The Worst Breakfast. China Miéville

       Table of Contents

      ___________________

       Dedication

       The Worst Breakfast

       About the Authors

       Copyright & Credits

       About Akashic Books

      To Cassia

      —China Miéville

      To all the picky eaters. It gets better, I promise.

      —Zak Smith

      I’m worried, little sis. Something’s amiss.

      Amiss?

      This reminds me of the worst breakfast . . .

      The worst breakfast?

      You can’t have forgotten the worst breakfast! The toast was burnt. The SMELL! The SMOKE! It made us CHOKE!

      I don’t remember.

      IT WAS NO JOKE! How about the eggs? Remember THEM? They were BAD eggs. They were no fun. They were SEVERELY underdone.

      And the PORRIDGE! Too thick, too gluey, too salty. It should be creamy, made of oats, not GUNK scraped off the hulls of boats.

      That doesn’t ring a bell.

      NOTHING went right. The sausages were a catastrophe. Half too COLD and half TOO HOT, some bone-dry, most wet as SNOT.

      Dis. Gus. Ting. En-TIRE-ly.

      If it wasn’t one thing, it was another.

      How did we RECOVER?

      The beans weren’t baked. Or cooked. Or clean. I only swallowed one baked bean. That was more than enough. And I almost spit it out.

      It sounds AWFUL. But are you sure that’s how it was?

      YOU BREAKFAST-FORGETTER! Close your eyes and picture it . . . We swallowed slimy red tomato without gusto or bravado—

      You can’t rhyme TOMATO and BRAVADO!

      I can if we’re English. Almost. Tu-MAH-toe, bruh-VAH-doe.

      But what if we’re American? Then we say tuh-MAY-toe.

      Okay then. The steaming slick tomato hill was oozing into RANCID swill . . . that made us ill . . . I took a pill . . . I can taste it still . . .