One day in Spring it was hot. Like, real hot, strip-in-public and forget-about-the-fact-that-you’re-not-wearing-a-bra kind of hot. It was so hot street signs were melting so that “slippery when wet” began to look like “it’s a very, very, very long and slightly curvy road ahead” signs.
Jacinta was hotter than most. This was mostly because she was born hot. That’s what Ricky said. He said, “Hey, Hot Stuff! You’re so hot you’re making me burn for you!” Then he passionately strummed his 4-stringed guitar and sang Farnsey ditties. Ricky was romantic like that. But his burning was another story all together.
Being so hot had really become a problem for Jacinta on this extraordinarily hot day. She had no pool to swim in and even the water in the house pipes was warm. “No hot water all winter!” She grumbled. “And now it’s all running bloody hot for free! Reckon I should fill up some buckets now to save for next winter…”
Jacinta was a thinker.
Jacinta’s mother had informed her that this unseasonal heat wave was due to the fact that the icebergs were melting in Antarctica. “You see Jacinta,” Her mum said, shaking a long, gel-nailed finger very close to her daughter’s face. “It’s coz of those Iraqi’s! They been testin’ all these big new bombs in Antarctica- statistical warfare- They been melting up all the ice and boiling the water, ya know? The hot water flows down in our direction, gettin’ all caught up in the clouds ‘n shit. Then them clouds float around our sky makin’ the air thick with their hot water emissions. Heard it all on the bus this mornin’… Them bloody Iraqi’s. They can all go back to Pakistan as far as I’m concerned. Leave our weather alone!”
Well, it sure was hot.
Jacinta was so hot she didn’t want to move, she didn’t want to breathe because every miniscule, muscular movement seemed to result in the collection of another heavy drop of sweat above her eyebrow. Once that drop of sweat started to move she’d have to close her eyes and endure the slow, excruciating wait while it trickled down over her eyelids and on, to the safety of her nose. The effort of wiping the bead before it rolled would only result in the formation of a new bead so there she sat, sweating and awaiting rolling beads to prevent the saltwater-sting in her eyes…
There she sat, at least, until she had a craving. Jacinta sincerely felt that she was almost constantly in the middle of a ghost pregnancy because when she had a flavour for something she really had a flavour. Normally she could just send Ricky down to the corner shop to get what she needed- but Ricky was up the coast fishing this weekend and he wouldn’t be back ‘til tomorrow. Jacinta just couldn’t wait that long.
Right now, Jacinta was craving an icecream- which seemed almost predictable given the heat, except that the icecream she truly yearned for was a Bubble-O-Bill. Every day delicious but not exactly refreshing or thirst-quenching on a day like today. Regardless, that is what her stomach demanded and who was she to try to control physical demands? “Your body knows what it needs,” Dr. Phil said that last Friday. “You just have to listen to it.”
“Damn straight!” She whispered now, trying not to move her lips. “My body needs a Bubble-O-Bill.”
Before she stood up Jacinta made an energy-efficiency plan- she would travel five steps to her piggy bank, three steps to the door, and run to the corner shop from her doorstep, without closing the door. She figured less time in direct sunlight was worth a little extra effort, so she would definitely run.
By the time Jacinta got into the shop there was sweat cascading off her like tiny waterfalls at every hanging cliff made by the points of her body. But, even inside, Jacinta continued running until she got to to the old, buzzing freezer on the far, back wall. She got close enough to feel the hot air coming from the fan on the bottom of the machine and slid back the glass top. “Bubble-O-Bubble-O-Bubble-O,” she chanted, thowing aside Calippo’s and Lemonade icypoles. “Bubble-O-Bubble-O-Bubble-O Bubble-O” Her chanting grew more frantic and her hunger for the chocolate-backed icecream on a stick more intense as her hand cooled in the deep freezer. Finally she rushed to the counter, slamming both fists on the bench. “Bubble-O-Bill, I need a Bubble-O-Bill!” She yelled to the young boy at the register.
“Sorry, lady,” he grinned, red from heat but entirely unfazed. “All outta them ones. Get some more tomorrow I reckon.”
“Tomorrow!?” Jacinta leaned across the counter and attempted to grab the boy’s shirt but he stepped back and she fell with her desperate, sweaty face making a puddle on the counter top. “I need it now,” She slobbered sadly.
