The History of Mischief

by Rebecca Higgie

  ‘One day,’ Neil says, ‘the requests will be digitised.’

  He sounds sad about it. Then he shows me the requested book. It’s in a foreign language, but the letters look English.

  ‘Latin,’ he explains.

  I look around, searching for the symbol of the History. I pick up many books, open them carefully. I look for ones that are water-damaged. When I open them, I find pictures of angels and swirly letters. Neil shows me one where the words are in black and red ink but there are beautiful coloured flowers and fancy borders. The letters at the start of paragraphs are painted in gold.

  But still, no History. Neil returns me to the workroom and takes the requests up to the third floor. Kay drops by six minutes later.

  ‘You doing okay?’

  I nod. I pick at the muffin as I wait for Neil.

  He comes twelve minutes later with more multicoloured slips. ‘Private archives! We need to enter via Battye. It’ll be hard to sneak around Kay, so I asked Lily to get her to help find some scores in the music stack.’

  ‘You didn’t tell Lily about the History, did you?’

  ‘No, just said the requests were … well, I told her they might make Kay sad, and asked if she could distract her and let me do them.’

  ‘Oh,’ I say.

  Maybe he said the requests were about death or car accidents. As we walk up to Battye, a librarian walks by and smiles at me. I wonder if everyone knows who I am, if they all know what happened. Maybe that’s why Neil’s helping me.

  Once we get to Battye, Neil leads me to another set of stairs. We go up, towards another stack. Neil uses his ID card. For a moment, I think I see Kay’s picture. He puts the ID back in his pocket quickly so I don’t get a chance to check.

  This stack is different. There are big books covered in paper that looks like marble cake, and cardboard boxes that have ‘PRIVATE PROPERTY OF’ such and such on them. Neil calls me over to another door, one that has a glass window. I peer inside. It’s completely dark.

  ‘Only a few people in the whole library are allowed in this room,’ he says. ‘You can’t request anything in here. We just keep things here to protect them.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Very old things. Things from when white people first came to Australia. Single books that are the only remaining copy on earth.’

  The History has to be here.

  ‘Can we go in?’

  ‘We can’t. My ID won’t let me.’

  ‘Can we try?’

  ‘If I do, it’ll log that I tried and I’ll get in trouble.’

  I rest my forehead on the glass. Feel how cold it is. I listen for the whispers Lou heard. All I hear is the air-con humming.

  Neil says something about getting the requests. He moves around the archives, tearing yellow slips and leaving them on shelves. He shows me a folder of letters. One of them is for a man who was hung in colonial times. It’s decorated with yellow flowers. The paper is so white, like new, but the ink looks old.

  ‘This is cool, hey?’

  I shrug. ‘We’ll never find the History, will we?’

  Neil closes the folder carefully. ‘Maybe it doesn’t want to be found.’

  I think of Lou and Chloe. ‘Maybe.’

  ‘To be honest, I didn’t think we’d find it,’ Neil says. ‘It was worth looking, for sure, but I thought you’d enjoy seeing the secret parts of the library more than anything.’

  I look back into the dark nothingness of the rare book room.

  ‘Plus, librarians here are pretty big sticklers. If The History of Mischief was here, it’d be on the catalogue. I bet your book is somewhere else, waiting for you.’

  ‘Can I still look?’

  ‘Maybe. Kay’s going to get mighty suspicious with me getting her requests though. Let’s give these ones to the researchers and go back to the first floor, hey?’

  We give the letters to the librarian in the researchers’ room. Then Neil takes me back to the workroom. Kay returns and tells me we’ll go in the next hour. I try to listen for whispers.

  When home time comes, she takes me down to the discard bookshop.

  Neil walks past and spots us. He beckons Kay over. Kay tells me to wait in the bookshop. I do, but they’re closing. As I come out, I see Neil and Kay swapping IDs. I was right! Neil did have her card.

  ‘Thanks for today,’ she says to him.

  ‘No worries,’ he says. Then he spots me. He looks guilty.

  On the train, I tell Kay I’m angry she made Neil play with me like I’m a little kid.

