Excerpt from ‘THE HUBBY HUNT’
by Keely
This morning, whilst I’m reading a good-looking article on page 9, the advertisement next door to it catches my eye. I look at the title. Lonely Mother Seeks Loving Husband.
I snort. Good luck with that.
I am about to dismiss it when I notice the phone number at the bottom of the page. It looks awfully familiar. I look closer. I stare. I get right in close and make sure that the newspaper isn’t playing tricks on my mind, thinking that if I stare hard enough the number will change.
But it doesn’t.
It’s my mother’s.
My mother is looking for a husband in The Age.
A week later, I hear my mum’s mobile ringing in her handbag. I put down my book and creep to my bedroom door, lying quietly against it, ear pressed against the keyhole. She picks up on the second ring and, after asking for a name, rushes inside her bedroom, and closes the door softly behind her.
I don’t move from my position at the door, and am sitting there for probably twenty minutes. Every once in a while, I hear a flirtatious giggle from her bedroom.
Ew.
I can hear them talking about common interests, although curiously my mum’s rabid obsession with cockroaches never comes up. I think I hear her replace it with ‘long walks on the beach’. But that’s a lie since the nearest beach is 20 kilometres away, and Mum has issues with having to walk up the stairs to her bedroom.
Then they start talking about kids. Mum tells him that I am a wonderful delight, the absolute ‘perfect child’, a godsend, and that my 16-year-old twin brother is equally amazing, except smarter. I think I might want to strangle her.
It’s at that moment that they start talking about meeting up.
I stand up, putting my hand on the door knob. I throw the door back, scream like a maniac, run down the hall and bang on the walls as I go. I pass my twin brother’s room, and, like we have some kind of telepathy, he runs out too and yells, “Put your pants back on, Athena!”
“Only if you stop smoking weed!” I shout.
“Never!” He screams and jumps up and down on the landing. I grin at him, then rush back to my room. I again press my ear to the wall.
“…oh, nothing’s happening! My son’s just invited a bunch of his mates around and they’re being boys, that’s all! Harmless fun! I believe they call the game ‘Embarrass Your Friend While His Parents Are Calling Him!’ or something like that. It’s not a usual thing, I promise you…oh.”
I hear the phone click as he hangs up.
I quickly drop back onto my bed, pick up the book and start from where I’d left off.
Jason stops yelling and races back into his room, clearly understanding.
I hear Mum storm out of her bedroom and onto the landing. “Both of you get out here!”
I put on my best ‘I Did Nothing’ expression and walk out of my room. Jason does the same, except I think my face is more convincing.
“What were you thinking?” She hisses, her voice dangerously quiet.
“I was wondering why two negative numbers added together make a positive one,” Jason says. “But two wrongs don’t make a right. Right?”
Her gaze swings to him. “That’s very funny, Wise Guy.”
“I was thinking about the fact that centaurs have two rib cages, meaning they have two hearts, and two stomachs, and two livers, and four kidneys…” I say.
She looks at me poisonously. “I was just talking with…a very important person, and you two went and stuffed it up!”
“How is that our fault?” Jason asks. “If it’s work, all you’ve gotta say is, ‘please hold on, my kids are being jerks’, yell at us, then go back to the call.”
She hesitates, then replies, “Don’t you start being a smart-ass with me, Jason Alex Robertson.”
Jason raises an eyebrow. “I’m not three years old, Mum. You’re not God to me anymore.”
She growls at him, then stalks off to her little corner of hell, slamming the door behind her.
Jason turns to me. “Are you going to tell me what that was about?”
I grab his hand and pull him into his bedroom, shut the door behind me and sit on his bed.
“Mum is looking for a husband,” I announce.
Jason looks at me, surprised. “What’s wrong with that? A little more masculinity in this house would be greatly appreciated.”
“A man would mean less housework for me, so I’m also in favour, but she’s looking for her perfect man in the newspaper.”
His eyes widen. “You’re sure?”
“Saw it myself.” I pull a face. “Horrible, right?”
“She wants to get married to a guy from The Age??”
I roll my eyes. “Is that not what I just said?”
Jason suddenly looks me square in the eyes. “In what section was the ad posted?” He asks urgently.
“Umm…I think it was the Money and Property section,” I reply, not quite sure where Jason is going with this.
Jason groans and collapses back onto the bed. “I knew it.”
“What? What is it?”
Jason goes up onto his elbows. “If the ad is posted in the Money section, the only people that would actually see the ad would be boring accountants and financiers.”
I frown at him. “Isn’t that a good thing? Most financiers and accountants are rich.”
“But they’re also extremely boring. Don’t you remember all those dreams we used to have? You know, like being able to play soccer or football with him, or to watch horror movies late at night without mum’s consent? Well, mum just strangled them, cut them in half with a chainsaw and threw them out a window.”
“Technically, they were your dreams, but I get your drift. We need to make her see reason. Show her that there are better ways to find love than The Age. But how?” I begin to pace the room.
Jason makes a face. “I have an idea. But you’re gonna hate it.”
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THE QUEST OF HUMAGON
by Ta Pwe
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Excerpts from early harvest issue 4 – Technology
By the young editors of early harvest
PAGE 6: You wake up and get out of bed. Everything is totally normal. Do you:
- Go make breakfast (GO TO PAGE 42)
- Jump out the window (GO TO PAGE 21)
PAGE 7: The cyborgs get offended. They approach you and they harpoon your limbs off and scoop out your lungs and heart with a rusty fork. You die! THE END!
