Broom, Broom (Fungus #1)

Broom, Broom

  Sergio Tell

  Copyright ? 2012 by Sergio Tell

  All rights reserved

  v.20121102

  Contents

  My name is Cucumber

  Political business

  The report

  Government advice

  About the author

  Copyright

  My name is Cucumber

  I wrote this book because I want to tell the story of my family since we come to live here in Australia.

  First, I introduce myself, so you can see that education is not my problem. My problem is lack of education.

  My name is Cucumber Gutierrez.

  English is my second language, but the way I write everyone thinks that is my fourteenth.

  Spanish is my very long and sexy mother tongue, so if you do not understand what do you read in the book, in Spanish we say "I pay your ticket so you can go to hell for free."

  But if you want to read my book, please be passion, or patient, or patent, I'm not sure? In English my tongue is not so very long and sexy.

  I came here with my uncle and my cousin.

  We are all from Panama.

  - - -

  When we live in Panama, my uncle worked in a bakery and was a great cake maker. He always looked for the best herbs to put in the cakes and make them yummy delicious.

  My cousin, Alberto Zapata, worked twenty-four years as a petty officer for the Panamanian army.

  What is happen was that for one Christmas party the generals of the army, knowing that his father worked in a bakery, asked my cousin Alberto to donate cakes.

  My uncle and cousin decided together to do the cake called Tres Leches, which means "three milks." This cake is famous for being served at the Queen of England's weddings, and was shipped all the way from Panama. The cake was said to be the most delectable in the world.

  Alberto and his father made that cake for the army and added a new golden syrup for cakes that my uncle, Tito Pebete created, made from a herb that gives a lot of happy spirit to the people that eat it. He called the syrup syrupoloco.

  During the party, all the soldiers and generals did not stop dropping grenades and explosives and shooting with their rifles. A few of the generals were even happy to shoot their new cannons, and this very happy and noisy party destroyed half of Panama City, the capital of Panama.

  Next day, the generals found out about all the syruploco that Alberto and my uncle put in the cakes, and threw our whole family out of Panama.

  - - -

  My uncle was so happy to go away and live in a new country that in Thailand he exchanged some of the herbs he used in Panama for a low-budget sex change operation, and now is my cousin Alberto's mother, and my auntie instead of my uncle. Her name now is Tilia Zapata (alias Pito Fulminado), which in Spanish means dead pines.

  They gave us visas first to the desert. Then we complained that we do not have anything to eat there, so then they gave us visas to come straight to Melbourne, and today we live in Footscray. Alberto and Tilia are in a little house they constructed from a shipping container. I live in a flat nearby.

  Australia is a beautiful country, so I asked Alberto and Tilia to please don't make any more cakes. But my uncle-auntie now is exploring Aboriginal herbs to put in cakes.

  We were all born in the capital of Panama, and in the capital city was a long street where tourists from all over the world came. We used to go there, always looking for dollar coins. We don't know how, but my cousin Alberto always found English pounds. Because of that he was convinced that he is a better detective than Sherlock Holmes.

  - - -

  That day I was in my kitchen, where I putted the picture of the cat I had in Panama, and I did a cafe to drink with my cafe machine I bought in the milk bar. Yes, in the milk bar. Cost me eight dollars, the machine, and is doing great cafe. At that moment it was not electricity, so I drank cold cafe. I was trying to stick a few flowers to the picture of my cat when suddenly the electricity came back and my radio started to yell.

  I was standing up on the little fridge I have, trying to rich the picture of my cat so I could stick the flowers, and because of the sudden noise I went falling down from the fridge. The door broke and I landed with flowers all in my glass of cafe and all over the kitchen. Instead of my cat getting the flowers, my cafe did.

  The bloody radio, yelling, was reporting that the premier of Victoria succeeded in balancing the budget. We were about to have a political election.

  Who cares?, I thought. I am receiving enough money from the government because they are telling me thank you for been unemployed and not working. They are giving me unemployment benefits. When I came to Australia, it was very hard for me to understand what the hell is Centrelink. At the beginning, I thought it was a shopping centre.

