Mary And Max
Mary Dinkle's eyes were the colour
of muddy puddles.
Her birthmark, the colour of poo.
(Dogs bark)
It was Saturday afternoon
and she was bored.
Mary wished she had a friend
to play piggybacks with.
Mary's mood ring, which she'd found
in a cereal box, was grey
which, according to the chart,
meant she was either pensive,
unconsciously ambitious or hungry.
Her only friends were 'The Noblets'
from her favourite cartoon.
They weren't the real ones
you bought in the shops
but fake ones she had to make herself
from shells, gumnuts, pompoms
and the chicken bones salvaged
from Friday night's takeaway.
She had to make all her own toys,
and her favourites were Shrinkies
potato chip packets that
she had shrunk in the oven.
Mary's father, Noel Norman Dinkle,
worked in a factory,
attaching the strings to tea bags.
At show and tell, she told the class
he could get as many free tea bags
as he wanted.
Her favourite tea bag was Earl Grey.
She loved saying "Earl Grey"
and would like one day to marry
someone called Earl Grey.
They would live
in a castle in Scotland,
have 9 babies, 2 ducks...
..and a dog called Kevin.
Noel's hobby was to sit in his shed
and stuff birds he'd found
on the side of the freeway.
Mary wished he'd spend more time
with her and less with his dead friends.
She also wished she had
some brothers and sisters.
Her mother had told her
she was "an accident".
How could someone be an accident?
Grandpoppy Ralph had told her
that babies were deliberate
and found by dads
at the bottom of their beer.
Grandpoppy Ralph
had smelt like pickled onions
and had been a member of the Frankston
lce Breakers for 51 years.
Aaagh! Aaaaaghhh!
They swam in winter to feel alive.
Grandpoppy Ralph had said
it made his nipples erect.
He had died the year before, aged 74,
and his best mate, Ken,
had recited a poem in his honour.
Born in a barn
in the hills of Boronia,
Ralph lived a long life,
then died of pneumonia.
Mary missed him
and often wondered
why he had drunk ammonia.
A lot of things puzzled Mary
especially her mother,
Vera Lorraine Dinkle.
To Mary, Vera always seemed wobbly.
A pretty vicious ball.
And he's out!
Vera liked listening
to the cricket while baking
and her main ingredient
was always sherry.
She told Mary it was a type of tea
for grown-ups
that needed constant testing.
Just out of the reach
of the lead. 6/96 England.
Mary thought her mother tested
the sherry...way too much.
Mary also couldn't understand
why Vera was always "borrowing".
Yesterday, she borrowed
some fish fingers from Aisle 6.
She told Mary she put things
up her dress to save on plastic bags.
Vera was indeed a complicated soul.
Oooh!
Mary stopped daydreaming
and went and fetched
her pet rooster from the rain.
Her father had found the rooster
on the side of the freeway
after it had fallen off the back
of a slaughter truck.
She named him Ethel.
It was time to watch "The Noblets".
She adored "The Noblets"
because everyone was brown,
lived in a teapot
and had oodles of friends.
There was nothing nicer,
Mary thought to herself,
than the smell of a wet rooster...
..the sound of rain on the roof
and the taste of sweetened
condensed milk straight from the can
while watching your favourite cartoon.
Meanwhile, a man called Max Horowitz
also watched "The Noblets".
Max's small television
had picture but no sound.
His big television, sound but no picture.
He was 44 and liked "The Noblets"
as they lived in a delineated
and articulated social structure
with constant adherent conformity
and also because they had
oodles of friends.
Max had trouble sleeping
and had spent the night watching
television and catching fish food.
He noted to himself it was the sixth fly
he'd caught this evening.
He wondered if he should go to bed
and count sheep
or have one more chocolate hotdog.
He thought he'd try both
but it didn't work.
It had been 6 hours and 12 minutes since
Henry Vlll had passed away.
And Henry's death
had thrown Max's life into disarray.
It had become asymmetrical
and the sooner
he got a new fish, the better.
Tomorrow he would go to the pet store
and get another Henry
Henry lX.
Next.
It was shopping day
and Mary sat patiently while her mother
"borrowed" some envelopes.
To fill in time, she scanned the room
and counted how many things
were brown.
There was sticky tape, rubber bands
and a phone book with a picture
of a lady standing in a brown lake
with her hand on fire.
People had weird names in America,
Mary Daisy Dinkle thought to herself.
Funny-sounding people called
Rockefeller and Finkelstein.
She wondered what they looked like,
how old they were
and if they were married, wore glasses,
or had found babies in their beer.
Maybe in the USA
they found babies elsewhere.
Hmm...
They drank a lot of cola.
Maybe they found them in cans.
But, no, they wouldn't fit
through the hole.
Mary had an idea.
She would write to one of the Americans
and ask where babies came from.
She chose a Mr M Horowitz.
Aarrgh, Mrs Dinkle!
Come back here, Vera Dinkle!
You come back here!
Aaarghhhh!
Dear Mr M Horowitz,
my name is Mary Daisy Dinkle
and I am 8 years old,
My favourite colour is brown
and my favourite food
is sweetened condensed milk
followed closely by chocolate.
I have a rooster called Ethel
that looks like this.
He doesn't lay eggs but will one day.
My mother likes smoking,
cricket and sherry
and my father likes playing in his shed
with dead birds.
Where do babies come from
in America?
Do they come from cola cans?
In Australia
they are found in beer glasses.
Here is a drawing of me.
I can't draw ears proper
but I'm good at teeth.
It would be great if you could write back
and be my friend.
Yours "sincerealy", Mary Daisy Dinkle.
PS. I hope you like the chocolate bar
I'm also sending.
It's called a Cherry Ripe.
Goodbye, letter. Don't forget to write.
Max hated Thursdays
the day of his weekly
Overeaters Anonymous meeting.
And tonight he'd felt
especially unsettled
because he'd eaten two chocolate
hotdogs on his way there.
OK, class...
Eating chocolate was breaking the rules.
He'd found the night
even more unbearable
because of Marjorie Butterworth's
strange glances.
Class dismissed.
Max had trouble understanding
non-verbal signals.
Flirting was as foreign to him
as jogging.
Max found most people very confusing.
But little did Max realise
his night was about to become
even more confusing and cryptic.
Hmm.
He read Mary's letter four times
and then did what he normally did
whenever confronted
with something new and stressful.
Max's fragile existence
had once again become unsettled.
And after staring out of the window
for 18 hours
he finally made a decision.
Dear Mary Daisy Dinkle,
thank you for the letter,
which I opened and read at 9.1 7pm
after my Overeaters Anonymous class.
I am trying to lose weight
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"Mary And Max" Scripts.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 25 Dec. 2024. <https://www.scripts.com/script/mary_and_max_13437>.
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