Our Australian Girl

by Alice Pung

  ‘Ready to go?’ asked Lauren and Bryce’s mother impatiently.

  ‘Thank you for the dinner,’ Marly said shyly. ‘It was delicious.’

  They all got back in the car and headed off again. Marly started to recognise shops and buildings as she looked out the window. Graffiti covered many walls of the factories they passed, and the houses all started to look identical and concrete again.

  The darkness hid the overgrown grass of some front lawns, and Marly felt secretly relieved: she knew Bryce and Lauren had never been around this end of Melbourne before, and she knew it must have looked pretty shonky through their eyes.

  She knew they were passing through Footscray when she saw the big Sims, and so soon they would be in Sunshine. Soon she would be back home.

  But Marly didn’t feel relieved. She felt even more anxious than before, thinking about the huge trouble she knew she would be in with her parents.

  As they sat waiting for the traffic lights to change to green, Marly closed her eyes and tried to think about all the good things that had happened that day. Glancing over her shoulder at Lauren and Bryce in the back seat, she wondered if she’d ever see them again.

  It had been such a strange day, with so many ups and downs. Marly let out a small yawn, feeling exhausted just thinking about everything that had happened.

  ‘HEY, there’s somebody waving at us from that cop car,’ remarked Bryce, peering out his window. ‘Look, they’re waving at you, Marly!’

  ‘What?’ Before Marly had a chance to see what Bryce was talking about, the lights turned green and the Mercedes turned left into Marly’s street.

  Behind them, there was a flash of red and blue lights, and Marly heard the wailing wooowooowooo noise of a police siren.

  What was going on? What did the police want with her? Marly worried.

  She glanced across at Lauren and Bryce’s mum, who looked concerned as she drove the car into Marly’s driveway and saw that the police car had stopped behind them. They all turned in their seats. The siren had stopped, but the lights were still flashing on top of the car.

  Marly saw that her parents’ old white Datsun had pulled in behind the police car. She swallowed a lump in her throat and took a deep breath, waiting for the trouble she knew was to come.

  Marly got out of the Mercedes with Lauren and Bryce’s mum. At the same time, a policewoman stepped out of the police car. She said something, but was speaking to somebody in the passenger seat, Marly realised. Marly could see a mop of curly black hair. As the passenger door opened, Marly saw that it was Yousra!

  ‘Yousra! What are you doing here?’ asked Marly, running over to her friend.

  ‘Helping the police look for you! Man, I was so worried about you!’ said Yousra.

  ‘Marly!’ Her dad’s voice called her from the Datsun. Marly walked around the police car to where her parents stood. She could see from their faces they were relieved she was safe, but that anger was beginning to take over. Luckily, there were so many other adults around that Marly knew they would not smack her just yet.

  ‘It seems Marly got on the wrong bus,’ Marly heard Lauren’s mum explaining to the policewoman. ‘And ended up all the way over in Parkville with us.’

  ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you! For find our daughter,’ cried Marly’s mum. Marly realised it had been a long time since she had heard her mum speak English, as they always spoke Cantonese at home.

  Marly saw that her mum was almost in tears, which made her feel terrible.

  ‘You come here eat?’ her mum said.

  Lauren and Bryce’s mum shook her head. ‘I’d better get these kids home,’ she said, gesturing to the back of her car.

  ‘You wait. Wait here. Beautiful friends.’ Marly’s mum ran inside their house, and came back carrying two ladies shirts in her hands.

  ‘For you,’ she said, handing one to the policewoman and one to Lauren and Bryce’s mum.

  ‘Wow, Mrs Ly, these are beautiful, but it is too much,’ said the policewoman, looking at the label.

  ‘No, not too much!’ insisted Marly’s mum. ‘You take. Because I make.’

  ‘How beautiful,’ said Lauren and Bryce’s mum, fingering the fabric. ‘Real tortoiseshell buttons and Egyptian cotton. How did you know my size exactly?’

  ‘My mum makes them in all sizes,’ said Marly, and then could not help herself. ‘But I ironed the collars.’

