The HMS Marshmallow

“You don’t need rockets to reach space—just cushions, a co-pilot, and a wooden spoon for emergencies.”

The best kind of spaceships aren't made in NASA or by grown-ups with shiny tools and boring voices. They're made out of cushions. Real, squishy, sofa cushions with toast crumbs stuck in the corners and dog hairs from a dog that died before I was born. The kind of cushions that have stories pressed into them, that remember bottoms and naps and spilt cups of tea.

And ours was perfect.

We'd spent the whole morning building it — me and Mack. While Grandma was in the kitchen, pretending not to hear us crash about, we rearranged nearly every pillow, blanket and chair in the lounge room into what Mack called a “lunar insertion module.” I wasn't sure what that meant, but it sounded important, so I said it out loud about ten times just because I liked how it felt in my mouth. “Loo-nar in-SER-shun MOD-yool.” The words rolled around like marbles, clacking against my teeth.

Outside, the winter sun cast long rectangles of light across the carpet, turning our spaceship into something golden and magical. The dust motes danced in the sunbeams like tiny astronauts doing zero-gravity backflips. Even though it was cold outside, the lounge room was warm — not just from the heating, but from all the running about and giggling and serious space business.

Mack made me wear socks on my hands — “moon gloves”, he said — and wrapped a tea towel around my head like a helmet. It was one of Grandma's fancy ones with embroidered flowers that visitors aren't supposed to touch. My hair kept slipping out the sides, making ginger wisps escape like solar flares, but I didn't care. I was the co-pilot of the HMS Marshmallow, and I took my job seriously. Captain Mack had entrusted me with very important duties, like scanning for aliens and making the “whoosh” sound when we went into hyperspace.

Our spaceship had everything a proper lunar vessel needed. The cockpit was made from Grandpa's armchair with a blanket roof stretched over the top. The navigation system was Grandma's old clock radio, which Mack had stuck Post-it notes all over with words like “OXYGEN” and “THRUSTERS.” The engine room was behind the sofa, where we'd piled all the cushions from the spare room and covered them with Grandma's crocheted throw — the one with all the multicoloured squares that smelled like mothballs and memories.

“Okay, Commander,” Mack said, standing at the helm (which was Grandma's ironing board turned sideways), “we're entering a meteor field. Shields up.” His face was serious, eyebrows drawn together in concentration. He was wearing Grandpa's reading glasses, which made his eyes look enormous, and had fashioned an impressive control panel from a shoebox lid covered in bottle caps and drawing pins.

I held up two frisbees, one in each sock-covered hand. They were the perfect shields — one red, one blue, both slightly chewed around the edges from when we'd tried to teach the neighbour's dog to fetch last summer. “Shields activated!” I shouted, waving them in figure-eight patterns that I was certain would deflect any space rocks.

“Brace for impact in three… two…”

I made a sound like an exploding watermelon and flopped backwards onto a pile of couch cushions. My landing sent a small cloud of dust and crumbs into the air, sparkling in the sunlight. It looked like stardust, I thought. Real space debris from our intergalactic adventure.

“Damage report!” Mack called, his voice deepened to sound like the captain from that space programme Grandpa sometimes watched on telly.

“We lost a spoon!” I yelled, holding up the wooden spoon we'd been using as a laser cannon. Its handle had snapped during my dramatic crash landing. “And one of the aliens has escaped!”

“Not again!” Mack clutched his head in mock despair. He always made the best faces when we played — eyes wide, mouth a perfect O of horror, like a cartoon character who's just seen a ghost.

Ribbons the Rabbit, who'd been sitting on the windowsill, was immediately appointed as the escaped alien. Her threadbare pink fur and missing eye made her the perfect space villain. I threw her across the room — she hit the armchair and bounced into the laundry basket, landing with an anticlimactic soft thud among Grandpa's socks and undershirts.

“Alien neutralised!” Mack shouted, diving for her. His elbow knocked against the coffee table, making a vase wobble precariously, but he caught it just in time. “Mission secure!” he added, clutching both Ribbons and the vase triumphantly.

I was laughing so hard I couldn't sit up. My belly hurt in that good way that means you're doing something right. The kind of laugh that bubbles up from your toes and explodes out of your mouth like a fizzy drink that's been shaken. My cheeks ached from smiling, and my sock-gloves had slipped halfway off.

