‘I can’t believe you farted on your grandma!’ Percy’s mother cried angrily. ‘It’s almost Christmas, Percy, and I do not want to have you farting over everything! Did you think that’s what people mean by having a Merry Christmas? Well you’re wrong Percy! Especially wrong when you do it to your grandma!’

‘But I didn’t, mum,’ Percy insisted. ‘She thought I was the cat! The cat has a problem and she just doesn’t realise it.’

‘Oh, so you’re calling my mother senile are you?’

‘No, but…’

‘Well you should, she’s nuts!’ she groaned and looked out of the window. ‘Percy, I just don’t know what to do with you anymore. I’ve spoken to my sister – she won’t take you, she hates you.’

‘Auntie Jane hates me?’ Percy asked in surprise. ‘She used to like me.’

‘Uh, she was being sarcastic,’ she said, with a look of scorn.

‘Even when I was a baby?’

‘Uh, yeah! Why do you think she bought you that dummy? It was because she thought you were a dummy! Or as we like to say now, a retard.’

‘Mum, I think you are being too mean to me. I’m fourteen, I can do what I want.’

She paused for a moment. ‘Percy…what did you say?’

‘I can do what I want, mum.’

She looked at him in adoration, picking him up and kissing him on the cheek. ‘So you’re not gay! Oh my gosh, I thought…’

Percy looked astonished. ‘Why did you think I was gay?’

‘Don’t you worry my boy!’ she cried. ‘The important thing is that you’re not!’

‘I heard that it is okay to be gay,’ Percy said. ‘Why would you worry so much if I was?’

‘Because, you know, you’d be a fag then,’ she told him with a smile. ‘I almost feel like letting you live here again! I’m so happy!’

‘Really, mum?’ Percy asked. ‘So I don’t have to live on the streets?’

It was at this point that an adolescent boy came down the stairs in one of Percy’s nightgowns. It was unmistakable, the young boy was Stav Don Buolmwipe.

‘Hi, Percy!’ he sneered.

‘Mum?’ Percy cried in horror. ‘What is Stav doing here?’

‘Well, you were gone so long Percy,’ she said nervously. ‘I thought it was time to move on.’

‘You’ve taken Stav in as your new son?’ he yelled. ‘How could you?’

‘Stav…is a good boy, Percy. He treats me like I should’

‘Your mum’s a bitch, Percy,’ Stav shot at him.

‘See!’ she smiled. ‘But now that you’re not gay, there’s no reason why we can’t all live together.’

‘No way man,’ Percy scoffed. ‘No way! I’m out of here man! I’m going back to grandma’s, man, and I’m going to live with her again! I’m not sharing my mum with Stav, man.’

‘Could you take these muffins on the way?’ his mum asked kindly, handing him a picnic basket.

‘Yes mum,’ Percy agreed, and left the house.

‘Give me fifty dollars you bitch,’ Stav said aggressively.

‘I like you more than Percy anyway,’ she smiled and opened her wallet.

It was a nice day, a bit on the sunny side but a nice day. Percy held his portable radio and listened to the peaceful sound of easy music as he strolled down the road. Being in such a good mood, he decided to take a walk through the park.

Soon he was struck by terror - why weren’t the advertisements stopping? He was turning the dial on his radio over and over again, but there was nothing but ads! He waited for ten minutes but it was no use! Ads, ads, ads! Why did they play so many ads! They were invariably irritating and he had heard each one at least fifteen times before. It was too much. Percy threw his radio onto the top of a tree in a fit of rage and fell to the ground crying.

‘What’s the matter, little child?’ boomed a voice. The upper-class, Australian yet strangely British accent could only belong to one man.

‘Uncle Peter, what are you doing here?’ Percy asked.

‘Ah! I am glad you asked my dear Percy. You see, I am a man of many tastes, cheese you will understand is one of them. Rabbit droppings, on the other fist, is not. In this case, I am standing in a parkland not in order to find rabbit droplets, but to find rare traces of donut in this area.’

