Elsewhere Girls

by Emily Gale

  Dewey leaves, tearful and fuming. I’m more alone than ever without her. And I can’t believe that washing sheets comes before everything else that a girl might want to do.

  ‘There you are!’ says Kath when I finally skulk into the kitchen. It wasn’t easy getting dressed. It took ages—everything’s ribbons and buttons.

  Kath’s kneading dough on the table. ‘I’ll finish this and then I’ll be down to help.’ She jerks her head but I’ve no idea what I’m supposed to do now.

  ‘Fan! Stop daydreaming and get to the scullery!’

  I follow her eyes to the doorway off the kitchen. Through there is the staircase down to the yard where the dunny is. A sound of laughter comes from the yard, and eventually I find a small room at the back of the pub.

  ‘At last,’ says Mary. ‘Check the copper, Fan. Should be hot by now.’

  I work out that the ‘copper’ is the large bricked area with a huge pot inside and a lid on the top, an iron door in the side and glimpses of a fire burning in a cavernous hole at the bottom. There’s a pile of logs next to it. I lift the wooden lid and get a face full of steam.

  ‘Hurry, Fan!’ says Mary, looking cross with a huge sheet hanging off a long broom handle.

  I don’t know what I’m meant to do.

  ‘What’s the matter with her today?’ says Mary.

  ‘She’d rather be swimming,’ Dewey says in a flat tone without looking at me.

  Mary tuts. ‘Well I’d rather be Cleopatra. It’s already five-thirty, Fan, can you wake up and get moving?’

  ‘Would you believe me when I say I’ve forgotten what I’m supposed to do?’

  She rolls her eyes. ‘As a matter of fact I would. Fetch the bucket and fill that tub with hot water before I shove this somewhere the sun doesn’t shine.’

  It’s going to be a long day.

  Wash day was close to the worst experience of my life. It took four of us eight hours. Eight hours! It wasn’t just our beds—it was all the guest beds that had to be stripped and washed too. We stopped for breakfast and lunch, except Ma called lunch dinner. I sweated so much I didn’t need to use the dunny once. Weird perk of being dehydrated! Mary said it was lucky we had a scorcher of a day so the sheets could dry—and I thought, what about us, walking around this yard like burning-hot zombies?

  Now we’re on folding: lovely, relaxing folding—much nicer than boiling, soaking, stoking the fire, rubbing sheets on the washboard with hard soap and getting your knuckles scraped, rinsing, mangling, hanging the heavy tubs on the yard walls, scrubbing the scullery floor.

  Tomorrow is ironing day, which is another very good reason I need to get out of here. This work feels like a way to stop girls from doing anything else! Back home I can always predict when Dad’s about to ask me to load the dishwasher and I usually choose that moment to start a long hot shower to get out of it.

  ‘You’re so quiet today, Fan,’ says Mary, as we fold a sheet together.

  Kath jumps in. ‘She’s thinking about Saturday’s race. It’s the only thing that shuts her up.’

  ‘True!’ Mary presses the folded sheet into my chest and brushes my cheek with the back of her hand. The sisters are all so sweet to each other. And Dewey didn’t stay grumpy with me for long.

  Am I ever sweet to Maisy? I feel squirmy when I imagine the Durack sisters overhearing one of our arguments.

  ‘Dewey and Fan, Borax time!’ Ma yells from the kitchen.

  ‘Lucky you,’ Kath says.

  This could be good. As I follow Dew up the stairs I wonder if Borax is some kind of hot drink. My gran drinks something called Bovril, which I never fancied, but if it means I finally get to sit down I’ll try anything.

  Turns out Borax is a kind of poison!

  Dewey and I are sent to the bedrooms to paint every inch of the iron bed-frames with this strange-smelling substance. It’s hard to keep asking questions without sounding mad, but I get inventive.

  ‘Can you believe we have to do…Borax?’ I say, on my hands and knees with a paintbrush.

  ‘I know, but Ma reckons the only thing that’s keeping us from another plague are good habits like this.’

  ‘The plague…right.’ I shudder, thinking of the pandemic in my own time, and paint a lot more thoroughly than I was before.

