Budgeteer Junior
Hello. This is easy! Hello. Hello. Can I write my name? Keiran. My name is Keiran — K.E.I.R.A.N. What do I say next? I am six years old. I am in grade 2. I like Power Rangers, Batman and the Simpsons. And I like the computer. I like the games on the computer. Can I play Cosmo after this, can I, please?...
I started back at school in Mrs Murphy's class — in grade 2. I sit next to Jason de la Costa — he's my best friend. And when I grow up I want to be a budgeteer.
I don't want to be a fireman or a policeman. Budgeteers get to play with computers all the time. That would be cool. And they do sums the way Mrs Murphy showed us on Friday. What's 10-4 ? It's 6. I knew that. That was easy. What's 107-15? You take the five from the seven; then the one from the ten — and you get ... 92! When I can't do it my head, I count on my fingers. Budgeteers add up and take away all the time. And they do it with squillions of numbers. Golly!
Daddy says that the person who has the most fun is a man called the federal treasurer. Daddy says he takes away all the time. All day, every day, Daddy says, the federal treasurer is doing his sums. Daddy says the federal treasurer has this big — really big — enormous bag of apples and dishes them out. But, Daddy says, the federal treasurer has turned real nasty and won't give people the apples they want for their lunch box.
That's not nice is it? I am always taught to share. So should he. It's greedy to keep things from others. Mum always tells us to share and share alike.
Daddy says there's enough for everyone but the federal treasurer pretends there's not. Then Daddy wrote some numbers down. He put down a one, then a line of all these noughts. There were heaps of noughts. And he said that if they were all apples, everyone's lunch box could have an apple in it. That's a lot of apples! Then Daddy said there was a lot of empty lunch boxes.
The next time I open my lunch box there may not be an apple in it, Daddy says. And if I wanted an apple I would have to buy one from tuckshop. That's the way the federal treasurer wanted it. There were to be no more free lunches for Kieran. And if I wanted an apple or a peanut butter sandwich, Daddy says, then I would have to work for the money to buy it.
Then Daddy smiles and tells me that this week we could play a game of Federal Treasury — a game whose rules I didn't much like.
If I wanted an apple at all this week, I am supposed to work for it. Each day of the week I must do my chores; otherwise I don't get any lunch money at all. And if Daddy can convince my little brother to play too, Daddy says it will be just like the real thing because he won't need to pay him as much as me.
Then Daddy laughed and told me not to worry because families were not like that. Whatever the federal treasurer took away, we'd always do our best to make up. Mum would work more overtime and he'd give up something or my little brother could go to his nanny's rather than to child-care each day.
But Daddy looked so sad ...
So that's why when I grow up I want to be a budgeteer. I want to make the numbers do good, and not bad, things.
Can I go now?
Dave Riley