The Roller Blind Goes Duhr-ack-ack-ack

The cupboards in the kitchen have In and Out Handles with the knobby button in the middle that I have to push in before I grab their outsides and pull. Some of them are on Bad Cupboards that I am not allowed into and some of them are on Good Cupboards that I am allowed into, and sometimes I forget. There is also the Big Hot Water Cupboard that I can hide in sometimes, but not at night when I have to line up with the others in my Pyjamas with the Long Legs and I get a Whole Spoonful of Molasses from the Black Tin that lives in there and tastes pukey and I hope that it will make me well and not get Gummy Ear. Gummy Ear is when my mum gets the Bottle of Green Oil from I Don’t Know Where and lights a candle under A Spoonful of Oil in a spoon and pours it in my ear to make me better because it is sore. Sometimes when she does this she sings ‘A Spoonful of Sugar’ and I don’t know why because it isn’t sugar. Sometimes the oil leaks out and makes everything sticky and then my pillow has to go out to That Blasted Wringer that lives in the shed and come back again and dry out on That Darned Clothes Rack that lives on the ceiling before it gets to go into the Big Hot Water Cupboard again.
The Big Hot Water Cupboard does not have any hot water. It has the Black Tin and a big tank and lots of towels and undies drying and a roll of Christmas paper down the side. Red Christmas paper. With gold stars. Some of the stars on the edges have been nibbled by Those Pesky Silverfish that are silver, but are also bugs. They move fast, but are easy to squish. The hot water comes from the Zip with the Train Whistle that lives over the sink. I just pull the cord and wait for the whistle even though it isn’t really a train. I know that. But I can’t turn on the hot tap until One of the Older Ones is there who can put the hot water on my Weetbix to make them mooshy even though I don’t like them mooshy, but That‘s How We Eat Them in Our House if it is cold and there is no porridge.
There are spiders too – in the bottom of the Big Hot Water Cupboard with the Bottles of No Beer. But not as many spiders as in the Top Cupboard above the Sink that is too high to reach. It is too high to reach in The Top Cupboard above the Stove too, but that is another cupboard. To get to it you have to stand on the stove between the Big Pot of Soup and the Thing that Makes Pikelets so this cupboard is empty. No one knows why it is there; it’s a dumb cupboard.
My mum said that in the Top Cupboard above the Sink there are the Things that No One Needs until They Need Them. Once, my brother and I pulled over the Table with the Green Sparkly Top and put a chair on it and climbed up to see. There were lots of jars and metal rings and a red and green paper bag with a ziggy edge. Inside that was see-through circles of crick crack paper that got broken when I bent them and another little white paper bag and inside that was rubber bands that my brother twanged at the cat. There were also spider webs and candles and the Bottle of Green Oil. That’s how I found out that sometimes I Don’t Know Where is the same as the Top Cupboard above the Sink. And that’s why, when we were listening to the crackly valve radio –Won’t you ever grow up Little Toot – and my mum was at the sink washing lemons from the Big Lemon Tree down the Back and cutting them into the Biggest Pot for Jam and she said ‘Have you kids been in the Top Cupboard above the Sink?’ and my brother kicked me as I played with the cord on the roller blind which is like the cord on the Zip with the Train Whistle, but not the same, and it rolled up really fast and went duhr-ack-ack-ack and jumped out of the window frame and landed in my Weetbix and my plate got broken, my brother snorted his breakfast up all over the Table with the Green Sparkly Top.

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