  I’m outside alone now, in the constant ding-a-ling of trams, horse-drawn carts, and cars that bounce and splutter. I even crossed the road—there are no traffic lights so it was like being inside a computer game with only one life. At first I wanted to head to Wylie’s Baths, but after I thought about it I realised I need to plan more carefully. So while I’m working on that I’m going to find somewhere that sells hairbrushes, race back to the pub and give Dewey a present. I owe her.

  Can I call it a present if I’m replacing something I broke? Maybe I’ll get her something extra as well. And a treat for Kath and Mary. And something for rat-boy Frankie. Though I suppose it’s not fair to leave out the others. Da and Ma, stern John and cheeky Con, and Mick, who reminds me of some of the boys back in Orange I used to muck around with. I hope these brown coins buy enough to go round.

  Fan

  16

  Buttons

  It’s lunchtime and Lucy is watching me work my way through three bowls of food. She has picked around the outside of her meal, but I’m scoffing mine down so nobody takes it.

  ‘Doesn’t that spag bol have meat in it?’ says Lucy.

  ‘Tastes a bit like rabbit.’

  ‘Since when do you eat meat?’ She leans closer to my bowl and inspects the sauce. ‘I doubt it’s rabbit. We could run tests in the lab. Imagine the outrage if it was!’

  Lucy is as confounding as my new sister, but at least she’s enthusiastic and friendly.

  ‘I like rabbit,’ I tell her, with a mouthful of slippery long worms. I slurp it up and sauce flicks onto Lucy’s nose.

  ‘You’re strange, Cat. Even more than usual.’ She wipes her nose with her sleeve, and then wipes the sleeve with her other sleeve.

  ‘Sorry,’ I say.

  ‘I don’t mind. As long as you are ready for our science presentation.’

  Closing my eyes, I try to imagine what a presentation would be. In swimming winners are presented with hairclips and the like, but I doubt that’s what Lucy is talking about.

  ‘Cat? Are you?’

  I open my eyes as wide as I can to show her that I’m keen.

  ‘Cat! This is important.’ She plunges her head into her hands.

  Worried, I poke her.

  She looks up at me. ‘I’m thinking. You can be my assistant. Then all you have to do is hand me the important elements and work the overhead projector and demonstrate. Okay?’ She waves her arms around looking serious.

  I wonder how to ask her what an overhead projector is. I make a guess that it’s a contraption that sits above my head. ‘Can you show me where the overhead projector is?’

  ‘Cat! What is wrong with you? We’ve been through all this.’

  ‘I have to apologise. I’m not feeling myself,’ I tell Lucy, wishing I could just tell her everything. But I fear what will happen if I did. How can I prove that the person who looks like Cat and sounds like Cat is not Cat?

  Someone bumps into my back as they walk past with their tray and I hear giggling. It’s a girl with long brown hair and she looks at me strangely.

  ‘Oops, sorry Catherine,’ she says, like my name is not something she wants to say.

  ‘That’s okay,’ I say.

  As she walks off with her friends, Lucy whispers to me, ‘You hate her! What are you doing?’

  ‘Why?’ I can’t imagine hating anyone, or at least not admitting it to someone else. Ma always encourages us to keep our bad feelings about people to ourselves.

  ‘Honestly, Cat. I’m not even sure who you are today! I’ll see you in class. I’m going to set up.’

  Lucy sounds as frustrated with me as Ma does when I miss my chores, so I finish eating the worms, which I’ve now learned are actually
made of flour and water, which is a big relief. Then I head off after Lucy, pleased that I at least know where the Science classroom is because I saw it yesterday.

  ‘Hey, Cat,’ I hear behind me and I turn to see the girl I’m supposed to hate skipping towards me.

  ‘You training tomorrow?’ she asks me.

  I should have guessed she was a swimmer. ‘Of course,’ I say.

  ‘Still want to swim the fourth leg in the relay?’

  My new plan for any questions that I don’t know how to answer is to reply with a question of my own. ‘Why?’ I ask.

  She frowns. ‘Because your times have slipped, or had you forgotten?’

  This girl must be like Cat’s version of Mina. Although Mina and I are playful in our rivalry, we are still always trying to beat each other. Cat swims the final leg because she’s the fastest—the fastest always takes the last leg. This girl wants to steal that honour. Not a chance!

