‘However, it has been decided to transfer Year 7 students for the winter term, while the damage is repaired. From the first day of term after the holidays, could you please ensure that your daughters report to –’
Vernon paused, dramatically.
‘Report to where?’ Grandma Zing shifted in her chair. ‘Marbie? Why doesn’t he finish reading?’
‘Because you won’t be quiet. Vernon. Tell them where.’
Vernon read: ‘Redwood Primary.’
Radcliffe cried, ‘Huh!’ and everyone was silent, looking from face to face.
‘That’s Cassie’s school!’ cried Grandma Zing, unnecessarily.
‘But my school’s a primary school.’ Cassie was astonished. ‘Listen’s in Year 7.’
‘Exactly,’ said Listen. ‘How can I go there? I can’t.’
‘Mum,’ Cassie cried, ‘Listen’s in Year 7!’
‘I think I should just not go to school next term,’ said Listen, then more kindly to Cassie: ‘Not that I wouldn’t love to come to school with you, Cassie.’
Fancy looked around and saw a newspaper on the sideboard. She reached out and ripped off a corner. ‘Anybody have a pen?’ she said.
‘Mum!’ Cassie persisted. ‘Listen can’t come to my school, can she?’
‘No,’ agreed Listen.
‘Radcliffe, give me your pen.’
Radcliffe reached around to the jacket on his chair, and took a pen from his inside pocket. ‘Don’t forget to return it to me,’ he instructed.
‘Isn’t it amazing?’ Marbie bounced on her chair. ‘Listen is going to Cassie’s school!’
‘Mum!’ pestered Cassie. ‘Mum!’
Fancy wrote on her newspaper scrap: ‘Peas on a fork can look, sometimes, like an abacus!’ She folded the paper and put it next to her plate.
‘Mum,’ Cassie wailed.
‘Hush,’ said Marbie.
‘Darling?’ said Fancy.
Everyone talked about floods and technicians, primary schools and high schools, teachers and fire engines. Grandma Zing and Radcliffe began to gather plates.
Radcliffe scooped up crumpled napkins. He scooped up Fancy’s paper corner and now it was on a plate, drenched in gravy: ‘Peas on a fork can look, sometimes, like an abacus!’ He scraped the plate into the bin.
Later that night, Fancy sat at her desk and began to write a letter.
Dear Ms Murphy,
Thank you for your note enquiring about my daughter (Cassie’s) loose tooth. She has lost it now! And the tooth fairy has come and gone.
Then she stopped and tched. She needed a reason to write.
She had already written about Cassie’s asthma, her allergy to bees, her aversion to gingham, and her preference for Vegemite over Marmite. What else was there?
Cassie sat on the floor behind her, threading plastic beads onto a string and saying now and then, ‘Mum? Will Listen really come to my school next term?’
Fancy swivelled around and looked at Cassie. ‘Any more loose teeth, darling?’
‘No,’ said Cassie, sadly. ‘Wait.’ She tested each tooth with her tongue. ‘No. No loose tooths.’
‘Teeth! Cassie, anything interesting happening at school?’
‘No,’ asserted Cassie, confidently.
‘Hmm.’ Fancy turned back to her note and stared at it for a while, while Cassie continued to chant, ‘Mu-um, will Listen really come to my school after the holidays?’
‘Right then,’ Fancy said suddenly. ‘I’m trying to work, Cassie, and you should be in bed!’ Then her eyes roved over the pink plastic beads scattered on the study floor like sugar drops. ‘Sorry, Cassie! Yes. She will go to your school. After the holidays, Listen will be at your school for just one term. Because her school is flooded.’
‘Thanks,’ said Cassie solemnly, and stood up at once, ready to go to bed.
Fancy had a happy flash of inspiration then, and continued her letter:
I hope you will forgive me for writing again so soon, but I have a small favour to ask.
Cassie was climbing under the covers, and her mum was picking clothes up off the floor.
‘Cassie, this is your sports tunic! You should have put it in the wash!’
Cassie said, ‘Whoops!’, slid under the Harry Potter quilt, and squashed her cheek against the pillow. Her mother shook out the uniform, frowning at it. She folded it over her arm, pulled the curtains tightly closed, patted Harry Potter smooth, and switched off the light.
