August 2026: Speaking Adult
At eight years old, I sat at the adults' table with my plate of chicken nuggets, as far from my cousin Tom as possible. He slid across the top of the kids' table with tomato sauce on his chin and splattered on the wall like exploded paintballs. I didn’t understand him because I didn’t speak child; I was fluent in adult. I preferred to talk about money and houses, why phones changed the world, why Aunty Jen didn’t talk much anymore. The strangest thing I learnt about speaking adult was that you should always talk about the weather.
I learnt this when I visited Aunty Jen in hospital. Tall people in pyjamas looked down at me as they wheeled beds and hung bags of water on coat racks. On Fridays everyone wore Peter Alexander pyjamas because they had colours like mine. Sue, the lady in dog pyjamas, took us to a room with twelve recliners, with the orange juice they sold on aeroplanes. Her pyjamas were from a shop called Registered Nurse, but I don’t have those.
Jen always had a straw taped to her chest; except she didn’t drink out of it and told me it wouldn’t taste very nice if she did. Doctor John was the best at speaking adult; he loved the weather so much he told Jen about it every time he came to see us.
“It’s bucketing…been raining non-stop all week. How’s your dad's place in the Southwest?”
“I think it's ok for now, but the storm season is meant to be bad this year.”
“Yeah, I have seen that; no good…Jen, the scan wasn’t great. I’m sorry.”
Jen stared out the window, tears falling down her cheek like droplets against the glass. I don’t think she wanted to talk about the rain that day.
Two weeks later, she was moved to a bed, which made sense given everyone was always in pyjamas. She had a window in her room, and the sun was out; we saw a cloud that looked like a giraffe. Doctor John came in; it was my chance to practice my adult.
“Doctor John, do you see the sun out? Jen and I think the cloud over there looks like a giraffe.”
Mum grabbed my hand and pulled me to her side.
“We can’t talk about that right now; you need to give us space.”
Mum pointed to Tommy, who was sitting at the kids' mat licking every page of The Very Hungry Caterpillar. I didn’t mean to upset her, but maybe John didn’t know how to talk about the weather when it wasn’t raining.
I thought I knew how to speak adult, but I’m not so sure now. Maybe my words are childish, and I should talk about cumulonimbus clouds like they do in my books. Or is it better to talk about tornadoes or why ice cubes fall when the storm clouds roll overhead? Maybe adults don’t like talking about the rain. Thunderstorms scare me too.
Emma Kibsgaard
Right Left Write’s August prompt was Weather. New prompts are announced monthly February-November in QWC’s Pen & Pixel email newsletter.
Find out more about Right Left Write at www.queenslandwriters.org.au/rightleftwrite.
Right Left Write’s August Prompt is Weather