and videos
and
back to the real world
where I watch Mick and his gang
laughing at something funny.
Cameron rolling around
his face bright red
and Rachel looking misty-eyed at Alex
and Alex trying not to notice
and not one of them looks my way
they are alone
together
I’m alone
by
myself.
JACOB
Tonight is Mum and Dad’s
wedding anniversary
and they want to go to the pub.
They don’t want to leave
me and Mick at home
but Mick promises Mum
he’ll ring her mobile if there’s a problem
and he won’t let me
burn the house down
or
flood the bathroom
or
let the chickens inside the house
but
luckily Mick doesn’t promise Mum
that we won’t climb onto the roof.
So ten minutes after they go,
we climb out the bedroom window,
Mick holding my hand tightly
like I’m just a kid.
We lean back against the chimney
and start counting the stars,
Mick calls each number out loudly,
we’re up here for hours,
‘152,153,154 . . .’
‘Mick?’
‘Yeah.’
‘What do you reckon Mum and Dad
did before we were born?’
‘Dunno. I wasn’t here. 155,156,157 . . .’
‘Mick?’
‘Yeah.’
‘How far away do you reckon the stars are?’
‘One hundred million light years . . . or more.
158,159,160 . . .’
‘Mick?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Have you ever been on a plane?’
‘Nuh.161,162,163 . . .’
‘It must be like sitting on a star.’
‘164,165,166 . . .’
‘Mick?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Have you ever been on a submarine?’
‘167, 168, 169 . . .’
‘Mick?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Can I have a go at milking Delilah?’
ALEX
Late at night
when I can’t sleep,
I tiptoe out to the back verandah
where Trudi, our pet kelpie, is waiting.
She whines quietly
and rests her head on my lap
when I sit on the couch beside her.
She can’t sleep either.
Together we watch
the wind swaying the plum trees in a slow dance
and the moonshadows tilting across the yard.
The cattle low softly in the far paddock
and just as I’m about to nod off to sleep
the rooster crows one long loud cackle
like a skeleton rattling
that sends shivers down my back.
I check my watch.
It’s midnight.
I hear Mum’s voice from inside,
talking to herself,
‘I swear if that bird keeps it up
we’ll be having roast chicken for dinner!’
Trudi, me
and the man in the moon
smile
before drifting off to sleep.
The rooster keeps quiet.
JACOB
Mick says
Delilah’s not going to be happy
because it’s past her milking time,
she may not give us any milk
and I’m to do it just the way he says.
It’s muddy in the barn,
lucky we’ve got gumboots.
Delilah bellows
which means hello in cow-talk.
I’m carrying the stool,
while Mick has a metal bucket
and a clean washcloth.
He pats Delilah gently
and says her name over and over
as he gets me to place the stool beside her
and he sits on it
and rests his head on her flank
and he reaches underneath
and washes her udder with the warm cloth,
all the time saying her name.
And when she’s ready,
he stands and I sit on the stool
and Mick tells me to gently
just gently
squeeze
with my thumb and forefinger
and I ask him which is my fourth finger
and he says, ‘Forefinger, Jacob’
and holds up the one next to his rude finger!
I squeeze and pull
and nothing happens except Delilah
makes a grunting sound,
which is cow-talk for
get your hands off me, I reckon.
I’m squeezing too hard
or Delilah is too tired
and wants to sleep
but
just when I’m about to give up
I hear a splash in the pail
and I so much want to cheer
but
I don’t want to scare Delilah.
I slowly keep squeezing
until I’ve done every teat
and pretty soon,
we have enough milk
for a glass each
and before we leave Delilah
I give her a big hug
around her neck,
well, as far as my arms will reach,
to thank her for the milk
and for not kicking me.
In the kitchen, Mick adds
two spoonfuls of Milo
to our glasses
and we have
a rich, warm, thick, real milkshake,
all thanks to Delilah
and my brother.
CAMERON
She can ride a bike faster than anyone,
I follow in her wake.
She cradles a lady beetle in her hand,
I wish I could hold it.
(Her hand not the beetle!)
She laughed for
two minutes and twenty-five seconds at lunch
but I didn’t tell the joke.
On Mondays she wears a black beret,
I tell her it’s my favourite colour.
On Tuesday she wears a red ribbon,
I tell her it’s my second favourite colour.
On Wednesday her hair falls free.
She answered four questions correctly in class,
I answered three questions wrong.
She got voted onto the school council,
I got mumps and missed the election.
She is the only girl in the school football team,
I’m the only boy in the softball team.
She has a dog named Napoleon,
a cat named Louis,
four goldfish,
two chooks that lay eggs,
and a mouse called Roger.
I have a pet rock.
I had a pet rock
until Mum threw it away.
Mum didn’t know it was a pet,
she said she was sorry,
went out to the garden
and brought me in another rock
but it was just a rock,
not a pet,
so I let it go home.
MICK
‘I broke Charlie Deakin’s cricket bat
by hitting it against a tree trunk
until the handle snapped.
It’s true
but . . .
yes, sir,
no buts about it,
I’ll take this note home to Mum and Dad
and I’ll pay for his bat.
Yes, sir, I know
his dad is the only doctor in town
but . . .
yes, sir,
I’ll apologise to Charlie.
I know I’m school captain
and I should set a good example
but . . .
yes,
I promise not to do it again, sir.’
And then I walked
slowly back to class
the note to my parents
in my pocket
and the memory of Charlie
with his brand new cricket bat
practising his hook shot
on the butterflies
swarming across the oval
killing five at a time
with each swing of his bat
before anyone arrived for school
this morning.