In bed, Cassie imagined her own school flooded. She thought of papers, teachers, desks and bottles of White-Out bobbing along in a river. Ms D’Souza in a life raft, Mr Woodford in a row boat, Ms Murphy treading water. She thought of blackboard dusters, whiteboards and pink chalk; overhead projectors, flower vases, cardboard boxes. She thought of the school turtle, swept out of his pond, paddling and honking in alarm.
The whole thing seemed suspicious to Cassie, and also, absolutely strange.
On the Monday of the final week of term, Fancy found an unlidded purple texta in the pocket of Cassie’s sports tunic. A purple butterfly bloomed at the hip of the tunic, but Fancy attacked it with Pre-wash Stain Remover, and watched as the wings began to dribble.
In inky purple texta, on a piece of tissue paper, she then listed as follows:
OBJECTS IN A FAMILY HOME: THE LAUNDRY
Domestos
oatmeal soap
a blue bucket containing a pink sponge and Ajax Spray & Wipe
a small puddle at the base of the washing machine
washing machine
On the Tuesday of the final week of term, Fancy found a coffee filter, filled with ageing coffee grounds, quietly wilting in her coffeemaker. ‘Oh, Radcliffe,’ she said aloud, and then ‘ew’ as she lifted it out and dropped it in the garbage bin.
On the MESSAGES board beside the telephone, she then listed as follows:
OBJECTS IN A FAMILY HOME: THE KITCHEN
clock
calendar with photos of Canadian Rockies
collage of family snapshots in silver frame
exercise book
name stickers
doll’s underwear
port decanter
collapsed birthday card display
on the table: spots of candle wax
also on the table: a ceramic bowl filled with this and that
On the Wednesday of the final week of term, Fancy sat at the kitchen table to scrape at the candle wax. After a moment, she reached for a notebook and a pen and listed:
OBJECTS IN A FAMILY HOME: CERAMIC BOWL FILLED WITH THIS AND THAT, SPECIFICALLY
drawing pins
elastic bands
empty film canister
business card
Valerio Sore Throat Gargle
cotton
AAA battery
bobby pin
Hong Kong two-dollar coin
large black button
blue pen lid
glue stick
nailfile
a tube of sample Musk perfume
a safety pin
a paperclip
a token for a locker at Baulkham Hills Shire Council library
Moisture Absorbent in white paper wrapping: DO NOT EAT, DO NOT EAT, DO NOT EAT
On the Thursday of the final week of term, Fancy felt she could not possibly go on. She reached for her handbag to choose something new to be listed: she would strike through Objects in a Family Home.
Her List of Potential Lists was not in her handbag.
‘Ah,’ she sighed, moving into her study and checking on her desk. It was not there. It was not in the desk drawers either. Hmm! she said, with a jaunty frown.
She was not concerned because she remembered exactly what was on the list. It would be easy to rewrite on the back of another phone bill. Nevertheless, she began a thorough, cheerful search of the house: the kitchen, the laundry, the bedrooms, the garage, the car. She found herself running up and down the steps, searching in random places such as the cutl
ery drawer and the liquor cabinet.
It’s probably in a pocket somewhere, she realised. Now, when did I last have it?
And then it came to her. The last time she had it was at the Intrusion. The near-disastrous Intrusion – when she had failed to notice Marbie beeping her, had come within a cat’s whisker of getting caught, and somehow had climbed out of the window. So, it would be in the pocket of my black pants, of –
But there was the strangest sensation in her cheeks: as of automatic doors closing slowly towards her nose. Because there were no pockets in her black pants.
She had left her List of Potential Lists on the dining room table by the window inside the apartment. And her phone bill was on the back.
Her mother, when she telephoned with shaking hands and teary voice, was remarkably professional. ‘There was a pile of papers on the dining table there?’
‘Yes,’ Fancy quavered.
‘Chances are it’s still exactly where you left it,’ said her mother contentedly. ‘I’ll put out a Request for an urgent Distraction. You let Marbie know what’s going on. And we’ll have an Intrusion underway before the end of the day, you mark my words, my dearest.’
