Ted turned back. ‘Oh, righto.’ The corner of his mouth twitched and his dimple flickered. ‘She’s clucky, eh. You’ll be here a fair few days if you wait for her to get off. Here.’ He reached under the hen, lifting her gently with the back of his huge hand. She pecked indignantly at his wrist, but he didn’t seem to notice. He withdrew his hand, holding four warm eggs, and passed them to Lucy. Then with his other hand he produced two more. Lucy put them carefully into the bottom of the slimy scrap bucket, and thought regretfully of the cloth-lined basket of her vision. Then she looked around miserably for the rooster.
‘You’ll get the hang of it,’ Ted said and departed.
Lucy watched him go. Then, forcing herself to unfreeze, she sidled to the door of the coop with her back against the wall, and slipped out. She fought off the impulse to run back to the house, and instead reminded herself sternly that she still had to do the grain. Breathing quickly, she located a drum in the nearby hayshed and scooped up some of the grain mix in an empty fruit tin.
As she put the lid back on the drum, she noticed some small corn plants sprouting in a patch of soil near the downpipe from the hayshed roof. ‘The second instalment for my garden!’ she exclaimed to herself, and with renewed courage went to fling the grain in at the hens.
‘What kept you?’ Mel snapped as Lucy hurried in with the eggs. The kids were nowhere to be seen.
‘It was White Trash,’ Lucy explained apologetically.
‘Give them here, would you?’ Mel took the eggs and then looked at Lucy’s pale face. ‘You didn’t let him worry you? Bloody hell, I forgot about him. ’Course, he would’ve seen you coming a mile off. Soft target.’
Lucy remained silent and looked down at her smarting thigh. Mel began to crack the eggs into the waiting pikelet batter. ‘I suppose now you’ll be balking at doing that job,’ she said gloomily.
‘No,’ said Lucy, drawing herself up a little. She would not behave like a frightened ‘townie’. ‘Actually, I’m more than happy to do it.’
Mel raised her eyebrows.
‘Every day, if you like,’ Lucy added coolly, before walking off to call the children in for their lesson.
That day and the next the four kids were surprisingly compliant, and Lucy put it down to their outing together at Ginger Ridge. The twins came with her to feed the chickens the next morning, and Wade gallantly subdued White Trash with a stick while Lucy and Molly collected the eggs. After school, all four of the children helped her dig a little plot in the cottage garden for the tomatoes. Her delight over these little plants was marred somewhat by Billie, who sniggered, her grey eyes glinting wickedly, when Lucy described the spot in the creek where they’d germinated.
‘That was Dad’s morning poo spot for a while,’ the girl explained. ‘He changes his spot when the stink gets too bad.’
At the sight of Lucy’s horrified expression, Cooper elaborated. ‘He always sneaks off by himself after breakfast. Says it’s the best part of his day, that bit of peace and quiet when he drops a load.’
Molly looked at Lucy with concern. ‘They’ll be the little cherry ones, Lucy,’ she said encouragingly. ‘They’re real sweet, that’s why they’re Dad’s favourite.’
Despite the revelation about the origin of the tomatoes, they were all immensely pleased with the square of turned earth, and Lucy was pleased by the enthusiasm the children were showing. She’d been at Charlotte’s Creek for only a few weeks and she was already making progress with her four charges. Later that afternoon, as she tidied up the schoolroom, she told herself triumphantly that winning them over hadn’t been so difficult after all. She hummed merrily as she buzzed about, confident that there would be no limit to what she could achieve with these wild little Wests.
But then that very evening, Dennis had some kind of altercation with his father, and the next morning Mel was in high dudgeon as well. Lucy was left to face White Trash on her own, and the children’s sullen faces at the breakfast table when she came back in struck her with foreboding. They dawdled over their boiled eggs and toast, and when at last Lucy herded them into the schoolroom, they were uncooperative and sluggish about every task that she gave them. On Thursday they were positively defiant, and by Friday the older two seemed to have reverted completely to their former condition as students under protest. By lunchtime, Lucy felt thoroughly disheartened. The weather echoed her mounting frustration: clouds had been building in the eastern sky since mid-morning, the air was moist and muggy, and thunder grumbled faintly in the distance.
