Auntie Marg was down from Magnet and me and Lee played cricket out the back with the littlies to get some air and keep them busy. Now and then a batter would really get onto one and the ball'd go out through the doublegee paddock towards the train tracks and someone'd have to go tippy-toeing through all that shit to get it.

'I'm telling you trade secrets,' the father said, 'So don't you go talking about this to anyone else. You don't want me put in jug do you?'

This doctrine may sound somewhat sacrilegious to the ultrarefined laboratorian, but it is stating conditions exactly as they are and as they are bound to be for generations in everyday medical life, outside of hospitals.

I heard a zing close to my head and looked up again. Five or six men were lined up on the deck above me with rifles shooting at the shark.