For a moment, I forgot about Grandpa's cough and Mum's absence and Dad's disappearance. The spaceship had carried us far away from all that, to a place where the only problems were meteor showers and escaped aliens. Where everything could be fixed with a sock glove and a wooden spoon.

“Do you think Grandma will let us live on the moon?” I asked once I could breathe again. I was lying on my back, staring up at the blanket ceiling of our spaceship. It sagged in the middle where we'd used a clothes peg that wasn't quite strong enough.

Mack was crawling out from under the coffee table, still holding Ribbons like she was dangerous. His hair was sticking up in all directions, and there was a dust bunny clinging to his eyebrow. “Only if we bring her tea every day and stop breaking the cushions.” He gestured to one of the sofa pillows, which had started leaking a bit of stuffing from one corner.

We both burst out laughing again, and I nearly rolled into the lamp. I caught myself just in time, grabbing the edge of the rug to stop my momentum, and Mack shouted, “That's one small trip for Rose, one giant dent in Grandma's furniture!”

That made me laugh so much I snorted. The sound was so undignified and piggy that it only made us laugh harder. I was gasping for breath, tears streaming down my face, when I noticed a shadow in the doorway.

Grandma stood there, looking at the chaos we'd created. The cushions strewn everywhere, the blankets draped like strange tents, her good tea towel wrapped around my head. For a moment, I thought we were in trouble. Her face was serious, her mouth a tight line.

Then something changed. Her expression softened, like butter left in the sun. The corners of her mouth twitched upward, and suddenly she was smiling — a real smile that reached all the way to her eyes for the first time that day.

“Room for one more astronaut on your ship?” she asked, stepping carefully over a pillow barricade.

Mack and I exchanged shocked glances. Grandma never played spaceships. She was always too busy with grown-up things like cooking and worrying and telling us not to put our feet on the furniture.

“You have to wear moon gloves,” I said seriously, holding up my sock-covered hands.

“And you need a proper title,” Mack added. “Like... Space Admiral or Galaxy Navigator.”

Grandma considered this for a moment, then nodded solemnly. “I believe I'd make an excellent Communications Officer. I'm very good at talking, you know.”

And then she sat down on the floor right between us, her knees creaking slightly as she lowered herself onto a cushion. She took the spare sock Mack offered her and pulled it carefully over her right hand.

“Communications Officer reporting for duty,” she said, making her voice deeper, the way grown-ups do when they're trying to be silly.

I couldn't stop grinning. Even Mack looked impressed.

“Welcome aboard the HMS Marshmallow,” he said, handing her a wooden spoon — the unbroken one we'd been saving for emergencies. “Try not to break anything. The gravity's a bit strange up here.”

For just a little while, as the three of us zoomed through imaginary space, dodging meteors and hunting for alien treasure, I forgot to be worried. The spaceship carried us away from Broken Hill, away from sickness and missing parents and all the grown-up problems that had no proper solutions.

In the HMS Marshmallow, everything made sense. The universe was vast but friendly. The aliens could be tamed. And even if things went wrong, Captain Mack always had a plan to save the day.

I wished we could stay there forever, floating among the stars, safely wrapped in cushions and imagination.

---

After a while, we got too hot for space gear, so we pulled off our moon socks and used them to have a sock fight instead. Grandma had gone to hang out the washing, so it was just me and Mack again, turning the lounge room into outer space. We rolled our socks into tight balls and hurled them like miniature asteroids. One of mine landed in the fruit bowl and got tangled in a banana, making the plastic apple with the bite mark wobble precariously.

“Bull's eye!” I shouted, dancing a victory jig on top of an overturned cushion.

“Lucky shot,” Mack grumbled, but he was grinning as he readied his own sock-missile.

His sock whizzed past my ear and knocked over a photo frame on the side table. It didn't break, but the clatter made Grandma appear in the doorway like magic. She stood with her hands on her hips, eyebrows raised, but there was a twinkle in her eye that told me we weren't in proper trouble.

“Out you go,” Grandma said, shooing us with her tea towel. “Sun's out. Take that energy outside before you bounce a hole through the floorboards.”