‘I’ll sit by the phone,’ promised Fancy.
‘Don’t worry so much, darling. Just go about your day as planned but keep your beeper with you. We may have just a slight margin.’
Of course, Fancy could not possibly leave the house. She was agitated and hysterical all day, gasping whenever the phone rang, and whenever she heard leaves rustle (that was the new beeper sound). She called Radcliffe and asked him to fetch Cassie from school as she was too overwrought to drive. Radcliffe tried to reassure her but the excitement of disaster bristled in his voice. She called Marbie several times to confirm that she would leave work early: Marbie laughed and was serene about the whole thing when Fancy first told her, but even she seemed to grow a bit tetchy after Fancy’s fourth phone call.
When their mother’s alert finally arrived, Fancy’s heart was playing some kind of thrashing rock and roll song.
But it went surprisingly smoothly.
There was nobody around; Marbie climbed her tree safely; the code worked; the apartment was empty and dark; and the List of Potential Lists was sitting safely on the dining room table, underneath some kind of legal assignment. Once she had folded the List into her handbag, Fancy was so relieved that she decided to do the maintenance work she had not completed on the last Intrusion.
‘Sleep well,’ said Marbie, kindly, as she dropped Fancy back at home. ‘And have a nice, relaxing day tomorrow, you poor thing. Get an aromatherapy massage.’
But the next day, the Friday of the final week of term, Fancy woke in such a state of jitters that she had to spend some time deep breathing. It’s all right, it’s all right, it’s all right, she chanted.
Her hands fluttered from her mouth to her elbows to her ears, and sometimes to nothing.
‘Are you all right, Mum?’ said Cassie, as Fancy drove her to school.
‘Yes, darling, perfectly fine! Have a nice last day at school! Holidays tomorrow! Hooray!’
Cassie looked back at her suspiciously.
Driving home again, Fancy knew that she must take action against this hysteria. Otherwise, it would manifest itself in some physical way such as a heart attack or hives. She needed exercise – it was far too cold to go jogging, but she could go to her gym. Swimming, that was what she needed. The serenity of gliding through the water!
And how about that, it was Friday morning, and that man on the phone had told her that this was the quietest time for swimming. She would go home, gather her things, and drive directly to the gym.
The Canadian was standing on his porch.
‘I haven’t seen you for a while!’ she chatted as she reached her own front door. ‘I guess it’s been too cold for your breakfasts on the porch. I never got a chance to thank you for that delicious cake! Cassie loved it, by the way. I froze a couple of pieces for her so she could take them to school as a special treat with her lunch.’
‘Never too cold for me,’ he said, ‘to eat breakfast on my porch. I’ve been away, is the explanation. And that is the nicest thing I’ve heard in a while, that Cassie took a piece of my maple cake to school as a special treat. Thank you.’
‘Tell me,’ said Fancy, suddenly. ‘Now, a sugar maple leaf, that would be a Canadian sort of leaf, wouldn’t it?’
‘They have sugar maples elsewhere as well,’ said the Canadian, formally. ‘But yes, the maple leaf is on our flag. So, you could say it’s Canadian.’
‘Then tell me,’ Fancy repeated, ‘would a teardrop ever look like a maple leaf?’
The Canadian considered this for a moment. ‘I would have to say,’ he said slowly, ‘I would have to say, I’d choose a different sort of leaf if I wanted to describe a teardrop. I would choose a leaf with your more traditional leaf shape. Such as that eucalyptus leaf, right there. Now, I suppose that a teardrop might fall splat onto a page – say you were reading a book and having a little weep – a teardrop might fall splat, and the mark that it left on the page might, if you were lucky, resemble a sugar maple leaf. But otherwise, I would say no.’
Fancy felt a rush of love for the Canadian-next-door.
‘Thank you,’ she said, blushing, and walked into her house.
Driving to the swimming pool, Fancy felt calm and happy. She allowed herself to imagine that she had invited the Canadian along. And he had said, Swimming, I love to swim! And she had said, Me too! And he had run inside and returned with his swimming costume. Perhaps even wearing it! To prove that he was Canadian, and could get about bare-chested in such grey and icy weather. (It was close to zero degrees, the radio told her.) And then she had driven chattingly along, her bare hand on the gearstick, so close to his bare, hairy legs! (The hair on his legs would be fine, not thick.) And then, at the pool, there would be nobody else! Just the two of them! And he would shake his head in wonder at the grace of her stroke.