Percy was stunned. ‘Okay then, Uncle Peter. I’m afraid I have to go now.’

‘Really,’ Uncle Peter sneered. ‘Why, you’re too young to go walking through a park all by yourself, heh, heh, heh!’

Percy laughed too, stopping when Uncle Peter’s eyebrows lifted, looking at him in all seriousness. ‘Where are you going, froggy?’

‘My grandmother’s house, Uncle Peter.’

‘Oh, really?’ he laughed, turning away to leave. ‘Of course you are! Anyway, I’d best be on my way. I think I heard a donut calling!’

Percy shrugged and skipped down the path. It was slightly longer this way, it was the scenic route. Grandma would have to wait a few extra minutes for her muffins.

Percy opened up the door to his grandma’s house cheerfully and stepped inside. Lying in her bed, which for one reason or another was now in the kitchen, she looked at him with a smile.

‘Oh, you brought me muffins!’ she squealed in a voice which, to be honest, was quite annoying. ‘Oh Percy! Thank you!’

‘No problem grandma,’ he smiled. ‘Mum told me to bring them over straight away!’

‘Sure honey!’ she screamed again. ‘Just put them on the table.’

‘I’m sorry grandma, but I’m going to live here for a while because,’ Percy paused. ‘Wait just a minute, grandma. What an awfully large top hat you are wearing.’

‘All the better to impress politicians with!’ she screamed. ‘Don’t you go worrying about that.’

Percy was still slightly suspicious. ‘Your moustache is slightly more black than usual, too,’ he commented.

‘All the better to lick clean after a bowl of cheese!’ she squealed.

‘Grandma – what’s with the man-like shoulders?’ Percy asked. ‘If you don’t mind me saying so, you look like a man.’

‘All the better to get your grandma into bed!’ he cheered, taking off the glasses and grey wig. It was Uncle Peter! He threw away the blanket, and next to him curled up was Percy’s grandma!

‘Grandma!’ Percy gasped. ‘What are you doing in bed with Uncle Peter!’

‘Relax Percy,’ she sighed. ‘He’s not really your uncle. He’s not related to us.’

‘How was it, dear?’ Uncle Peter turned over and asked.

‘Oh, I can’t quite remember,’ she replied. ‘Percy! I thought I told you to live with your mum! I can’t have you farting all over me again!’

‘Firstly grandma,’ Percy explained, ‘that was the cat. Secondly, mum has been seeing another boy. And thirdly, what on earth are you doing? Uncle Peter is half your age!’

‘That’s Grandpa Uncle Peter to you!’ he snarled.

‘What?’ Percy asked in horror.

‘Well, Uncle Peter and I are married,’ Grandma said hesitantly. ‘Just a few minutes before you came in.’

Percy looked away for a second. ‘I see what’s going on here! This is just like Little Red Riding Hood! It all makes sense! Uncle Peter saw me in the park, and found out I was off to my grandmas! And so he…oh no! Grandma, look out! Uncle Peter is going to eat you!’

‘Leaving any sick jokes I could say about that aside, Percy,’ Grandma sighed, ‘you just don’t understand the point of that fairy tale, do you?’

Uncle Peter put his arm around Percy’s grandma. ‘That story was to teach little girls not to go to bed with bad men! Don’t you realise, you clod, that the fairy tale you so innocently thought was a lovely story about an axe-murdering lumberjack was really a yarn of the erotic kind! You must be more idiotic and carrot-like than I thought!’

Uncle Peter and Grandma laughed and held each other’s hands. ‘I love you, Uncle Peter,’ she sighed.

‘I love you too, Percy’s grandma,’ he replied.

Percy looked mournful. ‘Where do I go now?’ he asked.

‘Well, you can’t stay here with us,’ Grandma replied. ‘Uncle Peter doesn’t want kids.’

‘You’ll have to sleep in the gutter, you adolescent boob,’ Uncle Peter told him in an oddly sympathetic tone. ‘Out, little guy!’