  ‘Say goodbye to your friends,’ her father told her. ‘And let them go home now. They must be tired.’

  So Marly waved goodbye to her two new friends in the back of the Mercedes, knowing she might never see them again. A sadness filled Marly’s chest. Now that the adventure was over, she would have to face the consequences – it all suddenly seemed so messy and complicated!

  Marly’s mum turned to the policewoman. ‘You will stay eat?’

  ‘That is very kind of you,’ replied the policewoman. ‘But I must drive this brave detective home,’ she said as she gestured towards Yousra, ‘and then get back to the station.’

  The policewoman turned to Marly and looked at her very seriously. ‘Young lady, you must never do anything like this again. You must ALWAYS let your mum or dad know where you are going, do you hear me? What you did today was dangerous and irresponsible.’

  Marly nodded, and gave in to the tears that quietly spilled down her cheeks.

  ‘Yes, yes, Constable,’ said Marly’s dad. ‘We are so sorry that our daughter has wasted so much of your valuable time.’

  Marly felt terrible for causing so much worry. She hated being told off, and was embarrassed about crying in front of everyone, but she knew she deserved it.

  Luckily, Yousra was too good a friend to make a big deal out of it.

  ‘Just wait until tomorrow when we tell everyone at school about our adventure!’ Yousra said. Then she leapt into the police car and waved madly out the window at Marly as it drove off.

  Marly’s dad looked furious as they marched her into the house, while her mum was wearing her ‘I’m so disappointed in you’ face. Boy, she was really in for it now.

  ‘You must not worry your mother like that EVER AGAIN, do you hear? You could have been kidnapped! Or worse!’ her father yelled. ‘That policewoman had to call your school principal to find out who you might be with – we didn’t know you had a new friend. The girl’s poor mum was terrified when we turned up! Your friend told us you’d caught a bus to the supermarket! Why the hell would you do that?’

  Marly started to cry harder. Big tears streaked down her cheeks, and her breathing was fast and heavy. She didn’t know where to begin. It seemed silly now, saying she’d done it just because she wanted some money to get those cards.

  ‘Don’t think your crying will get you out of this,’ said her dad. ‘Come here so I can give you a smack.’

  Marly felt outraged. If her parents hadn’t made her spend her money on that stupid umbrella in the first place, then none of this would have happened! Let them smack me, she thought, horrible, mean parents. Then she could call the cops on them, see how they liked it!

  But when Marly’s dad pulled her around to smack her, his hand brushed her pocket, which jingled with coins. ‘What have you got in your pocket, girl?’

  Marly watched her parents’ faces as she pulled out fistfuls of coins. She didn’t think her mum’s eyebrows could go any higher, and her dad’s mouth had dropped open.

  ‘Where did you get this?’ demanded her father. ‘Did you steal from those nice kids in the back of the car?’

  ‘No!’ protested Marly. How could her dad even think that? ‘I earned it. I earned it by collecting coins at the supermarket. Here!’ she said as she threw all the coins on the kitchen table. ‘Have it all. I don’t want it anymore.’

  Marly’s mum and dad looked at the table filling up with twenty-cent pieces. ‘You earned all this in the afternoon?’ asked Marly’s mum.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Exactly how?’

  ‘I told you!’ shouted Marly.
‘I went to Sims supermarket, and joined all the loose trolleys together, and collected the coins! I did it because you wouldn’t let me keep the money I made from ironing the collars. You made me get a stupid umbrella instead!’

  ‘But why did you keep where you were going a secret from us?’ asked Marly’s mum.

  ‘Because you’d never let me go! Or you’d make me spend the money I collected on a dumb raincoat instead. Or even worse, socks!’

  Marly’s mum looked at Marly’s dad. He was trying to look stern, Marly could tell, but a smile slipped through a crack in the corner of his mouth.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ Marly wanted to know.

  ‘Nothing,’ said her mother. ‘You are still in big trouble, young lady.’

