Read Online Benny & Shrimp by Katarina Mazetti - Free Book Online
Authors: Katarina Mazetti
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shell,” I tried to say, but when I looked around me I couldn’t see land in any direction. I moaned.
Benny threw himself across me to the far side of the bed and started plaiting my hair that side. “We should be able to get you looking the part,” he said. “Though you did sleep through the morning milking.” His hair was wet and he smelt of soap.
“Get lost, country bumpkin,” I croaked. “Take yourcows and go! Bring me a café au lait in bed, with croissants and the review section of Dagens nyheter ! Then you can go and listen to the farming news or something!”
He twisted the plaits into place on top of my head and fastened them with a rubber band the size of a bicycle tyre. “That’s how you ought to look for work in the cowshed tomorrow,” he said. “And wear wellies and waddle along with your hips swaying, lecturing them on hoofcare.”
I did the waddling part all right. I was all swollen between the legs.
“See what happens if you don’t watch out for untethered bulls,” he said with satisfaction.
We went down to the kitchen and I carried on chewing my way through the boring petrol station bread. Benny shovelled down porridge with apple sauce as if he had hollow legs. He asked if I made my own bread, and I said I thought bread grew on trees, and you either picked it as little rolls or let it ripen into big, fat loaves.
He laughed, but it sounded a bit forced.
Then he dragged me out to view the property, impatient to show me everything. I nodded and said aha and oh ho and ooh yes, kind sir. It wasn’t difficult, because the farm was in a beautiful setting: in a landscape of rolling hills, with the last golden leaves of autumn to complete the pretty picture. Light trails of mist across rich, black soil he’d just ploughed for winter. Gleaming rowanberries, the sort his mother used to make a delicious jelly with, he told me… Enormous plastic bags full of some kind of soured grass in neat rows behindthe barn. And finally, a cowshed full of well-fed, sleepy cows – I’ve rarely seen a life-sized cow in the flesh; they seemed almost unreal.
Of course, I made straight for the calf pens and let the doe-eyed little creatures suck my fingers, but Benny dragged me away to show me the finer points of his new manure-handling system. He can’t really have believed I was the slightest bit interested? The sheep were still outside, “but we’ll have to get them in soon!” he said. We?
I had a sense of being in the middle of someone else’s dream. Someone was about to land herself an attractive farm owner with twenty-four dairy cows. Plus followers . Though really, someone hadn’t asked for anything like that at all, but had got quite used to the idea of being an old maid, perhaps with a cat. And lovers in small doses to keep her hormones in balance.
It was, like, too much, as Märta would put it. Yes, too much by at least twenty-four. But I didn’t say it. He was so proud.
Then, of course, there was a big fuss when I decided I wanted to go home. I’d had just about as much crossstitch embroidery and manure-handling gadgetry as I could take for one day. I needed to pamper my battered undercarriage in a hot bath and read Dagens nyheter and listen to a bit of Boccherini and lie on clean white sheets and drink herbal tea.
I needed to think.
But before I’d had time to put any of that into acceptable words, Benny threw me a kilo of frozen mincestraight from the freezer and said eagerly that it would be fine for our dinner – maybe meatballs? I stared from him to the ice-cold lump and back again. Then I said something laboured about still being in culture shock and needing to be put back in my natural habitat for a while.
He looked at me, and I had an almost tangible sense of his long antennae moving over my face. Yes, he’s sensitive to emotional moods. I suppose you have to be if you need to make contact with our dumb friends the animals.
And his wonderful smile clouded over.
“Sure.
Benny threw himself across me to the far side of the bed and started plaiting my hair that side. “We should be able to get you looking the part,” he said. “Though you did sleep through the morning milking.” His hair was wet and he smelt of soap.
“Get lost, country bumpkin,” I croaked. “Take yourcows and go! Bring me a café au lait in bed, with croissants and the review section of Dagens nyheter ! Then you can go and listen to the farming news or something!”
He twisted the plaits into place on top of my head and fastened them with a rubber band the size of a bicycle tyre. “That’s how you ought to look for work in the cowshed tomorrow,” he said. “And wear wellies and waddle along with your hips swaying, lecturing them on hoofcare.”
I did the waddling part all right. I was all swollen between the legs.
“See what happens if you don’t watch out for untethered bulls,” he said with satisfaction.
We went down to the kitchen and I carried on chewing my way through the boring petrol station bread. Benny shovelled down porridge with apple sauce as if he had hollow legs. He asked if I made my own bread, and I said I thought bread grew on trees, and you either picked it as little rolls or let it ripen into big, fat loaves.
He laughed, but it sounded a bit forced.
Then he dragged me out to view the property, impatient to show me everything. I nodded and said aha and oh ho and ooh yes, kind sir. It wasn’t difficult, because the farm was in a beautiful setting: in a landscape of rolling hills, with the last golden leaves of autumn to complete the pretty picture. Light trails of mist across rich, black soil he’d just ploughed for winter. Gleaming rowanberries, the sort his mother used to make a delicious jelly with, he told me… Enormous plastic bags full of some kind of soured grass in neat rows behindthe barn. And finally, a cowshed full of well-fed, sleepy cows – I’ve rarely seen a life-sized cow in the flesh; they seemed almost unreal.
Of course, I made straight for the calf pens and let the doe-eyed little creatures suck my fingers, but Benny dragged me away to show me the finer points of his new manure-handling system. He can’t really have believed I was the slightest bit interested? The sheep were still outside, “but we’ll have to get them in soon!” he said. We?
I had a sense of being in the middle of someone else’s dream. Someone was about to land herself an attractive farm owner with twenty-four dairy cows. Plus followers . Though really, someone hadn’t asked for anything like that at all, but had got quite used to the idea of being an old maid, perhaps with a cat. And lovers in small doses to keep her hormones in balance.
It was, like, too much, as Märta would put it. Yes, too much by at least twenty-four. But I didn’t say it. He was so proud.
Then, of course, there was a big fuss when I decided I wanted to go home. I’d had just about as much crossstitch embroidery and manure-handling gadgetry as I could take for one day. I needed to pamper my battered undercarriage in a hot bath and read Dagens nyheter and listen to a bit of Boccherini and lie on clean white sheets and drink herbal tea.
I needed to think.
But before I’d had time to put any of that into acceptable words, Benny threw me a kilo of frozen mincestraight from the freezer and said eagerly that it would be fine for our dinner – maybe meatballs? I stared from him to the ice-cold lump and back again. Then I said something laboured about still being in culture shock and needing to be put back in my natural habitat for a while.
He looked at me, and I had an almost tangible sense of his long antennae moving over my face. Yes, he’s sensitive to emotional moods. I suppose you have to be if you need to make contact with our dumb friends the animals.
And his wonderful smile clouded over.
“Sure.
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