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Around the Bend: Beans

"Try round town then," said the man. His cufflinks flashed in the sun. "You won't get any more for her. It's either that or the wreckers, and they'll only give you twenty, maybe thirty."

"OK," said Dad, giving in.

The man went into his little glass-sided office and wrote out a check. He gave it to Dad and we started to walk home.

"Some deal!" said Dad. "No wonder they make a fortune!"

"Why didn't you keep it then?" I asked.

"Because it was a heap of junk!" said Dad.

I was confused. I trusted that Dad was much wiser than me, so even though it didn't make sense to me, it must have made sense to Dad because he was much wiser than me, and I was just his silly boy who didn't know about such things. When I was older I would know what it all meant.

We went through town. Dad looked in all the shops. He looked at all the new gear, and the sports equipment, and the meat in the butcher's shop, and the boxes of fruit in the grocer's doorway. He wanted to buy everything, but he kept his hand away from the money. It was like a challenge to him. Get home without spending the car money. Could he do it?

We stopped outside a small doorway. It was a Chinese shop. Inside were walls covered in shelves with thousands of tins: seaweed, shrimps, dough, octopus, brains, eyes, kidneys, liver. That's what it looked like from outside. I never went in to really read the labels. Maybe they had stuff in them that was even worse!

Today there was a sign in the window.

"TODAY'S SPECIAL! MAGNABEANS! GROW TO TEN METRES!"

Dad read the sign and pulled on his chin with his hand. This meant he was seriously considering something.

"Mum would like that," he said. "Imagine what she could do with them!"

I was feeling sick.

"No, Dad!" I said. "Don't even think about it!"

"But the savings," said Dad. "We could save a fortune on beans!"

"I don't care!"


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