Finally they finished their work for the day, the dismally poor effort that it was. The two older children nearly trampled the twins in their haste to exit the room. The storm was now raging somewhere close by; the vibrations of the thunder made the containers of bottle tops and paddle-pop sticks on the schoolroom bookcase rattle slightly. Although the rain hadn’t yet arrived, Lucy got a whiff of its freshness through the open window as she grimly looked over the lessons for the next week. She couldn’t seem to focus on the pages in front of her; feeling pent up and irritated, she put them away in a drawer. On a sudden impulse, she swung herself over the low windowsill onto the veranda, then, climbing over the railing, dropped lightly onto the grass below.
All at once, as if by magic, Ted was at the fence opposite her, his face alight with excitement. The expression was so unlike his usual severe mien that Lucy gazed at him in wonderment.
‘Quick.’ He beckoned frantically with his large paw. ‘I gotta show you something.’
Without another word he turned and loped off towards the grid on the northern road out of Charlotte’s Creek, and crossed it in two great steps. Lucy, overcome with curiosity, hurried after him, wobbling across the iron grid rails as fast as she could. She jogged in an attempt to catch up with him, and started gingerly down the bushy slope where she’d seen him leave the road. Then he was beside her again; grabbing her hand, he dragged her at a breakneck pace down the uneven sloping ground. A junction of two dry watercourses came into view below, where a wider stony creek bed met with the dry gully from behind the house.
At last they came to a halt on a rocky section of bank on the higher side of the main creek. Panting, Lucy glanced around, bewildered. The creek looked much as it had before, just a little greyer and mossier in the light mist that was beginning to fall. She turned to Ted. His eyes were shining and he indicated with his head for her to look upstream.
Lucy started forward, eagerly looking up the creek. ‘I’m not sure I know what I’m supposed to be look—’
But Ted stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. ‘Listen!’
Lucy tilted her head and sniffed the air. But there was only the spicy scent of damp leaves and soil. They waited in silence for a few minutes.
‘Good thing you dug out Westy’s tomato bushes,’ Ted muttered.
Wondering how he knew about the tomatoes, and now thoroughly bemused, Lucy searched his face again, but then suddenly and almost imperceptibly the air in the creek began to move, swirling slowly downstream. And now she heard it, at first a cracking of sticks and leaves and then a distant, even roar. Ted pointed. Like the head of a twig-covered worm, a brown leafy tentacle of water was nosing its way towards them, blindly weaving between boulders and logs in the stony creek bed. Transfixed, Lucy watched it approaching, trying to remind herself that it wasn’t a living thing. But the meandering trickle was merely the herald of the monster that was soon to follow. The roar grew louder and Lucy could feel cool air passing her face. Ted pulled her back up the bank to a vantage point that Lucy thought was unnecessarily removed from the action, until she spotted through the trees, the wall of water raging towards them. It was like a giant murky wave, relentlessly crushing, breaking, snapping or sweeping up anything in its path.
In moments, what had been an unremarkable dry creek bed was transformed into a raging, swirling torrent. Lucy gripped Ted’s arm and shouted her amazement to him over the din, but he couldn’t hear her. Grinning from ear to ear, he nodded to show tha
t he understood anyway. Lucy looked into his shining eyes and began to laugh hysterically; never in her life had she seen anything so phenomenal. And then she became calm. The pair stood side by side, Lucy feeling the full weight of the rare privilege she’d just been given, the chance to witness what few people ever will, the raw power of mother nature at her finest, doing just as she had done for millions of years, regardless of any insignificant spectators, human or otherwise.
Lucy carried the magic of the experience with her for days afterwards, and drew strength from it. Thinking back on it, she realised she’d never asked Ted how he’d known that the flash flood was on its way. There was so much about Ted that was mysterious to her. Most of the time he seemed distant and unfriendly, yet he seemed to go out of his way to make contact with her in his own unspectacular fashion. She wondered whether anyone had ever truly known or been able to get close to the surly-looking ringer, and decided that she would make this another of her goals.
Chapter 9
‘Dad’s outside with Shunter and Podge,’ Wade informed the scholars from his vantage point near the window.