Percy turned and walked out of the door. This was it. He was fourteen and out in the streets. What could be worse?

Then he realised – what could be better? He was finally free! It was time to party, dude!

Percy was kicked out of the underage dance party quite quickly, however. Stav had seen him and immediately punched him in the nose. Seeing blood running out, the security guard thought the young lad was hiding chemical weapons in his nose and threw him into the cold.

‘Oh, it’s you Percy,’ Gropogi sighed. He was lying down on the road, his head resting on the gutter.

‘Gropogi?’ Percy asked in shock. ‘What are you doing here? It’s two in the morning! Although you’ll probably want to ask me the same question.’

The fat, bald, lollipop man with a Greek accent sighed. ‘No, no. It’s just that my wife doesn’t want me around anymore.’

‘She threw you out of the house?’ Percy asked. ‘That’s awful.’

‘My wife, Clarence, she left me, don’t you know?’ Gropogi wept, taking another swig of spirits. ‘She said I am too old for her and she ran off with another other man. A better man. An uncle man.’

Percy was confused. ‘What do you mean, uncle man?’

‘I come home today from shops, and I find her with uncle man. Uncle Peter. She got married to him when I was out and…’

‘Wait a minute! My grandma – she’s not your wife!’

‘Hope not!’ Gropogi said, almost laughing away a few tears.

‘How old is your wife, Gropogi?’

‘Well, I’m forty-one,’ he explained. ‘I was twenty when I married her, and she was forty five.’

Stopping only to give him a weird look, Percy realised what this meant. ‘So, your wife is sixty-six?’

‘Yes, Percy. As beautiful now as when she was fifty-eight,’ he sighed.

‘Uncle Peter is up to something,’ Percy whispered while looking into the night sky. ‘And I’m going to find out what it is.’

‘What’s going on, Uncle Peter?’ Percy asked as he marched into the Cheese Factory Outlet.

‘Well if it isn’t Sir Snail himself!’ Uncle Peter laughed. "What do you want? Your grandma back?’

‘I want to know what you’re up to,’ Percy demanded. ‘Why are you marrying old ladies?’

‘How dare you question I, Uncle Peter?’ he roared. ‘I have eaten a lot of cheese in my life, but you take the cheesecake!’

‘It isn’t right what you’re doing! You can’t two-time my grandma! You’re not allowed to have more than one wife!’

‘Aren’t I? Australian law in a funny thing Percy, I suggest you read it sometime. You forget to read the small writing my little mouse-sitter, you fail to see that every law has exceptions. You are forbidden multiple wives, certainly. But you don’t see, in the smaller writing, that you are allowed multiple grandmas! Suck on that Freddy!’

‘But you’re taking these grandmas as your wives!’ Percy burst out.

‘Not according to law I’m not,’ he spat. ‘Now get out! Get out of my splendid cheese factory you dog-egg! I can and will marry as many grandmas as I want, and you can’t stop me!’

He was right. What could Percy do? He was just a small boy with limited perception. He couldn’t see the whole picture.

He decided to make the most of his time at the splendid cheese factory and to explore the place fully. It was an odd place – built in stone, it was more like a castle than a factory. There were cows grazing in seemingly random places. There were cows in boats sailing in the cream-cheese ponds, cows basking on mounds of hard Edam cheese, and even a cow looking down from a chandelier, mooing at Percy while its hoofs wrapped tightly around the chains. How it got up there, no one could know.

But it was when Percy stepped into the cheddar room that he realised things really were awry. Inside the room was an old lady, a grandma if you will. She stared at Percy and he stared back. She said nothing, he said nothing, and closed the door slowly.

Percy was curious. Walking down the ‘Chamber of Cheese’, as it was known, he opened up a second door. Inside was another grandma, knitting away helplessly at some stringy mozzarella. What was happening? Just how many grandmas had Uncle Peter married?

All of a sudden a loud bell was heard. Grandma after grandma left their cheesy cubicles and waddled down the corridor. Seeing Uncle Peter marching behind, Percy covered himself in the mozzarella cheese and waddled with them into a large stone room.

