Elsewhere Girls
Page 19
She nods.
‘Sashimi, it’s called,’ I say, as I launch into the story of the posh house on the hill. Dewey forgets that she’s supposed to be peeling potatoes and sits with her head on her hands to listen.
My little sister has a worried look. ‘Fan, are you happy to be back?’ Her voice is shaky, like she’s had to work up the courage to ask.
I don’t answer straightaway. There are things I’ll miss, like the freedoms of dressing without corsets and layers. The idea I can swim whenever I like, travel the world, and put dirty clothes into a washing machine and then press one button to do all the work.
But the sight of Dewey tugs me back to my home and my noisy, funny family who love me and support me and let me be me. My own people and my own time.
‘Yes. I am happy to be back. It’s awesome,’ I say, trying out a word I know my sister will never have heard before. But she giggles. ‘Cat said that. It means really, really great.’
She jumps up and pulls me into a Dewey hug that is just about the best thing in the entire world.
Cat
35
Home
About an hour ago I found my laptop and phone under my bed in a large tray of rice. The laptop is lifeless. RIP me when my parents find out, but by some miracle the phone just started working again.
Ping-ping-ping-ping-ping! Texts from everyone in Orange. Alerts telling me I’ve been tagged in a photo. Reminders for homework I was meant to have finished. It’s overwhelming watching them all rush in.
I take a deep breath and remind myself that the messages can wait a little bit longer.
The first hours of my return have been really strange. I managed to get through a whole day of school without seeing my sister, and she wasn’t at the bus stop after school so I travelled home alone, feeling strange and nervous.
When I walked into the shop, Dad was there, restocking the shelves. I had to keep swallowing to stop myself from crying. There was no way I wanted to tell my family that I’d been sucked into 1908. I mean, they’d never let me out again! And I’d come back with big plans about how I was going to spend my time. So I kissed Dad on the cheek, helped myself to a potato scallop from the bain-marie, and didn’t say a word.
When Maisy finally walks into our bedroom later, she has a funny look on her face. Well, not so much funny as petrified.
‘What?’ I say.
‘Err…Cat…’
‘Yeaaahhh?’
‘Coach seems to think that you don’t want your place in the relay team anymore and that I should take it but I told her no way Cat would never say that Cat’s just been feeling strange lately but she’ll be fine and there’s no way I could take her place no way never.’
‘Breathe, Maise.’
She takes a deep, shuddery breath. I smile. Fanny must have realised how I felt. She’d done me a favour, breaking the news to Coach. I wonder if I would have done it myself when it came to it.
Yes, I definitely would have.
I get up from the bed and go over to my sister, who actually flinches. ‘Am I really that scary?’ I say.
‘Cat, you’re my sister. I love you. But yes, you are.’
‘Come here,’ I say, hooking my arm around her neck and pulling her close to me. ‘I’m sorry I’ve been a cowpat.’
‘You haven’t, lately.’
‘Mm. Well, I mean before.’ I guess that Fanny had been lovely to everyone, and I am probably going to die of exhaustion over the next few weeks trying to be as nice as her.
Then again, Dewey thought I was nice in 1908. So did Mary and Kath. And Mina, and Arthur and Con. And Ma and Da. Maybe even unfun John, in the end. That was all me.
‘I want you to have that relay place, Maise. You’re a great swimmer and you deserve it. You do want it, don’t you?’
‘But don’t you?’ Maisy says, pulling away. ‘What’s happened to you, Cat?’
I feel a bit like a ghost, but gradually I’m coming back to life. I’m in the kitchen now, making a surprise dinner for everyone—well, it’s frozen pizza, but I’m the one putting it in the oven.
I hear the door bang downstairs, and footsteps.
‘Mum’s here!’ calls Maisy from the other room.
My heart catches. It’s been so long since I’ve seen her. As I listen to Maisy swamp Mum with hugs and questions in the hallway, I look at the table I’ve laid.
I’ve put cherry blossoms in a washed-out jam jar. I just can’t wait for us to be together. Once we’re all sitting down, I’m going to tell Mum and Dad that I want to drop my scholarship—Maisy can take it up, I hope.
And then I’ll tell them I want to get my Surf Rescue Certificate. I’ve done all the research, I can do it at Coogee. That way I’ll always remember exactly why I’m doing it. Frankie was my first rescue but he won’t be my last. I know that this is what I want to do.
