melaleuca

I used to take a bucket from the laundry cupboard and run up the street to Dub's house. Then we'd collect the cicada shells from the paperbarks up and down the street ... the days work was only complete when the bucket was at least ... well it was complete when we couldn't be arsed collecting any more ... I don't actually remember what we did with them afterward ...

I can only s'pose we just owned them ... hoarded them in a safe somewhere. Buried them in the ground and made a treasure map.

The tea trees were a bugger to get through to the trunks ... they're just too low to the ground. The cuts and scrapes I earned as I macheted my way through them branches to clutch my single cicada shell meant that I left those one's till last ... bloody tea trees. Used to hate playing cricket near those things ... ball'd invariably end up halfway up them in the crook of the trunk and a branch.

Dub lives in Brisbane with his girlfriend now ... haven't visited once in all these years. He came down to Melbourne a couple of times and told me off.

Should drop in on him sometime soon.