The self-sown seeds began to grow and the Baby Blue pumpkin plants multiplied in Vera Robinson's corner garden. The leaves were like small olive green umbrellas standing upright and the long pale green creepers crept silently along the garden and onto the lawn, through the gladioli plants and onto and around native ferns, their tentacles choking them and moving right along the ground, and around the base of the veranda.


The creepers also crept up the fence, up and around the clothesline, but it didn't matter as long as they belonged with the Baby Blue pumpkins. The pumpkins began to gain weight rapidly from too much consumption of vegetation until they became blue-in-the-face, and could no longer feel free, so they just sat, and inside they became a vibrant orange shade that Vera Robinson so loved.

In the centre of the vibrant orange colour sat countless large pips getting ready (we hoped) to self-seed after the pumpkins werecooked and consumed by rapacious Vera Robinson. You see Vera Robinson ate only pumpkin. By a nutritionist's standards she should have been eating a daily intake of protein to constructnew body tissues. It is no wonder she had blemished skin, slack muscles and nervous digestive symptoms as well as respiratory, problems and liver and kidney blood disorders.

And soon the pumpkin creeper was creeping its way up and onto the veranda where quite ironically Vera Robinson sat on a large chair that had formed the shape of her rump which was the same shape as a pumpkin. Eat a pumpkin - be a pumpkin - eat a pumpkin - be a pumpkin…

The hot humid weather had forced Vera Robinson to fall asleep. Her neighbour was yelling through the tall fence, “Shut up, Vera Robinson. You're snoring so loud you sound like a bulldozer. For peace sake, shut up!” But snore she did and nothing but nothing would stir her from her slumber. So little did she know that the Baby Blue pumpkin's tentacles were winding themselves round her arms, her neck and her legs. The tentacles pulled at her and tugged at her till they had pulled her head first onto the lawn where the Baby Blue pumpkins sat fat and delicious on the pumpkin patch.

Didn't she know that minerals are a catalyst for protein absorption? Didn't she know anything about anything except bloody pumpkins? Oh-oh-oh-oh! Wake up lady!

And wake up she did. As soon as she heard the pumpkins say, “This will teach you for obsessing with pumpkins when you should be obsessing with your poor-poor skinny cat and your poor-poor wretched rib-cage dog.” They then forced her to eat every Baby Blue pumpkin on the patch till she was radically spitting pips.

“You freaking well wished for,” they bellowed, “more pumpkins than you could bloody well eat. You silly, silly woman! It's no wonder you resemble one. You should be more careful what you wish for in the future. Do you want everyone calling you the Pumpkin-Patch-Lady instead of Vera Robinson?”

She began to use the pips as ammunition and was shooting them from her mouth like a slot machine spits change. “There are good pumpkins and bad pumpkins,” she spat, “and you're the worst I've ever known.”

“Look, Mrs. Pip-spitting - Ah, Mrs.Robinson. You ought to take better care of your pets, and of your own health, pumpkins are healthy but anything in too greater quantity can actually be detrimental to your health.”

“Isn't it my business?”

“No. Not at all. Your pets are thin and appear dehydrated. If anything happens to you what do you think will happen to them?”

“They will probably get the death penalty.”

“Exactly. Do you think they deserve that?”

“No. Not even on a good day.”

“You do know that a pumpkin a day is really not going to keep the doctor away, don't you?”

“Well. What do you think I should eat.”

“Try some beef, or chicken, or lamb, or pork…”

“O-o-o-o-r, come on. I am not going to eat animals, by bloody hook or blasted crook, I'm not!” She said quite adamantly, her top lip pulling tightly with deliberation.

“On the other hand…let's see…you could eat spuds, um…silver beet, lettuce, and oh…will you eat eggs?”

“You young f-o-o-o-o-l,” she said savagely, “What the fuck happens to an egg if the shell is broken from the inside?”

“O-o-o-o-r.”

“Do you think I should eat my animals, then!”

“Um…”

“To put things back into perspective I have a list here…See…yoghurt, milk, wheat germ. Millet meal, o-o-o-o-r look: pumpkin seeds.”

“O-o-o-o-r, pumpkin seeds,” she mimicked.

“Oh…”

“…and I'm not allowed to eat the Baby Blue pumpkin flesh?”

“Well, not if you put it like that.”

“What a-r-e you talking about, Buddy?”

“I'm a very important pumpkin, so don't give me grief.”

“No, we'll skip the grief if I get to stew you.”

“You're related to pumpkins yourself, probably to the Baby Blue variety.”

“Don't be dumb.”

“Yeah, well if you don't believe me look at the indent in your veranda chair, just l-o-o-k.”

“I think you're being rather personal. On that note you can go about your business and leave.”

“I think you had better listen to me and listen hard. The joking is over - fini - if you prefer French. Now, Mrs. Robinson if you don't take bettercare of yourself and your pets we will remove the privilege of us growing in your garden, and we will inform all of our relatives promptly.”

“I can still buy pumpkins,” she said, sulkily.

“Au contraire, my dear lady, when word gets out you will never eat another pumpkin again. We can spread the word that if any pumpkins come near your domain they will not be edible.”

“Oh, come off it,” she protested. “What a lot of bullshit.”

Determined Vera Robinson wandered off down to the local 'Night Owl' dairy during the day and bought two robust pumpkins, only they didn't stock the Baby Blue variety so she had to be happy with 'Triamble' which looks like it's horribly deformed as though it has three separate posteriors jutting out but Vera Robinson was no perfectionist, so it didn't matter, and she was never one to listen.

The Triambles were difficult to carry home with all their posteriors and were very heavy as well. However, you know Mrs. Robinson by now so I won't bore you with trivialities.

She hungrily tore strips from the pumpkin skins, diced them with sweating palms and hurriedly threw them into a large preserving pan and was keen on tasting the pumpkin soup a.s.a.p.

She could smell dreamily the aroma that soared up her nostrils. It seemed to simmer, and simmer, and simmer. So Vera Robinson became a clock watcher. She looked at it every five minutes. Luckily she wasn'temployed because boss' don't abide clock watchers.

As she looked at the clock she muttered from time to time, “It should be ready by now, by now, by now…” But little did she realize that the soup would never really cook properly, that the carefully cut inner portions of pumpkin, would remain as hard as nails.

Mr. Pumpkin, (Sir to you), had ensured Vera Robinson would never eat pumpkin again. Being of the title 'Sir' meant he had authority over the whole pumpkin region, which is named, quite appropriately: “Pumpkinville.”

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