The Ya-Ya is the third episode of the first season of Australian mockumentary, Little Lunch.
Synopsis
The children discuss that Atticus has been acting strangely all week and that it might have something to do with his parents going away. Atticus confesses that he is upset because he is starving.
Plot
Recount - Tamara, Melanie and Debra-Jo
Tamara, Melanie and Debra-Jo play Chinese jump rope. Debra-Jo says that Atticus has been acting very strange lately, and that he hasn’t been eating his little lunch. The three point out that they’ve never seen him not eat his food.
Recount - Atticus
Atticus’ parents went to New Zealand, but he didn’t go, so he had to stay at home with his Ya-Ya, his grandma.
Recount - Tamara, Melanie and Debra-Jo
The three think that Atticus’ grandma is very nice. Tamara thinks that she’s Russian, Debra-Jo thinks that she’s French, but Melanie thinks that she’s from Turkey.
Recount - Atticus
Atticus says that his Ya-Ya is from the place where they make lunches that smell weird. He didn’t even know what was in his lunchbox! His grandma pickles everything.
Recount - Rory and Battie
Rory likes it when his nan comes over, and he thinks that Atticus is lucky that his “Yo-Yo” is staying with him. Battie corrects Rory, telling him that it’s “Ya-Ya”, not “Yo-Yo”, but Rory still thinks it’s a “Yo-Yo”.
Recount - Atticus
Atticus’ mum knows that he’s a picky eater, so she makes him normal food, unlike his Ya-Ya, who makes sour bread.
Recount - Tamara, Melanie and Debra-Jo
Debra-Jo says that on Tuesday, Atticus was still being strange. Melanie adds that he was also cranky.
Story
5G are working quietly in their classroom, when Atticus suddenly accuses Melanie of using his pencil without his permission. Melanie tells him that it’s her pencil, and that it has unicorns on it and it has “Melanie Woo” written on the side.
Recount - Atticus
Atticus’ mum says that he gets grumpy when he’s hungry. He was hungry on Tuesday. He had hoped that his lunch would’ve been better, because he had asked his Ya-Ya to pack cookies and cheese. It turned out that she had pickled the cookies and cheese. He needed some food.
Recount - Rory and Battie
Battie explains that if you forget your lunch or don’t have any food, you can go to the staff room, where you can make yourself a sandwich, but you can only ever go once.
Story
Atticus goes to the staff room, and makes himself a pile of seven strawberry jam sandwiches. Mrs Gonsha asks if he’s sure that that’s enough.
Recount - Rory and Battie
Battie continues to explain that after you have gone once, the school calls your parents, and says, “We understand how busy it is in the morning, but we need some lunch”. Rory says that after that, your mum brings you sushi and yells at you and says “Rory, stop forgetting to put your lunch in your bag!’ ‘Didn’t you realise that I was in an important meeting?”
Recount - Atticus
Because Atticus had already used up his emergency jam sandwich, he had to come up with something else.
Story
Something catches the students’ attention. It’s chips and chicken wings, that Atticus had delivered, and brought into the school.
Recount - Rory and Battie
Rory has seen lots of junk food being brought into school, but this was on a whole new level.
Recount - Tamara, Melanie and Debra-Jo
Debra-Jo, Melanie and Tamara emphasise that the food was a whole bucket of chicken wings, chips and coleslaw.
Story
The students gather around Atticus, hoping to be able to eat his food. Rory asks where he got that from, and Atticus tells him that it’s his lunch order.
Recount - Tamara, Melanie and Debra-Jo
Debra-Jo points out that school lunch order days are on Tuesdays and Thursdays, not Wednesdays.
Recount - Atticus
Atticus had told his grandma that lunch order days were on Wednesdays, and that that meant she had to order his lunch from the takeaway chicken shop that was on TV, and drop it off at school.
Story
Rory begs Atticus to give him some chicken, and that he’ll even give him his laptop that’sin the classroom. Melanie tells him that it belongs to the school, but he shushes her, and tells her that he really wants some chicken. Atticus shares some with Rory, and Rory tells him that he can’t really give him the laptop. Atticus says it’s fine, because he’s got plenty of chicken for everyone!
