There’s nothing like simulating the tasks that the kids have to do. Yesterday some fun was had mimicking the style of Austen’s writing using the opening chapter of Northanger Abbey as the stimulus. This is what I came up with:
Having failed to master the simple act of riding a two wheeled bicycle by the age of seven, successive disappointments of a physical nature led Sally’s parents to question whether there was an underlying impediment that was attributable to the slowness of her development. Marking each failed benchmark against the achievements of her more agile and graceful sister, the failings of the younger sibling were compensated for by the universal acknowledgment that some people were simply behind the eight ball.
It was an explanatory phrase that was peddled out each time Sally breached a milestone such as clumsily succumbing to the challenges of walking vertically by tripping over ground that to the discerning eye, was level and untrippable. A six week plaster cast on a broken toe that incidentally was not the fault of the owner of the leg but rather the father of the owner of the leg who ran over his daughter’s foot with the trailer, was yet another set-back.
Her lack of progress, whilst notably of a physical nature, was nonetheless not limited by any means to deficiencies such as walking, riding a bicycle, swimming, or dancing. Her failure to articulate with clarity, the consonant S instead of eliciting shame in the parents, engendered mockery. Becoming the focus of entertainment the recitation of the verse ‘warm pussy soft pussy little ball of fur, sleepy pussy, happy pussy, purr purr purr’ became a regular fixture at gatherings and dinner parties when, after the consumption of wine, the parents would usher their youngest daughter to the table for the recitation. The constancy of such occasions drew no suspicion from a child whose interpretation of the crowd’s laughter was in a manner that was at odds with the intentions of the parents.
And so she became, as an indirect consequence of her failed triumphs, a sideshow exhibit. Continuing in this fashion until the age of ten, Sally’s sudden growth, her blossoming, her butterfly moment, did not occur in the manner expected.
An antipathy for bacon and indeed, all meat products whether they be cured or otherwise, was born or so it seemed, from a father’s propensity for slaughtering prized Angora goats purchased for the supposedly lucrative saleability of their much-sought after fibre, but repurposed as table fodder on account of a downturn in the market and their Houdini-like tendency to escape the confines of their enclosures. The visual details of the execution of each lovingly named goat spurred within the child, a disdain for animal cruelty and a desire for other non-meat consumables. Disappointed, the parents deduced that this was a phase; a momentary act of rebellion that could be overthrown by the slow braising of a beef goulash or perhaps a trip to KFC. But the youngest sister was steadfast in her resolve, regressing indeed from an aversion to meat products to an aversion to all things dairy. The decline continued until leather clothing was struck from the list and chip packets were scanned with the utmost vigilance in supermarket aisles, at a time when Veganism was not yet part of the lexical imagination of Australians for whom meat and three veg was sagely promoted as the key to longevity.