‘Oh, hurry, hurry!’ Uncle Peter fussed, throwing handfuls of cheese at the old ladies. ‘We haven’t got all Easter! Especially since it’s only a week until Christmas, you old bags!’

Percy could see his grandma through the corner of his eye! She looked terribly sad – all the old ladies did. They knew they had been tricked by Uncle Peter’s charm.

‘Listen up, you old, old ladies,’ Uncle Peter yelled, walking back and forth. ‘I have married you because I want you to be MY grandmas! I now have the largest grandma collection in Victoria, and when the Premier, Steve Brax arrives here for Christmas, I want to impress him. Everyone knows that he admires old ladies, it’s a well-known fact. So when he comes here for my cheese festival he is going to be pretty impressed! And that’s my chance to strike! He’ll be so stunned at my magnificent collection that he won’t notice me putting my finger in his ear!’

The old ladies listened attentively.

‘Oh yes,’ Uncle Peter sneered. ‘I’ve always wanted to stick my pointy finger in a politician’s ear. Who better to do it to than Braxie? You get the fun, but of course, his ear-hole won’t be as filthy as Prime Minister John Howard’s.’

Percy, covered in cheese, now knew the truth! Uncle Peter had made a grandma collection! He didn’t care for them, he just wanted to collect them for a trivial pursuit of amusement.

‘Yes,’ Uncle Peter continued. ‘It takes a big man to have two grandmas. It takes an even bigger man to have three. But in my case, I have,’ he said, counting, ‘forty-seven, forty-eight, forty-nine, FIFTY GRANDMAS! No wait…Fifty-one grandmas?’ he asked. ‘I don’t remember marrying fifty-one grandmas!’

His eyes fixed on Percy. ‘You, grandma! What are you doing covered in my magnificent mozzarella?’

‘Nothing,’ Percy squeaked.

‘Remove thy mask and expose yourself foul, fake, fish-like creature!’ he demanded.

Percy lifted a string of cheese off his face. ‘Um, hi,’ he smiled nervously.

‘Percy!’ Uncle Peter roared. ‘Well, if that’s the way you want it – you shall be my next grandma!’ he laughed.

‘No!’ Percy cried as small men in green pants took him away.

‘Uncle Peter, you have my wife and I want her back!’ Gropogi demanded.

‘Ah! You’re that loser who was married to one of my grandmas!’

‘What do you mean, one of your grandmas?’ Gropogi asked angrily.

Uncle Peter turned on the television and switched to his special security camera channel. ‘Behold my fifty-one grandmas!’

Gropogi looked closely and saw his wife chained to the wall. ‘No! Clarence! Let her go! I’ll do anything if you let her go!’

Uncle Peter’s eyes lit up. ‘This looks like the beginning of a beautiful friendship,’ he smiled.

‘All I have to do is climb to the top of this statue?’ Gropogi asked. ‘And I can have my wife back?’

‘It’s not just any statue,’ Uncle Peter scoffed. ‘It’s a statue of me! In all of my glory! Climb to the top, and I’ll let you have your wife back. It’s that simple.’

Gropogi wiped his fat sweaty hands on his shirt and slowly struggled his way up the marble statue.

‘Whoa!’ Uncle Peter giggled, shaking the statue back and forth. ‘Earthquake!’

But Gropogi fought on, finally wrapping his arms around the statue’s top hat. ‘I made it!’ he cried triumphantly. ‘I made it to the top!’

Uncle Peter gave the statue one final kick, sending Gropogi falling to the stone floor with a thud.

As the fat man looked up from the ground, Uncle Peter shook his head. ‘Not quite, Gropogi. I wanted you to balance at the top of the statue, on one foot!’

‘You didn’t tell me that!’ Gropogi urged. ‘Oh please, release her! I will still do anything!’

‘This is just too good,’ Uncle Peter grinned.

‘I two a horse!’ Percy’s grandma said enthusiastically.

