by Tabitha Bird
When my boys run off to play Vikings, a game involving cardboard swords and teddies, I tell Grammy about my counselling session. About what Solomon asked: ‘You have some imagination. Have you ever thought that story might be what saved you as a child, that it might be what saves you now? Maybe the question is, what could a little girl and an old lady show you that might help you make important choices for your life?’
‘He asks good questions.’ Grammy pulls a stack of papers out of her large carpet bag. ‘I thought you might want to look at these again.’
Drawing after drawing. I hold them in my hands. A girl in gumboots standing on the moon. A house made of blankets and pillows under a bed with the words Viking fort in bold child’s handwriting underneath. A girl with wings. A girl with wings clipped off.
Eli runs into the room. ‘Whoa!’ He takes one of the pictures from my hands. ‘Who drew these?’
‘Your Mummy,’ Grammy says, tapping the side of her nose. ‘She used to know some things, that Super Gumboots Willa.’
‘I know her – she says “amaze-a-loo” all the time!’ Eli dashes off towards his bedroom, Seb toddling after him.
Grammy looks over at me. ‘That she did. And the world was wonder-filled in her stories. Do you draw anymore?’
I pick at a sore on my arm. ‘My father drew. Every time I think about painting or drawing I just … can’t.’
‘He doesn’t own creativity, you know. And, no matter what he thinks, he isn’t powerful enough to destroy it. You wanted to be a picture –’
‘A picture-book-maker. I know. That little girl told me.’
Grammy stands, her face full of sunshine. ‘Did she now? Well, you should listen to her. Want a cuppa?’
We walk through to the kitchen, the boys bustling past with armloads of pillows and blankets. They shove them under the dining-room table.
‘Now that looks like the beginnings of a grand Viking fort. Your mother was very good at making those.’ Grammy nudges me towards the boys.
‘No … I’ve forgotten how.’
But the boys pull me into their fun. That little girl I was remembers how to build forts; of course she does. Pillows for walls, a blanket over the top. Before long I’m crawling under the table with my sons.
Grammy parts the blanket and bends down. ‘That’s a magnificent fort. Moonwalkers and Vikings alike would be proud to call it home. Now all you need is biscuits.’
Eli crawls out and bounces around her, the way I did when I was small. ‘Mummy says bikkies are too full of sugar. Did you know that there are 33.8 grams of sugar in the bikkies at the shop? We’re not allowed them.’
Grammy stares at me. ‘Willa Grace Waters! Have you completely forgotten yourself?’
‘I think perhaps I have.’ I crawl out from under the table and go to my bedroom to get the note Solomon gave me, and hand it to Grammy.
An invitation:
Have you met Super Gumboots Willa?
Where: You decide
When: In your own time
‘He’s a wise man. Well, no good meeting that little girl without jam drops. Tea and biscuits. Good for the soul, poppet. A grand pair that should never be separated.’
The boys cheer and Eli charges into the kitchen. Cooking bowls, beware!
The more I think about Super Gumboots Willa, the more things begin to unsettle me. The lack of Viking forts, not owning any gumboots – and when was the last time I was brave enough to dream of walking on the moon, or becoming a picture-bookmaker? Then there are even more things, like my unwashed hair that I yank into a tight ponytail and forget about. I remember shampoo that used to smell of berries, and Grammy washing my hair with it as a child. But I have never bought it. Silly to spend extra money when home brand will do. And what about stories? Reading? My sons have missed out on hearing my tales. The more I forgot my past, the more I forgot myself. Maybe I don’t want to do that anymore?
Grammy tells the boys we are not baking any ole biscuit. We are baking jam drops.
Seb claps his hands. Eli shrieks, ‘For really reals?’
Grammy gives me a quick squeeze and then beats the butter and sugar until it is white and fluffy.
‘Jam drops are funny things, poppet. Really, they mend nothing. It’s only food. But have you ever wondered why we eat with others?’
