by D. Luckett
‘Johnnie Draper won’t like it.’
‘Johnnie Draper can just put up with it. If he makes trouble, you must go straight to Miss Alberts. And you tell me too.’
I went to school the next day, going by Mae’s place first. Mr Gok was spudding in a new bed of cabbages. He stood up and wiped his brow. ‘Mae still go to school,’ he said to me.
‘Yes, Mr Gok. Mae still goes to school.’
‘Goes to school. Yes. That is good.’ He smiled.
And that’s really my story. Oh, but I’m forgetting. There was one more thing. Well, two really. Almost the last thing that happened was another letter that came from home.
The wet season was over by then and the weather was a little cooler and much drier. The creek was running low. Soon it would stop running and everything would go back to dusty and dry. Then I’d have to go down to the sea to see the sparkle again. Mr Gok was setting out pipes to water his garden and keep his crops growing until the wet came again. But as if to make up for the sparkle of water and the crackle and rumble of the storms of the wet season, the night sky was always clear and the stars shone in it like jewels.
It was Da himself who wrote the letter, in his own writing, even though it was a bit hard to read. You could see he was very angry. The pen had made scratches and blots.
Ellis gave it to me when he came back from work. He’d stopped by the store on the way home. It was addressed to me and I opened it.
This is what it said:
Sian Mary Roberts
You come back home. You come back where you belong right away now. I won’t bandy words with the man Williams but I am your father and you will do as I tell you. Tell him he must send you home at once and it is up to him to pay your fare. He took you to that place so he can send you back. There’s still a law and a man has his rights. Obey me, now, daughter. Obey me, as is your bounden duty or you are no daughter of mine.
Your father,
John Roberts
Da had written the last bit in big letters and underlined it and the ink had splattered, he’d pressed so hard.
I gave it to Ellis. He read it and looked up. ‘If I’d known what this was I might not have given it to you,’ he said. ‘That’s a terrible thing to send to a child.’
‘I don’t want to go,’ I said. ‘Da’s very angry.’
‘Yes,’ said Ellis. ‘And I know what he’s like when he’s angry. You don’t have to go. I won’t send you. Freda’s right. Let him do as he likes.’ He looked down at the letter. It was a page out of a school book. He held it out to me but I shook my head.
‘I don’t want it,’ I said.
‘I’ll show it to Freda on Sunday. She’ll know what to do. Don’t worry about it.’
But I told Miss Alberts at school the next day. She nodded. ‘I rather thought this might happen, Sian,’ she said. ‘But of course you don’t have to go back.’
That was that, I thought. What she said, that would be the way of it. And on Sunday Miss Alberts said that her friend, the one who’d married the lawyer in Sydney, had written back and said that Ellis should go to the court house and sign some papers. So he did and I didn’t hear any more about it.
I never heard from Da again, not to this day. He didn’t like it, mind, that I wasn’t coming back. I know that because Gwynnie sends letters sometimes. She has to write without Da knowing, though. I’m sorry he’s so angry but there it is. I’m not going back and he can do what he likes about it.
No, I’m not going back. I’m going on. Things change and we go on. We have to, after all. What else can we do?
After school on Monday I went over to Mae’s place to buy some fresh vegetables. She was watching her father talk to Mr Alberts, ready to help if Mr Gok needed it but Mr Gok was doing very well on his own.
‘All right, then,’ said Mr Gok. ‘All carrots, twelve shillings a bushel, delivered to store, payment on delivery. Start in two weeks.’ He put out his hand and Mr Alberts shook it, nodded, and turned away.
Mr Gok watched him go and gave the tiniest shake of his head. Then he looked at me. ‘And what can I get for you today, Miss Roberts?’ he asked. He was smiling.
So I bought my vegetables and on the way home, I was thinking things really do change. And it’s best that way. If they always stayed the same, I’d be back in Caradog Street picking coal.
Later in the year Ellis and Miss Alberts got married. Now I call her Freda. They said the wedding was to be very quiet and so it was, but I was bridesmaid. Mr Alberts gave the bride away and Ellis wore a new suit, special.
Ellis had already decided to stay and open his own joinery shop. He liked it in Darwin too, just like me. I had got used to where home was. Home was with Ellis and then it was with Freda and it would always be in Darwin, even if I went to school for a while down south in Sydney.
Maybe one day I’ll go home, for a visit. It’s funny how people still say home when they mean Britain.
But I already knew where home was.
Also in A New Australian Series
Bridget
J. Moloney
Bridget isn’t afraid of where she’s going to – she isn’t afraid for herself. She cries for what she’s leaving behind. But when famine takes hold of her beloved Ireland she must set sail for Australia or slowly starve in the workhouse. Crossing the seas, she finds the new world can be as cruel as the old. People keep telling her she’d better rein in her wild spirit – or maybe, just maybe, she can find a way to put it to good use …
Kerenza
Rosanne Hawke
Kerenza isn’t sure about leaving her village in Cornwall and taking a ship to Australia, but she can be brave for her da’s sake. Where he sees a farm, she and her mam see endless bush and flies – millions of them – and hard work from dawn to dusk. It’s almost too much to bear, but the Mallee has its own beauty, and family and new-found friends might just make it her home.
Also in A New Australian series
Bridget
Kerenza
Teresa
Frieda
May Tang
Teachers’ notes for Sian are available from
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First edition published by Omnibus Books in 2015.
This electronic edition published by Scholastic Australia Pty Limited, 2015.
E-PUB/MOBI eISBN: 978-1-760271-04-6
Text copyright © D. Luckett, 2015.
Cover images copyright © iStock.com/ Sergey Nivens; bangkaewphoto; isveta; Graffizone; Shutterstock/ Christin Slavkov.
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