“Lady, I’m gonna have to ask you to leave,” The boy spoke with disgusted pity. “You’re dripping on our vanilla slice.”
So Jacinta took a deep breath and stood up. “Right. They don’t have them here…” She thought to herself. “Now what?” And, like a child in the car who’d just been told they couldn’t have a toilet break until the next petrol station she reset her craving and settled for determined patience. Stoically, she headed for the corner shop two streets over.
By the time she got to the second shop Jacinta was quite delirious from heat stroke and Bubble-O-Bill fantasy-pains. She stumbled up and down the isles looking for the freezer and singing songs about savaloys. On her third lap of the tiny shop she was intercepted by a shop keeper who had, quite begrudgingly, left his rotating fan to sort her out. “Ma’am, are you lost?”
“Yes, I am lost…” Jacinta twittered. “I’m lost like a loungeroom lizard… No, no, then I’m lying.” She sunk to the floor, too weak to stand and whispered. “Please, Sir, I want a Bubble-O-Bill.”
“I have bubblegum,” He laughed jovially. “And I have a Billabong… But I have no Bubble-O-Bill.”
Jacinta wailed and in a sudden, energetic fit of rage she ran back out into the heat where the tar of the road had begun to melt so that it stuck beneath her feet.
Jacinta headed for the Woolies in the next suburb over but, not wanting to actually have to make it all that way, she began to knock on doors as she progressed. Some of the doors burnt her knuckles and some of the doors were covered in shade but none of the doors led to her Bubble-O-Bill… until she got to number 93 Willohpacked Terrace, right next to a green park, and the alley where she’d first met Ricky.
“Pleaaaase,” Jacinta growled through cracked lips with a gravelly voice as she stared into the darkness of number 93’s open door. “Do you have a Bubble-O-Bill?”
“Like, the icecream?” Came the little boys reply.
“Yes,” Jacinta’s eyes began to adjust to the darkness of the doorway and she saw that he was not, precisely a “little” boy, but he was very young.
“I sure do!” He grinned widely. “Mum went shopping yesterday!”
“What can I pay you for a Bubble-O-Bill?” She slurped at the air with her dry mouth. She was more desperate now than the time she’d craved a McChicken burger at her cousins Burger King party and more sick now than the time she’d craved tequila, red wine and chocolate milkshakes in quick succession.
“Weeeell,” The boy thought about this with his thumb in his mouth. “Mum says I have to mow the lawns by the time she gets home and I don’t wanna.” His lips curled up at the edges. “You could just do that?”
For the next hour Jacinta battled with the rusty old mower as she traipsed up and down the deceptively steep backyard of the chubby little icecream-pirate. She realised in the final moments of her toils that by this time and with less energy she could have been to Woollies and back twice, so when she knocked again at the door to collect her dues she was mad as a cut snake and more vicious than a virgin principal. “Hand it over, you fat little, shit,” She spat into the darkened doorway.
“Excuse me!” Came a shocked reply.
“Oh. Shit.” Apparently his mum was home. “Sorry lady. I meant that for your son.”
And with that, the door was slammed at number 59 and Jacinta began to cry.
Barely able to see the footpath in front of her feet she stumbled and fumbled and fell until the red lettering of Woolworths lit up the sky above her head and the cool air that escaped between the automatic sliding doors slapped her playfully in the face.
Later, Jacinta would swear she heard a chorus of angels as she entered the huge supermarket and headed for the frozen deserts. Without even waiting to pay, Jacinta slid to the cool floor of the supermarket, ripped open the box of icecreams, tore off the blue and pink wrapper and lifted her prize to her hot, rough lips.
And then, BANG!! The blue, bubblegum nose exploded.
Jacinta was rushed to hospital in an ambulance and was treated for third degree bubblegum burns to her face and neck.
Due to the fact that her health insurance had gone unpaid and expired last October, elective reconstructive surgery was delayed and her considerable, disfiguring wounds became permanent scars.
Jacinta might well have collected a sizeable handout from the shipping company who had, it seems, allowed the icecreams to get too hot in transition which somehow pressurised the bubble gum in its hard candy shell, but she was too embarassed to take the stand in court so a minor payout was awarded her in an out-of-court settlement.
Jacinta moved to a small hut on a deserted beach where the hermit crabs called her “Elephant Man” and Ricky called her “Beautiful.”