JACOB
At dinner –
chicken schnitzel, potatoes, beans and gravy –
Mum says to Mick,
‘I’m very disappointed
that you’d do such a thing.’
Dad says,
‘You’ll work every afternoon
for an extra hour on the farm
to pay for his new cricket bat.’
Mick quietly and slowly eats his dinner.
Mum says,
‘We expect better of you, Mick.’
Dad says,
‘What on earth were you thinking?’
I can’t take it any longer.
I say, ‘Tell them about the butterflies, Mick.’
Mum says,
‘Now is not the time, Jacob.’
Dad says,
‘This is very serious, Jacob.
Your brother has . . .’
‘Tell them, Mick, tell them,’ I say
interrupting Dad, which I never do.
Dad looks angry and his face goes red
but I don’t think it’s sunburn
and he says,
‘Jacob!’
I can’t stop now,
so I say, in my loudest voice,
‘He killed the butterflies!’
Everyone goes quiet
and I don’t know where to look
so I stare at my dinner
for the longest time
until Dad says,
‘Who killed what butterflies?’
‘Charlie,’ I say,
‘with his cricket bat,
smashing hundreds of them.’
Mum and Dad look at each other
and now Mum’s face is going red too
and then she gets up from her chair
and walks around the table to Mick
and she leans down close
and all of a sudden
Mick reaches out to hug her
and he buries his face
in her chest and sniffles
and Mum hugs him tightly
and Dad reaches across
and pats my hand,
‘Thanks, Jacob.
We’ll sort it out tomorrow.’
He coughs, nervously,
‘We’ll fix it, no worries.’
MICK
Before bedtime,
I go into Jacob’s room
with my Lego plane,
the model with the jet engines
and plastic cockpit
where the yellow-headed pilot sits.
He has a weird moustache
and he’s wearing a white helmet
as if he’s expecting the plane to crash
and for years
Jacob has come into my room
and picked up the plane on my desk
and laughed at the scared, crazy pilot.
Tonight I place the plane
carefully on Jacob’s bedside cupboard
and he sits up in bed and giggles,
‘We’re all gunna crash!’
I walk to the door and say,
‘Goodnight, Jacob.’
He waves, laughing,
‘We’re all gunna crash!’
LAURA
I thought it would make Mr Korsky happy.
It took hours searching the internet
for just the right site
and I printed out recipes
of things I never knew you could make
from a plain old bush of purple flowers.
All he needed was a saucepan
and a stove or a barbecue.
I can picture him
cooking it up,
leaning over the bowl
smelling the perfume as it steams.
I bought a folder from the newsagent
and I put all the pages inside
and tied them with a purple ribbon.
This morning
I got Mum to drop me at school early,
before Mr Korsky arrived,
and I ran to the lavender bushes
and picked a single stalk,
held it up to my nose
and placed it in the folder.
I slipped the folder under his door
and calmly walked to the oval
LAURA
I can’t explain the feeling.
It’s too big, overwhelming,
like the sky in summer.
He had a frown on his face
when he picked up the folder,
thinking Mr Hume
had slipped more work under his door.
And then he saw the stalk of lavender
and, I swear, I could see the wrinkles of a smile
stitched across his face.
He stood at the shed door
and read through every note I’d included.
He took the pencil he keeps in his top pocket
and added his own ideas to my notes.
There were a few kids around the playground now,
I had to be careful or else someone would notice.
When he finished he put the notes
back in the folder,
tied it with the same ribbon
and walked into his shed,
placing it on the top shelf above his bench,
where no one could reach it.
He came back outside,
the stalk still in his hands,
he held it up to his nose
and laughed,
it was the best laugh I’d ever heard.
MICK
I got to school earlier than usual.
I thought no one was around
until I saw Laura.
She seemed to be spying on somebody,
so I ducked behind a bottlebrush
and felt like a real fool.
She was watching Mr Korsky unwrap something.
A present?
Maybe it was her mum�
�s acupuncture kit?
To help Mr Korsky with his bad back.
You wouldn’t catch me letting someone
stick pins in my body
like I was a voodoo doll!
Laura wandered around the schoolyard
watching Mr Korsky.
She almost walked into a tree
she was so involved.
And when Mr Korsky laughed,
booming loud,
I could see the smile on Laura’s face.
Two of them,
sharing a secret.
MICK
I don’t get it.
Mr Hume comes up to me at recess
and says he got a phone call from Dad
and they agreed
I don’t have to pay for Charlie’s cricket bat.
The school has a few spare bats
and one of those
will be given to Charlie
to replace the bat I smashed.
Then he coughs
as if he hadn’t wanted to say that word,
smashed,
and he looks like he wants to say
something else
but he can’t quite manage it
so he coughs again
and says
we should all just forget,
this unfortunate incident,
that’s what he calls it.
And as he walks away
the question comes to me . . .
what if Charlie
uses the new bat,
the school bat,
to practise on the butterflies again?
ALEX
My Grandpop
leans against the counter
in the barber shop
while Mr Chambers
carefully snips the hair
from around my ear.
Grandpop says,
‘In my day, Alex,
my dad would take to me
with sheep shears
and, Bob’s your uncle,
I’d be shorn true
and booted outdoors to work.’
Mr Chambers laughs
and carefully snips at my fringe.
Grandpop says,
‘In my day
us kids didn’t have iPads
and iPhones and iPoodles,
or whatever they’re called.
We had a bat, a ball and a bike.
Too many gadgets, too much . . .’
Grandpop’s mobile phone beeps
with a text message.
He moves away from the counter
and pulls it out of his overalls
and starts to text back.