‘He’ll be down the paddock.’ Philly slurped up Rice Bubbles and milk. ‘I better stay home from school to answer.’
‘Don’t be stupid, Philly,’ Tessa said. ‘I’m just wrapping up a piece of Mum’s apple cake for you to take for little play.’
A spurt of fear jerked my head to face Tessa because I knew good and proper there was no apple cake, and she must know it too, so she was setting out a trap for me and finally I’d have to admit to everything. But when I turned to get in first and accuse her, she was bent down to the freezer pulling out a round shape wrapped in foil. Then I knew. Mum must have made more than one cake the morning she left. It took me a while to get my breath nice and steady after I realised I’d dodged the Tessa-finding-out-what-I-did bullet.
I’d smelled that apple cake smell from all the way down the back of the house where I’d been in bed the morning she left. My tummy had gone back to normal. But the rule, see, was if you if took a sickie cause you said you were sick, you had to stay in bed. So I pretended I had to go to the toilet so I could get a taste, just a tiny bit from the underneath so nobody noticed.
But it was even yummier than normal. I knew I’d gone too far because I was full as a goog, and because the underneath of the cake looked like a moon crater, all pocked and empty.
When I heard Mum’s footsteps outside coming up the path back to the house I froze, then shoved the cake back under the tea towel, backed away fast, hands locked tight behind my back. But I knew it had to be written all over my face. Then, at the last minute, Mrs Nolan, who I hadn’t realised had come over, called out to Mum, and her footsteps went back the other way.
I couldn’t believe my luck. Then I did need to wee. I straightened tall and rubbed some innocence into my face. Mum wasn’t just a feeler, she was a real good one; could feel from half a paddock away, so it took a lot to pull one over her. I scooted along to the toilet, which was up past the underground tank. Normally I stopped to open the lid and get my head inside the cool dark of the tank that went all its echoey way to the centre of the earth. But this time I was all business, heading for the outhouse and hoping like hell the pan wasn’t full.
The air was sharp cold, so the warm of the outhouse sat nice on my skin. I peeled my jarmie pants down.
‘Yep. Stayed home again,’ I heard Mum say from the vegie patch.
‘She’s a handful,’ said Mrs Nolan’s hard, polished voice.
I stuck out my tongue and waited for Mum to tell Mrs Nolan she was wrong.
‘Always got the knife and fork out, carving us up,’ was what Mum said instead.
I gripped the toilet seat, my skin lit up with buzzing.
‘She’s not a bit like Tessa. That JJ needs a good firm hand to keep her on the straight and narrow,’ said Mrs Nolan.
‘Needs something.’
I held my tummy. That cake had got nearly all inside me. Mum’d see. She’d know it was me. Something was clouding me up. Twisting red and slamming about at my inside walls. I jumped off the toilet and pulled up my jarmies. I rushed out and banged the door closed. It didn’t make a loud enough bang, so I banged it again and stamped around to the vegie patch.
Mum looked up. Hope in her that I hadn’t heard, so I wiped that look off her face quick smart.
‘I hate you,’ I yelled. ‘You’re a… you’re a… bum.’
I swung around and took off.
‘Elizabeth Jane, you get back here right now.’
But I was back in the kitchen and the slamming of the front door behind me cut off the rest. I went straight to that cake and I lifted that tea towel and I used both hands and I tore that thing apart until it was just crumbs. Now she’d never know that I ate it. I stood back. It wasn’t enough. I picked up the plate to throw those crumbs all around the kitchen.
But then I saw on the backbench Mum had set a bed tray for me. It had lilac in a vase and everything. Mum always gave me lilac when I was sick, a little bit of hope I would spring back to wellness fast. It was our special thing. I dropped that plate back on the bench like it burned, stepped back. Hands tight together.
Mum was right. I was trouble. I knew it all the way down into the part of me that went on forever. Past all those watching eyes, down, down, to where there was no more me but it still went on.
I was on the ground, all curled up and folded over. Then there was Mum in the kitchen with me and she had me gathered into her arms, pulling me onto her lap, wrapping me around with the soft of her forgiveness. I burrowed into the cake smell of her. She was the only one who could ever change the colours in me, so I went in and in to her. She held me tight and tight, and rocked me, saying ‘JJ’ over and over.
After a while the air got lighter. She got up and walked me to the bathroom, wet a washer and washed my face, and the cool of it took another layer of the dark away. Then she walked me back to bed and tucked me in and sat beside me, smoothing my hair behind my ear. All fairy gentle.
When I woke up, she was gone.
Then I found out she was gone, gone.
It was all my fault. Dad was all in pieces under the front trees;
