Francis the third brother of the Dorper -Cross clan was convinced at a very young age that he was swapped at birth, and that his mother brought home the wrong son. For no sooner than he could lift himself up on his very spindly legs did he realize that no-one else around him had been blessed with his golden locks and stop-you-in-your-tracks big brown eyes. Furthermore it was Francis’s love of classical tunes that set him apart, and his sudden need to leap for joy, doing a cabriole or soubresaut at the turn of a head, and the bleat of eye. Yes he was a very strange boy out there in the booneys where the flies and the dust and...
It is hard to believe that young Percy Pollweather is only fourteen years old and despite his somewhat sombre demeanour he is often heard to spurt forth pearls of wisdom and the occasional witty retort. For it was in English class at school that Percy first found his voice, thanks almost exclusively to Mrs Box his unusual English teacher and her running commentaries on such things as the fun of the pun, the tautological slip, and the marvel of the tickle in the tale. Percy and many of his chums loved the freedom found in her English classes where even the most reserved of child seemed to come to life and join in the perpetual party of mucking about...
Porteus Pieboy was born with the rhythm coursing through his spidery veins, with legs and arms a jumping and hands a twitching to some secret tune all his own. His parents, both tone deaf, had no idea what they had given birth to and tried everything in their power to discourage their whooping and hollering son from turning their home into a musical madhouse Tins, pots and pans, cutlery, broomsticks and the fire poker all became instruments of syncopation of the short and the not so short, of the suspended and the prolonged, and of the tempo, rubato, rallentando, andante and adagio. Of the whole musical gamut at the ripe old age of seven. Poor young Porteus, wrong family, wrong...
Hilda van Blonkers tried ever so hard to fit in as a young girl at school, but could never hide her oversizedness, for she was well over six foot, in the old measure, at the ripe old age of seven, and continued to shoot up and out reaching well over six foot six when she moved into the senior school at twelve. The upside to Hilda’s extraordinary growth spurts was that she passed herself off as much older than she was and often when visiting neighbouring villages and towns found herself sneaking into the most grown up of places and events. What this meant to Hilda, unlike her peers, was the opportunity to flourish under such social freedom and...
No-one can tell Svetlana how she got her name, for she was found sprawled between the rusted-out cattle trough and an oversized termite mound with her hair all a tither and her beak on backwards. She had been struck by lightning during the most calamitous of storms and there she lay for four long days. Her saviour, if we could call him that, was old Branko with the fullest beard and not one hair on top who spoke only five words of the queens’ English – tis good, tis no good, and to him Svetlana - she no so good. Yet Branko, with his golden heart and pockets full of the dust of fools, swept poor Svettie up,...
