Prompt Word: Bug Minervie and Chip 50 Edna started as slow as she knew how, “Have you heard of a ward?” Gungan squinted, “Like in a jail?” Edna shook her head, “Like the phrase, ‘To ward off’. In this case: guard, protect.” Gungan just nodded. Edna continued, “The very timber you are leaning against is a ward. It protects me. It keeps the unwanted away. If the colonists try to come here, they will get lost....
Prompt Word: Shed Minervie and Chip 49 Unlike Gungan’s attic room in a middle class neighborhood where the dunny was a tiny shed with no room for more than a throne and a water bucket, Edna’s farmstead had a well appointed wash building. There were four toilet rooms. They were still just pit latrines, but for some reason they didn’t stink. The toilets had well formed seats. The whole building had clean, whitewashed solid wood floor and the outer room had two hand-washing basins and these had faucets with actual hot water....
Prompt Word: Dash Minervie and Chip 48 After an uneventful dash across the sky, which still took more than an hour, Minervie came out of the sky onto a dunny cart path about two blocks from the Brisbane train station, where she’d left her own broom. January meant that sunlight was still plentiful. There was no trouble in getting her broom back. It was still on the platform wall where she’d left it....
Prompt Word: Lap Minervie and Chip 47 Edna came out of the kitchen, and started putting food on the table in the dining room. “Come on,” she called from the other room. Gungan and Minervie stood up and headed through the open doorway to the dining room. A serving bowl of rice and goat and other spices that neither could guess at awaited them. Edna came out with a tea kettle, and suggested they all sit....