  ‘I did no such thing,’ she says. ‘I caught him dropping you off at the workroom after he’d taken my requests. He convinced me to let him take you around the stacks looking for the History. We swapped IDs so it wouldn’t look bad that he was doing my requests.’

  I say nothing.

  ‘Did you find anything?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Maybe you should have researched the last histories.’

  We sit in silence for another two stops. I imagine Neil getting busted by Kay. I remember all the pretty old books.

  ‘I didn’t say thank you to Neil.’

  ‘That’s okay. He knows.’

  We arrive at Guildford. We go to Alfred’s for dinner and sit by the fire outside, eating burgers and chips. It rains, but it’s only a few drops so the fire still burns. We go home smelling of smoke.

  Jessie

  The weather’s changing. It’s spring, Miss Sparrow says. According to the Noongar people, it’s djilba, which is when it’s cold but with less rain, and sometimes there are warm days. Soon it will be kambarang, which is when it gets hotter for longer. Mrs Armstrong taught me that. She says Noongars have six seasons, while white people only have four. I think the Noongar seasons make more sense.

  Weeks go by. We start getting more warm days than cold. I ask Mrs Armstrong if it’s kambarang yet and she says no, it will be kambarang when I have to stop wearing my cat ears beanie. I’m not looking forward to that. Some days, around lunch, I have to take my beanie off because it gets hot and itchy. Though my hair’s getting longer, people still stare.

  I go over to Theodore’s house every Wednesday now. Stephanie makes us afternoon tea and we watch documentaries. He still cries a lot. I do too sometimes. Broom tries to lick our faces when we cry, which is gross but nice.

  One day, we’re watching a documentary about birds. Something comes on about cranes.

  ‘They don’t look anything like the paper ones,’ I say.

  Theodore gets teary. ‘I never made a thousand.’

  ‘You almost did.’

  ‘Do you think Mum died because I didn’t finish making them?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But … maybe I could have wished …?’

  ‘Wishes don’t work.’

  He nods but says, ‘Sometimes I think it’s my fault.’

  ‘No. Never.’

  ‘I hate them,’ he says. I see him looking at a crane sitting on a bookshelf next to a photo of his mum.

  ‘Do you still have them?’

  He nods. ‘Some.’

  I think of Kay.

  ‘We can burn them.’

  And we do. There aren’t many cranes left, only a few handfuls, but we go around the house and collect them all. We do it in the kitchen sink when Stephanie’s hanging out the washing. We use Mr Park’s lighter, the bright red one. Theodore shows me how to push down on the little wheel to make the flame come out. It’s called a sparkwheel, he says.

  When Stephanie comes back inside, she finds us standing on tiptoes over a sink full of fire. She pulls us away, turns the tap on, and floods the paper. All the cranes are destroyed. The sink is ringed with black marks. Stephanie screams at us. When Mr Park comes home, he just blinks at her when she tells him what we did.

  Stephanie tells Kay. I get in trouble, but Theodore seems happy, so I’m happy too.

  I miss the History. Kay lets me keep it now. I look at it every day, especially the bits of paper l
eft over from the final history. I have so many ideas about who Henry was. I’m sure he translated the History using music. I try to imagine what each history would sound like.

  Kay orders books on frost fairs and the British Museum. She says maybe the secret to the History’s whereabouts can be found in researching Archie’s history. I just look at the pictures.

  One night, when I can’t sleep, I go to the study and look out the window. Mrs Moran is sitting on the veranda with Cornelius on the chair beside her. She’s already done her vacuuming. Her driveway looks very neat.

  I remember the card from her husband signed A. Mischief.

  I feel brave.

  I sneak out the back door, go around the side of the house and cross the road.

  Mrs Moran smiles when she spots me.

  ‘Hello dear,’ she says.

  ‘Hello Mrs Moran. Hello Cornelius.’

  Cornelius jumps off the chair so I can sit down.

  ‘Bessie, isn’t it?’

  ‘Jessie, Mrs Moran.’

