Keep away from naked flame

They're selling Burlesque Hour undies after the show. You going to get some? asks A, smiling.

Nah, I don’t reckon they’re 100% cotton.

Frilly undies are ruined for me forever by those labels in cheap kids' pyjamas:

FLAMMABLE
Keep away
from naked flame.

A terrifying warning for a six year old, who now has to face the horror of her own mortality every night. Especially after she’s seen what happens to the hem when she curls too close to the heater. The smell of burning plastic. Static fabric crinkling into hard waves.

I’m naked beneath my pyjamas. Am I going to die one night while I’m sleeping, or watching the Muppets?

In the morning, Dad makes a stack of thin pancakes, which we’ll roll into leaky tubes and eat with our hands. It’s a bright Jindalee morning. At the frying pan, Dad sings: ‘why do all my girlfriends spontaneously combust?’

I crack the sugar crust on half a grapefruit. Dad, what does spontaneously combust mean?