  The radio kept saying, "Everyone is celebrating in Victoria great economic prosperity, singing and dancing, while the Victorian government is preparing for the new political elections. As well, migration increased because of the rise in the number of idol and cooking shows on TV. Everyone is watching My Bikini Makes My Bottom Huge, the latest new Australian superstar program."

  Like the famous comic Groucho Marx said in 1936, I found the program of the bikini big bottom very educational. Every time is on, I go to read my book.

  Do you know that in Panama political elections doesn't exist? Always is the same person who is sitting in the chief chair. Not because he is a tyrant, but because he sticks his ass to the chair with glue.

  Actually, either way, it is the same. Lucky I am not there anymore. Everyone knows that here in Australia, we have democracy and not corruption.

  I turned off the radio. Then, I finished cleaning the mess in my kitchen and I went out to my uncle-auntie's for dinner.

  I arrived there and s-he started to yell at me, as usual always yelled, that I am not wearing nice clothes and I did not need to bring those smelly flowers.

  I said that those were flowers from my kitchen that my fridge gave me, but she was busy arranging the table. I asked where is Alberto, my cousin, and my uncle-auntie told me that he is very busy. Because of the political election he may have a job, a very big job in the government.

  "What? In the Government?" I said. "No, no, we like to be here. We don't want to go away again!"

  Tilia already wanted to crash one of the chairs on my head when Alberto at the door appeared suddenly and yelled, "Dale toro! Viva Sherlock! Dale toro! Viva Sherlock!" which means "Go, bull! Sherlock lives!"

  Alberto entered the room, opened a cheap bottle of wine, served three glasses and started to sing and dance. Tilia, holding up a chair in one hand and the glass of wine in the other, started to dance and jumped with him and while dancing asked, "Hhhhhoooowwww wwwwaaaassss tttthhhheeee iiiinnnntttteeeerrrrvvvview?"

  Alberto stopped dancing, standed up with his two legs together like a general getting a blessing from the Pope, and with a very serious face like President Bush from America asking her braid-sorry, bride-if she wants to be his partner, my cousin said, "I am going to be the next Sherlock Holmes. Next Wednesday, the premier will nominate me assistant to the chief police commissioner of Victoria!"

  "It looks we came to live to this world just to be dropped all the time from all the countries we leave," I thought to myself. "Now if they put my cousin ass as chief assistant police, I can't imagine what cake Tilia will do!"

  After I finished my lunch I congratulated my cousin that did not stop dancing and jumping with s-he, I say chau (bye) and went back to my flat.

  But to think that my cousin can be the assistant to the chief commissioner is the same as if you think that after putting toilet paper in a dishwasher you can get ravioli.

  Anyway, th
at day was Sunday, and so when I arrived to my building my neighbour Kootis was on the street taking out the rubbish bin. He always said to me that he is getting rid of the rubbish of Europe.

  Kootis's surname is Papanastopolous. I told him that the name sound Russian or Greek, but no, he is Italian. He said that when he was born in Italy, Benito Claustrophobia was in the government, and his mother saw that Claustrophobia will kill everyone in the future, so she put her son in a basket and the basket in the sea, and he finished his trip in Greece as a seven-month old boy.

  Can you imagine a person with a half-Greek, half-Italian brain? What a genius! Is like a giant machine producing tsunamis of pasta.

  Kootis is already thirteen years working for the Victorian government. His office is at the Government House in the city. He is the multicultural photocopy maker and he knows all the secrets. He is multicultural because he speaks Italian, Greek, English, Slavonian-because he has a Slavonian partner-and he also knows how to swear in Chinese because our Chinese neighbour Da Xia swear to us all the time.

  Last week, Kootis and his partner Manja, they went for holidays, so he could not tell me about the nomination of my cousin for the position of assistant to the chief commissioner.

  Kootis lives in the flat, but has a house. He gave the house to Manja so she could bring her family to Australia, and all the family live there.

  - - -

  That Sunday afternoon at 3.45, Kootis came to me and said, "Hello Che Guevara, how's it going? Came on to my flat: now is a good time for cafe. I bought a new