Monday, 9 November 2009
Chullora Public School, 1 pm
You know you’re not a star when you still love the attention
“It’s the author, it’s the author. It’s Keira Wong!”
“Do you know who that is? That’s the author!”
This is how you know you’re small fry. You love the whispers behind little hands, the eyes widening as you walk through the playground of Chullora Public School. You know you’re presenting your book event to a Year 3 class of 30 students, but in your deliriously dizzying heights of deluded celebrity status you think it’s 300 kids following you to the library.
The group of kids that follow you and peek their heads through the library door, jumping up outside to get a glimpse of you through the window, continue the delusion as you walk back to your car to get your entourage. [FYI my brother and sister. Ha!] But it all comes crashing down to earth when a Year 6 girl, taller than you [what’s in the milk these days?], asks nonchalantly, “Who is this? I’ve never even heard of her!”
Reality check 101:
you know you’re old when … you really are flattered to be seen as 5 years younger
Introducing my sister as the illustrator for one of the activities, “Make your own GIANT manga comic”, the thirty pairs of incredulous eyes stare back and forth between my face and sister Angela.
“Sister? Sister?!” they cry. “Who’s older?”
Ah, I love kids. Angela is 18 years old.
“Who do you think is older?” Angela slyly asks.
Sixty eyes and thirty fingers point directly and unhesitatingly at my face.
“YOU! YOU! YOU!” the crowd screams.
The delusion is ended and not even I can imagine they are fanatically calling for me but for any other reason than pointing out the old maid of the book tour.
“How old are you?”
“How old do you think I am?” I respond, not slyly but stupidly.
“Um, 27!”
I’m 26. So not too bad. But then again, when I was eight I thought 30 was ancient.
“Actually, she looks twenty,” one girl sings out.
I know I am old because she automatically becomes my favourite.
How to lose a giant ego in ten seconds
The kids are loving making their own GIANT space creature from various jigsaw pieces. They’re loving I ask them to scream as loud as they can in their library. They’re loving I ask for them to yell out “snot” and “booger”.
[FYI, it is a vote by “Noise-o-meter” where kids yell out “snot” if they want jigsaw piece #1 or “booger” for jigsaw piece #2.]
But kids are kids, and they get bored of yelling the same obscenities. Instead, they want to yell out what the piece looks like, thus “Snakey boy” for the medusa looking alien head and “Keira Cheese Head” for the, well, cheese head effigy of, apparently, me. I’d love to say they were really imaginative, abstract descriptions, but you can’t argue with Snakey Boy for the one with the, well, snakes! So, needless to say, Keira Cheese Head won the noise-o-meter vote.
Me and my big cheese head!
I guess I asked for it...
Any resemblance?
Does my head look cheesy in this? Cos this subheading is…
It’s a hard decision, people screaming out for you because they are voting for your century old age or for your cheese shaped head.
But it’s all worth it…
…when you get this:
Gorgeous! A letter from a Year 3 Chullora Public School student
Check out my Facebook fan page for more photos of the book tour.
Eating: Brie cheese on melba toast
Drinking: Orange Juice
Listening: to Ladyhawke, “My delirium”.
