The Space Inside

The flight arttendant has come back with the century egg.

Enjoy, says the flight attendant.

Before you go, says the tinker, may I ask where it's been?

Hong Kong, says the flight attendant. I think that's where we obtain them.

It looks kind of black, says Rosa.

Wait till you cut it open, says the flight attendant. Inside, it's green.

Yuck, says Rosa. No wonder you had some left over.

People don't realise how nice they are, says the flight attendant. They taste salty and creamy.

Are they really a hundred years old? asks Rosa.

Just a few months, says the flight attendant. They preserve them in clay, salt, wood ash and quicklime.

It stinks, says Baby Pierre. Either eat it or ditch it.

I'm going to eat it, says the tinker. And you should get on with your story.

Yes, do, says Rosa. I can't wait to find out if Ouvert is really your cousin.

He is, says Baby Pierre. But the one I met in the Nullarbor might only look like my cousin.

Well I can't wait to find out how you find out, says Rosa.

You won't have to wait long, says Baby Pierre. 

He starts to write (very small):

I thought maybe he'd forgotten, so I said Lavender you remember her, she's a girl and still he didn't so I said she's not really a girl she's an auger, and he said can she tell the future and I said not that kind of auger you're thinking of an augur but she sometimes pretends that she can. He said so what is an auger I said it's a shell, but she's not the shell she's the space inside it, O! says Ouvert THAT Lavender. That's how I knew he was really my cousin. 

And was he? asks Rosa.

I just said he was, says Baby Pierre.

He might only have been saying he remembered, says Rosa. You did give him some clues.

Baby Pierre reads what he has written.

You need to make him say something he remembers her doing, says Rosa.

Okay, says Baby Pierre.

He writes a bit more (very small): Ouvert told me he remembered being lost in a French village with Lavender. It was raining and the bus did not come. They sat on a wet step and pretended to share a picnic. He recalled that the pretend picnic was beans.

That still doesn't prove it, says Rosa. Unless you were there too.

I wasn't, says Baby Pierre. They would never have got lost with me there.

You'll have to think of something he remembers that you remember, says Rosa. That would prove it.

Rosa is becoming annoying.

And it doesn't help that the century egg is producing foul fumes.