Wedgie

One

"Are you sure you don't want me to drive, Grandma?"

Theo Wedgeworth propped her left elbow out at an angle as her grandmother swung her car around what felt like the fourth right-hand bend in a row. Beside Theo, on the backseat of the nineteen eighties Jackaroo, an enormous wolfhound leaned hard against her like a drunk friend in the back of an uber after the world's greatest night out. The maniacal grin, heavy breathing and drool only adding to the effect.

On the front passenger seat, another oversized dog, this one resembling a small cow, and a geriatric looking orange cat with three legs took it in turns to make gagging noises.

Somewhere in the car, someone broke wind.

"What's that, Sweetheart?"

"ARE YOU SURE YOU DON'T WANT ME TO DRIVE?" Theo yelled over the sound of the crackling radio that was picking up two stations at once.

"Don't be silly, darling. You've spent all day flying, you just get your rest." Edna Jennings, Theo's maternal grandmother, made it sound like Theo had been the one doing the flying.

If she had indeed been the one in charge of the three planes it took to reach Far North Queensland from South Australia, then maybe she would have arrived on time and this octogenarian circus of sensory overload could have been done in daylight.

As they took a left and then another right Theo got a glimpse beyond the cow's head, out the front windscreen, to the most spectacular moonrise over the Coral Sea.

Embarrassingly it had been nearly fifteen years since she had last visited her grandmother. It was by no means an excuse, and not that she had accomplished anything to be particularly proud of, Theo pondered, but life truly did just 'get in the way' when she became an adult. The lack of visitation hadn't really dampened their bond though. Lengthy monthly calls catching her grandmother up on the non-goings-on in her life were rarely missed. Birthdays and Christmases were always gifted, and there were even the occasional attempts at a Facetime. Albeit only when someone with enough patience and IT skills was on hand to assist.

Theo wiped the dog's drool off her knee with the skirt of her dress and grimaced as a burp escaped her hairy seat-mate's muzzle which, as they swung right again and his shoulder dug into her breast, was now dangerously close to her own face.

What was his name again? Jason? Jonathon?

Almost every summer of Theo's childhood had been spent picking fruit and running feral on Edna's little tropical hobby farm, twenty minutes outside of Port Douglas, so that Lucinda, Theo's mother, Edna's daughter, could work overseas teaching English as a second language while on her own summer holiday as a high school Geography teacher.

Her mother's tenacity to make a difference in the world and to always put everyone else's needs before her own was the main reason Theo had volunteered to do this trip. Lucinda had just started the new school year as Principal, a promotion she was long overdue to receive, and so there was no way she could come up and take care of Edna's house and its menagerie for God knows how long, while Edna in turn went South to take care of a lifelong friend who was starting her palliative care journey.

Using up her long service leave was the least, and realistically also the most, Theo could do for these extraordinary women in her life. She had nothing else of substance to offer.

Taking time out from her long-held position as a payroll clerk with the city council had been a relatively smooth process. Her thirteen-year loyalty to the role, having joined straight out of high school, afforded Theo a great deal of respect and popularity in the workplace. It hadn't afforded her particularly great earnings of course. Never pushing herself out of her comfort zone, preferring repetition over challenge, meant a modest income that did little more than cover her bills and keep her in Friday night takeaways.