Work Text:
Getting ready is always a process. For most, it’s get clean, get dressed, eat breakfast, and leave. For me, however, it is much more complicated.
I wake very early, the earliest out of everyone in my house, except for Fairy. Fairy is always awake before me, but I don’t think Fairy ever sleeps.
Reaching under my bed, I collect the assortment of pans I have hidden and bang them together to wake the assorted animals that have wandered into my room through the night. I have no idea how they get in; I always leave my windows closed but must really love how cosy it is.
Then I have to bargain for my socks with Bill. Bill is a sneaky little troll that has taken residence under my staircase. He usually returns them with the promise of honey and vegemite sandwiches.
When I have my socks, I can get dressed for the day and put my hair up into a very fancy hairstyle. Definitely the fanciest hairstyle out of all my friends, I don’t know anybody else who uses as many bowties or flowers as I do.
After that, I have to make a large pot of tea for the Dragon sleeping in the roof. She’s run out of smoke to blow fire so she’s always coughing and needs tea made of white windmill flowers and plant bon bons. She says they’re tears though I don’t know whose tears they are. I think she is trust trying to be scary but she acts more like an oversized possum than a terrifying lizard with wings.
After all my morning jobs are done, I can finally walk to school. This is usually the quietest part of my day, as long as I can avoid the singing hedges. Sometimes they don’t sing and sometimes they sing so loud it feels like cicadas are sitting in my ears.
Flora has found, that living with a six-year-old daughter comes with many nuances. See Finni has a tendency to create worlds around her. The most recent development is sleeping with a pile of stuffed animals, only to kick them off the bed in her sleep and then ‘wake’ them up with a makeshift alarm consisting of a metal pan symphony in the tune of a crashing train.
I try to take the pans back but somehow; she finds them again and stashes at least three under her mattress for the next morning. I make sure to grab the honey and vegemite sandwich she leaves in the laundry before the rats can get to it. Then I make sure Finni has some breakfast and carry a small bowl of porridge and bacon upstairs to my mother, Fausta. Mother has been living in the renovated attic while she recovers from a nasty bout of tongue cancer. She still has a smoker’s cough that she can’t seem to shake no matter how much Buddha’s Tears tea Finni makes for her, or how many blankets I wrap her up in.
For some reason, Finni insists that Fausta is a dragon, no matter how many times I’ve tried to explain what a smoker’s cough is; and Mother doesn’t help, always playing along with Finni’s stories and make-believe situations. She’s even convinced her that I’m a Fairy! The amount of stuff I have to squeeze in a day is kind of magical but nowhere near as much as a fairy.
Once Fausta and Finni are both fed, I send Finni off to school and hope the neighbours have brought their dogs inside and have actually fed their birds. They make an absolute racket otherwise.