  ‘Aww, come on, Diep. You have to admit, the girl has ingenuity. She knows what she wants and how to get it! I mean, look at this stash!’

  ‘It is very dangerous, what you did,’ Marly’s mum reminded her, ignoring Marly’s dad. ‘Very dangerous, going off catching buses without letting anyone know where you had gone. Hanging around busy car parks after school! You must never do it again, do you hear?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Marly in a quiet voice.

  ‘You’re the oldest child now, you have to be responsible and set a good example,’ said her mother more gently.

  ‘I’m not the oldest, I’m the only child,’ Marly said, hoping that her parents would not try to smack her again, because she was all they had.

  Her parents looked at each other, which worried Marly a bit. She knew they were working up to telling her something she might not want to hear.

  ‘We have some news for you, Marly,’ her mother said. ‘You cannot run off again like this. You have to be a leader in this family. You must behave, because you are going to have a new little brother or sister.’

  Marly looked from her mum to her dad. Had she heard them right? ‘What?’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Marly’s dad as he put his arm gently around her mum. ‘Your mum is having a baby. We’d wanted to give you a brother or sister for a long time now, and it is finally happening! That’s why she’s been so tired lately.’

  Marly couldn’t take it in. She could see how excited her parents were, and she wanted to be excited, too, but a small part inside her sank. She would no longer be the centre of her parents’ attention. She would have to share everything, including her parents.

  But on the up side, Marly knew that her parents were not going to smack her now. They were too distracted after telling her this news. Maybe having a little brother or sister might be a good thing after all  . . .

  Her mother grabbed a handful of coins from the table and handed them to Marly.

  ‘Here,’ she said. ‘You earned this money, so you should keep some of it. Go get yourself the monkey cards you wanted. The rest, I’m keeping as punishment. Be prepared to come home to some new school socks.’

  THE next day at school, sitting on their usual bench in the playground, Marly and Yousra shared stories.

  ‘. . . almost had a heart attack when I saw a tall policewoman standing there!’ Yousra was halfway into her story, and Marly knew she was enjoying every minute of telling it. Now that she also had a starring role in this adventure, Marly didn’t mind listening: in fact, she loved it. She realised what a terrific storyteller Yousra was.

  ‘My mum kept asking me in Arabic, “Ay, Yousra, who’s there, who’s there?” When I told her it was a cop, she almost had a heart attack! We were both worried I’d be arrested for doing the trolley collection thing – you know supermarkets actually pay people to collect all the trolleys? Anyhow, it turns out that the policewoman was looking for you! I looked out the front door, and saw two Asian people standing in our front yard. I realised they were your parents because they told me that you were missing and asked if you were with me. I couldn’t believe it! I felt so terrible knowing I was the last person to see you.

  ‘Anyway, that policewoman asked me if I knew where you might be,’ Yousra continued. ‘And Marly, I’m sorry, but I told her that the last time I saw you had been when you got on the bus to go to Sims supermarket. Your parents looked like they were going to explode when they heard that. So we all raced into the police car and went to the supermarket to look for you! On the way there, Senior Constable Giordano asked me so many questions!’

  Marly giggled as Yousra put on a funny voice to impersonate the policewoman.

  ‘But we couldn’t find you, Marly. You were gone! I was so worried.’

  ‘Yes, by then I’d been on two wrong buses!’ said Marly.

  ‘Well that’s when we headed back to your place, and I saw you in that fancy blue car. I was waving and waving at you, but you didn’t see me.’

  Yousra paused, then turned to Marly. ‘Hey, Marly, I’m sorry about what happened. I should have just let you collect trolleys at my supermarket. It’s not like I am there every day of the week. You could have collected trolleys when I stayed home. It would have been safer than you catching a bus on your own.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ said Marly. ‘You’re a good friend. You helped the police look for me.’ Marly pulled the Strawberry Shortcake pendant out of her pocket and gave it to Yousra.

  ‘Geez, this is so grouse!’ Yousra exclaimed, her face immediately lighting up. ‘I’ve always, always wanted one of these but Mum won’t let me eat McDonalds because it’s not halal.’

