Title: Pink Eskimos

Author: James Norcliffe

In: Sport 8: Autumn 1992

Publication details: Fergus Barrowman, March 1992, Wellington

Part of: Sport

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Sport 8: Autumn 1992

6. Fruit Bon Bons

6. Fruit Bon Bons

Billy brings fruit bon bons to school sometimes. I have no idea what shop they come from. I only know he gets them from his mother, the piano teacher. I think they must come from overseas. An overseas sweet shop.

They are precious and perfect. Packaged beautifully in tiny parcels, the paper wrappings with ironed creases and miniature paintings of oranges, lemons, cherries, raspberries and strawberries. Unwrapped they glow with an inner light and they tingle on your tongue. They are hard at first, and then they dissolve into softness.

Billy's mother, the piano teacher, plays brilliant arpeggios. Wears flashing rings of amethyst, turquoise, emerald, and ruby.

She is strict. Sometimes she is strict with an ebony ruler. But if I have practised and can run up and down my scales without error she smiles. Her page 178 rings flash as she unwraps a fruit bon bon and pops it into my mouth. Amethyst ring. Amethyst bon bon.

Billy's mother, the music teacher, calls them fruit bong bongs.

I think of them as fruit bonk bonks when they are hard. Like Bruce's father. Then I suck them until they become fruit bong bongs.

Fruit bon bons are precious to bestow.