Bertie's Bathplugs

Bertie's Bathplugs: Object Post 22

Source? Initially, Raelene threw them at Bertie

Significance? Bertie developed a fondness for eating them

Fate? Bertie digested them

Author’s inspiration? Our Jack Russell Tess had a penchant for eating bathplugs

First appearance? Matt the Mage: First Spells

Everything would have been fine if it hadn't been for the bathplugs. Bathplugs were Bertie's favourite snack.

First, he ate the two that Raelene threw at him, then he went searching for more.

Bertie was a camel who showed up when would-be mage, Paramatta Wheatslump, was practising maging in the desert. Bertie, who spoke with an upperclass-Brit-twit accent, confided to Matt that he hadn’t always been a camel, but he wasn’t too sure what he’d been because it was just too long ago. Unfortunately, his transformation seemed to have affected his appetite because he’d eat anything that wasn’t nailed down. Especially bathplugs.

He ate two perished ones out of the recycling bin, then the ragged one that stopped up a hole in the chooks' water bowl. This was serious, because of the drought. Matt had to stuff his second-hand bubblegum in the hole, and next day Raelene complained that the eggs tasted like pink sugar and fake fruit.

Bertie ate the plug out of the washing machine, and after that, he stuck his head through the bathroom window while Raelene was having a bath and stole the plug from the basin.

Raelene screamed and threw the bathplug at him. Then she threw the soap. Bertie ate that too. It gave him hiccups.

"This has got to stop!" said Raelene, after Bertie had eaten the plug from the kitchen sink. "We're all unplugged!"

"What about that box of new ones?" Merv wanted to know.

Matt began to edge towards the door.

"I'd forgotten them." Raelene stalked out to the porch, but the plugs were gone. Bertie had eaten the lot, and had the box as dessert.

Matt scooted under the mulga tree. Bertie followed, urgling urgently.

"You may well urgle," said Matt crossly. "Now we're both in trouble! Why do you have to eat bathplugs, anyway?"

"Urg," said Bertie sadly.

Matt wished he could get more plugs, but that would mean riding Bertie ninety kilometres to the nearest big town. (Windigurrup was closer than that, but the general store there didn't stock bathplugs.) He could steal some from the neighbours, but Bertie had probably already thought of that. On the other hand… Matt was a mage, wasn't he? Well, almost?

He decided to conjure some plugs.

Matt’s efforts led to hearthrugs, earwigs and earplugs. Finally, Matt and Bertie set off on a quest to find the mage Old Man Parboil with the hope of solving both their problems. Pity about the vampire scare on the way.

Matt and Bertie appear in Matt the Mage: First Spells

About the Blog

Sally is Sally Odgers; author, anthologist and reader. You can find you way into her maze of websites and blogs via the portal here.(Sally is me, by the way.)

The goal for 2017 was to write a post a day profiling the background behind one of my books; how it came to be written, what it's about, and any things of note that happened along the way. 2017 is well behind us, but I ran out of year before running out of books. As of May 2018 I STILL hadn't run out of books, but many of those still to come are MIA by which I mean I don't have copies and remember little about them. There are more new books in the pipeline, and I'm certainly showcasing those, but in between times, I'm profiling some of my characters, places and objects. Thank you so much to everyone who's come along on this journey so far!