and we can all enjoy the parrots
and rosellas
and galahs
for as long as summer holds.
RACHEL
There’s a deserted house on Baxter’s Hill
with an old grapevine growing on the porch
and hanging over the front door.
You can see the house from every part of town.
Whenever there’s a lightning storm
most of us kids hope
that it strikes the house
and starts a fire
so the ghost has to find someplace else.
No one dares go near.
Mick boasted he walked up to the front gate once
but not even he’s going inside.
Mr Baxter died a year ago
and no one found him for ages.
They say he was sitting on the lounge,
his head bowed slightly.
They buried him on his property
because that’s what it said in his will
and no one in town
had the heart to go against that.
His grave is on the hill,
under the she-oaks
and when the wind blows through the leaves
it sounds like somebody moaning.
An old man howling
for food
or water
or help.
That’s why nobody,
not even adults,
goes up to Baxter’s Hill.
JACOB
All my family loves peas,
but we have different ways of eating them.
Dad scoops them
carefully
onto his fork
and leans in close to the plate
before gobbling them up.
Mum rolls her eyes
and then rolls her peas
across the plate
and onto a soup spoon,
she drinks her peas
and doesn’t spill a drop!
Mick uses his fork
to stab one pea at a time
but occasionally he just misses
and the pea shoots across the table
and onto the floor
where Skip slurps it up.
One pea for Mick, one for Skip.
And me?
I use the best pea-eating thing
ever invented . . . my fingers!
MR KORSKY
The truth is me and Walter Baxter
were best mates, all through school and after,
when we both got married and had kids.
And pretty soon those kids had children.
In the blink of an eye and the tip of a hat
me and Walter were grey-haired old men
wondering how so many days can go missing.
Walter’s children moved away
and mine stayed
and I didn’t think much of it at the time
but something got into him,
losing that part of himself.
He’d visit me and the wife in the evening.
We’d sit under the lemon tree
and have a few drinks,
watching the honeyeaters in the grevilleas.
Walter visited for years
until my grandkids arrived
and they were always under our feet,
chasing each other
giggling and tumbling around on the soft grass.
Don’t get me wrong,
I loved it.
So did the wife.
But, sometimes, I’d catch Walter
looking at them as they played
and I could hear the sigh building
from deep down.
No one knows what makes a man
or what breaks a man.
Anyway, after his wife died,
Walter stopped visiting.
Once a week I’d go up to his place
and we’d sit in his tatty kitchen
not saying much.
Around these parts there’s nothing to talk about
if it isn’t the weather or family.
How long can you talk about the heat?
Or the wind?
So I went every fortnight instead.
Just two old blokes
staring out the window
listening to blowflies at the screen door.
The house was falling down
and Walter was too.
I did what I could,
bringing lamingtons the wife had baked,
helping him fix the shutters against the wind,
nailing the floorboards
where age and warp had taken their toll.
Once a fortnight wasn’t enough.
I knew it.
When they found my friend,
I can’t tell you how that made me feel.
SELINA
Cameron swears he saw
Ms Arthur at the grocery store
with a man wearing a red T-shirt, black jeans,
and a ponytail
and Cameron says
they were holding hands
as they walked along the footpath
and jumped into a green sports car,
and yes, we know,
Ms Arthur drives a blue Hyundai to school
and Cameron
tried to follow them
except the sports car
was faster than his bicycle
but he guessed
they were going to Dexter Street
where Ms Arthur lives,
so he took the short cut
across Harpers Paddock
and arrived just in time
to see them walking up the stairs
to her front door
and he couldn’t resist,
he yelled,
‘POOKIE ALEERA’
and
the ponytail man
looked around
so Cameron jumped behind a tree.
Cameron swears that proves
Pookie Aleera is Ms Arthur’s boyfriend!
But, just as we all agree,
Rachel asks,
‘Cameron, when you yelled out,
did Ms Arthur look around too?’
And Cameron says,
‘Sure. I yelled so loud
everyone in the street turned around,
even Mr Hobbs the postman.’
And we all groan.
RACHEL
All morning on the Smart Board
Ms Arthur showed us paintings
of wheatfields
and churches
and cafés
and starry swirling nights
and bowls of fruit
and lots of paintings of the artist
because
Ms said
he was so poor he couldn’t afford models
and fruit was cheap
and wheatfields were free
and Ms said
you pronounced his name, Van Gogh,
like Fen Hoch
not Van Goff or Van Go
and she told us he cut off his ear
and went to a place
where people with mental illness go
and Mick said,
‘You mean the pub?’
and everyone laughed
even though
cutting off your ear didn’t so
und very funny
and we voted twenty-eight to nil
in favour of his paintings
and Ms said she’d seen the real paintings
in art galleries
and they were
‘explosions of colour’
and
‘the work of a genius’
and I thought maybe
he cut off his ear
because those explosions
had come out of his tortured mind
and landed on a canvas
and maybe
if he was really poor
and the people in the hospital
wouldn’t let him paint
wouldn’t let him do what he had to do
it made him mad enough
and angry enough
to hurt someone
and he couldn’t hurt someone else
so he hurt himself.
I stared at his paintings for ages
and wondered what it would be like
to have all that going on inside your head.
CAMERON
The score was eight–eight
in our lunchtime soccer game
and Mick was doing his best
to win it for our team
dribbling down the wing
beating two defenders easily
before crossing it perfectly
for me
to take the biggest air swing in my life
and land flat on my back
in the dirt
and no one laughed
but no one cheered either
because the ball went out for a goal kick
and by the look on Mick’s face
(even though he tried to hide it)
I was sure I’d lost the game
there and then.