  ‘I have a terrible memory, dear. I’ll forget everything soon.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  Cornelius hops up onto her lap. She strokes him but looks out at the street.

  ‘Mrs Moran, do you remember The History of Mischief?’

  ‘Is it a book, dear?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Never read it. Is it any good?’

  I feel disappointed. Mrs Moran goes on.

  ‘I was a bit of a mischief-maker when I was your age. Used to get up to all kinds of trouble with my sister. You’ve got a sister, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘She’s like a mum, isn’t she? Bossy thing. Kate?’

  ‘Kay.’

  ‘Of course. I have a terrible memory, dear. I’ll forget everything soon.’

  I think again of the card. I don’t know how to ask her about it.

  ‘Was your husband a mischief-maker too?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ she says. ‘Still is.’

  I know her husband’s dead. How would it feel, never remembering that Mum and Dad had died? I wonder if it’d be better not to know, just to be waiting all the time.

  ‘He’ll be back soon,’ she says, looking towards the main road.

  I want to ask her everything. About the card. If Mr Moran ever had a book. If he was magic. If he knew anyone called Henry Byron or Chloe McKenna. But I don’t.

  Instead, I ask, ‘Where would Mr Moran hide a book if he wanted to be mischievous?’

  She laughs. ‘Where else, dear? With other books!’

  I go back home and creep into the study. When we first moved to Grandma’s old house, I used to look at the books at night. They were so dusty, they made me sneeze. I was frightened about waking Kay, so I never took them off the shelf. Now, I sit in the corner where we lifted the carpet. I start from the first book on the bottom shelf. It’s something about a squirrel and has Dad’s name inside the front cover. I put it back, pick up the next one. As I go, I check behind the books too, remembering how Archie hid the History in the British Museum.

  The sun is coming up when I finally find something. There’s a section of old science books on the fourth shelf from the floor. Two books must have fallen, as they’re hiding behind the others. One is something about chemistry. The other, its spine says:

  FROSTIANA G. DAVIS

  I open it. Its title page is exactly how it was in the History. Its pages are crinkled at the back, like it got wet, but otherwise it’s perfect. I find Lapland Lamb, printing presses, the Tabitha Thaw note, and skating. As I flip through it, a photo falls out. It’s of three young men standing outside a pub. Two of them are in long black robes with those flat hats. The other is wearing a waistcoat with mismatched buttons. They all grin, holding drinks up to whoever is taking the photo.

  ‘Couldn’t sleep, hey?’

  Kay’s found me.

  ‘Look, it’s Frostiana! It’s been here this whole time,’ I say. ‘And there’s a photo. Maybe it’s Archie and Will.’

  She takes the photo and turns it over. There’s writing on the back.

  Robert, Elliot & George

  Graduation 1961

  ‘This must be Grandad,’ she says. ‘His name was Robert.’

  ‘Really?’ I never knew Grandad.

  Kay looks at the bookshelf. ‘What else is hidden here?’

  We go through the books together. Kay forgets the time. I don’t tell her when it goes 8:50, and then 9, and then 10. We find books on Greek philosophy and Chinese fairytales. We find a book in French on the Bibliothèque d’Alexandrie, and history books on Alexander the Great, the Paris siege, and Ethiopia. Postcards of Krakow and of French balloonists are used as bookmarks in books on World War II. We find The Collected Works of Shakespeare full of doodles of bears. Some of the bears have speech bubbles saying things like, ‘Back to work, Robert!’ ‘Careful now!’ and ‘Eat your vegetables, laddie!’.

  Kay and I lie on the carpet. She flips through the Shakespeare book, looking for the talking bears.

  ‘Why didn’t we think to look here?’ she asks.

  ‘Dunno.’

  ‘I guess we didn’t think they’d be here, did we? Just … here.’

  ‘We still didn’t find the real History though.’

  Kay finds a drawing of two bears curled up together on the last page of Romeo and Juliet. ‘I love you,’ one of the bears says.

  Kay puts an arm around me. ‘Let’s go see Grandma this weekend.’

  Jessie

  It’s a sunny Saturday when we make the trip to Grandma’s nursing home. We take the History in my backpack.