‘You beauty!’ cried Cooper, and Billie jumped up from her chair. Lucy had just managed to get them focused on their English comprehension questions with a bribe that if they finished on time they could go over to the stockyards when the cattle arrived. Two Moon Lagoon, one of the closer paddocks, was being mustered, and there was to be branding and culling at the house yards. Lucy, too, was secretly hankering after the chance to observe this event, something so commonplace to the others but fascinating and unknown to her. And now that she’d just managed to induce some productivity, Dennis had arrived at the bottom of the veranda steps with the saddled ponies. It was infuriating.
The children and Bear made for the door. But Lucy got there first and blocked their escape. ‘Go back and sit down!’ she commanded.
‘Dad needs us!’ Billie protested. ‘Look! He’s waiting out there!’
‘Well, you can finish your English first. I’ll talk to your dad.’
‘Righto, then, but he’ll tell you to pull your head in,’ Billie warned.
The pair returned to their desks but stayed standing expectantly. The twins sidled past Lucy to meet Dennis who was now making his way up the steps, evidently wondering why the bigger kids hadn’t appeared. As he entered the schoolroom, he encountered a determined-looking Lucy. He considered her face for a moment and then gave her a friendly smile. ‘Any chance I can have the kids?’
‘We were just starting to get somewhere,’ Lucy said sternly. ‘We’ve made an agreement that the kids can finish a bit early and go over to the yards, but only as long as they get this English done first.’
‘Stuff the English,’ declared Dennis. Billie giggled.
Lucy continued to glare silently.
‘Look here,’ he went on, ‘we’re waiting on Tash and Bri, but it looks like they’re not gonna show. Even if they do, we’ll be a bit light on.’ He leaned past Lucy. ‘Let’s go, kids.’
‘I don’t know how you can ever expect them to achieve academically if you place such little importance on schooling,’ Lucy said tersely. ‘As their teacher, I insist that we stick to what we agreed on and finish with these books.’
‘I said, stuff the books!’ Dennis was clearly getting riled up now.
‘I hate books!’ yelled Billie, flinging The Twits at the wall. ‘C’mon, Coop, we’re outta here!’ She pushed past Lucy and went out the door. Cooper threw Lucy an apologetic glance before departing close behind his sister.
Dennis winked at Lucy. ‘Lighten up, love,’ he said. ‘There’s always tomorrow.’
Lucy shrugged, regarding him coldly. ‘They’re not my kids. But if they were I’d be concerned about what sort of future they’ll have if they aren’t taught to value education. And even more importantly, if they don’t learn to stick to their word when they’ve made an agreement.’
‘Aw, c’mon, darl,’ Dennis soothed. ‘Have the day off. None of the other guvvies ever complained about me taking these ratbags off their hands!’ He jogged down the steps, mounted his solid stockhorse, Bikini, and trotted after the fast-departing ponies.
Lucy stared after them stormily. How could she help these people when they wouldn’t help themselves? Then she felt someone tapping on her arm. Lucy looked down into Molly’s upturned face.
‘I like looking at books,’ Molly confessed in a lowered voice. ‘I don’t hate them, Lucy.’ She spoke as though admitting to the possession of a sinister character flaw. ‘Dad says I’m a waste of space when he sees me fooling around with books. And he said something worse to Wadey when he saw us doing dress-ups.’ Molly seemed to decide to go the whole hog and get all her secrets off her chest. ‘I even like fairies a bit, Lucy.’ She looked at her boots and added almost inaudibly, ‘I pretend they’re real sometimes.’
‘Well, I can’t wait till next year when I can teach you to read, Molly,’ Lucy said with conviction. ‘Books are wonderful, and reading is one of the most important things you’ll ever learn to do. As for fairies, the more you can believe in them the better. Like the Grey Lady.’
‘No, not like her,’ Molly objected. ‘Fairies are just pretend.’
That evening, the twins asked Lucy if they could make pizzas with her again, and Lucy agreed. Mel sat nearby at the sewing machine, Bear at her feet, mending some torn clothes with a half-smile on her face. Before they’d finished assembling the pizzas, the two older children came in to help. The earlier tensions were soon forgotten, and they were all thoroughly enjoying themselves when angry shouting started up outside. Lucy looked up in alarm.
