My Girragundji

by Meme McDonald

  You can be yourself in a place you belong. I wonder if Shaz would like it in here. On second thoughts, I wouldn’t risk bringing her down. Most migaloos have got funny ideas about mud and dirt. We been told you belong to that earth there. It’s your mother. But they been treating him like some stranger or something. Always washing themselves and cleaning up. Maybe that’s how they got to be white in the first place.

  My dad turns to me. ‘It’s time you learnt to kill food to eat, my boy.’

  So this is it. I wish my gundji was here. I try and remember that she really is. We walk down to the edge of the sea.

  Dad gets me to grab the turtle. He shows me how to flip him on his back and take him by the throat. I call on my gundji, ‘Make me strong. Make me know I have that strength inside of me.’

  The knife is long and sharp and I feel my knees give way. I want to let him go. My dad is telling me which way to cut him, and I have to be strong. I am strong and I see the blood squirt and the turtle thrash around on his back, gasping for breath.

  I hear my dad: ‘Turtle gives his life for you. You thank him for that, my boy. He gives his life so you can eat him and be strong. You got to respect that. You kill your own meat then you know to respect life. All life. That’s the way things are.’

  My dad teaches me lots of things, and I listen. Never to kill unless for food. And then to be careful not to kill the woman crab or fish. Turn him over first. lf he’s a woman, we let him go. This woman fish I caught, big one too, I held him up and looked him in the eye and said, ‘Lucky you not a man.’

  Then I give that one a big kiss and she swims away to make more fish.

  I’m tired and strong on the way home. The rain pours down and washes away the little fulla me. I can’t wait to see my girragundji. I look out for her as Dad turns into the yard. She’s probably inside. There’ll be water coming up. Coming up under our house. The snakes won’t worry me. My mum reckons: ‘They’re as scared of you as you are of them, so let them be.’ I reckon that’s true.

  When we get home all the lights are on. There’s a big mob of cousins and aunties and uncles come over, but they’re not charging up. They’re all sitting round the table having cups of tea, waiting for us.

  There’s a lot of talking and carrying on. Mum seen the Hairyman in our boys’ room. My aunty seen him too. He’s a migaloo one, she reckons.

  A whitefulla hairyman, how’s that? Aunty Lil reckons some bad people had done bad things to our people in this place a long time ago. Mum reckons something needs to be done about the Hairyman. She reckons we got to smoke the house to get rid of him.

  My dad reckons we gotta get that church fulla in to do his business, too, just in case this Hairyman only knows whitefulla language.

  I help Dad build a fire out the back and we have a big feed of turtle.

  Everyone reckons we’ll have to get Popeye, that’s my grandad, over to do the smoking. He knows all our language and the right way to do these things. He was taught by the old people.

  Uncle Shorty tells us lots of stories. I can’t wait till Popeye comes. The fire stings my eyes. I close them and lie back and let the talk and the singing of the old songs soak in.

  I’m dog tired by the time I go to bed. The best kind of tired, but, when all your worries have lifted like smoke on the breeze. My dad has taught me things, my aunties and uncles are round telling stories, and my Popeye is coming over soon to deal with the Hairyman for good.

  My little brothers don’t want to sleep in here tonight. They reckon they want to play it safe and wait till Popeye comes to do the smoking.

  I won’t sleep anywhere else. I lay down and stretch out, head to the louvres, and wait to be with my gundji. She’ll hop across when she’s ready. I got to be patient. I check the louvres are open. They are. I lay back. I hate waiting, but the smell of the smoke from the fire is sweet in my nostrils. It carries me into a deep sleep.

  I hear talking in my dreams. I can’t tell whether it’s her voice or the sweet smoke or the Hairyman that is wrapping round me so close. ‘Don’t be afraid. Just look at me.’

  I wake with a start. The doorknob turns. It does. It’s him. The Hairyman. I heard his feet dragging on the lino.

  Her voice is filling me up. I’m struggling to breathe with the heat that’s hugging me. I’m struggling to be strong. I can feel him over that side near the door.

