Kylie & Jack 1: Humble Beginnings

4. It's Christmas Time!

Dec. 22nd, 8:25 AM

"Auntie Kylie!" Kylie spun around in her thongs and saw Lizzie running through the thin crowd towards her, a Bluey backpack on her shoulders, wearing bright pink thongs, lime green shorts and a white tee shirt with a glittery unicorn head on the centre. Her dark red hair was tied back into a high ponytail that bounced and flicked as she ran.

"Hey, kiddo! Oof!" Lizzie wrapped her arms around Kylie's shoulders, who squatted down to hug her niece that she hadn't seen in almost three years. Kylie stood up, Lizzie still hanging off her shoulders, making Kylie extremely aware of just how big Lizzie had gotten.

"How you doin', missy Lizzie?" Kylie asked, setting Liz back down on the platform, kissing her forehead, just as Mike caught up to them.

"G'day, how ya goin'?" Kylie said automatically to Mike, giving him a one armed hug. He towered over her at six foot two and to reach his shoulders, she had to stand on her tiptoes. She could feel the itchy stubble brush her smooth cheek as she hugged him.

He had two carry–on bags in his hands.

"Let's go, Fred!" Mike said to Lizzie.

"I'm not Fred! You're Fred!"

Kylie lead them inside to the cool air conditioned waiting room and ticket booth and through to the other side of the station to the carpark. Yet another concrete jungle. There was only one car park in Wangarra that had decent shade provided and that was the Hovell Shopping Centre. Any other large parks with shade were underground: the council car park and the Wangarra Centre park.

"Have you had anything decent for breakfast?" Kylie asked, opening the boot of her car so Mike could load his bags.

"Nah, just a sanga a few hours ago."

"Jesus. Well, how about we go get some brekky then, I need to go to Woolies and get the drinks for Tuesday, Amy is doing a pav, trifle and a mud cake for dessert – yeah, I know, but Shaun's parents are coming over too. And you can get whatever Little Miss eats too." Mike nodded, putting on his seatbelt beside Kylie, who was busy fussing over the air con. She noticed Mike looking at the long white USB cord attached to her iPod under the air con control panel.

"Go on, pick a song, but choose it before you plug it in. Hands free." Kylie instructed. Mike groaned as he searched through her music.

"You're a miserable old fart." Kylie said laughing loudly, driving them out to the Koolingar shopping mall. Lizzie saw the golden arches of Maccas and cheered loudly in the backseat.

"You don't want Maccas for brekky, Liz. You want food." Kylie joked to her niece – she didn't normally encourage her nieces and nephew to eat at Maccas whenever she had to babysit, especially when they were little. Lizzie cackled loudly from the backseat, yelling "Maccas, Maccas!".

Mike told her they weren't getting Maccas for breakfast, saying instead, they could have it for lunch another day. Parked as close to the front doors of Woolies as possible, the three of them got out of the car, into another car park criminally devoid of any shade, the concrete ground and collection of baking cars creating a natural fan forced oven atmosphere. At the front doors of the grocery store, was a large colourful cardboard display, boasting mega bags of Zooper Doopers for five bucks each. Mike had barely laid hands on the trolley when Kylie threw a bag in it.

It took them two hours to fill the trolley up with all the food and drinks they would need to last them over the next few days. At the checkout, they stood behind a middle aged woman who had three trolleys lined up, her teenaged children working like the Seven Dwarves to unload all her shopping. Kylie and Mike shared a look: whenever there was a public holiday coming up, people went into what Janelle calls 'Armageddon mode', buying up enough food to outlive the apocalypse by four years and all because the shops would be shut for a single day.