  ‘I trained this morning. I’m making a comeback,’ I tell her with a smile.

  ‘We’ll see.’ She returns the smile but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes and it makes me wonder what’s going on. ‘By the way I’m having a party,’ she says and thrusts a piece of paper into my hands, before rushing off down the hall to catch someone else.

  I keep walking towards the classrooms and read the paper as I go. If everyone else walks along not looking where they’re going, then I might as well too.

  The party is on Saturday. I’m a little confused by the meaning of some words like this party is going to be lit. Does it mean there will be a fire? The only party I’ve ever been to was the one that Mina’s father held to celebrate the opening of the baths. This party seems to be for a birthday, which I’ve only ever celebrated with a lie-in and no chores.

  ‘All good, Cat?’ Lucy asks as I walk into the classroom.

  I hold out the piece of paper.

  She reads the words and shakes her head. ‘Rebecca? No. You’re. Not!’

  ‘There might be cake,’ I say lightly, hoping to soften my friend.

  She rolls her eyes and turns around to show me some contraption. ‘This is the projector. Button here. Button here. Press this one to move through the slides. Press this one to pause. Got it? For the lights, you need to press this one.’ She’s joking, as if she knows she doesn’t need to tell me.

  I laugh as if I knew all along. But at least I know now that that is the overhead projector.

  ‘Good. This is worth half our marks. It needs to be exceptional! Strike that, it needs to be perfect.’

  Lucy is clearly as committed to learning as I am to swimming. She keeps talking about our presentation as the rest of the students file in, chatting and whispering.

  The teacher tells us we can make a start and Lucy welcomes the class and then begins talking about something called climate change and explaining that the global water temperatures are increasing. I’d like to understand more about this, but I know I can’t interrupt. Lucy looks very serious and her voice is calm and steady.

  She pauses her speech and nods at me. I think I’m supposed to press a button. So I do.

  ‘Wrong one!’ hisses Lucy.

  I quickly press the other button and the wall behind Lucy flares with bright white light. She glares at me—I’ve obviously pressed another wrong button, so I try the blue one.

  Someone starts laughing as the wall goes black and then white again.

  ‘Fix it, Cat! It’s the other button,’ barks Lucy.

  I leap forward to press the only button I haven’t tried and instead I slam into the projector and it bumps off the stand and crashes onto the floor.

  And Lucy says words I’ve only ever heard men say. And not the sort of men Ma would let me talk to. This time there’s a lot of laughter.

  Lucy hasn’t spoken to me all afternoon. It’s almost as bad as the day I broke Ma’s favourite vase, the one she brought over on the boat from Ireland. But at least I knew that Ma would speak to me eventually. Lucy might never talk to me again.

  I’m not sure how I’ll make it up to her. If only I could get back to 1908, then I’d never have to see anyone from Victoria Grammar again, which I know is cowardly, but it’s hard pretending to be someone else all the time. I just want to be me.

  The bell has gone and instead of waiting for Maisy, I’m hurrying away from school as fast as I can. I’m going to Wylie’s Baths. I want to see something familiar. And it’s the place where I became Cat, so maybe there will be a clue there about how I can get back to being me.

  I reach the busy street corner. A man with hair longer than Dewey’s is sitting cross-legged on the ground and playing a guitar. He has a hat in front of him with coins in it, and a sleeping dog beside him. He grins at me and I see he’s missing a tooth. He reminds me of the men who drink in our pub. I nod and hurry past.

  I wonder what Dewey is doing right now. If she’s missing me or if she hasn’t even realised I’m gone. Maybe Cat is in my time pretending to be me while I’m here pretending to be her. I hope she’s doing a better job of it.

  The first glimpse of the water is soothing and I rush towards the green grass hill that heads down to the sea. Automatically I look to my right for Mina’s house, but it’s not where it should be. Instead some large grey building has eaten her lovely house, and it makes me sad. Does nothing from my time remain?

  I hurry past the children kicking a ball around and rush to the entrance of the baths. I have no money to get in so I will have to run fast through the turnstile. But when I reach the little entrance that is both familiar and not, there is a rope hanging across blocking entry with a yellow sign that tells of the baths being closed, and of the work being done on the far ocean wall. Ahead I can see a bronze statue of a girl, but from here all I can see is her back.

