‘Don’t move,’ I whispered.
Philly flipped back the blankets, saw the bat, squealed, flipped the blankets straight back over her head.
‘Shh. You’ll wake it up.’ I slipped my feet out of bed first and followed them down between our two beds, squishing a pillow to my head while I snaked over to Philly’s bed and slipped up under her blankets. Her eyes were big in the dark.
‘We can’t stay here. We’ll miss the bus,’ she whispered after a while.
‘We’ll have to make a run for it.’
But neither of us moved. Our bodies like two halves of an apricot.
‘I need to wee,’ said Philly eventually. That got us going. We spent a lot of time setting up for a quick getaway. Then we did it, charged out, pillows plastered like beanies to our heads. Tessa had to go back in to get our uniforms.
The next morning when the sun woke us up, the bat was back hanging there. Philly let out a whimper that went on and on like a train. When it hadn’t been there when we got home from school last night, she’d been sure that we’d never see that bat again. In the end we called Tim to bring his air gun. He sent us out of the room and when it was done there was a smudge of black on the white pretend-lace curtain where the bat had been. Philly made me climb up on the bed head and jump the curtain rod down. She pushed both the curtains off the rod, rolled them in her arms and took off for the laundry. She got Tessa to help her and before long those curtains were back up on the rod drying. There was still a dead bat shadow, but Philly pinned it in a way that nobody could tell.
I was all dressed for school and admiring her handiwork when I saw Dad out the window under the pine trees.
He couldn’t feel me. He wasn’t like that.
I thought everybody could feel things, but there was one time I was tucked in between the two house tanks with my book. Mum had called Dad to help her chase the goats out of her vegie patch where they were doing a power of damage. As Dad shoved the last one out it raced under the clothesline and yanked down a shirt of Dad’s. Mum started to chase it, but Dad laughed. ‘Let it go, Sare,’ he said. He grabbed her from behind, wrapping his arms around her. ‘Didn’t like it, anyway. Horrible itchy.’ I was going to pop out and join in the laughing. But Dad was nuzzling and kissing Mum, all close and unbearable. First Mum leaned into him but then pushed back, swiping at him with her apron.
‘Not in front of the kids.’ She laughed.
‘None here,’ he said, pulling her back into his arms.
‘What’s that, then?’ asked Mum, swivelling around, pointing dead on me. ‘Block of flats?’
‘You’ve got eyes in the back of your head,’ he said, all admiration, letting her go with a final slap on her rear.
‘Comes in handy with four kids.’
I was a feeler like Mum.
Now Dad was standing under Tessa’s tree. Hands on hips. He pushed his hat back on his head. I was about to turn away to get dressed for school, give him a bit of privacy, when he staggered, his hand stretching out for the tree. But he didn’t connect. It was like he gave up on the idea of staying upright and collapsed to his knees, toppled forwards so his forehead was to the ground, back heaving. I was stabbed through with the pain in him.
But what was breaking him in bits? Then it hit me. The big of it stopped my breath hard. Mum might or might not be at Aunty Peg’s like he’d been saying, but he was as certain as he could be that she was not coming home. Not on her own.
I pushed back off the windowsill and ran to find Tessa.
‘Get the Rice Bubbles,’ she said, not looking up from the sink.
‘Dad—’ I started.
‘Just do it, JJ. For once in your life.’
So I did. But not because she told me.
WHAT MRS NOLAN KNOWS
‘Get those ricies into ya,’ I said to Philly when she came out of the bathroom, cheeks all rubbed up rosy hard like Alice, which she was still reading. She was just a little Alice kid, trying to get on with things in a world that didn’t make sense without Mum.
There was Dad in pieces and Philly still baby-bird small. I smashed one fist into one hand cause I knew it was up to me now.
‘Made em myself,’ I said.
She spun around twice before she sat, sticking her little finger out as she held the spoon. ‘Delicious,’ she said in her little-girl posh voice. ‘So good, you should open another restaurant at the other end of the house.’
‘Madam.’ I bowed. ‘I spat my best spit.’
She pushed the bowl away.
‘In my bowl, not yours.’
She pulled the bowl back to her, her eyes all squinty, head shaking like a little monkey.
I thought I was doing a good job distracting her. But the next thing she said slapped that right out of me. ‘Mum’ll definitely ring today,’ she said.
I hoped like hell she would, too. Otherwise how could I tell her I was sorry and I’d never do it again, and she should come home cause we all missed her and Dad was in bits, and I’d iron my school clothes and not whinge about it and I’d wear that stupid school ribbon, and I’d never say a terrible thing to her again.
‘Dad can tell us all about what she says, then.’ Tessa came into the kitchen, all school uniformed