  I grab that fear and push him down into my legs. I feel my Gundji leap inside me. I jump up. I’m standing on top of my bed ready to strike. But I can’t look at him.

  ‘The Hairyman is no different from you.’

  No way, how can that be? Give me a look at him. I wanna look that fulla in the face and tell him to get lost. Nothing can stop me now. I open my eyes.

  I look at him. I can only see his back. He’s already turned to go. I can see real clearly, like I’m looking through big round eyes, her eyes. He’s backing off. The Hairyman is scared of me, I know he is. He’s shrinking back into the shadows. A cloud of horrible things that happened a long time ago is trailing him. That’s his bad smell, that stink following him. I watch him slide away.

  I can feel her heart in mine. My breath is even. That fear has let me go.

  I take my time to lie back down, then drift like I’m in the arms of the ocean back into sleep. I sleep like a man this night.

  I’m up early, ready for the day. I don’t even care if my sisters see me stop at Sharyn’s. So what? She’s sitting out the front, all white and pink stripes. I’m easy with my ‘g’day’. Just like that. Cool. She’s got that smile on again. I’ve got one on, too. She starts talking. I’m not hurrying. She likes footy. Says she’s going down to the match. Funny that. Just where I’m headed. I want her to watch me. I know I’ll play well.

  She’s got her own bike. Pretty deadly! We walk two blocks together then I race ahead, kicking the footy. I’ve got that fizzy sherbet in my belly again. I don’t care. I reckon she has too.

  That night I spread out across the bed. My dreams are full. I can hear the rain coming down in bucket-loads on the roof. I shut the louvres to stop my bed getting soaked and go back to dreaming.

  The storm stops. It’s very quiet. I can see me still out there flying down the field, leaping for screamers; that strength in my legs pushing down, kicking goals. Shaz is watching. Yelling out for me. I’m a hero, but I’ve only got eyes for her. All the other jalbus will have to look elsewhere. ‘sorry, girls, I’m taken.’ Eh, look out! I laugh out loud. Sometimes I go real stupid in my dreams.

  It’s nearly dawn. There’s a sound nudging me awake. I roll over, trying to hold on to that dream. But that sound is the worst. It rips through me like thunder.

  I’m gonna grab that snake by the throat and kill him forever. I try and squeeze under the house. I’m too big. I can’t get through to her. There’s nothing I can do. Girragundji, my girragundji, my darling girragundji.

  I freeze in the dark. My mind leaves me and goes to her. I stroke her gently as a cool breeze. I whisper I love her. I can hear her. ‘Our spirits … always … together … you are strong … no matter what.’ Then she is gone. I lie in the mud crying like a rainstorm.

  The next night takes a long time to come round. My heart hurts. Little Chicky gives me a hug when she finds out. I tell her I’m sorry I was a bully and I won’t be needing to do that no more.

  We sit on the front steps together and wait for Popeye. It’s the weekend, and he should be coming to do the smoking today or tomorrow.

  I never had warts before, swear. Never ever. I heard Sharyn’s mum say you can get them from touching too many frogs. She’s a migaloo, but, and sometimes they don’t know that much about the way things are. Not Uncle Arthur and Aunty joyce of course. They’re migaloos but they understand lots of things. Sharyn said her mum used to throw salt on frogs to dry them up so they wouldn’t come in the house. I hope her mum is right about the warts.

  That month I grew warts on my fingers. Sharyn said my warts are revolting and I should go to
the doctor. I kissed them in front of her and said I didn’t care. She dropped me the next day. I was already thinking she wasn’t my type, but.

  I found myself smiling at that Jody Butler today. She smiled back. I heard her talking about going bush with her family. Reckons she loves it.

  When the rain pours down and the water comes up, I listen for the chorus of croaks. In the very centre of that sound, I hear my girragundji. She’s still there. Always will be. Protecting me.

