Guest Post

I, Bunyip, have been seen in these pages before. In my most recent appearance I snarfed up Jamie's bathing suit, but it was not very filling. I have been living lean, getting by on the ductwork's baby spiders and dust bunnies, but TODAY oh FRABJOUS DAY I had a most delicious mouthful.

Jamie appeared in the living room with a mysteriously colored ovoid object. She put it in the shoe basket. She came back with another, which she stashed in the magazine rack. Then she put a third one under the armchair's cushion.

I sniffed a cautious sniff and realized: despite the peculiar colorations, these objects were FOOD. Jamie put one on the CD shelf and taped another to the underside of the coffee table. And THEN -- oh THEN -- she put an egg where I could reach it. I snaked a long and hairy arm out of my duct and I SNAFFLED myself some FOOD. It was crunchier than I expected on the outside, very crunchy, even a little disagreeable in its pointiness, but the inside was GLORIOUS. It was more filling than a thousand spider nymphs. Mmmmm, I wondered if I could find MORE of the FOOD things.

Then there came a thumping of many feet. This house has so many thumping feet. It is a sad place for a bunyip like me, used to the wide open spaces and silences of the outback, but at least the Gladlyville spiders are less likely to be poisonous. The kids came in and -- can you believe it? -- they started searching for my FOOD. My. Food. Even worse, they were counting the food things. They counted to 17, and then they began to be puzzled. Where was the 18th food thing?

Desperate times call for desperate measures, they say. With a cautious finger I reached inside Jamie's ear. With the greatest delicacy I scooped out her memory of the food thing's location. I breathed a sigh of relief when she looked perplexed. "I...don't know, kids," she said. I know there were six in the living room, but I can't remember where I put the sixth one."

With a sulfurous burp I departed, wriggling back into the bowels of the house. The next time she has the ductwork cleaned she may marvel at the trail of food thing pointy bits inside my duct, but I am safe for today.