‘Just Dad and Pop having a blue,’ said Cooper quietly.
‘Don’t let it worry you,’ Mel added from her seat at the sewing machine. ‘Don’t matter what they’re doing, they can’t agree. Noel likes things done his way but Den has ideas of his own.’
The children went on calmly with the pizzas. A moment later Dennis strode in. Dirty and tired, he took in the scene at a glance. ‘What in bloody hell is going on here, boys? Cooper?’ He glared at his eldest son. ‘You’ll be playing with dolls and dancing ballet next.’
‘Is something wrong?’ Lucy asked.
‘I’m not paying you to make sissies outta my boys.’ Dennis’s glare took in Lucy and Mel, then returned to Cooper. ‘You want me to get you a frilly apron instead of that new saddle, mate? So you can cook up a few cupcakes?’
Cooper hung his head.
‘Fine, then,’ Lucy said. ‘I’m sure your boys will thank you one day when they have to look after themselves and they can’t even do the basics.’
Dennis scowled back at her.
She went on coldly, ‘They may not always live in an environment where attitudes are a century behind.’
‘Look here, Lucy,’ Dennis fumed. ‘We don’t need some smart-arse feminist guvvie coming here and changing the rules in this house.’
‘Feminist?’ Lucy couldn’t help laughing. ‘There’s nothing revolutionary about men cooking, or washing and cleaning for that matter. Only on Charlotte’s Creek, it seems.’
‘You hearing this, Mel?’ Dennis looked at his wife. ‘Is this bird getting above herself or what?’
‘Bloody spot on if you ask me, Den.’ Mel was laughing, apparently thoroughly enjoying her husband’s exasperation.
‘Should’ve known better than to ask you,’ Dennis snarled. ‘Coop, Wade, I’ll see you fellas at the shed.’ Both boys looked at him then back at the pizzas, hesitating. Dennis began to unbuckle his belt and the pair of them fled.
‘Why do I have to do this, then?’ Billie complained, frowning at the pizzas.
‘You don’t have to, Billie,’ Lucy said quietly. Billie looked at her in surprise. Dennis, on the verge of leaving the kitchen, stopped too. ‘You can grow up as helpless as your brothers. I can’t teach anyone anything if they don’t want to learn, and I’m not going to waste my time trying.’
‘Jeez,’ Billie said with sudden concern, �
��you’re not gonna leave, are you? I reckon I’d better stay and cook the pizzas, Dad.’ Dennis looked at Lucy doubtfully, then turned and strode out the door.
Mel looked back down at her sewing as she said, ‘Lucy’s not going anywhere, Bill. I won’t let her. We need her here.’ The sewing machine whirred into action again, but Lucy was touched by Mel’s quiet words. For the first time she felt as though perhaps she had a place here.
Lucy had enjoyed a respite from White Trash for several days, one of the kids having beaten her to the scrap bucket each morning. She suspected that Mel was making them do it, to save her from having to confront the rooster again. But Lucy was determined to stick to her word and take on the chooks as one of her duties. So the morning after her argument with Dennis, she arrived at the kitchen early, before the others had finished eating. She seized the scrap bucket, a wild look in her eye. Cooper gave her a slight nod, acknowledging her courage. As Lucy left the kitchen, Molly gave her a quiet reminder to ‘flog that white bugger in the neck with the bucket’.
Flog him Lucy did not, but at least this time she hung on to the bucket and was able to use it as a shield when the rooster attacked. She threw some grain as a decoy while she collected the eggs from the nesting box, so distracted by her fear of White Trash that she reached under the clucky chicken without hesitation, ignoring the outraged pecks. Lucy’s terror was clearly so tantalising to the rooster, however, that he left off the grain to run at her, and then attacked her again from behind as she made her escape.
Safely away from the chicken coop, Lucy knew her terror was unwarranted, but as the days passed, she found that whenever she was near the rooster she was gripped by an irrational panic that left no room for logical thought, and the idea of him plagued her, to the extent that he began to make alarming appearances in her dreams.
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