Mack groaned dramatically, flopping backwards onto the dismantled spaceship like he'd been mortally wounded. “But the aliens might get us out there,” he protested, one arm flung across his forehead.

“The aliens can have you,” Grandma replied with a smile. “My cushions need a break.”

I jumped to my feet and yelled, “To the backyard!” My sock-gloves were back on, and I waved them in the air like banners. “The mission continues on foreign terrain!”

Grandma chuckled as she began putting the lounge back together, plumping cushions and folding blankets. “Go on, you hooligans. I'll call you when I've got some morning tea ready.”

We scrambled to our feet, leaving a trail of stray socks and displaced cushions in our wake. Mack paused only to grab Ribbons from her position as alien hostage, tucking her under his arm like a rugby ball.

The shift from the dim coolness of the lounge to the bright winter sunshine was like stepping into another world. The backyard looked different somehow—more alive, more colourful—after being cooped up inside. The sky was a perfect blue, not a cloud in sight, and the air had that clean, crisp smell that only comes after a cold night.

The grass was still a bit wet from morning dew, and I made the mistake of stepping straight onto it in my socks. They squelched immediately, and I let out a scream that probably startled every bird in a five-kilometre radius.

“Wet socks! Emergency! EMERGENCY!” I hopped from one foot to the other like the grass was made of hot coals, my arms windmilling wildly.

Mack laughed so hard he nearly dropped Ribbons, who had insisted on joining the outdoor part of the mission (I said she was our moon diplomat now). He grabbed my arm and pulled me towards the swing set. “Quick! The anti-gravity station is sock-free territory!”

The concrete path leading to the swings was warm from the sun, and I could feel the dampness from my socks seeping into my feet. But I didn't care. Outside felt good after being inside all morning. The fresh air filled my lungs like a drink of cold water after eating something too sweet.

The swing set was old and rusty in places, but it still worked if you didn't go too high. It made a loud squeak-squeak every time you moved, like it was complaining about having to hold our weight. Mack said that was just it powering up its anti-gravity boosters. The metal was cool against my palms as I gripped the chains.

He took the left swing. I took the right.

We swung back and forth, legs pumping, toes reaching for the sky. The rhythmic creaking of the chains matched our movements, creating a rusty symphony that had been the soundtrack to countless summer days and winter afternoons.

“Five,” Mack shouted, his voice rising and falling as he swung past me. “Four. Three. Two—”

“BLAST OFF!” we screamed in unison.

I threw my arms out and let my legs dangle. For a split second, I felt like I wasn't swinging at all — I was flying, high above Broken Hill, above the trees, the houses, and the rusty fences, all the way into the blue, blue sky. The wind rushed through my hair, filling my ears with its whooshing song. My stomach dropped in that delicious way that's half-scary, half-wonderful.

And in that moment, nothing else mattered. Not Mum being gone, not Dad disappearing, not Grandpa's worrying cough. Just the swing, the sky, and the breathless feeling of being suspended between earth and clouds.

The back door creaked open, and we both turned to look. Grandpa came outside for a bit and sat on the back steps. He had his thick green jumper on again, even though the sun had started to warm the air. A tartan blanket was draped over his knees, making him look older than he had at breakfast. He didn't say much. Just watched us with a small smile and a tissue tucked in his sleeve. His mug sat next to him, but I don't think he drank from it. Steam rose from it in curly wisps, then vanished into the winter air.

Sometimes he coughed into his elbow, quiet and quick, like he didn't want us to hear. But I heard. It sounded like something rattling inside a box, loose and dangerous.

“Hi Grandpa!” I waved from the grass. My socks were drying in the sun, spread out on the concrete like tiny rectangular flags.

He lifted one hand and waved back, slow and gentle. I liked that he was watching. Even if he wasn't playing, he was still part of the mission. His eyes looked tired but happy, like he was storing up our games in his memory for later.

“Do you think he ever went to space?” I asked Mack, who had abandoned the swing to lie in a patch of sunlight near the lemon tree. He was using Ribbons as a pillow, her one good eye staring accusingly at the sky.

Mack lay back and folded his arms behind his head. “Probably.”