  ‘What’s halal?’ asked Marly.

  ‘Oh, it just means the animal the meat comes from has to be killed a certain way. But wow – Strawberry Shortcake! I will wear this all the time!’ Yousra put the pendant around her neck, and kept opening and closing the locket and trying on the lip balm. ‘You’re the best mate ever!’

  Marly’s adventure was the talk of the school, thanks to Yousra, who made them both out to be heroes. Marly couldn’t help showing off her Donkey Kong sticker cards, either. Kane’s eyes had nearly popped out of his head.

  ‘Woah!’ exclaimed Kane. ‘They’re, like, the rarest Donkey Kong swaps going. And those kids gave them to you for free?’

  Marly enjoyed all the attention. But now that she had the cards and could play with her classmates, she didn’t find them as much fun as she had thought she would. When they did sticker card swaps, the other kids were always trying to cheat and take her rare cards off her while giving her their crappiest ones. And when they played the scratch cards, the other kids weren’t interested in talking or listening to anything she had to say.

  A couple of days after the big adventure, Marly and Yousra were sitting at their usual spot on the school bench. Marly still hadn’t told Yousra about her new brother or sister. Ever since her mum and dad had told her the news, Marly had been worrying about what it was going to be like with a baby in the house. What if her parents preferred the new baby to her? So she turned to Yousra and asked, ‘What’s it like having a kid brother?’

  ‘It’s annoying!’ said Yousra. ‘Believe me, you don’t want one!’

  ‘Oh no,’ said Marly. ‘Well, I’m getting one. A baby brother or sister.’ Marly hung her head as she imagined a baby getting into all her toys, wrecking everything and smearing mashed-up carrots over her books.

  ‘Really?’ Yousra actually sounded excited. ‘Wow, Marly, that’s excellent!’

  ‘But you just said that I’d be better off without one.’

  ‘Yeah, but I didn’t mean it. Come on, I can’t imagine my life without Awi.’

  Marly remembered the summer Jackie and Rosie had stayed at her house, when they had first arrived in Australia, and how much fun it had been having other kids in the house. She supposed that a new brother or sister might not be so bad after all.

  It was funny, Marly thought, how badly she had wanted to fit in at the start of the year, and how she thought that getting those Donkey Kong cards would be her ticket to being friends with her classmates. Now, she had some of the best swaps in the school, and her big adventure had made her the most popular girl in her class for a wh
ile. But, as she listened to Yousra tell another story about Awi, Marly realised that those things didn’t matter. What did matter was the one person at school who loved her for being her.

  Marly finally had a real best friend, and that was worth more than all the Donkey Kong cards in the world.

  My parents were born in Cambodia. My mum worked in a plastic bag factory when she was only 13 years old, and my dad’s family owned that factory. That’s how my parents met!

  In 1975 there was a war in Cambodia and my parents were separated. Four years later they met again in Vietnam, and romance blossomed. In December 1980, my parents came as refugees by boat to Australia. I was born a month later. Dad named me Alice, because he thought Australia was a Wonderland. I was their first Australian Girl. Like Marly, I grew up in the western suburbs of Melbourne, behind a carpet factory. Braybrook was a very multicultural neighbourhood and I had friends from all over the world.

  My husband Nick is from countryside Corryong. We have travelled all over the world, but when we think of home we always think of Australia.

  I was born and grew up in Italy, a beautiful country to visit, but also a difficult country to live in for new generations.

  In 2006, I packed up my suitcase and I left Italy with the man I love. We bet on Australia. I didn’t know much about Australia before coming – I was just looking for new opportunities, I guess.

  And I liked it right from the beginning! Australian people are resourceful, open-minded and always with a smile on their faces. I think all Australians keep in their blood a bit of the pioneer heritage, regardless of their own birthplace.

  Here I began a new life and now I’m doing what I always dreamed of: I illustrate stories. Here is the place where I’d like to live and to grow up my children, in a country that doesn’t fear the future.