Red Dirt Diary 3 by Katrina Nannestad Page A

fairy-floss pink with food colouring once. That looked heaps worse than the green skin.
    Mat wore sunglasses and a scarf around her head to Mass, but you could still see her scabby chin and green skin. She burst out crying when Ben and Peter made frog noises. Julia hit Ben over the head with a prayer book.
    It’s a relief to be home now. Although if Sophie looks in the mirror and sobs one more time I might have to kill her …
    Monday, 9 July
    My face is still green as grass. Petal is quite excited by it. She keeps nibbling my cheeks.
    Wes and Fez are dead jealous of Sophie and me. They want to be green too. They triedsmearing green dishwashing liquid all over their faces, but it just got in their eyes and made them cry.
    Peter gave me a news report for The Bake Tribulation today. ‘Alien invasion’ tells of the terrifying experience church-goers had yesterday when Mass was invaded by six green-skinned Martians. Mat will be furious when she reads it.
    I’ve written ‘Skin deep’, quite a serious article asking just how beautiful can a girl be if she doesn’t have a brain. Really, there is nothing attractive about knowing that someone has a big, fat empty space between their ears, is there? Just ask Warren from Warren.
    I also have three ads for the classifieds:
    WANTED
    Volunteers for medical experiments and practice operations.
    See Gabby
    PONY FOR SALE
    Ideal for church picnics and barbecues.
    Phone Doris
    COMMUNITY ANNOUNCEMENT
    Thank you to everyone who entered photos in the Amazing Cake Crumb Pictures competition.
Entries are now closed.
Winners will be announced at the next CWA meeting.
    Sophie and I spent the afternoon over at Mrs Whittington’s cottage. She was sorting out her pantry cupboard and wanted to store everything in order of importance. She was quite upset when she got to the baked beans and chicken noodle soup, because she couldn’t decide which had to go first. Sophie thought the soup was the most important. Mrs W thought maybe the baked beans were. I suggested we just eat them both so we didn’t have to decide. So we had baked beans, chicken noodle soup, orange cake and hot chocolate for afternoon tea. Problem solved!
    Tuesday, 10 July
    Foxes at 5.15 am. Wes, Fez and Peter ran out with slingshots to attack. Fez lost control and his slingshot fired back into Wes’s face. He tried to kiss Wes to make it better but Wes shoved himaway and called him a sissy pink-pants. Fez shoved Wes, Wes punched Fez, and a big rumble started. Peter had to shoot them three times with his slingshot before they’d break it up. The foxes ran wild and free as usual.
    Sophie and I are still green.
    So are Wes and Fez. They coloured their faces in with green permanent markers today. Mum freaked. She was going to take us all in to Dubbo for a family photo on Friday. Guess she’ll have to save it for some other time.
    Wednesday, 11 July
    Overheard Mum talking to Dad late last night. She said things like, ‘They have to go,’ and, ‘Get rid of them once and for all before they do any harm.’
    I really hope she was talking about Wes and Fez, but suspect she was talking about the foxes.
    Mr Cluff has emailed a Scottish article for The Bake Tribulation , just like he promised. ‘Australian teacher almost attacked by Loch Ness monster’ is a sensational headline. The story, however, is dead boring. The loch where he was swimming turned out to be a dam, and the monster turned out to be an old gumboot floating in the water.
    I suppose Mr Cluff has better things to do than go on wild adventures. Hopefully he is spending most of his time talking Miss McKenzie into coming back to Hardbake Plains. It shouldn’t be too difficult if the most exciting thing happening at Dingwall is the discovery of a gumboot in the dam.
    I think Peter’s ‘Alien invasion’ will have to be the newspaper’s lead story this time. Either that or Gabby’s article,