I hadn’t walked home with Ruthy because we had been fighting a lot lately on the way home from school, and Mum had given me trouble for it. I also needed the walking-home time to think about my Sixpence strategy and to worry quietly about her. So I didn’t know Ruthy’s news. Apparently, she had won a writing prize, and Mum was over the moon. It had been sponsored by Adelaide University, and there would be a special ceremony where they would give her a framed certificate and a token to buy some books from a big bookshop in the city. Even though it wasn’t the Sunday school prize night, Mum loved a ceremony, so she was in a very good mood. Apparently, Ruthy had already written ‘happy’ in her notebook for the day, which broke the run of cross and head days we had been managing.

When Dad came home, Mum rushed to tell him the news, and he was all smiles, although I think that was as much because Mum was having a happy day as about the prize. He sat in his big corner chair in the lounge and let Ruthy sit on his knee to tell him all about it. Dad was a pretty good listener. The problem we had was that he wasn’t home to listen all that often. Mr Bednarski, Dad’s boss, was a hard man. He squeezed as much time from Dad as he could, always promising him that if he just worked a little harder and a little longer, he would make Dad a senior manager and give him a pay rise. Mum was always nice to Mr Bednarski when we met him at the annual work picnic or if she visited Dad at the office but she didn’t like him and made that very plain to Dad on a regular basis.

Mr Bednarski made all the men go to the Cremorne Hotel on Unley Road to drink alcohol with the other men after work on Friday nights. He paid for the drinks. But because Dad didn’t drink, his boss let him off, and it meant he was home by five thirty instead of six thirty or seven like most of the other nights when he worked back to get everything done. From Monday to Thursday, we pretty much always had already finished our dinner and were reading in bed by the time he came home, and he would just come in for a few minutes before we switched out the light. On Friday nights, because there was time to talk to him before tea and television and Cadbury’s, it always felt a bit like a holiday.

I sensed there was something going on with Ruthy that night. I could always tell, just as she could tell when something was up with me, which was another reason I had been avoiding her since what Maynard and I now referred to as ‘the picture incident’. And sure enough, it all finally came out. Mum always referred to Ruthy as bright, but I personally think she was more sly than clever, and her little plan became clear after Dad had heard the story about winning the prize, and Mum had left us for a bit to go and finish getting tea.