‘I don’t really want to play this,’ Percy told her. He was chained next to her in a prison cell. They were forced to eat the Blue cheese that lay on the floor.

‘But there’s a twist in this game, you’ll see! One of us may accidentally end up saying something really stupid!’

‘Okay, grandma,’ Percy sighed. ‘I three a horse.’

‘I four a horse!’

‘I five a horse!’

‘I six a horse!’

‘I seven a horse,’ Percy said, knowingly.

‘I ate…’she paused. ‘Wait, you cheated!’

‘Well, you shouldn’t have started on the number two!’ Percy replied.

‘Get me away from this maniac!’ she screamed, but it was no use. ‘Damn you, Percy! Why couldn’t you have warned me that this was all just part of one of Uncle Peter’s evil plans!’

‘How was I to know? Anyway, you were stupid enough to marry him!’

‘You don’t understand Percy,’ she sighed. ‘He has these sorts of beautiful tendencies. The way he wipes cheese over various household appliances. The way he would make goose noises when he was asleep. The way he would lick the toilet seat clean after every use. He would say that he could tell one toilet seat from another just by the taste. Just cute, sexy things like that.’

Percy decided he wouldn’t reply. He had nothing to add to this conversation.

‘Have you found the blockage yet?’ Uncle Peter called down.

‘I think so,’ Gropogi called back from inside the large toilet pipe. ‘Someone has flushed a dead cow down here.’

‘Oh dear,’ Uncle Peter smiled, and pulled the flush.

‘Okay I think if I….no! No!’ Gropogi called as he was sucked down the toilet. ‘Help me!’

‘And people thought getting such a large toilet would be useless,’ Uncle Peter mocked.

When the chained donkey gave a loud burp, Uncle Peter realised he had visitors. He hopped aboard his motorised refrigerator and drove it to the front door.

‘Officers, what can I do for you?’ Uncle Peter asked, opening the door. His friendly tone suddenly switched to an aggressive one. ‘Oh, I see! Well, let me tell you, I can marry as many grandmas as I want! I have over fifty and they’re great! The Premier Steve Brax is coming just to admire my collection, so don’t start accusing me of anything! You’re just jealous!’

The two policemen looked at each other, stunned. ‘We just came to ask about your jars of cheese.’

‘Ah, I see,’ he smiled. ‘What’s the problem? They’re so irresistibly tasty that you are afraid the public may abandon democracy and pursue cheesery? Don’t worry, policemen will still have jobs, it’s just that they will be the cheese mixers!’

‘Actually Uncle Peter, we’ve had complaints about the labels on the sides of the jars. More specifically, the death threats.’

‘Oh, those,’ he laughed. ‘What threats don’t people like?’

‘I’ll read an example, Uncle Peter,’ the officer said, lifting his finger and reciting from the label. ‘Thank you for buying Uncle Peter’s Cheese Spread. I hope you enjoy it, because there won’t be much for you to enjoy when I stab you repeatedly in the back until you are dead, dead, dead.’

‘And the problem there is?’ Uncle Peter asked, waiting for a reply.

‘Here’s another one,’ the other officer began. ‘When you buy Uncle Peter’s Cheese Spread, I guarantee not only to provide a healthy and tasty snack, but to cut your legs off with a chainsaw and smack you unconscious with them so that it is easier for me to drill holes in your eyeballs and pour gun powder inside before blowing your head to bits. I am going to kill you, and that’s an Uncle Peter Promise!’

‘Well read,’ Uncle Peter applauded.

‘You can’t just give death threats with your cheese! It’s horrible!’

‘Well, I assure you that everything I said there is true! I am being absolutely sincere about my threats.’

‘Why do you want to kill your customers?’

Uncle Peter looked away nervously. ‘I hate them.’

‘Why?’

‘They smell funny.’

‘How would you know?’

‘I just do!’ Uncle Peter said angrily.

The officers looked at each other in guilt. ‘We’re sorry, Uncle Peter. We understand.’

‘That’s fine. By the way, where did you get that cheese spread from?’