Jacinta never had another craving for a Bubble-O-Bill.
Jacinta was hotter than most. This was mostly because she was born hot. That’s what Ricky said. He said, “Hey, Hot Stuff! You’re so hot you’re making me burn for you!” Then he passionately strummed his 4-stringed guitar and sang Farnsey ditties. Ricky was romantic like that. But his burning was another story all together.
Being so hot had really become a problem for Jacinta on this extraordinarily hot day. She had no pool to swim in and even the water in the house pipes was warm. “No hot water all winter!” She grumbled. “And now it’s all running bloody hot for free! Reckon I should fill up some buckets now to save for next winter…”
Jacinta was a thinker.
Jacinta’s mother had informed her that this unseasonal heat wave was due to the fact that the icebergs were melting in Antarctica. “You see Jacinta,” Her mum said, shaking a long, gel-nailed finger very close to her daughter’s face. “It’s coz of those Iraqi’s! They been testin’ all these big new bombs in Antarctica- statistical warfare- They been melting up all the ice and boiling the water, ya know? The hot water flows down in our direction, gettin’ all caught up in the clouds ‘n shit. Then them clouds float around our sky makin’ the air thick with their hot water emissions. Heard it all on the bus this mornin’… Them bloody Iraqi’s. They can all go back to Pakistan as far as I’m concerned. Leave our weather alone!”
Well, it sure was hot.
Jacinta was so hot she didn’t want to move, she didn’t want to breathe because every miniscule, muscular movement seemed to result in the collection of another heavy drop of sweat above her eyebrow. Once that drop of sweat started to move she’d have to close her eyes and endure the slow, excruciating wait while it trickled down over her eyelids and on, to the safety of her nose. The effort of wiping the bead before it rolled would only result in the formation of a new bead so there she sat, sweating and awaiting rolling beads to prevent the saltwater-sting in her eyes…
There she sat, at least, until she had a craving. Jacinta sincerely felt that she was almost constantly in the middle of a ghost pregnancy because when she had a flavour for something she really had a flavour. Normally she could just send Ricky down to the corner shop to get what she needed- but Ricky was up the coast fishing this weekend and he wouldn’t be back ‘til tomorrow. Jacinta just couldn’t wait that long.
Right now, Jacinta was craving an icecream- which seemed almost predictable given the heat, except that the icecream she truly yearned for was a Bubble-O-Bill. Every day delicious but not exactly refreshing or thirst-quenching on a day like today. Regardless, that is what her stomach demanded and who was she to try to control physical demands? “Your body knows what it needs,” Dr. Phil said that last Friday. “You just have to listen to it.”
“Damn straight!” She whispered now, trying not to move her lips. “My body needs a Bubble-O-Bill.”
Before she stood up Jacinta made an energy-efficiency plan- she would travel five steps to her piggy bank, three steps to the door, and run to the corner shop from her doorstep, without closing the door. She figured less time in direct sunlight was worth a little extra effort, so she would definitely run.
By the time Jacinta got into the shop there was sweat cascading off her like tiny waterfalls at every hanging cliff made by the points of her body. But, even inside, Jacinta continued running until she got to to the old, buzzing freezer on the far, back wall. She got close enough to feel the hot air coming from the fan on the bottom of the machine and slid back the glass top. “Bubble-O-Bubble-O-Bubble-O,” she chanted, thowing aside Calippo’s and Lemonade icypoles. “Bubble-O-Bubble-O-Bubble-O Bubble-O” Her chanting grew more frantic and her hunger for the chocolate-backed icecream on a stick more intense as her hand cooled in the deep freezer. Finally she rushed to the counter, slamming both fists on the bench. “Bubble-O-Bill, I need a Bubble-O-Bill!” She yelled to the young boy at the register.
“Sorry, lady,” he grinned, red from heat but entirely unfazed. “All outta them ones. Get some more tomorrow I reckon.”
“Tomorrow!?” Jacinta leaned across the counter and attempted to grab the boy’s shirt but he stepped back and she fell with her desperate, sweaty face making a puddle on the counter top. “I need it now,” She slobbered sadly.
“Lady, I’m gonna have to ask you to leave,” The boy spoke with disgusted pity. “You’re dripping on our vanilla slice.”
