Farewell from Barry and Stella

Barry:  It's our last day (sniff), and my turn to write the captions.

Today we did real editorial work. Stella wrote a letter to an author telling them their book was brilliant, except for the beginning, the middle and the end.

And I got halfway through an email to Jennifer Castles and Dean Bowen telling them how I loved their book but thought they would sell more copies in Australia if it was in English, before I worked out that they already knew that.

All in all, it's been a big week, and we're exhausted.

But we had the best time. Thank you to everyone who made such nice comments on our posts. 

Stella: Yes, thank you, everyone! Even you, Mr Smithingtonson. We're not quite ready to be real editors yet, but we do have a real picture book you can read, which our friend Mini helped us with!

Barry: Oh, also! If you want us to do work experience at your workplace, or just come over and play at your house, you should enter this competition that the Onions are running.

Stella: Thank you again, everyone! We'll say goodbye now  because it's almost home time.

Barry: No, I distinctly heard an Onion say that it was almost wine time. Let's go!

 

*The Onions would like to state for the record that we do not condone underage drinking. Barry and Stella will be toasting their work experience week with a tall frosty glass of orange juice.

We would also like to thank Barry and Stella's best friend Mini Goss for letting them hang out with us this week. It has been most enjoyable, and things have never been so well alphabetised.

Barry and Stella do all the important things

Stella: Hello, everyone. Barry's still washing up the cake forks, so I'm doing all the captions!

Today we carried out a lot of tasks reserved especially for work experience students like us, because of their extremely high levels of importance.

The Onions said they were really jealous of our tasks today, and they were only letting us do them because they were so busy. 

But then I caught one with her feet up on the desk watching the book trailer of Unforgotten by Tohby Riddle, so I'm not sure if that's true. 

The Unforgotten trailer is so cool. You should watch it too.





After we watched that a few (dozen) times, we participated in the most Onion of events: cake!

It is our best friend Mini Goss's birthday today. She's not doing work experience with us, though, so we had to just think of her as we ate. Happy Birthday, Mini!

Barry and Stella's Tidy-up

Today we had a look around the House, and it became clear we really needed to help those busy Onions clean up a bit.

Stella: Barry, I think I just found out why the kitchen smells of ancient mandarin peel.

Barry: Ew! Why would anyone keep old tea-leaves and apple cores?

Stella: Maybe it's a home brew for Friday nights.

Onion: Ahem. Actually, we are utilising an Effective Micro-Organism to transform kitchen waste into a nutrient-rich soil conditioner through anaerobic composting.

Stella: And look, Barry, it's all the drafts of our book! Oo, you had such hat hair after that shoot, remember?

Barry: Look at that massive box in that massive pile of boxes. Now that it's a book, isn't it a little redundant to keep all those old notes and bits of paper?

Onion: One day the National Library will be very grateful for that. And one day we might need to refer to something.  

Barry: It's really because you haven't got around to making a slim archive folder of essential documents, isn't it? Let me help.

Stella: You know what, Barry? I can't bear the lack of alphabetical order in that bookcase any longer.

Onion [covering eyes]: We take no responsibility for work-experience students taking matters into their own hands and abseiling while unattended.

Onion 2: Is it just me or is it proving to be a long week?

Further adventures of Barry and Stella

Stella: Hello, everyone! Thanks for commenting on our first post!
Barry: Especially you, Mr Smithingtonson. You are very sensible.
Stella: Ha! All the real people agreed with me. Anyway, hurry up and choose the photos now, because it's my turn to write  awesome captions.
Barry: Okay. Here we go...

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We were so busy today - we had all the CBCA shortlisted titles to read. Look, Barry still hasn't finished his pile.

Barry: That's because I'm doing 'attention to detail' and 'spending time with the text' like the Onions told us about.
Stella: These are my captions. You had your turn.

So anyway, while I waited for Barry to catch up, I tried to do some proofreading, but the book made me laugh too much. The Onions said it won't be out until November, so I am going to be supercool for at least three months until everyone else gets to read it too. 

After lunch Barry had to send a fax. Neither of us had ever used a fax before, and when we asked the Onion showing us why she had to send one, I think she swore a little bit under her breath. Anyway, it beeped a lot and tried to pull Barry's paw in, which is probably why no one uses them anymore. 

Then we met Charlie, a former cover model who's still hanging around trying to get his manuscript published. We were a tiny bit scared of him but the Onions said not to worry because he was mostly 'armless. I think that was meant to be a joke, because they laughed at themselves a lot.

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Barry: Good job, Stella.
Stella: Thank you, Barry. Let's go home, I'm tired.

Introducing ... Barry and Stella

Midwinter is proving to be a very busy time in the House of Onion. So much reading; so much editing; so much cover designing; so many books going to the printer ...*

We were beginning to despair of getting everything done.

So you can imagine our delight when we discovered that we will be hosting two work-experience slaves  students who will ease our burdens learn all the things.

The first task we've delegated is writing the blog furthering our social media agenda.

So for this week, we will leave you in the capable hands of Barry and Stella. We first met these two when they helped us out in the making of Too Cold for a Tutu. 

They've promised to take good care of Alien Onion ... with strictly no hijinks.

Over to you, Barry and Stella!

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Barry: Hello, everyone! This is so exciting. We're very pleased to be here.

Stella: Why do you get to type first?

Barry: Because I'm older.

Stella: I hate that rule.

Barry: You can't type that, we're being professional.

Stella: Too late, I already did. Hey, can we show everyone the photos?

Barry: Okay, you pick and I'll do the captions.

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Here we are this morning, arriving at the House for work experience. Please note, Stella is wearing her tutu even though I told her she needed to look professional. She said you can never be too professional for a tutu.

Some important facts about the House include that it has 51 stairs. But it didn't take long for Stella and me to find more efficient ways of getting up and down. The Onions said they are Considering our Recommendations. So that's exciting.

The first thing we were asked to do is apparently the most important thing an editor does all day.**

Then we spent the rest of the day reading and making Helpful Comments.

We can't wait to come back tomorrow!

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Stella: That was really good, Barry. But I can do the captions tomorrow?

Barry: Okay. Are you going to wear your tutu again?

Stella: Yes!

Barry: Just checking.

Stella: Okay, everybody reading this, we will see you tomorrow!!! But in the meantime, if you have any opinions on the wearing of tutus in the workplace, will you please leave them in the comments? Because Barry doesn't believe that they can be Professional, but I'm pretty sure they can.

* So much Olympics to be watched, so much holidaying to be done ... FOR SOME.

** I don't know why, because the coffee tasted GROSS. And Stella got mad when I spilled some on her tutu.