“Maybe he landed on the sun by accident,” I whispered, crouching down beside him and picking at a scab on my knee.

Mack grinned. “That's why he has to wear jumpers even when it's hot. Sunburn.”

I giggled, and Grandpa smiled at us again from his perch on the steps. The sun caught his white hair, making it shine like silver wire. But then he coughed into his hand and looked away, as if embarrassed to remind us he wasn't feeling well.

The day stretched on, lazy and golden. A kookaburra laughed from the big gum tree at the edge of the property, and somewhere in the distance, a dog barked in short, excited bursts. The world felt perfectly ordinary, which was exactly what we needed.

We played “Space Chase” after that — one of those games where the rules change every thirty seconds depending on who's winning. I was the Moon Queen; Mack was the Solar Thief. Ribbons was caught in the middle as the “hostage negotiator,” but she kept falling over whenever we placed her on the ground to oversee our negotiations.

“The Moon Queen decrees that all stolen solar flares must be returned immediately!” I announced, wielding a stick as my royal sceptre.

“Never!” Mack declared, ducking behind the clothesline. “The Solar Thief demands payment in... in chocolate biscuits!”

“Unacceptable!” I chased him around the yard, my bare feet slapping against the grass, which had finally dried in the winter sun.

Eventually Mack tackled me behind the gum tree and tickled me until I couldn't breathe. I shrieked and rolled into a patch of soft weeds. Their earthy smell filled my nose as I squirmed, trying to escape his tickling fingers.

“Surrender to the Solar Thief!” he demanded, laughing as I kicked and giggled.

“Never!” I gasped between fits of laughter.

I got him back by stuffing a handful of grass down his collar. He howled like a werewolf and fell over like I'd zapped him with a space laser. His legs kicked in the air as he tried to shake the grass from his shirt.

“I surrender!” he gasped, clutching his chest and rolling dramatically in the dirt. “The Moon Queen is too powerful!”

“Victory is mine,” I said, holding up my stick-sceptre. I placed one foot on his chest, striking a pose like the superheroes in his comic books. “The Solar Thief is defeated!”

The game might have continued indefinitely—Moon Queens and Solar Thieves have notoriously long-running feuds—but Grandma called from the back door.

“Oi, you two! Juice and toast!”

Those magic words broke the spell immediately. Playing was fun, but food was serious business.

“Race you!” Mack yelled, already up and halfway across the yard, all thoughts of solar thievery forgotten in the promise of toast and juice.

I chased after him, my feet slapping against the ground, socks forgotten. The race, of course, was completely unfair—his legs were much longer than mine—but I sprinted anyway, arms pumping, hair flying behind me like a rusty flag.

We collapsed on the back step, sweaty and grinning. Mack's hair was sticking up like he'd been electrocuted, and I was pretty sure my knee had grass stains. My cheeks felt warm from the sun and exercise, and there was dirt under my fingernails. Grandma handed us each a glass of juice and a slice of toast with honey drizzled on top in golden zigzags, and we sat there, sun on our backs, like nothing could ever go wrong.

The juice was cold and sweet, washing away the dust from our throats. Grandpa had gone back inside, but his blanket remained draped over the step, a reminder that he'd been part of our morning, even if just as a spectator.

I took a big bite and let the crumbs fall onto my lap. The honey stuck to my chin, and I wiped it with the back of my hand, leaving a sticky streak that attracted a curious fly. The toast was perfectly done, crunchy on the outside but still a bit soft in the middle. Grandma's toast was always just right, as if the toaster only worked properly for her.

For a little while, it was just a perfect day. The kind you remember years later when someone asks what your childhood was like. The kind that feels like it might go on forever, stretching into the afternoon and evening without anything changing or breaking or going away.

I glanced at Mack. He had a honey moustache and was chewing with his mouth slightly open. But he looked happy. Really happy, not the pretend kind that grown-ups do when they're trying to make you feel better. The games had worked their magic, pushing away the questions and worries from the night before.

“More?” Grandma asked, appearing at the door with the honey jar.

“Yes please!” we chorused, holding up our empty plates like beggars in a Christmas movie.

And for that golden sliver of morning, with the winter sun warming our backs and honey sweetening our tongues, everything felt right in the world.