I shake my head, trying to take a packet off Seb. It’s too late. The floor is already a winter wonderland of sugar.
‘Because it’s good to share ourselves. That’s what happens over bikkies and a good cuppa. We share. And we are home. Don’t ever eat jam drops alone. We aren’t meant to live all folded up inside ourselves. Let Sam in.’
How does she know? My Grammy understands the meaning of the universe.
While the jam drops bake, Grammy and I prepare the tea. I’m hoping that will settle my stomach, as the cooking smells are making me a bit squeamish. Eli and Seb play with the Viking fort until suddenly I realise the house is quiet. ‘Boo!’ I look under the table, but they aren’t there.
Silence with young children is a true sign of imminent apocalypse, so I go searching with great vigour. I’ve all but upended the house when I hear the boys outside. At the back door I see Eli, wet hair plastered to his head. The skies dripping as if they have the flu. Around the corner of our house, I see Seb has crawled into my father’s truck, pretending to be a farmer. I open the door and pull him out, ready to scold them both.
‘Look, snails!’ Eli holds one out to me.
Perhaps I’m about to fumble some mother-words about how they’ll catch a cold, and to put that horrid creature down. But the drizzle stops. In its place, a glimpse of the child I was.
‘Do you think their silver paths are magic?’ I asked Grammy.
‘I’m sure they are, poppet.’ Grammy touched the tip of my nose. ‘A creature that leaves a silver path hardly sounds ordinary to me.’
Grammy sets the jam drops on the wire cooling racks and we all spend the afternoon lost in a moment. Umbrella. Wet socks. Snail trails with shimmery paths.
Grammy asks me to get some nail polish and I do because Grammy is Grammy and best not ask too many questions. I hand a bottle of blue polish to her.
‘Do you know why snails leave paths?’ Grammy bends over the veggie patch.
‘So they can find their way home?’ Eli is full of wiggle.
‘Ha! This isn’t “Hansel and Gretel”. Guess again.’ Grammy plucks a snail and holds it between her fingers. Its eyes jiggle to and fro.
‘So they don’t scratch their bellies? The slime helps them move safely?’ Eli bounces around her.
‘No!’ She laughs and paints swirls on the snail’s shell, then passes Eli the bottle. He finds his own snail under a cabbage leaf.
Carefully, I help Eli copy Grammy and paint blue dots onto his snail shell.
Eli thinks. ‘Perhaps they like making trails. Maybe they saw another snail do it one day and thought it’d be fun.’
‘Wrong again, my boy. It leaves a trail to mark its life. A record of where it’s been and where it is going. You see? Snails are storytellers.’
Seb and Eli gather up as many snails as they can find to paint their little houses.
Grammy says, ‘This will help other people not to step on them. We must be careful where we put our big feet. Life is often about getting real quiet and noticing the importance of little things.’
Storytelling snails with painted shells. Really. I do think Grammy is a bit fantastic.
‘Word of the day.’ She hands me another snail. ‘Raconteur.’
‘Huh? You make these words up.’
‘Do I indeed! Raconteur: teller of anecdotes. Make sure to listen to your own stories, poppet.’
Seb tastes rain droplets caught on leaves. Eli finds a spider’s web with its beaded raindrop jewels.
‘Go jumping?’ Seb pulls me towards a puddle. I remember that I once liked jumping in them, too. I look over at Grammy.
She waves me forwards. ‘Go find that little gir
l.’
And so I take my boys’ hands. ‘Ready? Let’s do it!’ Together we jump into the biggest puddles. Water collects on their cheeks like diamonds.
At the end of the day, I’m exhausted. Am I really this unfit? Perhaps it’s just recent events taking their toll.
Warm baths, Grammy singing ‘Row, row, row your boat’ with Seb who splashes Sam after he arrives home from work, fresh pots of tea in our kitchen with jam drops. I begin to think I could invite that little girl to my house. For really reals.
