I could not concentrate on the trees and the gardens and the winding road; I was conscious of the others about me. They were all older. There were the Hood twins and their big sister Phyllis who went to the High School. There was Yvonne Heath whose father died in the War; she was beautiful with dimples and sausage curls her mother put up in rag curlers; she could tap-dance, do the Highland fling in a Scottie’s kilt. There were girls whose names I did not know.

Everyone stopped talking and gasped as we went round the Devil’s Elbow; pointed at the stuffed bird on top of the Eagle on the Hill Hotel. When we got to Mount Lofty it began to rain; we walked to the hostel with our cases, and there was cocoa to drink that was too sweet. The seam between the legs of my pants bothered me and made it hard to walk; I wished I knew where the lavatory was. When I found it I saw a rude drawing and finger-marks and wished I had not come. We made our beds and I felt left out as the other girls saved places for their friends, and whispered in a corner.

I went for a walk by myself. I found an empty box, and decided to fill it with beautiful things. I carpeted it with moss, and it looked like my mother’s jewel-case with the watered-silk lining. My jewels were toadstools, an empty snail-shell, ivy leaves that looked like stars, pebbles that were cool against my cheek, some wattle, gum leaves with holes, a feather. My jewel-case became a garden; I found a piece of glass, embedded it in the moss — it was a castle; I put the feather behind — it was a fountain.

When I showed my garden to the others, Yvonne Heath said it was pretty and Phyllis Hood said it was nice. But someone giggled.

There was a storm in the night, and the lights of Adelaide wriggled below us; the sky was cut by lightning. In the morning when I went to get my box I found it had been kicked — the mossy garden was crumpled, the fountain bent, the castle broken. My garden was no more. The others said it was sad.

(We go for a hike, and pass houses with rhododendron drives and columns. I see pears hanging to ripen from the rafters of a verandah, foxgloves, a notice that says: plums toms kidney beans victorias for sale. We pass trees full of apples, black and white cows, sunshades fallen on the lawns of a hotel. I see sheets hung to dry amongst dahlias, trees that look like umbrellas … We cook our food over a fire and buy black currant éclairs at a shop. I think we must have walked miles, and my sock keeps slipping under my heel. I go behind a bush to wee; get stung by nettles — do it on my shoe. It begins to rain again, and we get soaked. I am conscious of how dirty we look, of our mud-stained shoes, our unruly hair, the way people in cars stare as they pass … We walk back through the hills that are wet and dark; all the time I miss my mother and grandmother, Tinker and Reece … I feel hurt by the talk and laughter of the others; the way they tramp uncaring through the grass — ignoring the orchids, the curly rims of the geraniums, the sweet-scented fluff of the thorn … My face feels strained from trying to smile — it is a mummy-face wrapped in gauze. My smile grows stiffer; at last it disappears … I plod on; comfort myself by remembering that tomorrow I will be home … Yet even as I do, I wonder why it should be that once I leave the Rose Street world, I am no longer me.)