Trafika Europe 3 - Latvian Sojourn

The Fortune Teller

n the morning Laura has to eat at least a cuckoo’s mouthful. Otherwise she can’t go outside, because the cuckoo – that’s the famine cuckoo can coo-coo-cuckoo her away. If she’ll be coo-cuckooed away, then next year there won’t be any mouthfuls, neither a cuckoo’s nor a non- cuckoo’s. Nor a non-cuckoo’s! Laura laughs – that’s funny! Mīma is firm about this, laugh or don’t laugh, and she herself eats a cuckoo’s mouthful, breakfast she’ll eat later. After she’s finished her morning chores. Grandpa wants to be left in peace. Grandpa won’t go outside so he doesn’t need such a mouthful, let that cuckoo hang himself. Grandpa isn’t preparing for next year. Laura will go and spend some time with Rita at Lejasupītes farm, alright? OK? Please, Mīma, please. She’ll show Rita her new candy wrappers. One of these is from a candy called Vāverīte – that’s a squirrel in Latvian and it’s very valuable. It’s gilded. It can be exchanged for three Vēžu kakliņi – crayfish necks, which are not gilded. Fine, OK, fine, Mīma gives her permission to go. God knows where the kids have wandered off to, but Rita’s mama doesn’t know. She doesn’t know where the kids, those skunks, are hanging out. They take after their fathers, the little parasites. I

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