‘From outraged customers,’ the officer replied.

‘I don’t suppose you could give me a list of their names and addresses, could you?’

‘I suppose we could,’ they nodded, handing him a sheet of white paper.

‘Thank you, and sorry for the trouble I may have caused,’ Uncle Peter smiled, glancing over the list.

‘No, we’re sorry for wasting your time,’ the officers apologised, stepping back into the police car.

Just as they left, Gropogi came crawling back, covered in sewerage. ‘I think I unblocked it, Uncle Peter,’ he panted.

‘Wait…I think I hear singing!’ Uncle Peter gasped. ‘From under the ground!’

Gropogi looked around in confusion. ‘I’m sorry, I hear nothing.’

‘Put your head closer to the ground,’ Uncle Peter sneered.

Gropogi went on his hands and knees. ‘I still can’t hear anything.’

‘Closer.’

Gropogi put his ear to the stone floor. ‘I still don’t,’ Gropogi insisted.

Uncle Peter chose this point to boot Gropogi in the head. ‘Ha! Take that you Danish Monk!’

Gropogi gave a howl and held his head in his arms. ‘Why did you kick me?’

Uncle Peter looked at him sympathetically. ‘You really want your wife back, don’t you.’

‘Yes, I certainly do!’ Gropogi cried. ‘She means everything to me! She is my sunshine!’

‘Then who am I to stand in the way of true love,’ he said dreamily and opened a hatch. ‘Your wife is in there, Gropogi!’

‘Oh thank you Uncle Peter!’ he laughed, running towards what he soon found to be a pair of vicious jackals.

‘Oh my, I must have opened the wrong hatch!’ Uncle Peter smiled as Gropogi was mauled by the wild, African dogs.

Later that afternoon Uncle Peter picked up the stuffed ferret and put it to his ear. ‘Who is it?’ he asked.

‘Hey Uncle Peter, it’s me!’

‘Oh, Braxie! Still coming to my Cheesy Christmas party?’

‘Well, that’s what I rang about. I’ve decided I’m not coming.’

Uncle Peter stared down the throat of the ferret in disbelief. ‘Not coming, Braxie?’

‘Well, it’s Christmas and my wife thinks that I shouldn’t go on such a special day.’

‘Damn you Braxie,’ Uncle Peter snarled. ‘You promised to see my cheese! You promised to visit! That was an election promise and you broke it!’

‘It wasn’t an election promise.’

‘It was to me! Now, you’re going to get your political anus over to my cheese factory, or I will tell everyone about what you and I were up to last winter!’

‘You wouldn’t!’ Braxie cried.

‘Yes I would! You think your popularity is dropping now, wait until they find out who really poured cheese all over that Cathedral!’

‘Okay,’ Braxie sobbed. ‘I’ll be over there at lunch tomorrow. Just make sure, uh, you know.’

‘You’re still worried about that?’ Uncle Peter laughed. ‘I don’t know what caused your fear of sea lions, but you have to realise that they’re not really lions and they won’t hurt you.’

‘But there’s none around your place, right, Uncle Peter?’

‘I won’t answer that,’ Uncle Peter jeered. ‘I’m in the middle of inner-suburban Melbourne. What chance is there of me having sea lions?’

‘I suppose your right,’ Braxie laughed, and hung up.

Uncle Peter put down the stuffed ferret, turned around and smiled at Gropogi. ‘Just wait until I stick my finger in his ear! He’ll cry! And me? I’ll laugh! I’ll laugh at his misfortune!’

‘Can I stop yet?’ Gropogi asked, taking his tongue off the floor.

‘No, I need the floor to be super shiny for Braxie tomorrow! So keep licking, my fat friend!’

Gropogi sighed and continued to sweep the dusty floor with his tongue. Was he ever going to have his wife released?

‘Now, we all know that Braxie loves grandmas,’ Uncle Peter announced the next morning. ‘It is Christmas Day and I want you to put on a show he’ll never forget! Until I stick my finger in his ear, that is.’

