Cornflaky

“Does anyone want a lift?” / “Now immediately?” Sunniva, spooning up cornflakes, objected, “I haven’t started breakfast yet.” / “You should get up earlier,” her father suggested, not for the first time. She put out her cornflaky tongue and he allowed her, “Perhaps I can hang on a few more minutes.”

It may be sticky and faintly cornflaky, but a kind of hard-knuckled, hairy-chested love DOES grow up among them, on a hundred plane flights, in the grind and sweat of the training camp.

At home, breakfast was the best time of the day, while I was working. It was best because it wasn’t cornflaky or eggy or telly-adverty.

Zenobia finished her mouthful of cornflakes and put down her spoon. […] Zenobia made a face at Dollie May and picked up her spoon again. […] “It was a very NOISY dream,” said Zenobia, in a cornflaky voice.

And this is where the dentist gives me more anaesthetic and I notice his hands smell a little like cornflakes – his gloves, they have this cornflaky scent – which is a detail that makes him seem credible and not simply a nightmare.