Twice a week there would be high-table dinners. At the commencement of each meal, the principal would recite a Latin prayer, and the tutors, dressed in black academic gowns, would be served a three-course meal by the students. The principal explained to her that this tradition dated back to medie...
was both the Vietnamese and the Chinese word for gold, so all the jewellery shops were called Kim Heng or Kim Huang or Kim Ngoc, depending on the family name of the owners. These little shops epitomised Family Business, and there were so many of them down the shopping strips of St Albans, Springv...
“Bring meat home, four hundred grams of beef,” my mother had instructed me the night before. “Don’t pick the pieces that are brown, and don’t loiter.”At Vinh and Robina’s Meats, Tully’s mother greeted me as I walked in the store. “Wah, look at you, Lucy, so smart in your uniform!”At school I may ...
Vanderwerp in Term Two. “Maybe she’s offed herself!” Gina suggested, with no small amount of vicious glee. Although the staff never spoke about it, we knew Ms. Vanderwerp had gone away on stress leave. Mr. Abraham took her place, a towering man with an Easter Island face and gray hair in his ears...