Page 44 - Jeremiah Lollipop

Jeremiah slipped down on to the couch and took a bite from his apple.

The TV was on, and an advert was showing a woman squirting

something on her toilet. Suddenly she had a crowd of woman from her

neighborhood all standing around smiling, and watching her clean her

toilet.

“Remarkable,” thought Jeremiah, “I wonder if they follow her round

the house, watching her make the beds, and fold the clothes? What a

strange bunch of women they are!”

The ads finished and the last part of another program came on. It was

the sort of program his mother liked. There was a woman screaming

because her husband had caught fire after trying to catch a burning

couch, then a van crashed into a shop and the driver reached out of the

broken window and made himself a cup of tea, then lots of firemen ran

about and one of them had an affair with the shopkeeper’s 110 year-old

granny. All so realistic, thought Jeremiah, and so true to life.

The program finished with a dog, wearing striped pajamas floating out

to sea, then the News came on. The first headline was about

“Unidentified signals from space… scientists thought it might be a

microwave, or a hoax, or a malfunction in the SETI program.” Jeremiah

knew what those letters stood for: Search for Extra Terrestrial

Intelligence. That meant ALIENS! That meant creatures from other

planets! That meant a FLOOBLE might be on its way, to harvest meat