Break Your Chains

wagging his tail as if he’s running to greet an old friend, but he just ducks under the gate and runs off to an empty stand of trees. At least, you thought they were empty, until you see a dark hand emerge to scratch behind Bruno’s ears, and a head of curly black hair duck down to greet him.

You don’t know whose grin is wider – Bruno’s or the boy’s.

There is a native boy just outside the back gate, and yet you can’t bring yourself to feel frightened of him – not when you see him with Bruno, so playful and relaxed. Still, you slip back inside the door, and watch through a crack.

The boy, wearing an animal-skin skirt and no shirt, strolls into your garden as if he owns the place. Which, it occurs to you, he probably did, before the master came along – just as you Irish owned your country before the British took that too.

Bruno trots alongside the boy adoringly. With just one finger, the boy lifts the latch on your chicken coop. It swings open, and he ducks inside. You are incredulous: that door always gets stuck and creaks. He did this so easily that it’s clear he’s been here before. Then out he pops, curly hair bobbing under the doorframe, a black-and-white chicken under one arm. He gives Bruno another pat, and then, swish, silently closes the creaky coop door and—

Hang on, you think. Am I just going to let this boy waltz out of here with one of my chickens?

All right, they’re the master’s chickens. But there’s precious little food around here, apart from what you grow yourselves. You need that chicken!

You burst out of the door, and the boy turns, astonished. There is no spear in his hand, but you do see a little knife swinging from a string around his waist. The chicken clucks under his arm, pressed against his bare torso. The boy seems younger than you – maybe ten or eleven.

For a long moment, you size each other up. There’s no sound but Bruno’s gentle panting. Your eyes are locked.

Then, suddenly, there are footsteps and a voice from the kitchen – Molly is back. The boy turns and runs out the back gate in a flash.

You hesitate. Should you give chase, get back your chicken, and win praise from Molly and the master? You don’t enjoy being stolen from.

Mind you, since becoming a convict, you have plenty of sympathy for people caught stealing. Is one less chicken so terrible? You could let the boy go, and speak to Joe later about putting a lock on the coop – although somehow you doubt that would stop this clever, agile-fingered boy.

If you give chase to the boy and your chicken, go to scene 24.

If you let the boy escape and go back inside, go to scene 25.

To read a fact file on Tasmanian Aboriginal people click here, then return to this page to make your choice.

‘Hey,’ you shout, ‘that’s my chicken!’

You sprint through the trees, following the glimpse of the curly-haired boy’s back. Your legs carry you like the wind, over spiky grass tufts, up a hill of those strange pale-limbed trees with the dark, waxy leaves. You can hear insects chirping, your breath coming in gasps, your blood pounding.

You’ve just lost sight of the boy when you hear a chicken squawk. You hurl yourself towards the sound, determined he won’t get away.

You smell the smoke too late, and almost run into the fire. You pull yourself up short, arms windmilling.

There is a woman sitting beside the fire. She is completely naked except for a grey fur necklace, and she is wringing the chicken’s neck.

The woman sees you and stands up warily, tossing the chicken onto the coals. The air fills with the horrid stench of burning feathers. You back away, your breath coming in short gasps.

The young, curly-haired boy steps out from the bush, places a hand on the woman’s arm as if to protect her, and draws his knife. He calls one word in his language and, silent as smoke, three men appear through the trees. They all have skin as black as the night. One wears his hair in muddy ropes. Another has a spear, which he is raising, pointing straight at you.

You run – run like you’ve never run before, certain that at any moment now, you will hear a swish as the spear flies through the air, and feel the agony as it pierces your back. Your feet seem to hardly touch the ground. You hear people pursuing you, their footsteps pounding the ground not far behind.

Is this how I die? you think. Is this finally it?

Not today. Not if you can help it. Your breath gushes in and out, in and out, in time with your legs, forming a fast, steady rhythm.

I have to live – find Da, I have to live – find Da, I have to live, your mind chants, in time with your breath.

You look over your shoulder, your arms and legs still pumping forward, and see that you’re still being followed. And then it happens. The ground is suddenly not there. You see the edge of the cliff as you are running over it.

Your arms flail in empty air. The moment of flight stretches out, so that it seems to happen very slowly, as if you are dreaming. How strange to be dropping, somersaulting down, your body plummeting, all sight and sound a blur.

You hit the bottom of the quarry with a crack like a gun going off. The breath is snapped from your chest and you are gulping like a fish, trying to force the air back in, but your chest has closed tight and you can’t breathe.

Finally, though, the air starts to enter your chest again, a little at a time, and it comes out in screams of pain. Your thigh bone has