  I slide under the rope that barricades the entrance and hurry down the stairs to the baths.

  The sea air smells strong and for a second I’m lost in my surroundings. Then a man in large orange overalls waves me away.

  ‘Baths closed,’ he shouts up at me.

  If the way back is through Wylie’s, then it looks like I’m spending another night in 2021.

  Getting home to the shop takes ages but I’m so saddened that I don’t even pause for sweets when I get inside. I trudge upstairs, wanting to cry but also knowing that if I start, I might never stop.

  ‘I covered for you,’ says Maisy hearing me come in. ‘Told Dad you had to go to Lucy’s for a project.’

  She smiles at me from the end of her bed.

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Where have you been?’

  ‘Trying to get home,’ I tell her, wanting to be honest for just one second.

  ‘Oh. You hate it here don’t you?’

  I shake my head. ‘No. I just don’t belong.’

  ‘I always felt like that in Orange,’ she tells me, bending her knees up to make room for me. Talking to Maisy makes me miss Dewey even more.

  ‘Why?’ I ask.

  She shrugs. ‘Back in Orange I always felt like I was just your little sister. It’s different here,’ she says.

  ‘You shouldn’t care what people think.’

  She gives me a look that tells me this is not what Cat would say, so I aim for changing the conversation. ‘I’m going to get started on dinner. Want to help me?’

  She laughs. ‘Cook? You? What are we having? Two-minute noodles?’

  ‘I was going to make a rabbit pie,’ I say, really wanting to know what two-minute noodles are.

  ‘Gross, no. I am not eating rabbit.’

  I laugh at the expression on her face. ‘Okay. No rabbit. What sort of meat would you eat?’

  ‘Chicken.’

  Do I have to pluck it? Snap its neck? Or will there be a can of chicken in the cupboard, I wonder.

  ‘But what are you having for dinner?’ Maisy asks as if I would never eat chicken.

  ‘Chicken pie!’

  Maisy looks surprised. ‘What happened to “saving the world” one chic
ken at a time?’

  I decide now is a good time to shrug. Maisy shakes her head like I’m the most frustrating person alive.

  The fridge is stacked full of boxes and bottles and jars but nothing that says chicken. I try the magic ice cupboard at the top and here I find all sorts of things but still no chicken. Then I remember I live above a shop.

  Dashing down the stairs, I wait for Father to finish serving a customer. ‘Where would I find chicken?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’m cooking dinner!’

  ‘Does it have to be chicken?’

  ‘It has to be meat for a pie. Maisy suggested chicken,’ I tell him.

  He slides his glasses up onto the top of his head and rubs the bridge of his nose. ‘You don’t eat meat, Cat, and you don’t cook. Am I missing something?’

  Now I understand Maisy’s comment. ‘People change,’ I say.

  He nods at me like he’s trying to be serious. ‘Apparently so. There should be chuck beef in the fridge. You can use that for a pie.’

  ‘Would I cook it like rabbit?’

  This time he laughs and the sound is lovely. I can’t help but join in. Obviously rabbit is not something people eat in the future. They don’t know what they’re missing.

  ‘Probably. Yes.’

  ‘Okay,’ I say, starting to go back up the stairs. Then I remember that I’m hungry.

  ‘Any potato scallops lying around?’

  Dad reaches into the hot glass box and throws one my way. ‘Think quick!’ he says.

  I catch it and smile at him. As much as I miss my family, being Cat isn’t all bad.

  It takes all the cupboards banging and the fridge door opening four times for me to find the ingredients I need. Everything is in packets and wrappings and nothing is recognisable. While I wait for the pastry to settle, I sweep and scrub and tidy all the rooms, except for Father’s.

  I’m making the filling for the pie when Maisy comes out of our room and leans against the kitchen table. She looks around. ‘Since when do you clean?’

  How much more could I get wrong? ‘Since today! I’m trying to be better around the house,’ I tell her, deciding to put my love of acting to good use. ‘I couldn’t find chicken. It’s going to be a beef pie. Is that okay?’