Raisin Toast, Brianna from Bribie and the Fish

Here's a story about a young girl called Brianna who lives on Bribie Island with her grandfather. Brianna helped me create the story when she was a patient in the Mater Children's Hospital in Brisbane in 2001. You can find the original story at http://www.storytell.com.au/lpstories5.html.

		Once morning Brianna was having raisin toast for breakfast with her Grandma and her Grandpa on the front verandah of their house at Bribie Island. Brianna really liked staying with her grandparents. One day her Grandpa took her fishing. Brianna caught a fish and Grandpa, who said that he was the boss of the world, put the fish into a bucket full of water so that Brianna could take it home and show her mum. When everybody had a look, Brianna brought the fish back to the water and let it go. As they were sitting there eating their toast, they heard a strange noise. It sounded like - 'rrrrrrrrrr, clunk, eeeeeeeeh, bump, sssssssssh, urrrrrrrrrrh, eeep.' "What's that?" said Brianna. "Oh, that'll be Garry the Garbo," said Grandpa. " I told him that it was our turn to have our rubbish picked up today, so here he is picking up the wheelie bins." "Can I go and have a look?"said Brianna. "Sure. Don't fall in." Brianna ran down the steps and onto the footpath and watched as Garry the Garbo pulled the levers on the truck that sent the pickup arm out to grab Grandpa's wheelie bin, flip it upside down above the garbage truck, give it a good shake for the rubbish to fall out and then put it carefully down on the footpath again. Garry gave Brianna a wave as he drove on to the next house where he did it all over again but it wasn't just rubbish that fell out of the truck this time - a big, silvery fish flipped through the air and landed with a bump on top of the truck cabin. "Hey. What's on top of my truck," called out Garry the Garbo. "It's a big fish Garry," said Brianna. "It so looks funny!" Garry the Garbo got out of his truck and had a look. "Oh what a little beauty. Now will I take him home to cook or put him back in the sea?" "Put him back, oh please put him back," said Brianna. "I'll get a bucket off my Grandpa." Well that's what they did. Garry put the fish into the bucket of water and together they took it across the road, under the paperbark trees and over the sand to the waters edge. They carefully tipped the fish into the water and watched it as it flipped a little and started to swim away. "Goodbye fish," said Garry the Garbo. "Oh, I forgot to give you a kiss." The fish swam in a circle and came right back to Garry the Garbo's feet. Garry bent down and gave the fish a kiss on its lips. "Oh yuck," said Brianna. "Well better get back to work," said Garry as the fish swam away and Brianna went back to finish her raisin toast with her Grandma and her Grandpa. A 'Sweet Stories in the Pop' Story created by Daryll Bellingham, storyteller and Brianna, a patient in the children's ward at the South Brisbane Mater Hospital during a storytelling session in the Radio Lollipop studio with the Thrilling Thursday Team. 29/11/2001 © Daryll Bellingham. ('Sweet Stories in the Pop' is a Queensland Storytelling Guild project funded by a Year of the Volunteers grant.)