Down Under Excuses

By Don Cronk

I was tied up in the garden by killer alien weeds. I had to protect my family. There was no time for homework.
"The reason I didn't clean my room Dad is I was busy capturing a gang of thieves and trying to save you from life in prison. A psycho kid was trying to shoot me with your gun."
"What have you done to our house?" shouted Mum. "My little sister made me set fire to it," I tried to explain. "She's possessed by demons and needs to be destroyed."
"Dad! I can explain," I shouted triumphantly. "It was doodlebug 2KY. It captured me and kept blowing up your computers. The bug blew up 50 of your computers but the good news is I managed to survive." "Not for long," growled my dad.

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Tellwell Talent
• Release date: Sep 24, 2019
• ISBN: 9780228821243

Don Cronk

NA

Book preview

Down under Excuses

Copyright © 2019 by Don Cronk

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Tellwell Talent

www.tellwell.ca

ISBN

978-0-2288-2124-3 (eBook)

Table of Contents

Excuses 1: I Saw the Cabbage Move

Excuses 2: Attack of the Lexicon

Excuses 3: There’s A Monster under My Bed

Excuses 4: Doodle Bug 2KY

EXCUSES 1

I Saw the Cabbage Move

I saw the cabbage move. I told my father so. He simply said I was seeing things. Of course I was seeing things. I saw the cabbage move. I told my brother, Ben. He also said I was seeing things. I expect that kind of answer from my father but not from a twelve year old.

I went out into the back yard. Gramps was cutting grapes from the vineyard.

Gramps, I said in my most grown up manner. Gramps was not one to play around. I saw the cabbage move in the veggie garden.

Well, Marci-Ann, he said in his casual way, I’d say you were seeing things.

How was it everyone in my family agreed that I was seeing things but the way they said it made me feel they didn’t believe I saw anything at all?

I was determined to have people believe me.

I know what I saw. It definitely moved, I said, stamping my foot. This called for a trip to the veggie garden.

The veggie garden was brobdingnagian. It means large but I rather like brobdingnagian. It sounds impressive. Gramps had spent the last ten years meticulously planting rows of tomatoes, carrots, peas, potatoes, corn, lettuce and, of course, those cabbages.

I was particularly interested in the cabbages. I knelt down and observed one. It froze. It didn’t dare move while I watched it.

I hurried into the house and ran to my bedroom.

Have you given any thought to cleaning that room of yours? Dad yelled from the kitchen. I can’t understand why he worries about my room so much. He never goes in there. Well, he can’t really because you need to push really, really hard against my bedroom door to actually get into the room. He says my room is a junk yard but it’s not. I know where everything is.

So what am I looking for in my organised chaos? I’ll tell you what I’m looking for…I’m looking for my make-shift. It’s my collapsible two person tent.

You’ll need your torch and Sluff the dog, I said to myself.

I can’t see what good Sluff will be. He’s always sleeping. But then again a dog is always good protection, I argued back.

Sluff sleeps on my bed all day and under it at night. I picked him up from the bed and placed him on a blanket which I pulled towards the door. He never woke. He just gave huffing sounds as little gasps of air came from his mouth. I should say now that this is how we take Sluff everywhere. He stands to eat and that’s all. No one can remember seeing him do anything else but sleep and eat.

Back in the garden, I was about to release my make-shift when my Dad came towards me. That was all I needed. I knew he was going to try and talk me out of what I was doing. He means well but he never lets me finish what I’m doing…I’m always too something.

I released the clip on my make-shift and instantly a tent grew out of the metal ring that I had been holding.

What are you doing setting up a tent in the middle of the afternoon? said my Dad. "It’s too early for a tent. It’s too close to the garden. It’s too hot for you to be inside a tent. It’s too much for me to keep an eye on you."

See what I mean?

Dad. I’m thirteen. I can do tents. Get a grip.

The good thing about Dad is that he is distracted easily. He went over and started pulling at some weeds. He bent over and grabbed a handful of green prickly weeds and pulled. The weeds seemed stuck in the ground.

I’ve got just the thing for stubborn weeds, he said, marching off to the shed. He returned with a box of weed killer. He threw the poison on the weeds.

There. That’ll fix ‘em. Come tomorrow they’ll all be dead.

I dragged the sleeping Sluff into the tent and closed the tent flap. The tent collapsed on top of us. This had never happened before. I crawled out from under the canvas. Sluff never stirred. I popped the tent up once more and climbed back inside. The tent collapsed once again.

This was beginning to have signs of brotherly intervention. I crawled out from under the canvas and popped up the tent for the third time. This time I hid behind a bush. A hand came out of the hedge and unclipped the collapse button.

My foot stomped on the hand. My brother’s screams brought my Dad and Gramps running.

They both pulled me off my brother but not before I got in an upper cut that brought on a volley of tears.

Cabbage girl!

That’s what he called me. If that was the best he could do I’d show him. I gave him a swift kick to the