village a few years ago. Arona had given him food and shelter and he repaid her kindness with the map.”

Well, I’ll bet that’s a clue, thought Becky drowsily, But I can’t be bothered to work it out now.

The trouble is, Becky muttered to herself, When I start this random reading thing I just can’t stop, it’s like an addiction. She sighed and opened again at random:

“The hydroplane was flying over the “Sarcastic Sea” in the Bermuda Triangle. Anita was not afraid, her parents had told her about the triangle and the different legends of people disappearing or reappearing there….”

BOUNCE!!
Play!

some writing by Twilight

Jo fixed me up a swing. It hung from the old elm tree out the front. That’s my favourite place. I just sit there rocking and thinking, and thinking and rocking. Sometimes I would weave stories or sometimes I would dream about when I am real famous. I know I will miss Jo and Elroy, but then I cheer myself up thinking how, when I am rich, I will visit them and give them money and presents and how fine that will be.

Elroy and Jo don’t know about my stories or how I love to write. I ain’t much good. I didn’t get much schooling but Elroy helped me some and then I would try and teach myself the rest. The only book we have is a big old bible. That is written in real fine words. The part I like the best is a song that Solomon wrote. I don’t know how the tune went but the words are real nice. It is real romantic too. I dream one day some man will use words like that to me. Not like those drunken slobs round these parts. Anyway, that’s how I know I am not much good, because I can’t write nothing like Solomon. But I try anyway.

Yesterday I was sitting out on the swing rocking and thinking and young Dan from the ranch over the way turned up on his horse. He looked real hot and red and sweaty. Mostly though, he is real fine looking, and I confess I have a soft spot for him. So I leapt off the swing real quick and straightened myself up and bit my lips to make them all big and red. I wanted him to see I had developed some in the last little while.

Where’s your brothers, Twi? he said to me.

I felt he didn’t seem to be giving me the appreciation I hoped for, so I did a little flick of my head and gave him the look I had been practising. I had seen the other girls do this look to the men at the saloon, and it seemed to work a treat. I gestured at the same time, real slow and casual, and I said “Out the back, Dan.” in a honey voice.

He started to ride off, like he was in a hurry. But then he stopped. My heart did a little flutter. He said to me, “You know Twi, the boys at the ranch were talking about you. And it wasn’t the sort of talk should be said about a lady”.

When Dan said that, I felt he had kicked me in the guts. I wanted to gasp. But I am plenty used to putting up with things and not showing my true feelings, so I just looked at him real cold. Then I spat. I have been practising my spitting and I can do it real good now. Nearly as good as Jo.

“I am just telling you Twi” he said. I thought he would say more, but he seemed to reflect for a moment, then shook his head and off he went in a hurry to find the boys.

Elroy and Jo looked real bothered when I saw them later. I knew when to hold my tongue so I did not give them no smart talk, and I cooked up a real fine bean dish for their supper. It was real quiet over the table that night. Truth was, I still felt mighty bad over what Dan had said.

I confess I felt some cares and sadness on me that evening when I went to bed, and found I could not sleep. I got out my diary and thought I would do some writing.
I tried to write what my name, Twilight, means to me. My real name is Tina Willemine Ivy El Disperso. I always been called Twi. Then Hank at the saloon, he says one night, “I am calling you Twilight” and that sort of caught on. It made me feel special, having my own stage name.

I started writing. Lavender blue sky bleeding into the dark. I thought that sounded quite a good start to my writing, so feeling a bit encouraged I went on some more: Twilight is a magic time. It is the time I see things that aint there, but maybe they could be. My eyes play tricks on me in the half light and I feel like I could be anyone. I feel like I could be someone who I isn’t. Twilight is the time of promises. The promise and mystery of the night to come. It is inbetween time when you know the ordinary stuff could be magic.

I stopped. I weren’t never going to be able to write like Solomon. I knew that and I felt real bad. At least I could dance though, and that was going to make me famous. But that thought could not cheer me up this night and I confess I cried myself to sleep like a baby.

It had been real hard since Momma and Poppa weren’t around no more. Twilight was four when they got shot dead, and she could hardly remember their faces now. Sometimes she had memories come to mind, this real pretty woman, brushing her hair at night. One hundred strokes, she would say, make your hair real pretty. It made her feel sad because she wished it were true.

Her brother Jo, he was only ten when they got killed. He was the one found them. They’d been shot. Jo, he took it real hard. Sometimes he’d get this far away and sad look and Twilight knew he was remembering. She wanted to hug him, but he’d be all shut off.

Anyways it was real hard to keep the ranch going after that. Her brother Elroy, he was the oldest. He was fifteen when Momma and Poppa died. So he took on being the man of the house. Sometimes he would try and boss Jo and her round, and Twilight would give him a real hard time. She was just jesting though, she knew he was just doing his best to keep the El Disperso Ranch running and she was real proud of him.

It was real hard though. Winter had been hard. They all were fearing they might have to sell the blue bull just to keep the wolves from the door next winter. Elroy, he was right pig headed though about that bull. Jo would say to Elroy “we have to sell that bull, Elroy” and Elroy would get mad and say “no ways we selling that bull Jo”. One day they nearly came to blows over that bull.