  She’s in my heart when I leap for a screamer, and then when I’m telling bullies to back off. She’s there when I’m mucking about in the mangroves, and round the fire at night listening to the stories. She’s there when I start smiling at girls, and even when I get a flogging from my dad.

  She’s there. That’s the kind of thing that will never change.

  How My Girragundji was written

  My daughter Grace first prompted Boori to tell the story of his pet frog. Boori’s childhood stories of his frog and the snake, the hairyman and having seven sisters, the mangroves, footy, and growing up between two worlds, tickled my imagination too. I began writing these stories down and weaving them together. When Boori visited his mother’s homeland, Yarrabah, his Uncle Henry Fourmile gave him the Kunggandji word for green tree frog- girragundji. So we called the story My Girragundji.

  For over a year or so, Boori and I worked together on My Girragundji. Then we took a draft to Boori’s family for them to read. Laughter and jokes and yarns enriched the story. A group of Boori’s nephews and nieces quickly overcame their shyness of the camera and were happy to take us down the beach to go fishing with their grandad, Monty. They led us into their favourite mangroves, kicking the footy along paths that Boori remembered well.

  The story had come home to its beginning. Without the Pryor family this story would not be here for the telling. It is with their approval that we offer it to you and hope that it brings to life how different and how much the same growing up can be.

  Meme McDonald’s

  family is from Western Queensland. Meme creates books for young people and adults. She has also worked as a theatre director, specialising in dramatic outdoor performance events that have been presented in Australia, Japan, Papua New Guinea and Aotearoa/New Zealand.

  Meme’s first book, Put Your Whole Self In, won the 1993 NSW State Literary Award for Non-fiction and the Braille and Talking Book Award. The Way of the Birds, Meme’s second book, was animated for television and is part of an on-line documentary entitled, A Year on the Wing.

  The first book Meme & Boori wrote together was Maybe Tomorrow, which was shortlisted for the 1999 Children’s Book Council of Australia awards. My Girrajundji (Winner of the 1999 CBC Award for Younger Readers), which was adapted into a stage production by the Bell Shakespeare theatre company, was followed by The Binna Binna Man (Winner of the Ethel Turner Prize for Young People’s Literature, the Ethnic Affairs Commission Award, and Book of the Year in the 2000 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards). They are writing the third book in the series: Njunjul the Sun.

  Boori Monty Pryor’s family is from North Queensland. His mother’s people are Kunggandji and his father is from the Birragubba Nation. Boori is a performer, storyteller, writer and didjeridoo player. He travels all year around to perform for school students and adults, creating a link between Aboriginal culture and other cultures within Australia.

  Boori has played didjeridoo with the Brisbane Symphony Orchestra, at the Melbourne Wurundjeri Welcome to Michael Jackson, and in Sydney for the Pope at the Beatifaction of Mary McKillop. In 1993 Boori received an award for the Promotion of Indigenous Culture from the National Aboriginal Islander Observance Committee.

  Acknowledgements

  Many thanks to joe and Grace for inspiring My Girragundji to be written. Thanks also to the family for sharing so many memories, and to nieces and nephews: John Gool-in bulla (Crocodile) Baira, Frank Good-i-bun (Kangaroo) Baira, lsiah Dhyb-aroo (Possum) Blackman, Paulanl Winitana, Shandell Prior, Sean Pryor, Nicky Bidju (Sea Hawk) Pryor and Caroline Gregory for the patience and beauty they gave to the photographs. Nicky Bidju features as the main character.

  Thank you to Rosalind Price, Sue Flockhart, Ruth GrOner and Allen & Unwin for taking care with this story; to Linda Waters for giving her honest opinion and her encouragement; to Naomi Herzog, Robert Colvin and Brian ·Sollors for help and advice with photographs; to Lillian Fourmile, Alllrah Tan, Greg Keating, Toni Pryor, Lawrence Massa, Renata Prior, Lance Riley, Father Mick Peters, Jenny Darling and Jacinta di Mase (Australian Literary Management), Glen Leitch (Young Australia Workshop), and to Ciaran Amar Chandran Ward for always being there.