Mary and Max

##

##

Mary Dinkle's eyes were the colour of muddy puddles.

Her birthmark, the colour of poo.

It was Saturday afternoon and she was bored.

Mary wished she had a friend to play piggybacks with.

Mary's mood ring, which she'd found in a cereal box, was grey

which, according to the chart,

meant she was either pensive, unconsciously ambitious or hungry.

Her only friends were 'The Noblets' from her favourite cartoon.

They weren't the real ones you bought in the shops

but fake ones she had to make herself from shells, gumnuts, pompoms

and the chicken bones salvaged from Friday night's takeaway.

She had to make all her own toys, and her favourites were Shrinkies...

potato chip packets that she had shrunk in the oven.

Mary's father, Noel Norman Dinkle,

worked in a factory, attaching the strings to tea bags.

At show and tell, she told the class

he could get as many free tea bags as he wanted.

Her favourite tea bag was Earl Grey.

She loved saying 'Earl Grey'

and would like one day to marry someone called Earl Grey.

They would live in a castle in Scotland,

have 9 babies, 2 ducks...

...and a dog called Kevin.

Noel's hobby was to sit in his shed and drink Baileys Irish Cream

and stuff birds he'd found on the side of the freeway.

Mary wished he'd spend more time with her and less with his dead friends.

She also wished she had some brothers and sisters.

Her mother had told her she was 'an accident'.

How could someone be an accident?

Grandpoppy Ralph had told her that babies were deliberate

and found by dads at the bottom of their beer.

Grandpoppy Ralph had smelt like pickled onions

and had been a member of the Frankston Ice Breakers for 51 years.

- Aaagh! Aaaaaghhh! -

They swam in winter to feel alive.

Grandpoppy Ralph had said it made his nipples erect.

He had died the year before, aged 74,

and his best mate, Ken, had recited a poem in his honour.

Born in a barn in the hills of Boronia,

Ralph lived a long life,

then died of pneumonia.

Mary missed him

and often wondered why he had drunk ammonia.

A lot of things puzzled Mary

especially her mother, Vera Lorraine Dinkle.

To Mary, Vera always seemed wobbly.

A pretty vicious ball. And he's out!

Vera liked listening to the cricket while baking

and her main ingredient was always sherry.

3/44. And Thompson 2/15...

She told Mary it was a type of tea for grown-ups

that needed constant testing.

Just out of the reach of the lead. 6/96 England.

Mary thought her mother tested the sherry... ...way too much.

Mary also couldn't understand why Vera was always 'borrowing'.

Yesterday, she borrowed some fish fingers from Aisle 6.

She told Mary she put things up her dress to save on plastic bags.

Vera was indeed a complicated soul.

- Oooh!

Mary stopped daydreaming

and went and fetched her pet rooster from the rain.

Her father had found the rooster on the side of the freeway

after it had fallen off the back of a slaughter truck.

She named him Ethel.

It was time to watch 'The Noblets'. She adored 'The Noblets'

because everyone was brown, lived in a teapot

and had oodles of friends.

There was nothing nicer, Mary thought to herself,

than the smell of a wet rooster...

...the sound of rain on the roof

and the taste of sweetened condensed milk straight from the can

while watching your favourite cartoon.

##

##

Meanwhile, a man called Max Horowitz also watched 'The Noblets'.

Max's small television had picture but no sound.

His big television, sound but no picture.

He was 44 and liked 'The Noblets'

as they lived in a delineated and articulated social structure

with constant adherent conformity

and also because they had oodles of friends.

Max had trouble sleeping

and had spent the night watching television and catching fish food.

He noted to himself it was the sixth fly he'd caught this evening.

He wondered if he should go to bed and count sheep

or have one more chocolate hotdog.

He thought he'd try both but it didn't work.

It had been 6 hours and 12 minutes since Henry VIII had passed away.

And Henry's death had thrown Max's life into disarray.

- - It had become asymmetrical

and the sooner he got a new fish, the better.

Tomorrow he would go to the pet store and get another Henry...

Henry IX.

Next.

It was shopping day

and Mary sat patiently while her mother 'borrowed' some envelopes.

To fill in time, she scanned the room

and counted how many things were brown.

There was sticky tape, rubber bands

and a phone book with a picture of a lady standing in a brown lake

with her hand on fire.

People had weird names in America, Mary Daisy Dinkle thought to herself.

Funny-sounding people called Rockefeller and Finkelstein.

She wondered what they looked like, how old they were

and if they were married, wore glasses, or had found babies in their beer.

- - Maybe in the USA they found babies elsewhere.

Hmm... they drank a lot of cola.

- Maybe they found them in cans. -

But, no, they wouldn't fit through the hole.

Mary had an idea.

She would write to one of the Americans and ask where babies came from.

She chose a Mr M Horowitz.

Aarrgh, Mrs Dinklel

Come back here, Vera Dinkle! You come back here!

Aaarghhhh!

Dear Mr M Horowitz,

my name is Mary Daisy Dinkle

and I am 8 years old, 3 months and 9 days.

My favourite colour is brown

and my favourite food is sweetened condensed milk

followed closely by chocolate.

I have a rooster called Ethel that looks like this.

He doesn't lay eggs but will one day.

My mother likes smoking, cricket and sherry

and my father likes playing in his shed with dead birds.

Where do babies come from in America?

Do they come from cola cans?

In Australia they are found in beer glasses.

Here is a drawing of me.

I can't draw ears proper but I'm good at teeth.

It would be great if you could write back and be my friend.

Yours 'sincerealy', Mary Daisy Dinkle.

PS. I hope you like the chocolate bar I'm also sending.

It's called a Cherry Ripe.

Goodbye, letter. Don't forget to write.

Max hated Thursdays...

the day of his weekly Overeaters Anonymous meeting.

And tonight he'd felt especially unsettled

because he'd eaten two chocolate hotdogs on his way there.

OK, class...

Eating chocolate was breaking the rules.

He'd found the night even more unbearable

because of Marjorie Butterworth's strange glances.

Class dismissed.

Max had trouble understanding non-verbal signals.

Flirting was as foreign to him as jogging.

Max found most people very confusing.

But little did Max realise

his night was about to become even more confusing and cryptic.

Hmm,

He read Mary's letter four times and then did what he normally did

whenever confronted with something new and stressful.

Max's fragile existence had once again become unsettled.

And after staring out of the window for 18 hours

he finally made a decision.

['Typewriter Music' Plays Quickly in Time with Max's Typing]

Dear Mary Daisy Dinkle,

thank you for the letter, which I opened and read at 9.17pm

after my Overeaters Anonymous class.

I am trying to lose weight

because my psychiatrist, Dr Bernard Hazelhof,

says a healthy body equals a healthy mind.

Ooooh!

He says my mind is not that healthy.

Your drawing is an interesting visual portrayal of yourself.

I have never met anyone from Australia.

Firstly, I will answer your question.

Unfortunately, in America, babies are not found in cola cans.

I asked my mother when I was four