DM Ch 7

‘It was just before that, in late November, that Jim caught one day, in a casual sweep of his glasss over a marshy bank, a creature that he recogni [s] ed and then didn’t: the beak was too long an down-curved, the body too large for any of the various sandpipers. He stared and didn’t know what it was. He couldn’t have been more puzzled, more astonished, if he’d found a unicorn.

‘Next day, on the offchance, he took Miss Harcourt to the place and they waited, silent for the most part, and talking about nothing much when they did talk, while Jim covered the area with his glasses.

‘Miss Harcourt rather sprawled, with her boots at the end of outstretched legs and her great skirt rumpled, not at all minding the dust. Her bonnet was always lopsided and she didn’t mind that either. She had her own rules and kept them but she didn’t care for other people’s. Jim’s father thought her mad. ‘That old girl you hang about with,’ he sneered ‘she’s a bit of a hatter.’ But she spoke like a lady, she didn’t hit the bottle and had, except for her passion for photography and the equipment she lugged about, no visible eccentricities. People found her, as a subject for gossip, unmanageable, unrewarding, and she oughtn’t to have been; they resented it. So his father and some others called her mad but could not furnish evidence.

‘Jim chewed a match, working it round and round his jaw.

‘At last it was there. It had stepped right out of cover into a break between reeds. Raising a finger to warn her, he passed the field glasses.

‘;By that clump of reeds,’ he whispered [AT TEN O’CLOCK].’ ‘¹

Time is not a traveller Tenterfield saddle-er but alas from February 26, 1606 not @ Cape York in the terms of your normal healthy primary schooler crude Anne-Rand-Alan-Greenspan-Nathaniel-Branden barely-awake Philosophic-objectivist if not utterly fake consciousness but somewhere down the west coast of Cape York Peninsula until 1015 Hours FER Westpac East-antarctica longitudinal trisphere time 17/11/2025 it was thought to be

John

Australia

¹as Auss-ie arguments over god con tan weh and many of us catastrophically sit out in the patio defecating and the humidity is, well you all know what phew-midity is about huh we some of us menfolk ponder the most bright dark pink holes known to quantum optics in a vibrant society of grown-up human beans well we don’t actually what are we gynaecologists or ‘perves^n+1′

xⁿ⁺¹ this word, from the economic depression, hardship & widespread poverty 1930s period is not recommended for young Australians’ usage for help call Lifeline 13 11 14 or text 0477 13 11 14 and a stern warning from the garbment (turnout couture dress outfit uniform) you may be arrested and stuck in police cells overnight or for just an hour or two depending how the officers feel at the time perhaps as many as eight times