Three Sisters on a Trampoline.

© Alison Collins

I’m in the kitchen, filleting a rainbow trout.
I’m standing in the spot where those little villains can’t see me; but I can see them.
All they do is whinge and moan, too much frigging energy. Here comes another barrage of abuse.
“Get OFF! Stop pushing me. It’s not fair. Melan-eee!”
Anyone can see that they deliberately set themselves up to be pushed, shoved and smacked in the head.
Jade seems to always have one of her shoes half hanging off, and while bouncing and being bounced
around the trampoline by her sisters, she calculates her moment to shoe-flick Melanie.
Melanie has seen it coming; she has observed the gradual build-up to this moment. She has already
countered this attack with her own victim-sequence. In the short time it took to push a braid behind her
ear, Melanie has already nudged one arm of her spectacles over and free of one ear; her well-practiced
default position. Now when she cops the stinky shoe and her glasses fly off, Melanie can honestly report
she HONESTLY didn’t see that Tessa’s face would be in the spot where her helicoptering, plasticjewellery-covered limbs would be swinging.
Tessa, with her recently tightened braces on upper and lower teeth, and a precocious taste for painkillers.
All this, while bouncing on the trampoline. Dexterous little buggers.
All this jumping. Loose and flying footwear; tender dentals, insufficient eyesight; perfectly calculated
foresight.
Three sisters, a gallon of red cordial between them, and a trampoline.
It’s not like it’s the start of the School Holidays or anything liberating like that, but then who needs a
reason?
Can you guess what will happen next? Can you guess whose Mummy is gunna snap, and haul-arse in
the next few seconds brandishing a fish-knife?

Three Sisters on a Trampoline