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My name is Polly. It’s a stupid name that rhymes with dolly and I have always hated it. I can’t believe my parents had only one child to put a name on and couldn’t come up with anything better than this.
There is a whirlwind around my Aunt Orla’s well. It’s me, wishing for a little sister who will call me something else. She will change the shape of the hole that I fit into in this world so I can be different. She will call me Boudicca.
As I whip around the well, I wish. I throw in pennies. I pick four-leaf clovers. Ladybugs, falling stars — I go whole hog and leave nothing to chance and then, finally, finally the child is born; but it’s a boy.
Fine, a boy then.
In my head I name him Vercingetorix, and he belongs to me. Together we will be an army and conquer.
My parents call him Dexter.
He doesn’t like the name.
He throws it up.
When he hears the name his gut tightens and all manner of creatures disgorge. My parents are in a panic.
Not me.
I laugh.
I laugh so hard when another salamander is catapulted out of Vercingetorix’s mouth and slaps Father Ahern’s face before dropping into his teacup. I laugh and hope boring Father Ahern will not come to tea anymore. But he just babbles more Latin. It makes as much sense as the encrusted, bald woman who lives at the bus terminal talking to herself. Who listens?
I tickle Vercingetorix under the chin until he hiccups. One after another he hiccups pages of the bible, but they are printed backward, in red ink like dried blood.
Father Ahern whacks his forehead on the glass patio doors trying to flee — in his distress he doesn’t see that they’re closed. He yanks them open and his black robes flap off into the Dämmerung and Vercingetorix and I are laughing, laughing so hard at his panic.
Mum and Dad stare at us, mouths open.
“…What?” I ask, and we laugh some more and split the last jam tart.
Susan Kaempfer was born in Washington DC. She was a product of the Summer Of Love, and currently lives in Switzerland with her beautifully lunatic husband and three nutty children. Career highlights include: night-shift in a university hospital pharmacy, flogging jumpers in a tourist trap in Ireland, and one single art show in which she sold enough drawings to buy a ferry ticket from Calais to Rosslare, which was all she needed at the time.
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18 Responses to “HOW TO EMBARRASS MUM AND DAD • by Susan Kaempfer”
Comments
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December 4th, 2010 at 1:37 am
Dexter and Polly?
They deserved worse.
Off to google Vercingetorix, it has a certain elegant charm.
Writing as one who knows,
Gaius
December 4th, 2010 at 2:27 am
Wonderfully off the wall
December 4th, 2010 at 2:27 am
The first 4 paragraphs were so beautifully done that I was hooked and willing to be reeled in.Then I stumbled over Vercingetorix and started to falter. Dammerung and Vercingythingy in one sentence was just too much for my slightly dyslexic brain and I fell out of the story with a thud. Pity.
December 4th, 2010 at 4:08 am
Dammerung as in German for twilight, as in Gotterdammerung, twilight of the gods. Wagnerian reference fitted well for me (a Valkyrie to go with the possessed Gaul could have been fun) and it would be a shame to limit vocabulary rather than enrich readers’ understanding.
G
December 4th, 2010 at 5:46 am
Enjoyable, imaginative and concise: you’ll get my 5 stars ma’am.
December 4th, 2010 at 7:40 am
Brilliantly odd and wonderful!
December 4th, 2010 at 7:44 am
I rather liked this! It was amusing, dark and strange, all at the same time. And I think that the strange names and use of German enhanced rather than detracted from the story.
Five stars from me.
December 4th, 2010 at 7:48 am
I loveed this storry, seems like the kinds might have had magical powers.
December 4th, 2010 at 7:51 am
You’ve written an odd little gem. I really should broaden my reading horizons and this definitely helps.
December 4th, 2010 at 8:05 am
I TOTALLY loved this – Harry Potter, Edward Cullen and Bella Swan eat your hearts out! Thank you so much, Susan.
“I tickle Vercingetorix under the chin until he hiccups. One after another he hiccups pages of the bible, but they are printed backward, in red ink like dried blood.”
A brilliant visual image! Excellent work!
Loved the ending where your two fabulous freaks split the last jam tart.
Are Polly and Dexter related to Wednesday and Pugsley Addams, by any chance?
5 WONDERFUL STARS!
December 4th, 2010 at 9:04 am
I’m afraid I need a little more method in the madness I read to appreciate it. I’m glad others enjoyed the piece.
December 4th, 2010 at 10:10 am
I like this too. Almost Roald Dahl-ish in a way. It’s what it feels like to be a kid; the grownups don’t understand your world, and you think theirs is boring. But the kids win in the end.
December 4th, 2010 at 7:34 pm
I’m liking the oddity.
December 4th, 2010 at 9:32 pm
Very nice Job Susan. A wacky way out there surreal story. Full of colorful characters and in the context of everything when you mentioned the teacup for some reason my mind went off into “Alice in Wonderland.”
I also like the image that ends in “… in red ink like dried blood.”
Not sure why, but I gave this story 4 stars and it only registered 2.75
December 4th, 2010 at 10:04 pm
Bud, the value you are seeing is the average star rating from all of those given. The system registered your 4-star rating and added it to the rest; the average will continue to fluctuate with every vote added, but with over 30 votes at this point, one single vote may not visibly alter the average on its own.
December 4th, 2010 at 10:08 pm
Thanks, Camille.
Buddy
December 5th, 2010 at 1:43 am
Loved this oddball story!
December 5th, 2010 at 1:43 am
Thank you so much for all the comments. I’m glad you enjoyed the story!