Percy looked in anguish. Was he doomed to be in a performing grandma circus for the rest of his life? Some Christmas this was turning out to be.

‘Oh, Gropogi, go check and see if that banana cake is ready,’ Uncle Peter pointed.

‘Where is the kitchen?’ Gropogi asked. He stood near two doors: a red one and a blue one.

‘Uh, the…red one!’ Uncle Peter smiled.

Gropogi nodded and went inside. Uncle Peter moved to the wall and pulled a lever. An explosion came from inside the red room.

‘Aagh!’ screamed the fat, Greek, lollipop man.

‘Oh my, I wonder if the cake is ready!’ Uncle Peter laughed. ‘Anyway, you old ladies, stay in that cage! I’m going to try and marry a few more old ladies before Braxie comes.’

And with that, he put on a new tie and strolled out of the door whistling We Wish You a Merry Christmas.

‘We’re down on stocks this year,’ commented Darryl Yellow, president of the South Eastern Nursing Home Association. ‘We have just as many old men as usual, but they make up less than half of the older population! Where have all the grannies gone?’

‘Word is on the street,’ his assistant explained, ‘that they’re all getting married to…Uncle Peter.’

‘The cheeseman?’ Darryl asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Damn him and his superior brain! He realises what a profitable business nursing homes are and he’s trying to expand!’

‘Why is he only taking old ladies?’

‘Well, they’re pretty good looking grannies, you’ve got to admit.’

‘Suppose so.’

‘Come on!’ Darryl announced. ‘We’ve got to get these old ladies back for Christmas! A Christmas without old ladies is like…Easter without old ladies!’

He and his assistant jumped into the granny mobile and sped towards Uncle Peter’s Cheese Factory.

All of Melbourne was alive with Christmas Carols, lights and decorations. Parliament House was in the Christmas spirit too.

‘You’ve got to give three speeches today sir,’ Braxie was informed by his committee. ‘Are you prepared?’

‘Uh, I’ll look into that,’ Braxie said, slightly distracted. His eyes lit up when he heard a car toot it’s horn. ‘Um, I’ll be back later!’ he said nervously, scampering out of the office, opening up a window and climbing down the drainpipe.

Uncle Peter waited outside the Melbourne Parliament House on Spring Street in his punch buggy. ‘Hop in, Braxie!’

‘Quick!’ Braxie yelled. ‘Let’s get out of here!’

‘Where are you going, Mr Brax?’ yelled his assistants as they watched the Victorian Premier being driven off into the distance in a white punch buggy.

‘I have a surprise for you,’ Uncle Peter smiled as he and Braxie walked into his cheese factory. ‘I want you to be the first politician to see my grandma collection!’

‘Grandma collection?’ Braxie asked. ‘I just wanted to have a look at your cheese factory.’

‘I’ll think you’ll be pretty impressed by this,’ Uncle Peter laughed, and led him into the Chamber of Cheese. There was nothing but an empty cage. All that remained was a little boy named Percy and a fat man named Gropogi.

‘Nice grandma collection, Uncle Peter!’ Braxie laughed.

‘Where are all my grandmas?’ Uncle Peter burst. ‘Where did they go?’

‘Th-they took them,’ Percy stuttered. ‘The South Eastern Nursing Home Association took them away!’

‘Damn them!’ Uncle Peter roared. ‘They took my old ladies!’

‘And they took my wife!’ Gropogi wept. ‘Now she is doomed to the nursing home forever!’

Uncle Peter became distracted momentarily. ‘Gropogi! Why don’t you go back into that red room! I promise it won’t explode this time!’

‘No, Uncle Peter,’ Gropogi cried. ‘I’m leaving! I never got my wife back and I’m sick of you treating me like a dog!’

Uncle Peter realised that this was not good. ‘Gropogi, you walk out that door and you’ll regret it for the rest of your life. I am prepared to offer you the handsome salary of eight hundred dollars a week for you to be my personal…assistant!’

Gropogi looked amazed. ‘Really? You would do that?’

