Cover

Author Biography

Nova Weetman lives in Melbourne with her partner and two children. She has written for film and TV, including Neighbours and the children’s series H20 and Pixel Pinkie. Nova has written two middle-grade books in the Choose Your Own Ever After series, and three young adult novels, including Everything Is Changed, a 2017 CBCA Notable Book. Her middle-grade novel The Secrets We Keep was shortlisted for the Readings Children’s Book Prize, the Speech Pathology of Australia Book of the Year Awards and the ABIA Awards, and was a 2017 CBCA Notable Book.

Also by Nova Weetman

Also by Nova Weetman

Middle Reader

The Secrets We Keep

A Hot Cold Summer

Play the Game

Young Adult

Everything Is Changed

Frankie and Joely

The Haunting of Lily Frost

Title Page

Dedication

For Dad.

Where would I, and my apostrophes,

be without you?

Chapter 1

There’s a tree in the gardens where Dad works. It’s called the Separation Tree. When I first discovered it, I didn’t know it had a name or any kind of historical significance. I just thought it was an old river red gum that someone had vandalised, now with a protective wrapper around its middle like a giant skin-coloured bandaid. Maybe that’s why I’m drawn to the tree. Not because of its age or how defiantly it stands, but because it’s injured. Because somewhere inside something is wrong, but nobody knows how bad it is because its tough outer layer stops us from seeing in. Only now that layer is injured, too.

Seems crazy to think a tree needs wrapping, that it can’t just regenerate itself. But this one has been hacked twice now, and its bark is all but gone in a ring around its trunk.

Dad is still hopeful his work can save it, but he’s forever hopeful about trees and plants rejuvenating. He thinks they can withstand enormous sadness and recover. Sometimes he’s right. After the fire wiped out our house, Dad and I would visit our garden and delight as tiny buds began to appear on singed plants, a shot of colour among the blackness. But this tree, this watcher of history, has been hurt so badly nobody is sure it will heal. Only my dad believes it has a chance.

Today I’m sitting near its base. I can’t lean against the trunk because it’s roped off, but I’m close to it. I wonder if it minds being called the Separation Tree, or if it’d prefer its proper name: Eucalyptus camaldulensis. Dad would be able to tell me the Latin origins of that name, but I’ve never asked. I have, however, finally read the plaque that explains why it’s called the Separation Tree, and I now know that Victorians met under this tree to celebrate their separation from New South Wales back in 1851.