There’s something so calming about rocking Seb in my arms before putting him to bed that night. Freshly bathed, footsie pyjamas, the smell of soap on his skin. Those eyes. Looking up at me the way my sister once did. My love for Lottie, something I haven’t let myself truly feel in a long time. Maybe if I find myself I’ll find my way back to her.
I post a note in the mango tree.
Dear Super Gumboots Willa,
Sorry I forgot about drawing and stories. Maybe together we can remember. Meet me in the garden.
Love From Middle Willa
Chapter Thirty-three
1965
Willa Waters, aged 8
It’s windy outside, worse than cold because August winds have bitey teeth and fingers that poke you through the gaps around the windows and under the floorboards. Middle Willa’s letter blew out of the mango tree days ago, but I’m not sure I want to see her yet. It’s Tuesday but I’m not at school. Mummy said I could have the day off. Grammy is at our house baking jam drops.
I rub my hands together by the electric heater and keep lookout by the window, waiting. Frog Dog watches too.
When Lottie comes back from her last check-up I’ll be ready. They let Lottie out of hospital ages ago with a plaster on her leg. But it didn’t heal properly and got an affection ’cause the bugs got in – no, it got an infection ’cause bugs got in – and they had to stick it back together. She had pins and screws and everything. Robot Girl. Only not anymore, ’cause they took them all out again and then she had to do therapies. Leg exercises and stuff. The doctors told her to be careful on the stairs next time. I don’t say what really happened.
I’ve made Lottie a colouring book and a paper crown. When they get home Mummy treats her like the best china, and puts pillows behind her where she sits on our couch.
There’s her skinny leg with the scar where they did surgery. She’s a broken bird.
I’m not going to talk about her leg because it might make her sad, but when I open my mouth I say, ‘You can be Pirate-Scar Leg!’ I salute her. I don’t know if you’re supposed to salute pirates, but I do anyway.
She won’t look at me. She doesn’t even want any of Grammy’s jam drops.
So I start singing. ‘Pirate Lottie went to sea, sea, sea, to see what she could see, see, see –’
‘Stop it.’
‘You like singing.’
She doesn’t say anything.
‘I made you a colouring book.’
She blinks.
‘Wanna colour?’
She chews her lip, and after a bit says, ‘I don’t like my leg.’
So, of course, I say a stupid thing. ‘Want to climb the mango tree? Oh … your leg. A game, then?’
She slouches.
‘What about a story?’
She stares straight ahead.
‘Once, up there’ – I point to the sky – ‘was a bird that no one else could see, and all the other birds kept crashing into him. One day he fell out of the sky and broke his wing. And he lived happily ever after.’
Lottie presses her hands over her ears.
‘He wanted to be a ballerina, not a flying machine. See? He has a wonky wing, but it doesn’t matter. It’ll be okay.’
‘He’s a bird!’ Lottie screams at me. ‘A bird, a bird!’
‘Sorry then – sorry about your leg, sorry I dropped you. I’m sorry, okay!’ Then I run until my feet are blobby and my legs aren’t there at all. There’s no ground or sky. It’s only me, running and running until I slam into my mango tree. I climb and climb. If my mango tree had branches to the moon, I would climb to the stars.
‘I hate your dumb scar leg, too,’ I shout. But no one is there except Frog Dog who scratches the trunk, trying to get up in the branches with me.
‘Go away, Frog!’ But she doesn’t move.
I yell more. Out into the wind. After a while I’m not even saying words. There’s all this loud noise coming out of me and I like it. I’m yelling and yelling and I’m not going to stop.
When Grammy finds me all I can see is her mouth moving. She’s saying things, but I don’t know what she’s saying because there are all these letters ripping out of my throat and scratching across the air. My hands slam over my mouth, but I want to tell her about how I think I could scream to the stars and back and still have more noise left. About Lottie and how she’s mine to look after and it’s me who did that to her leg. How no one can help ’cause children can’t solve adult problems and the world is miserable. But those words are too big.
Grammy holds her quilt out to me and without thinking I jump out of the tree and sit down. She even has a knitted sweater for Frog Dog. Grammy snuggles us close in her quilt. My throat hurts.
