Columnist HUGH SELBY heard from Little Dion recently. He wanted to tell Hugh about what makes his gran cry.

I like it when the rain stops. Gran puts my gumboots on and we walk to the park where I can play, but not on the slide cos it has water running down in little streams.

Gran gets water running on her face too when it rains, and she shakes and she is upset.

Cos at our house, that Uncle Andrew (Barr) and Auntie Yvette (Berry) gave us last year, there’s blue tarps on the roof that are coming loose with the wind.

The rain comes into our house through the three skylights, in the bathroom, the laundry and the toilet. Gran has to hold an umbrella over me when I use the toilet and I can see that she is shaking and so upset.

The toilet is fun cos it moves from side to side when you sit down. The base rocks cos it’s loose. The cistern is loose, too. It’s hanging from one screw off the wall. And there are tiles that are missing and others that need glue. Gran gets upset.

I’ve got some playdough. It feels like the bottom of the wall in the toilet when it’s been raining, like gooey and pushy.

I like my bedroom. There’s lots of room for my toys. But I can’t stay there cos the window can’t be opened and the mould inside the wall is gross and it smells and Gran says it might make me sick. 

The mould is black and yellow and it’s all over the inside of the wall and the timber frame. Really yucky. You can see it through a hole in the wall that a man from the govmint made. The hole is still there. Gran is always using bleach cos she hates dirt and muck and people who make holes in the wall and don’t clean up their mess.

When we moved in, the house was like in a forest of big trees out the back, down the sides and out the front. Gran cleared it all by herself cos she wanted me to play outside but I can’t. Gran won’t let me. She says it’s too dangerous.

The mortar on the side of the roof tiles is falling off in potato size chunks. There’s all these uneven slabs of concrete around the backyard that have to be cut up and taken to the recycling plant. My dumpster truck and front end loader can’t do it.

She’s worried about branches from the dead trees falling on her or me. They are too big and too high for her to cut. When it’s windy I can look out the back doors and see these grey, dead tree shapes moving. The leaves have all gone.

It was such a forest that the trees have suckers all the time that are all over the front and backyard. Gran got artificial turf to put over the top and make it safer. The suckers keep on coming. 

Gran says that we are suckers too, but we’re staying put and I am going to get big in this house and go to school from here. She’s teaching me how to read.

I couldn’t read any of the words when we went to the chemist shop. I saw a person getting an injection to keep them well.

Gran told me the plastic thing was called a syringe and it is used by doctors and nurses. I asked Gran why she keeps finding syringes all over the outside of our place. I mean lots and lots of them. I asked her if our house used to have doctors and nurses living in it.

Gran sorta stuttered. She told me that it was a baddies house for a long, long time. She’s got this photo of all the gear that came out of the clogged drains.

I wish Uncle Andrew and Auntie Yvette would come and have a look. I know they’d be really unhappy if they did. I know they’d want to fix it straight away: fix the roof and the skylights so the water stays outside. Fix the toilet and the window and the gross mould problems.

Have the concrete, rusty iron, dead trees, and the suckering roots removed so that I can play outside and Gran can keep making a garden. She has green fingers and thumbs.

I know my Gran. She wouldn’t have water on her face, and she wouldn’t be upset so much and muttering bad words if our home was fixed up.

There’d be smiles on her face.

She’d put away all the photos, and messages and stuff about our home that are on the table.

No more repairs, no more bad r’s.

When it’s fixed and my home is dry and safe then I want Uncle and Auntie to visit again so that we can go together to the convenience store. They can walk. I’ll ride my car.

I’ll be four and we can get some delish Berrybarrs. It’s all the r’s that make the difference.

I don’t want anyone to blow raspberries. I know they care, they do.