Fancy, unlike Marbie (who was a highs-peed swimmer), swam exceptionally slowly but with grace; so slow that she tended to hold up even the slowest fellow swimmers if she had to share a lane. That was why Fancy had called about the quietest times to swim.
Calmly, she entered the gym and explained that she wanted to use the swimming pool.
‘Sorry,’ said the man behind the counter – and it was the man with the rasping, unpleasant voice who had answered her call – ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘the swimming pool’s closed for cleaning. nine-thirty to eleven-thirty every Friday.’
‘No,’ said Fancy, emphatically. ‘No, I phoned a few weeks ago, and I was told that this is the quietest time to swim.’ She intended to stand her ground.
‘That was you calling about the quietest pool times? What I said,’ declared the man, with a leering grin, ‘was that the swimming pool is quietest at this time! Of course it is! There’s nobody here! They’re cleaning it!’
Fancy stared at him. That a person could play such a trick! She felt entitled to continue staring, with amazed, accusing eyes, for as long as she liked.
‘I did explain,’ he said, defensively, ‘I did go on to explain why this was the quietest time. You mustn’t have heard me.’
‘If the swimming pool is being cleaned now,’ said Fancy with a proud swing of her head, ‘then I don’t imagine it’s all that quiet. I imagine the cleaning equipment makes quite a racket!’ Then she flounced out of the gym.
Behind the wheel again, Fancy felt so foolish that she had to cry a little. The rain was strange on her windshield: it seemed to land with an icy skid rather than a normal, sugar-maple-leaf-shaped splat.
She felt especially foolish at the idea that the Canadian might have been with her. How she would have wasted his time if she’d brought him along. She was cold with fear at the thought. Of course, he might have found her error adorable, and suggested a hot chocolate instead. The car skidded and slipped on the road, and some of her jitters returned.
Back in
her own home, the day seemed endless. She tried phoning her mother, and they had a brief chat about whether to cancel the Zing Family Secret Meeting that night, because of the weather. They decided they should cancel, so then her mother had to hang up to let the others know. Fancy wandered from room to room, picking up objects from the floor and then letting them slide back down in a different place. She took books off shelves and replaced them, and flicked through the pages of photo albums. As she did this, she wept to herself: about the man at the gym with the awful voice; about how close she had been to getting caught at the last Intrusion; about how stupid she was to have left her phone bill behind when she got out! About her well-meaning husband Radcliffe (because look at him in this picture with his worried expression; and what if he got killed while driving home?). About her beautiful daughter Cassie. (She was so little. Look at her here in her cosy red mittens!)
And all the time, that sad little sentence played itself over in her head: how is your ocean bream, my love? How is your ocean bream?
Meanwhile, Cassie was asking her friend Lucinda to hold her lunch and was skidding to the far side of the playground. Lucinda watched with interest as Cassie straightened her mittens.
The playground was so slippery it was perfect: all she had to do was run, as fast as she could, from as far away as this, and the slipperiness would do the rest. It was better than the trolley ramp in the Castle Towers car park, where you could take a run and skid almost all the way down.
Cassie bent forward, concentrating, jumped on the spot and then ran. She was fast. She was faster than she had ever been. Ice-cold wind ran along with her excitedly. Marcus Ellison was a small dark figure with his cricket bat and his frown, but he was growing bigger. She was hurtling into the midst of the game and the kids around her were a blur!
Then, Mr Woodford caught her. It took a minute for her to stop panting. The blurriness calmed down around her.
‘Cassie,’ Mr Woodford was saying in a solemn voice, ‘the stride you had going then, as you ran, was the stride of an Olympic runner. Do you understand me? Do you understand that this run of yours, with this pace you had going, was the start of an Olympic run? Do you understand?’ Everyone was used to Mr Woodford joking, so they waited. But then they realised he was serious. Mr Woodford was being serious. Everyone paid attention.
I Have a Bed Made of Buttermilk Pancakes Page 14