PAGE 9: You start fighting the pixel monster. You think you’re doing pretty well…until they slice your arm right off with a sharp pixel axe. Do you:
- Pick up your arm (GO TO PAGE 40)
- Leave your arm on the ground and run (GO TO PAGE 11)
PAGE 10: CONGRATULATIONS! Due to the amazing choices you’ve made, you are now the supreme ruler of the internet. You are infinitely rich, famous and happy. Well done. Honestly, you did a fantastic job. Wow. Just incredible.
PAGE 11: You run as fast as you can away from the pixel monster, not stopping even to pick up your severed arm. Unfortunately, the pixel monster eats your arm, which gives it more energy and causes it to develop a taste for your flesh. It quickly tracks you down and devours you! You die! THE END.
PAGE 12: You go back in time! But unfortunately, you go way too far. You find yourself in a castle in the eighteenth century. You discover that you look just like a member of the royal family (who, earlier that very day, fell off a cliff) so the royal family think that you are part of their family and let you live in their castle. You win because you’re rich now but you are stuck there forever so you also kind of lose. Sorry?!?! THE END.
PAGE 13: Your phone screen shatters as you come crashing out of it. Your mum pokes her head into the room, wondering what all the commotion is. You survive! THE END.
PAGE 14: You close the popup and instead click on your Twitter app. There are no new notifications. You suddenly realise that you don’t need to look at your phone again today. You’re free from technology’s grasp! You go outside and play with your cat. THE END.
PAGE 15: You yell “LOOK OVER HERE!!!” which distracts the robots long enough for the animals to escape. Unfortunately, it turns out the robots were only trying to kill the animals because the animals were evil and trying to take over the world! The animals enslave you and force you to be a cat’s pet couch forever. THE END.
PAGE 17: You zoom along the floating road and have a look around. The first person you run into is not actually a person but a robot. She gets mad at you for using her hoverboard without asking and kicks you into a black hole where you keep hurtling backwards through time forever and ever and ever and ever. THE END.
PAGE 18: You chase the pixel monster. And chase it and chase it and chase it. After five full days of chasing the pixel monster, you finally catch it. You kill it and gain three new lives. You’re stuck inside your phone forever and you have to keep killing different pixel monsters and getting more new lives to survive. THE END.
PAGE 19: You enter your password as instructed. But as a result, the pixel monster hacks your phone! Do you:
- Fight them to get control back (GO TO PAGE 9)
- Turn your phone off to get rid of them (GO TO PAGE 24)
PAGE 21: You stumble upon a time machine in your backyard. You step inside and see two buttons. One is labelled FUTURE and one is labelled PAST. Which do you choose?
- Past (GO TO PAGE 45)
- Future (GO TO PAGE 32)
PAGE 23: You click on the popup and immediately get sucked into your phone!!! You hear a booming, robotic voice. It tells you to choose: turn LEFT or RIGHT. Which way do you go?
- Left (GO TO PAGE 39)
- Right (GO TO PAGE 37)
PAGE 24: By turning off your phone, you get rid of the pixel monster. Well done! Unfortunately, you also get rid of yourself, because you’re inside the phone at the time. You die! THE END.
PAGE 32: Sorry! The labels on the buttons were switched to trick you. You go to the past instead. (GO TO PAGE 12)
PAGE 33: The cyborgs welcome you to their group and offer to help you escape your phone. They start walking you to a portal that will take you home. At that moment, you see a group of animals being shot at by some robots. Do you:
- Help the animals escape (GO TO PAGE 15)
- Shrug, let the animals be killed and keep trying to get home (GO TO PAGE 7)
PAGE 35: The pixel monster gets extremely angry because you disobeyed its commands. It kills you immediately. Whoops! THE END.
PAGE 36: You’ve gone to the future. You start walking along a floating road. You find a hoverboard and decide to ride it.
- Ride left and back in to the time machine (GO TO PAGE 12)
- Ride right and explore the future (GO TO PAGE 17)
PAGE 37: You turn right, where you run into some cyborgs that are having a conversation. Do you:
- Approach them (GO TO PAGE 33)
- Leave them alone (GO TO PAGE 7)
PAGE 39: You run into your favourite video game character: a pixel monster. They tell you to enter your password. Do you:
- Enter password (GO TO PAGE 19)
- Ignore their suspicious commands (GO TO PAGE 35)
PAGE 40: You pick up your arm, which suddenly turns into a sword! Sweet! Do you:
- Chase after the pixel monster with your new weapon (GO TO PAGE 18)
- Use the sword to cut your way out of the phone (GO TO PAGE 13)
PAGE 42: While you wait for your toast to cook, you check your phone. A flashing window pops up saying you’ve won a free computer. Do you:
- Close the popup (GO TO PAGE 14)
- Click the popup and see what happens (GO TO PAGE 23)
PAGE 45: Sorry! The labels on the buttons were switched to trick you. You go to the future instead. (GO TO PAGE 36)
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Recipe for Australian World Domination
by Simon
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CURE 100
by George, Russell, David, Francis, Ingrid, and Britt
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Potion to Ride the Ghost Dragon
by Loyola