Recount - Rory and Battie
Rory says that Wednesday was the best day of his life!
Recount - Atticus
Atticus felt bed about lying to his Ya-Ya, so he didn’t ask for another lunch order on Thursday, which was yesterday.
Story
He thought that he would get used to Ya-Ya’s food, but he didn’t. Luckily, Mr Haliotis was running an outdoor survival skills class, and they were making damper, but Atticus’ damper was burnt.
Recount - Tamara, Melanie and Debra-Jo
Debra-Jo explains that damper is a type of bread made with fire, and that she knew that they’d be studying damper, so she studied damper and made some with her dad. She knew that hers would be perfect.
Story
Debra-Jo’s damper is perfect and fluffy. She calls Tamara and Melanie over to have a look at it, but when she turned around and Tamara and Melanie had arrrived, her damper was black and burnt! She says, “Honestly, it was golden and fluffy”. Melanie turns around to see Debra-Jo’s perfect damper, and asks her in response to her claim, “Like that?”.
Recount - Atticus
Atticus felt bad for taking Debra-Jo’s damper, so he returned it and had to eat his own burnt damper.
Recount - Tamara, Melanie and Debra-Jo
Atticus has been acting strangely lately, and he forgot his lunchbox again!
Recount - Atticus
Atticus has to survive only one more day of his Ya-Ya’s food, until his parents come home on Saturday. But after he saw what his Ya-Ya had packed for him, he “accidentally on purpose” left it at home. He didn’t want to be greedy, but he really needed some food, so he asked his friends “Who wants to give me some of their lunch?”
Recount - Tamara, Melanie and Debra-Jo
On Fridays, there’s a day where you can bring whatever food you want, called “Friday Treat Day”, which only happens once a week.
Recount - Rory and Battie
On Friday Treat Day, Battie brings chocolate biscuits, and Rory gets to make whatever sandwich he likes. Atticus had asked them for food, on a difficult day, but he did give them some chicken, so they decided to give him some of their food.
Recount - Atticus
Atticus recounts that he got half of a finger bun, a sausage roll, a chocolate biscuit, a pizza slice, a party pie, and a ham and honey sandwich. The ham and honey sandwich was Rory’s.
Recount - Rory and Battie
Rory’s mum won’t let him have ham and honey sandwiches everyday because she thinks it’s weird. Battie says that it is a bit weird. Rory makes a good point by asking Battie if he eats bacon and maple syrup, pork chops and apple sauce, and then he asks if he has ham and honey. Battie says that Rory does make a good point.
Story
Atticus cannot decide what to eat first, until Mrs Gonsha gave him his lunch box which he ‘forgot’. He had to complete the food, so that the others won’t ask for their food back. But that wasn’t it. The others also had Ya-Ya’s food with them, and they were going to eat it. Atticus didn’t want them to hate Ya-Ya’s food like he did, so he delays them by making sure there aren’t any allergens in the food, but Mrs Gonsha says that his grandma gave her the ingredients, and tells everyone to dig in.
None of them know what any of the food is, but when Rory tastes it, he thinks it’s delicious. At first, Atticus didn’t believe Rory because he would eat just about anything, but when the others said that it was tasty, Atticus was prompted to try some of Ya-Ya’s food. It was delicious. But there wasn’t any left!
Recount - Rory and Battie
Rory says that today was the best day of his life, because he had ham and honey sandwich, and Atticus’ Yo-Yo’s meaty leaf wraps.
Story
Luckily, Debra-Jo told him that he had more of his Ya-Ya’s food in his lunchbox.
Recount - Rory and Battie
Battie says that Atticus suddenly didn’t want to eat any of the normal food, but Rory did. Rory gets a stomach ache. He tells Battie to get the stretcher from the sick bay.
Recount - Atticus
Atticus can’t wait for his parents to come back home on Saturday, but he’ll ask if Ya-Ya can stay a bit longer.
Cast
- Flynn Curry - Rory
- Olivia Deeble - Tamara
- Madison Lu - Melanie
- Oisín O’Leary - Battie
- Faith Seci - Debra-Jo
- Joshua Sitch - Atticus
- Heidi Arena - Mrs Gonsha
- Will Del Mar & Wayne Hope - Mr Haliotis