I wipe my eyes with the back of my hands, but all the puddles in my eyes become puddles on Grammy’s dress.
‘Sorry, I’m leaking on you.’
Grammy smiles a little. ‘My dear poppet, I don’t mind. We’re all a bit leaky, if we’re honest.’
‘Lottie hates me.’
‘She doesn’t hate you. She’s just leaky herself right now.’
I can’t stop sobbing. ‘Everyone hates me. Silver Willa ran away to the beach and Middle Willa won’t help, but maybe wants to draw and …’ Everything is spilling out of me and I can’t catch it all and stuff it back inside.
Grammy pulls me closer, until I am almost inside her cardigan with her. ‘Now, poppet. Things always change. That’s what we can be sure of in this world.’ We listen to the leaves rustling and watch the mangos dingle-dangle for a long time.
Sniffling, I say, ‘Can I go to your house and live with you for always?’
‘Now, why would you want to live with an old fogey for always?’
Grammy’s not old. Not to me. ‘’Cause where you live is happy, with stories that dance around.’
She cups my chin. ‘Stories dancing! Have you seen the old lady in your kitchen again?’
‘No, but I found another Willa.’
‘Good. Go looking for everything you’ve ever made up. Poppet, listen to me. Never forget your stories.’
I tuck my knees up. ‘What’s the use of stories if they can’t fix Lottie?’
She pulls the quilt around me. ‘Stay here for a moment, okay? I want to talk to your mum.’
I don’t know what Grammy and Mummy talk about, but I hear parts of it.
‘Stop sticking your nose into my business! The girls are fine,’ Mummy yells.
Grammy’s face is all red when she comes back, and I run to her and she holds me.
‘Willa, tell me. Is Daddy … doing bad things?’
Grammy, don’t ask. I can’t say those words. All I do is say, ‘Please stay, Grammy? Please stay.’
Chapter Thirty-four
1965
Willa Waters, aged 8
Grammy cooks dinner and makes jam drops.
‘Want to help?’ she asks.
I just walk away. Daddy is working late and Grammy is here to look after us girls so Mummy can talk to someone. The adults won’t say what she’s talking about, like I don’t know how sad our house is. But I listened in the hallway as Mummy was leaving. She is seeing Doctor Someone – I didn’t get his name. I hope he helps mummies with kids who get dropped on the stairs. Then again, I hope Mummy doesn’t tell him I dropped Lottie.
The little doughy bits are tasty, but I don’t want to lick the bowl when Grammy asks. I don’t even want to make thumbprints in the top of each lump when she puts th
em on the baking tray or help plop strawberry jam into the middle of the dough. I stay in the living room.
Grammy asks again about Lottie. About Mummy. About hitting and bruises and things I can’t hear when I run out of the house and into my backyard.
When I reach the garden, with my jar of water and Frog Dog trying to keep up, I dump the water out and throw my arms around the tree. Then I hear footsteps.
It’s her, the old lady from the mango-squishing kitchen.
I throw myself around her waist. ‘You’re back!’
‘Of course I have a back, dear. What did you expect?’ Silver Willa says.
She is the bestest thing ever and when I talk it comes out like a balloon let go. ‘Are you mad at me? I’m sorry about messing up your kitchen and not believing that you are me and –’
‘It’s okay, dear. Beaches are nice places, but not when the people you are looking for aren’t there. I made Eden take me home.’ Silver Willa pokes a slipper-foot at me. ‘Look, I have new fluffy ducks on the end of my feet.’
I like the fluffies, but I notice that Silver Willa is standing next to another woman who isn’t as wrinkly as she is and who wears purple boots.
Silver Willa sees me looking. ‘Oh, Eden. See the little girl? She has her best gumboots on today. Red like roses, if roses could have spots.’
The woman called Eden pats Silver Willa’s arm. ‘Come on, it’s getting cold – let’s go inside.’
