The Good Grass
written by: Sarah Kelleher
I didn’t like staring at strangers’ backs for hours.
I didn’t like the human earthquakes, when everyone made a noise like an ape or roared like a dinosaur, or shouted swears.
I liked Dad’s warm lap. I liked how he adjusted his weight in tiny tilts, proving he was alive, he was here, he wasn’t going anywhere.
I liked how my breath made clouds.
I liked the lady next to us. She glanced at me three times and smiled. I waited for more. She looked a bit like Miss Ellison at preschool, but with brown hair and a pointy chin, and plain eyes with speckles underneath. Brown boots and a brown coat. No colour?
She met my eyes again. ‘Hello,’ she said.
‘Where’s your hat?’ I asked, tugging at the wool over my head, same colour as Dad’s.
‘I don’t have one. I like yours, though.’
‘You need one for the game.’ I tugged the hat for emphasis. Too far. Now I couldn’t see, and wool scratched my eyelids like sand. I ripped it off. My head went all minty, and a chill wriggled down my spine. Now the hat turned into a pancake no matter how hard I pulled; I was going to freeze to death. A whimper escaped my throat.
The lady’s cold fingers brushed my ears, and the wool swallowed the crown of my head. Dad chuckled, ‘Thank you.’
She started talking to him about boring stuff instead of talking to me. I said, ‘We own a whole golf course.’ Nothing. ‘Do you have a daddy? I do.’ Still nothing.
I pulled out the big guns. ‘Have you patted a kangaroo? I have.’ But the lie fell flat; she and Daddy were talking too much and being extra smiley.
I yanked my hat off and threw it on the grass. ‘Whoops!’
Later, I towered over the world on Daddy’s shoulders. ‘Why did the brown lady go away?’
‘Her brother plays for the Blues.’
He sounded angry. I clung to his head as his body rocked me like a ship.
My fingers spread over his bristly scalp. ‘It’s like grass, but not normal grass.’
His body jiggled with laughter beneath me. ‘What do you mean, kiddo?’
‘Your hair’s like the good grass you don’t have to mow. Just like the golf course in your bedroom.’
He squeezed my calves, and I smiled. I had a good daddy.
- The Good Grass - September 15, 2026
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