There’s only one minute and
(quick check of my watch)
twenty-two seconds
before the bell rings
for the end of lunch
and suddenly
I know just what to do.
I look across and see Rachel, the bell-ringer,
is checking her watch as well
when Mick gets the ball on the halfway line
so I run
not towards goal,
no air swings this time,
I sprint to the school verandah
as fast as my legs can go
and I leap the stairs two at a time
and peek into the staffroom
to check no one is leaving
then I reach for the school bell
and lift it carefully
holding the bell steady to stop it clanging
and I hide between the banksia hedge
and the office building
when Rachel runs towards the verandah
as Mick dribbles past Pete and Alex
and Rachel reaches the desk
where the bell should be
ready to ring it for the end of lunchtime
and that’s when Mick beats the last defender
and curls a beautiful shot
into the top corner of the goal
for the winner
and everyone races to congratulate him
while I stand up from behind the hedge
and call to Rachel
that I’ve found the bell,
someone must have hidden it
to make lunchtime even longer
and who’d do something like that?
Rachel giggles and rings it
as loud as she can
while I run back to the oval
with Mick saying,
‘Did you see it, did you see it?’
over and over again.
LAURA
You’d think everyone would know about it,
but each day it’s the same.
All of Class 6A walk past the bushes,
talking and laughing on the way back from lunch.
I always wait to be last in line,
so I can rub my hands, just lightly,
along the top of the lavender,
purple thick with flowers.
Mr Korsky told me about it one morning
when Mum dropped me at school too early
and there was nobody else there.
He even let me trim some of the plants
with his clippers.
I think he still has a bad back
after saving Jacob’s life.
He says he rubs his hands on the plants
first thing every morning
and before he goes home at night.
He says whenever he’s upset,
or worried,
he just lifts his hands close to his nose
and lets the perfect aroma
take his troubles away.
I spend all afternoon in class
my chin in my hands
enjoying the smell
not worrying about a thing.
SELINA
It’s a stinking hot day
and everyone is exhausted after lunch
and we’re all slouched at our desks
while Ms Arthur
fans herself with a magazine
and no one wants to do school work
so Ms Arthur says
we’ll have one super-quick
maths competition
and then we can all read
whatever we like
for the rest of the afternoon.
Ms Arthur says,
‘Tell me the total of
six plus
five plus
eight plus
two plus
four plus . . .’
and Cameron
raises his hand
before Ms Arthur has asked him
and she says,
‘I haven’t finished yet, Cameron.’
A book is sitting on Cameron’s desk, waiting.
Ms Arthur says,
‘Right, nine plus
four plus
ten plus
three plus
seven plus . . .’
and Cameron
raises his hand
and says, ‘Fifty-eight!’
and everyone groans
because we all know he’s correct
but Ms Arthur hasn’t finished
so she ignores the answer
and keeps going,
‘. . . six plus
eleven plus
eight plus
two plus . . .’
Cameron says, ‘Eighty-five!’
‘. . . nine plus
twelve plus
three plus . . .’
Cameron says, ‘One hundred and nine!’
‘. . . two plus
ten plus
eleventy-seven plus . . .’
Ms Arthur smiles,
‘. . . two trillion plus
one plus . . .’
and Cameron says,
‘Two trillion, one hundred and twenty-two
and eleventy-seven, Ms!’
And, finally,
Ms Arthur says, ‘Correct’
and tells us all
to spend the rest of the afternoon
reading.
ALEX
Me and Rachel wait until the weathervane
a
t school
is turning so fast
Mr Korsky has to take it down from the verandah.
Rachel winks at me in class and I nod.
After school we both ride our bikes
up to the Gap, just outside of town,
where the main road cuts between Baxter’s Hill
and the abandoned apple orchard.
No one could grow fruit this far out
without irrigation
but legend has it, they tried for years
and one day after a huge dust storm,
the owners packed everything into their truck
and left town, never to return.
They say all the kids raced out here
and collected what was left of the shrivelled fruit
and the town had apple pies for weeks after.
Now there’s nothing but a few withered trees
and a barn with half the roof missing.
Me and Rachel leave our bikes at the fence
and climb the rusty gate,
running into the breeze to the top of the rise,
opposite Baxter’s Hill.
There are two huge granite boulders here
that shelter you from the wind.
We lean against the warm rocks
our heads tilting back to the sky
and spend all afternoon counting the clouds.
We don’t say much
the wind is howling around us
and we’re too busy keeping count.
I like the feel of Rachel’s hand next to mine
but I don’t tell her that.
LAURA
Every night, I open my diary
and write a few words before bed.
A self portrait –
crooked teeth jumbled hair
wears dresses, long and billowing, bright orange.
Eats sandwiches of salami, tomato sauce and pepper
washed down with juice
that Mum blends every morning
grinding carrots, beetroot, ginger and apple,
I sing loud over the noise.
A freckle under my T-shirt
near my bellybutton
like a friend, keeping me company.
Or sometimes I make a list of wishes –
a pony, black with a white blaze
or
a bicycle, with streamers
and a carry basket up front
for my cat . . .
which I don’t have,
another wish.
An iPad
with my Facebook site
visited by friends
leaving me messages
and invites
and photos
and jokes