So Jacinta took a deep breath and stood up. “Right. They don’t have them here…” She thought to herself. “Now what?” And, like a child in the car who’d just been told they couldn’t have a toilet break until the next petrol station she reset her craving and settled for determined patience. Stoically, she headed for the corner shop two streets over.
By the time she got to the second shop Jacinta was quite delirious from heat stroke and Bubble-O-Bill fantasy-pains. She stumbled up and down the isles looking for the freezer and singing songs about savaloys. On her third lap of the tiny shop she was intercepted by a shop keeper who had, quite begrudgingly, left his rotating fan to sort her out. “Ma’am, are you lost?”
“Yes, I am lost…” Jacinta twittered. “I’m lost like a loungeroom lizard… No, no, then I’m lying.” She sunk to the floor, too weak to stand and whispered. “Please, Sir, I want a Bubble-O-Bill.”
“I have bubblegum,” He laughed jovially. “And I have a Billabong… But I have no Bubble-O-Bill.”
Jacinta wailed and in a sudden, energetic fit of rage she ran back out into the heat where the tar of the road had begun to melt so that it stuck beneath her feet.
Jacinta headed for the Woolies in the next suburb over but, not wanting to actually have to make it all that way, she began to knock on doors as she progressed. Some of the doors burnt her knuckles and some of the doors were covered in shade but none of the doors led to her Bubble-O-Bill… until she got to number 93 Willohpacked Terrace, right next to a green park, and the alley where she’d first met Ricky.
“Pleaaaase,” Jacinta growled through cracked lips with a gravelly voice as she stared into the darkness of number 93’s open door. “Do you have a Bubble-O-Bill?”
“Like, the icecream?” Came the little boys reply.
“Yes,” Jacinta’s eyes began to adjust to the darkness of the doorway and she saw that he was not, precisely a “little” boy, but he was very young.
“I sure do!” He grinned widely. “Mum went shopping yesterday!”
“What can I pay you for a Bubble-O-Bill?” She slurped at the air with her dry mouth. She was more desperate now than the time she’d craved a McChicken burger at her cousins Burger King party and more sick now than the time she’d craved tequila, red wine and chocolate milkshakes in quick succession.
“Weeeell,” The boy thought about this with his thumb in his mouth. “Mum says I have to mow the lawns by the time she gets home and I don’t wanna.” His lips curled up at the edges. “You could just do that?”
For the next hour Jacinta battled with the rusty old mower as she traipsed up and down the deceptively steep backyard of the chubby little icecream-pirate. She realised in the final moments of her toils that by this time and with less energy she could have been to Woollies and back twice, so when she knocked again at the door to collect her dues she was mad as a cut snake and more vicious than a virgin principal. “Hand it over, you fat little, shit,” She spat into the darkened doorway.
“Excuse me!” Came a shocked reply.
“Oh. Shit.” Apparently his mum was home. “Sorry lady. I meant that for your son.”
And with that, the door was slammed at number 59 and Jacinta began to cry.
Barely able to see the footpath in front of her feet she stumbled and fumbled and fell until the red lettering of Woolworths lit up the sky above her head and the cool air that escaped between the automatic sliding doors slapped her playfully in the face.
Later, Jacinta would swear she heard a chorus of angels as she entered the huge supermarket and headed for the frozen deserts. Without even waiting to pay, Jacinta slid to the cool floor of the supermarket, ripped open the box of icecreams, tore off the blue and pink wrapper and lifted her prize to her hot, rough lips.
And then, BANG!! The blue, bubblegum nose exploded.
Jacinta was rushed to hospital in an ambulance and was treated for third degree bubblegum burns to her face and neck.
Due to the fact that her health insurance had gone unpaid and expired last October, elective reconstructive surgery was delayed and her considerable, disfiguring wounds became permanent scars.
Jacinta might well have collected a sizeable handout from the shipping company who had, it seems, allowed the icecreams to get too hot in transition which somehow pressurised the bubble gum in its hard candy shell, but she was too embarassed to take the stand in court so a minor payout was awarded her in an out-of-court settlement.
Jacinta moved to a small hut on a deserted beach where the hermit crabs called her “Elephant Man” and Ricky called her “Beautiful.”
Jacinta never had another craving for a Bubble-O-Bill.
Jacinta and the Bubble-O-Bill
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