Chapters (61)
- Cover
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- Forty
- Forty-One
- Forty-Two
- Forty-Three
- Forty-Four
- Forty-Five
- Forty-Six
- Forty-Seven
- Forty-Eight
- Forty-Nine
- Fifty
- Fifty-One
- Fifty-Two
- Fifty-Three
- Fifty-Four
- Fifty-Five
- Fifty-Six
- Fifty-Seven
- Fifty-Eight
- Acknowledgements
- About the author
He felt very homesick. He hadn’t wanted to go home last holiday, he was frightened his mother and father would see in his eyes what had happened to him. Terrible images jumped at him, he shook his head.
One time, at the pool, he’d punched a town boy who had said the boy’s parents ‘do it’. The town boy punched him back and then there were six of them fighting. They were wet and slippery from the pool and slipping on the lawn. Wally, the pool man, was yelling at them and the girls were laughing. They stopped fighting, and a town boy said he had cigarettes. So they all went behind the toilet block where buffalo grass grew up against the cyclone fence and made a hiding place. The town boy had three cigarettes, he’d pinched them from his mum. The boy coughed and coughed. They all laughed except the boy. Then a town boy coughed and coughed and the boy laughed at him. They all began pushing each other against the dunny wall, saying the boys they pushed smelt like dunny paper until some older girls yelled at them to get away from there and stop behaving like babies. They left and the town boy said it was because the girls were wetting their pants and couldn’t go if we could hear them. For some reason this was very funny and they rolled about on the lawn, laughing.
The lady poured some more ginger beer into his glass. She was smiling. She asked where he came from, he said Wongan Hills and saw the road leading to the farm house, it made him happy. She asked if he had brothers and sisters? He nodded. If he liked school? He lied that he did. She asked what he was going to do when he grew up. He said he would work on the farm. She said he might like to do something different. He’d never thought of that.
He watched the spindly man and the young man stand on the verandah. At one point the spindly man had his hand on the young man’s shoulder while he spoke, like the boy’s father did when he wanted to tell the boy something the boy didn’t want to hear.
‘Jean,’ The spindly man called. The spindly man and the young one were now turned, looking at the boy, smiling.
‘You go in and see Carmody and Mohr if you like,’ Mrs Leggett said to him. ‘Here, I’ll hold your glass.’