‘Yes, I would, my fat little lump of elephant excrement!’

Gropogi fell to Uncle Peter’s knees. ‘I will finally be able to afford a place of my own!’

‘No need!’ Uncle Peter said sternly. ‘You will live with me here, at the Cheese Factory. For free!’

‘Oh thank you, you are so kind!’ Gropogi cried in joy.

‘Now, I think the cake is ready! In the blue room this time!’ Uncle Peter said with a wink.

Gropogi understood and walked into the blue room. Uncle Peter walked to another wall and pressed a switch.

‘Help! I am on fire! Help!’ Gropogi wailed.

Braxie was becoming impatient. ‘This is not exactly the sort of practise my government approves of,’ he said disapprovingly.

‘Oh, phooey!’ Uncle Peter spat. ‘Curse you Brax! What’s the point in having you here when you’re not distracted by anything! I have things I want to do to you!’

‘What sort of things?’ Braxie asked, angrily.

‘I was going to stick my finger in your ear, okay!’ Uncle Peter cried. ‘I can’t now, though! How am I supposed to do it if you’re not distracted by grannies? I want to see you cry! And I want to laugh at your misfortune!’

But Braxie wasn’t listening. He was frozen in fear. Right beside him was a sea lion, showing him its teeth!

‘U-Uncle Peter! It’s a sea lion! Help! I thought you told me you didn’t have any!’

‘No I didn’t!’ Uncle Peter smiled. His eyes lit up and his moustache wiggled in delight. This was the perfect distraction! Who needed grandmas? He slowly moved his finger towards the Premier’s right ear-hole.

‘Uncle Peter!’ boomed a voice.

‘M-mummy?’ Uncle Peter gasped. ‘What are you doing here?’

Braxie continued to stare in fear at the sea lion.

‘Uncle Peter, you had fifty weddings, and you didn’t even invite me to one?’

‘But mum, they were only old lady weddings!’ Uncle Peter pleaded.

The woman stood angrily with her arms folded. She was a fierce looking mother, with an eye-patch and a small moustache. She took out a wooden spoon. ‘I’ll get you, Uncle Peter!’ she roared and chased him around the room. Braxie looked in amusement as the thirty-seven year old man cowered on the ground howling in tears as his mother smacked his bottom.

‘Ha, ha, ha!’ Braxie laughed, smiling at Percy. ‘Uncle Peter is getting smacked on the bottom by his own mother. What can I do, except to laugh at his misfortunate!’

Uncle Peter was able to hear the premier say these words and realised he had been defeated. ‘No!’ he cried. ‘No!!!’

By Christmas afternoon, the cheese factory was a different place. His grannies had been stolen by the nursing home association. Braxie had left the factory, laughing at his misfortune. And his mother had given him a damn good spanking. He had never felt so unhappy in his life, except for the time he was twenty and someone asked him whether he wanted any fairy floss. He accidentally had said no when he meant yes. He never did get that fairy floss.

‘I’m sorry, Uncle Peter,’ Percy said, trying to cheer him up. ‘But it couldn’t be all that bad.’

‘You’re right,’ Uncle Peter sighed, and opened up the door to the blue room.

Gropogi had burn marks all over his body. His shirt was covered in ashes and he held a black cake in his arms. ‘I don’t think we can eat this,’ he sighed.

‘Well, we’d better feed it to the dogs,’ Uncle Peter smiled, and opened a hatch. The two jackals immediately leapt onto Gropogi and sunk their teeth into his arms.

‘Ow! The dogs are not touching the cake!’ Gropogi wailed.

Uncle Peter laughed and sat at the table with Percy. ‘Let’s enjoy what remains of Christmas with a lovely mug of boiled cheese.’

‘Here, here,’ Percy grinned.

‘I’ll tell you what we’ve had!’ Uncle Peter said, lifting his eyebrows and pointing to his face.

‘What’s that?’ Percy asked.

‘A Cheesy Christmas,’ he smiled, and the two of them tapped their mugs together.