Ella Minnow Pea Read Online Free
Author: Mark Dunn
becomes like bud-never-bloom. The sweet scent is there—the innate desire to blossom, but the cold wind locks the bud in place.
All because of this tiny Nollop-cursed letter. I have yet to fully understand its awesome power. But I am fast learning.
Your loving cousin
,
Ella
[Upon the Minnow Pea kitchen table]
NOLLOPTON
Tuesday, August 15
Dear Goodwife Gwenette,
You are in the tub. It isn’t my wish to disturb you. I am going to town center. Prince Valiant-the-Comely says the Taylor Construction Company is a few carpenters short this week due to the grippe. I want to check with Taylor to see if he might need me tomorrow.
I stood outside the door to the bathroom inhaling deeply the intoxicating scent of your bath beads. I would have barged right in as I used to in the old days, but you seemed all too content enjoying your “privy time.” I identified all three of the tunes you were humming. They took me back a few years!
I love you.
I’ll be home later in the afternoon. Please tell Ella that the cocktail tomatoes in the back garden require immediate harvesting; the crows are already having themselves a fine tomato salad.
Amos
[Upon the Minnow Pea kitchen table]
NOLLOPTON
Tuesday, August 15
Dear Goodhusband Amos,
I write this on the chance that I may still be gone when you return. I will be at the market buying Cornish game hens for dinner tonight. I know how much you and Ella like them.
You think you are so smart! Now just whom do you think you’re fooling? In all the years we’ve been married you have not forgotten a single anniversary, and I do not think you intend to start with this one. I am thus quite aware, sir, that you are not in any form, shape, or manner having a work-related conversation with Anselm Taylor (who knows to call on you if he needs you) but are, instead, even as I write this, selecting for me some appropriately commemorative gift which you have absolutely no business buying, given the precariousness of our present financial situation.
You are too, too much, Amos Minnow Pea!
With love
,
Your wife of twenty-three
years to the day,
Gwenette Minnow Pea
PS. Perhaps if I chose to take another bath later this evening (while our dear daughter is working her evening shift at the launderette), you might reconsider your earlier decision about “barging right in.” (Tee hee.)
NOLLOPVILLE
Thursday, August 17
Ellakins,
Young Master Creevy was sent away today. When the flogging had ended, he allegedly (I was not there.) raised his head and let spew forth a long and repetitive illicit-letter-peppered tirade against the L.E.B. officers who had administered his punishment. He was not even granted time to pack a suitcase. I will hear more of his story when his mother addresses a meeting of the Parents and Teachers Association at the Village school tomorrow night. Within an hour of this act of civil disobedience, Master Creevy was tossed upon an outbound commercial trawler, with the summary warning that to return to Nollop would mean immediate execution.
Dear Ella, what have those fools on the Council wrought? The meeting tomorrow will allow us to vent our anger and frustration. I truly look forward to it.
Your cousin
,
Tassie
NOLLOPTON
Friday, August 18
Dear Tassie,
I’m eager to know how the meeting went. I wish we could speak on the phone—that phone service between town and village were reinstated; the Council continues to refer to the outage as a temporary “hurricane-related disruption” (the hurricane in question having occurred thirteen months ago). I don’t believe them. I think it represents, instead, the persistent degeneration of all means by which this island may someday enter the Twentieth Century, let alone the Twenty-first. Until I can procure cups and a massive coil of string, these letters that pass between us will comprise our sole means of communication, and we should try to make the best of them. Please write as soon (and as often) as you are
All because of this tiny Nollop-cursed letter. I have yet to fully understand its awesome power. But I am fast learning.
Your loving cousin
,
Ella
[Upon the Minnow Pea kitchen table]
NOLLOPTON
Tuesday, August 15
Dear Goodwife Gwenette,
You are in the tub. It isn’t my wish to disturb you. I am going to town center. Prince Valiant-the-Comely says the Taylor Construction Company is a few carpenters short this week due to the grippe. I want to check with Taylor to see if he might need me tomorrow.
I stood outside the door to the bathroom inhaling deeply the intoxicating scent of your bath beads. I would have barged right in as I used to in the old days, but you seemed all too content enjoying your “privy time.” I identified all three of the tunes you were humming. They took me back a few years!
I love you.
I’ll be home later in the afternoon. Please tell Ella that the cocktail tomatoes in the back garden require immediate harvesting; the crows are already having themselves a fine tomato salad.
Amos
[Upon the Minnow Pea kitchen table]
NOLLOPTON
Tuesday, August 15
Dear Goodhusband Amos,
I write this on the chance that I may still be gone when you return. I will be at the market buying Cornish game hens for dinner tonight. I know how much you and Ella like them.
You think you are so smart! Now just whom do you think you’re fooling? In all the years we’ve been married you have not forgotten a single anniversary, and I do not think you intend to start with this one. I am thus quite aware, sir, that you are not in any form, shape, or manner having a work-related conversation with Anselm Taylor (who knows to call on you if he needs you) but are, instead, even as I write this, selecting for me some appropriately commemorative gift which you have absolutely no business buying, given the precariousness of our present financial situation.
You are too, too much, Amos Minnow Pea!
With love
,
Your wife of twenty-three
years to the day,
Gwenette Minnow Pea
PS. Perhaps if I chose to take another bath later this evening (while our dear daughter is working her evening shift at the launderette), you might reconsider your earlier decision about “barging right in.” (Tee hee.)
NOLLOPVILLE
Thursday, August 17
Ellakins,
Young Master Creevy was sent away today. When the flogging had ended, he allegedly (I was not there.) raised his head and let spew forth a long and repetitive illicit-letter-peppered tirade against the L.E.B. officers who had administered his punishment. He was not even granted time to pack a suitcase. I will hear more of his story when his mother addresses a meeting of the Parents and Teachers Association at the Village school tomorrow night. Within an hour of this act of civil disobedience, Master Creevy was tossed upon an outbound commercial trawler, with the summary warning that to return to Nollop would mean immediate execution.
Dear Ella, what have those fools on the Council wrought? The meeting tomorrow will allow us to vent our anger and frustration. I truly look forward to it.
Your cousin
,
Tassie
NOLLOPTON
Friday, August 18
Dear Tassie,
I’m eager to know how the meeting went. I wish we could speak on the phone—that phone service between town and village were reinstated; the Council continues to refer to the outage as a temporary “hurricane-related disruption” (the hurricane in question having occurred thirteen months ago). I don’t believe them. I think it represents, instead, the persistent degeneration of all means by which this island may someday enter the Twentieth Century, let alone the Twenty-first. Until I can procure cups and a massive coil of string, these letters that pass between us will comprise our sole means of communication, and we should try to make the best of them. Please write as soon (and as often) as you are
Readers choose
Matthew Ballard
Erika Masten, Catherine Vale, Bryce Evans, Michelle Fox, Elle Boon, Katalina Leon
Roberta Kray
Vanessa Devereaux
Steve Miller, Sharon Lee
Kristen Proby
Alain de Botton
D C Grant
J.T. Edson
Linda Baletsa