I often wondered why Jesus would choose 1969 to come back, given all the exciting times in history He could have chosen. If I were Jesus, I’d have returned in time to see the Knights of the Round Table, or the beheading of Anne Boleyn, or the opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Ruthy said He could see all these things anyway at the right hand of God in Heaven, but if I was Him, I’d rather be walking around with everyone else seeing them close up and eating ice-cream or a pie than watching from what must be a pretty big distance away, given not even scientists with powerful telescopes could spot Him where he lived.

Daniel had been gone since just before school started this year and we missed him sorely. Ruthy made notes in her notebook for him every night so she could tell him what was happening when he came home for a visit because she knew he wouldn’t want to miss anything. All three of us knew that you had to love your mum and dad the most of anyone, but we all agreed we secretly loved Daniel just as much. Ruthy wasn’t sure whether this was allowed. She looked it up in Dad’s Bible concordance, where you can try out topics to see if the scriptures have rules about them. She couldn’t spot anything that said loving your brother as much as your mum and dad was wrong, so we decided to stick with it.

‘How many cross days is that in a row now, Ruthy?’ asked Caleb.

Ruthy reopened her notebook and flicked through the pages, counting.

‘That’s fourteen cross days in a row,’ she said. ‘It’s not a record, but it’s getting up there. Before that she had eleven head days and one Jesus day, and before that it was twenty cross days one after the other.’

Caleb nodded, accepting and considering. Head days referred to terrible headaches that made her stay in bed all day until just before Dad came home from work. We all liked the Jesus days best, because they were the ones where Mum seemed happy and hummed hymns quite a bit.

Ruthy kept her notebooks in two Arnott’s Christmas Selection biscuit tins under a board in the floor of our tree house. She was on to her seventh book now and had saved up her pocket money so she always had at least one fresh one ready to go. She was about halfway through the current journal and she was hoping Mum and Dad would gift her a big pile of blank books for Christmas so she didn’t have to use her pocket money for them anymore. Then she could buy lolly teeth and sherbets at the local shop with us on Saturday mornings instead. I was sometimes prepared to share my teeth with her but only after I’d sucked them for a while first.

Caleb usually shared his lollies with her, but I didn’t because I wasn’t always friends with Ruthy, and besides, as Mum would say, you have to learn you can’t have everything you want in this world. Mum heard me say this to Ruthy one Friday night and smacked me for having a smart mouth. She said I didn’t share because I was greedy, not because it was my job to teach Ruthy anything. Teaching Ruthy was her job, she said, and not to forget it. Ruthy poked her tongue out at me behind Mum’s back, but I didn’t tell on her because I knew Mum would take her side.