‘Well, it’s good to be home,’ says my beautiful mum as she walks into the kitchen.
She holds out her arms, and finally, finally, they’re wrapped around me.
Afterword
The Real Sarah ‘Fanny’ Durack
Some of this story was drawn from real historical facts. Sarah Frances Durack, known to friends and family as Fanny, was born in 1889. She lived above the Newmarket Pub in Sydney with her parents, Tommy and Mary, and her siblings: John, Thomas, Kathleen, Mary, Cornelius (Con), Julia (Dewey), Mick and Frank.
When Fanny was nine years old she was knocked down by a wave and rescued by a St Bernard dog. After that, her father made her join Sydney’s only bathing establishment for girls, in Coogee. Tommy paid the entry fee but couldn’t afford lessons, so Fanny just watched and taught herself dog paddle.
Fanny’s friend and rival Wilhelmina (Mina) Wylie was born in 1891. Mina’s father, Henry, a champion swimmer, built Wylie’s Baths in 1907. Fanny and Mina were keen lifesavers, among the first women to become fully qualified.
In 1912 there was a long, public fight about sending Fanny and Mina to the Olympics to represent Australia. Some argued that women swimming in front of men was immoral. Fanny and Mina fought hard and finally won the right to go. On 15 July 1912, Fanny became the first Australian woman to win Olympic gold at a swimming event. Mina won silver.
Fanny’s family lived in the pub for many years. Dewey married a boxer named Jimmy Hill in 1912. They moved to America, so Dewey did get her own adventure after all.
Finally, you can still go swimming at Wylie’s Baths in Coogee. We did!
Emily & Nova
Acknowledgments
First, we would like to thank Fanny Durack and Mina Wylie and the other women swimmers of their time, who fought hard for the right to swim and compete as freely as men. These women were fiercely strong and determined, and our wish for this book is that they will be rediscovered.
When we sent Elsewhere Girls to Jane Pearson at Text, her reaction was the best a writer could hope for. A huge thanks to Jane and everyone at Text for embracing this story with passion. Thanks to Malgosia Pietowska for the exquisite cover art and to Imogen Stubbs for the lovely design, which makes us both want to dive into Wylie’s Baths again.
Thanks to Aidan Fennessy, who told us early on that we must include the voice of Fanny in the chapters and consequently changed the book completely. Once we explored her life and heard her voice on the page, the story started to breathe.
Thanks to the librarians at various libraries in Sydney who helped us find rare, archived boxes of treasures, like the old posters advertising swimming meets at Lavender Bay Baths in the early 1900s.
Thanks to swimming coach Damien Gogoll, who generously shared information about training sessions and his coaching philosophy. Any errors are our own.
Thanks to the authors who have come before us, writing time-slip and body-swap novels that we have both loved. Freaky Friday, Charlotte Sometimes, Playing Beattie Bow: these books loomed large in our childhoods and it’s been such a treat to write one of our own.
And finally, it might sound a l
ittle odd to thank each other, but this book was an act of friendship. Co-writing can be a tricky adventure, but in the case of Elsewhere Girls it was a dream. We chose a character each (you’ll have to guess which). We plotted together, wrote alternating chapters and sent them back and forth like letters. Writing can be lonely; co-writing this book was anything but.
Emily Gale and Nova Weetman are friends and writers. They both live in Melbourne—at the same time—and they love swimming.
Emily’s books include the Eliza Boom Diaries, Steal My Sunshine, The Other Side of Summer and its companion novel I Am Out with Lanterns, and Girl, Aloud.
Nova has written thirteen books for young adults and children. Her middle-grade books include The Secrets We Keep, The Secrets We Share, Sick Bay and The Edge of Thirteen.
emilygalebooks.com
novaweetman.com.au
textpublishing.com.au
The Text Publishing Company
Swann House, 22 William Street, Melbourne Victoria 3000, Australia
Copyright © Emily Gale and Nova Weetman, 2021
The moral rights of Emily Gale and Nova Weetman to be identified as the authors of this work have been asserted.
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright above, no part of this publication shall be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.
Published by The Text Publishing Company, 2021
Book design by Imogen Stubbs
Cover & internal illustrations by Malgosia Piatowska
Typeset in Stempel Garamond by J&M Typesetting
Photograph of Fanny Durack on p 309 held by the State Library of
New South Wales, public domain
ISBN: 9781922330451 (paperback)
ISBN: 9781925923988 (ebook)