Anti Septic and her friend Helen gazed down the street, legs poised, hair tossed back, and solid red lips thrust out at the sun. Anti had said the tree branch would not hold both of them, but so far the wind and kids with rocks had not been able to knock them off. One child threw a very heavy rock that shook a banana out of the tree.
“Close!” called Anti Septic. “But you’ll have to try harder.”
“Auntie?” asked the boy.
“Yes?” said Helen and her friend. Helen poked Anti with her ice-cream cone. “He wants me, you turkey. Get a nephew of your own.”
“Auntie, I need more money for my pills. Mummy says my asthma will get worse unless I have my pills.”
Helen took out her wallet. There was always some new virus or cough that little Funyun was coming down with. Today it was asthma, then scurvy, then who knew? Helen always told him to have a dental check-up once a year just to make sure he didn’t get plague, but it was no good. Funyun was simply too strong-headed. Helen could worry into knots over the boy’s health. She sat glued to the TV set seeing all kinds of things about worms and brain slugs and fatal liver rots. Every day she was sure little Funyun had them all.
But Anti was having none of this. She put her hand on Helen’s arm to hold back the tide of money. As the boy looked on, Anti threw a thigh bone at Funyun’s head. He dodged the bone and stuck his tongue out at her. He hated Anti ever since he tore her petty coats to shreds and she took the news badly.
“Damn you!” she had said, her tears landing on the cake in big, sad, salty blobs. “And your little dog too.”
Helen had her doubts about the boy – Anti might have warped him. It was the oddest thing, but ever since that day Funyun hadn’t been able to eat cake unless it had been cried on by a widow. Dr. Ape said this was normal for a boy of his age, and that he was likely to grow out of it by the time he could hear again. Helen cast her mind back to the night Funyun got that injury. What a party it had been! The kids had been taking turns riding on the camel, the bright lights were in her eyes, the ferret gnawed on her shoe, threw up and then died. What a magic night, so full of stars and camels and ferret sick. It all seemed so simple then, a brief, golden memory out of her dark, crème brûlée past.
“Pills!” Funyun yelled. “I want my pills!”
“You’ll get no pills from us”, said Anti. “I saw you spend your pill money last week on candy.”
“That wasn’t candy, it was Yummy Yummy Tummy Lax, the world’s best bowel meds with an x-treme choc blast flavor.”
Anti spat at him. “Tummy Lax? Choc flavor? It looks the same going in as it does coming out! You won’t unplug your bowels today, young man.”
Funyun made a face at her. “You’re not my auntie, Anti.”
“Take that back”, she yelled, “take it back this moment! I will not stand for this.” Anti stood up and fell right out of her tree and out of her branch. As she hit the ground, the ground hit back and made her dead. In a flash of good luck, she fell right onto Funyun’s much loved dog Saliva. Funyun lived on long after her, but dear old Anti Septic would have been glad to know that, in the end, she got back at Funyun’s foul menace, that dog Saliva. They say that if you walk past that tree today, you can hear the ghost of Anti crying onto a slice of cheese cake. But this may simply be her best friend Helen, who weeps even now for her long lost friend and keeps a fresh piece of cake put aside just for her.