It was the only time Twilight seen Elroy get real mad with Jo. They were real close those two. They were all close really. They had to keep together when Momma and Poppa died. Uncle Bart turned up at the news of their folks dying, wanted to take the ranch, but Elroy , well he got Poppa’s rifle and chased Uncle Bart away. Elroy said he would have shot Uncle Bart had he tried any harder to take the ranch. Twilight would look in his eyes when he told the story and she knew he weren’t jesting. A few others tried to interfere also. Somehow they all stayed together and kept the ranch.

Elroy won that blue bull. It was real rare and very fine and people would pay plenty for a bull like that bull. Elroy said he won it anyhow. He turned up with it one day, and he was real quiet. Twilight saw him whispering to Jo, and Jo looked real concerned. She thought it best not to ask too many questions and so she kept what she seen to herself. But she couldn’t help but be wondering.

Twilight wanted to help take the load off her brothers so she got herself a job dancing in the saloon in town. She liked to call it performing though. Sounded more high class. She watched the other dancers till she taught herself to do it. She would hide in the saloon and watch them. That was one good thing about not having a Momma and a Poppa. She could pretty well do what she wanted. She liked dancing and she knew she were real good at it and pretty soon she was the dancer everyone wanted to see. She’d rather have a Momma and Poppa though, truth be told.

One of the other girls, Anna, she was real pretty too, got jealous and tried to get Twilight kicked out, said she was too young to be dancing . Anyhow Anna had a soft spot for Jo and so he soon sweet talked her round. Jo and Elroy were real good looking boys, and plenty of girls liked them so Twilight was pretty lucky to have them look out for her. ( Elroy said she should wear a blond wig for her dancing, like a disguise, and Twilight thought this was real funny. But she wore it anyway.) Anna got pregnant, and she said Jo was the daddy, but everyone in town knew she slept with plenty of fellows, and Jo weren’t having a bar of it. Anna got real fat with the baby and had to stop dancing and now she lived with some old fellow who was always drunk and would eye up Twilight when she was dancing. Sometimes Twilight would tease Jo about the baby and call him “daddio” and he would get real mad with her. But could be his, that’s the truth. Poor little baby but she were glad Jo weren’t stuck with that Anna.

Twilight knew the men looked at her. She knew what they were thinking and she didn’t mind. She weren’t no fool though. She had plans. She was going to be somebody, not laid up with some damn sprog like that Anna. Some of the money she earned she’d give to Elroy, some of it she put in a tin can she kept hidden.

Last night some fellow from out of town came in. A sheriff. She heard the girls whispering and giggling about him. Sheriff Ted Marshall was his name. He was real fine looking and all the girls were in a flutter hoping he would look at them. Twilight wondered what he was doing in town. She hoped it were nothing to do with that bull of Elroys.

Sanso emerged from the dark cave, squinting in the bright sunlight. He could hear a bit of a commotion going on, and while his eyes adjusted to the light, he heard a voice in his head reciting as if from a book:

« Lord Gustard Willoughby Fergusson helped his wife Floribunda onto the camel, and clamboured onto his own. Cranky and Illi were mounted on donkeys, as were Tibn Zig and Tanlil Ubt, their local guides. Three hot dusty days, and two bitterly cold nights away lay their destination: Tsnit n’Agger and the home of the legendary giant of the…… »

Sanso found himself looking into the eyes of a curious child, and presumed correctly that the child was Illi. Illi stared at the apparition in indigo blue robes, without mentioning him to the other members of her group. After some moments of wordless communication and understanding, they winked at each other.

Sanso, Illi now knew, would lead them to the giant bones.

Sanso breathed a sigh of relief to find himself once again on his own. He’d found the flighty and changable Arona hard work, if truth be told, and was rather offended that she’d marched off with the baby Yikesy without even so much as a backwards glance at him. Sanso was a bit sad to see Yikesey leaving, (or Zacquer as he chose to think of him) but he knew he’d meet him again…somewhere, someplace, sometime…..

He had to admit he was glad to see the back of that horrid cat, at any rate.

Sanso didn’t really have a plan at that point, so he just started walking, walking along the cave tunnels, trusting that he would find another portal/cave entrance soon to another adventure.

Such was his trust and superb state of allowing,that no sooner had he thought of finding a portal and a new adventure, as he rounded the very next corner, a blaze of sunshine streamed into the cave and a gust of hot desert wind.

Tina had been wondering if she wanted a child , and was considering the personal and ethical implications of this. There had been much discussion in the Reality Times recently of placing restrictions on the number of children couples could have, in order to counteract the growing population problem. This had been discussed many times over the past years, however the issues involved were becoming more pressing. People may be required to apply, and undergo suitability testing, if they wished to be parents. Areas such as any past criminal history, alcohol dependency issues, etc, may automatically exclude one from eligibility for parenthood. This was being hotly debated again, with many feeling it was violation of their personal freedom.

She asked Becky what she thought. Becky was looking in the mirror and pulling faces.

Oh doesn’t worry me. Yikes! I don’t want any horrid little rugrats anyway. Give me dogs any day. Do you like my new haircut Tina?