SIMPLE STORIES
THE KIDS PAY {tT was at a popular seaside town. A drooping, undersized woman, she drifted up to the outside counter of the general shop, trailing after her three weedy children, a boy and two little girls, whose wizened faces and thin legs shrieked malnutrition, "Any lollies?" "Sorry, none at all." "Chocolates?" "No." "Biscuits?" "No," "Jam?" "No." "Well, gimme three penny _icecreams." "Sorry, no penny cones left, only fourpenny ones." "Gosh! It’s the kids suffer most in this war! Dunno what there will be for ’em to eat soon, poor little devils!" "Milk shakes?" suggested the woman behind the counter, helpfully. "Lord, no. I can’t get any of them to touch milkdon’t blame them-" As she turned to the children, her eye roved blankly, quite unseeingly, over the neat rows of carrots, huge lettuce, dark-green silver beet in the garden next door to the shop, and the notice on the gate, "Vegetables for Sale." "Better have my bread: it’s filling, anyway." "Wheatmeal?" "No, they wouldn’t eat it; three large white-better have three of those cream buns, too-too bad not to give them something."
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 8, Issue 186, 15 January 1943, Page 7
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185SIMPLE STORIES New Zealand Listener, Volume 8, Issue 186, 15 January 1943, Page 7
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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