  I read Frostiana on the train. I like it so much. I like to touch the pages and imagine Archie and Will reading it by the fire.

  A man on the train says to me, ‘You must be one clever little lady. You don’t see kids reading books these days.’

  ‘You mustn’t know many kids,’ I reply.

  Kay tells me off for being rude.

  When we get to the nursing home, I feel happy. Lulu’s here and she says we match, showing me her watch with cat ears on it. We make our way down to Grandma but then someone comes out of a room and bangs into us. A tray of food goes everywhere.

  ‘Oh, sorry!’ Kay says.

  I see him before Kay – it’s David, the weird prac student. As they both fumble with the tray, David realises who he’s run into. He gasps. Kay looks up and frowns. David looks frightened. Kay’s face goes from confusion to shock to anger.

  ‘I know you,’ she says. Her voice shakes.

  David takes a few steps back.

  ‘I know you,’ she says again.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ David says, his voice a squeak.

  ‘You broke into my house.’

  David shakes his head.

  ‘You broke into my house!’ Kay shouts. People come out of their rooms, including Grandma. Kay points at him. ‘You broke into my house!’

  ‘Calm down, dear,’ Grandma says, coming up to us.

  ‘Grandma, he broke into our house! Someone call the police!’

  David looks around frantically. I grab his arm so he doesn’t get away.

  ‘You tried to rob us!’ I yell at him.

  David pulls his arm free. ‘I didn’t –’

  Lulu’s here now. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘This is the man who broke into my house!’ Kay yells, pointing at David again.

  ‘I asked him to do it,’ Grandma says.

  Everyone goes silent.

  ‘I gave him the key. I just … can we go into my room please, dears?’

  Kay makes David come ‘to keep an eye on him’. Lulu follows, like she’s keeping an eye on all of us.

  ‘Why would you do that, Grandma?’ Kay asks. Her voice shakes like she’s trying not to yell or cry.

  Grandma sits down in her favourite chair. She sighs. ‘When you moved into the house, I was shocked. Your father said he sold it years ago. When I realised he’d lied, all I could think w
as that he’d found it, and found more, and I couldn’t have you find it too.’

  ‘Find what?’

  Grandma ignores her. ‘I wasn’t ready. Not after my boy had just died.’

  ‘Find what, Grandma?’

  ‘The History.’ She deflates as she says it. ‘I didn’t think you’d be home so early. I didn’t think you’d even notice David had been there.’

  Kay looks like she might snap. ‘Why is this book so important?’

  Grandma’s eyes are red. Tears flow. ‘Because it’s the truth.’

  The truth.

  I knew it.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Kay asks angrily.

  Grandma goes to her bookshelf and takes out an old book without any markings. Could it be? The real History! Grandma opens it.

  I see words. It isn’t blank. No signatures. Just a book. No! Where is the History?

  Then I notice why Grandma picked this book. Inside, like a fat bookmark, is an envelope. She takes it out and hands it to Kay.

  ‘I wrote this to your father last year. I thought I wasn’t … well, I thought I should write it down before I died. He kept asking questions. Elliot said something to him.’

  ‘Who’s Elliot? What are you talking about?’ Kay yells. ‘Grandma, I’ve been so frightened every time I come home! I put bars on all the windows! I changed all the locks! How could you do that to me? Why couldn’t you just tell me, whatever it was?’

  ‘Because I was ashamed,’ she says. ‘I made a whole life out of lies. I didn’t want to be around when they were found.’

  Kay cries. I get teary because everyone’s crying now. I feel so confused.

  ‘Dear, I’m so sorry.’

  ‘I don’t understand any of this.’

  ‘The letter was for your dad. But it’ll explain.’

  ‘I’m sick of reading things!’ Kay snaps, and throws the letter on the ground. ‘I want to know why you sent someone to steal a stupid handwritten book! You tell me!’

  Grandma nods and then glances at me. ‘Jessie, dear, could you go out? Just for a moment.’

  ‘No, I want to know about the History!’ I yell. I throw my bag on the floor.