Dunger Read Online Free PDF

asks.
    â€œAntibiotics,” I tell her, and I drop some in her lap.
    â€¨
    Â 

 
    That is the worst thing that has ever happened to me, so extremely horrible that there are no words in the world to describe my feelings, and it’s not over yet, I mean I could become ill with some fatal disease and I can’t even use my phone. How could she do that? Make pancakes from flour poisoned by mice! I’ll never forgive her as long as I live, and that might not be very long. Will ate only two pancakes. I had five.
    They had a huge fight about it, Grandpa and Grandma, calling each other names like dimwit and bonehead. Eventually, Grandpa helps her take the old food outside, and Will digs a hole for it behind the garage. After that, Will and I have the job of taking everything out of containers and tipping it down the hole – flour, sugar, split peas, rice, baking powder, sundried tomatoes, golden syrup. Heaps of stuff, all stinking of mice.
    â€œWhy don’t they just put it out in the rubbish?” I ask Will.
    â€œNo rubbish collection,” he says.
    â€œWhat do you mean, no rubbish collection?”
    â€œStupid question, Melissa. It’s not city living, haven’t you noticed? They have to recycle things. Organic stuff gets buried. Containers get washed and used again. Paper starts the fire. Cans and plastic are washed and stored in a sack for the next excursion to the Havelock dump.”
    â€œThat is so primitive!” I shake out a bottle of tomato sauce, two years past its use-by date. It plops into the hole on top of some old tins of something unnamed and disturbs a small cloud of bluebottle flies. “This isn’t a holiday, Will. We’re living in some kind of useless TV survival programme.”
    â€œI got the water running again,” he says. “That’s useful.”
    â€œYou helped Grandpa fix the water.”
    â€œNo. He didn’t do anything. I did it.”
    â€œLiar!”
    â€œI did it all myself, Melissa, just ask him. So what were you doing while I was working up the hill? Painting your eyebrows? You knew Grandma couldn’t see diddly-squat. You could at least have checked the flour before she cooked it.”
    The mere mention of flour goes directly to my stomach and sends a cold shiver through me. I refuse to argue with my brother and I walk inside to scrub the pantry shelves.
    It’s hot in the kitchen. Grandpa has the fire going in the stove and the water is already warm. I fill the bucket, add detergent and pine disinfectant, then look under the sink for rubber gloves. Of course, there aren’t any. My nails will be ruined. But I do find a scrubbing brush, wooden with stiff bristles, and I scrub like heck all over the shelves and the sides and the doors of the cupboards. Mouse poo is tucked like seeds in the corners and I get every bit out and yes, my purple damson nail polish does get chipped, my hands get pink, and I have to change the water twice because it is so filthy. Scrub with brush. Wipe with cloth. Scrub, wipe, scrub, wipe. In the end those cupboards are extremely clean, even smelling clean. I empty the bucket and dry my hands that are so red, I’m not kidding, they look like they’ve been in a house fire.
    Grandma gives me a tube of cream. “Rub that on, Melissa. Good job. Now we can put the groceries away.”
    I personally wash the plastic flour-container twice and sniff. No smell. But just to be sure I wash it a third time, drying it with a clean towel. I open the new bag of flour and pour it in, pure white, rising in a fine cloud as it flows.
    Grandma says, “Oven’s hot. Want to make some scones?”
    I shake my head.
    â€œWhy not?” She laughs. “Good flour.”
    â€œI don’t know how to make scones.”
    â€œWhat’d you say?”
    â€œI’ve never made scones!” I mumble.
    â€œNothing to it, girl,” she says. “Get the mixing bowl off that