by John Marsden
I saw Jess as soon as I arrived. It was my first day back since the raid on the guerilla camp and I could tell the moment Jess looked at me that she knew. She had a little secret smile. ‘Nice one, Ellie,’ she said offering me a Tic-Tac. ‘It’s true what they say about you.’
‘What do they say about me?’ I asked. I was off-balance.
I wasn’t sure these days if I still liked Jess, but I thought I probably didn’t.
‘Oh well, you know, all that stuff about you being such a war legend. I didn’t know how much of it was exaggerated. But you sure saved Homer’s ass.’
‘Well, Lee and Gavin managed to give a bit of help from time to time. So, who told you?’
‘Homer. But don’t worry, I’m safe with secrets.’ She pulled a newspaper clipping out of her pocket. It was already wearing away through being folded and unfolded, even though it was only a day old.
I guessed what it would be about.
Unconfirmed reports suggest that missing agricultural consultant Nick Greene has been rescued by the guerilla group calling itself Liberation. Greene, who had been accused of distributing Christian literature across the border, was taken hostage nearly two months ago, and grave fears were held for his safety.
Greene is a member of Cross-Country, a group committed to reconciliation between the two countries. A spokesperson for Cross-Country said only that ‘Greene’s circumstances had changed’, and a further statement would be made within forty-eight hours.
No comment could be obtained from Liberation, who are a notoriously secretive group. Greene is thought to be recuperating with family members in the Stratton–Wirrawee area.
I shrugged and gave it back to Jess. ‘Did you do the Legal Studies?’ I asked her.
She looked at me. ‘God, it’s true, you do have ice in your veins,’ she said.
It sounded like she was quoting someone else and I wondered who it was. Would Homer have said a thing like that about me? I didn’t have ice in my veins when it came to wondering what other people thought of me, but then I was a teenager after all.
I headed for my locker but just as I got there I ran into Ms Maxwell. She was our Year Coordinator these days and every day she looked more harassed. Her hair looked wilder and her face was thinner and her glasses were further and further down her nose. ‘Oh, Ellie,’ she said, ‘I’m so glad you still remember where your locker is.’
‘Ha-ha very funny, Ms Maxwell,’ I said.
‘Well, I need to talk to you about your attendance, Ellie. What about you come and see me at the staff room at recess?’
‘OK, Ms Maxwell,’ I said. Great start to the school day. As if a cow with a prolapsed rectum wasn’t enough. I wondered how Ms Maxwell would go stuffing a bit of poly pipe up a cow’s bum at seven o’clock in the morning.
The day didn’t get any better. We had double English, which was another reason I’d made an effort to get to school today. I don’t mind the occasional English lesson. This year we had Mrs Barlow. I’d had her in Year 7 for English and Year 8 for Social Studies. That’s another problem with a small school, you get the same teachers over and over again. Still, as you get higher up, things improve. Teachers treat you more like a friend, kids are nicer to each other, the atmosphere improves about a thousand . . . something. What do you measure school atmosphere in? Kilos? Metres? Degrees? I don’t know.
We’d been doing some quite good stuff in English, including literary archetypes and fantasy novels. Mrs Barlow is a bit of a fantasy freak. She’s always got some twelve hundred page epic under her arm. But this time I got the fatty end of the brisket. ‘Would have been better to stay home and hoe out the early thistles,’ I thought. ‘Would have been better to get involved in another border raid with Liberation. Would have been better to watch reruns of “The Nanny” on TV.’ Because for one hour and forty minutes all we did was listen to a taped interview with a guy called Joseph Campbell. Unbelievable.
I did all the things you do when you’re bored in class. Redecorated my folder. Wrote a letter to Fi. Kicked Homer when he made stupid remarks, which he still did with about the same frequency as he had in Year 8. For example: the guy on the tape is talking about mandalas, and how they represent harmony and balance within the self, so Homer deliberately hears it as Mandelas and announces that Nelson Mandela is so balanced he can sit on both ends of a seesaw at the same time. Like, not very funny, but probably better than listening to the tape.
At lunchtime I sat with Homer and Jess and Bronte. It was awkward having Bronte there because I wanted to talk more about Liberation, and even the raid to get Homer and Nick back. Sure I’d been extra cool with Jess, but that was showing off really. I did want to talk about it. It’s natural: after riding up to the gates of death on a four wheel motorbike and then racing away again, you want to go over and over it with anyone you can. But I couldn’t talk about it in front of Bronte, although for all I knew she could be a member of Liberation too. Watching her sitting there all calm and peaceful I realised how much I really did like her. Even if she was a year behind us at school she seemed as mature as anyone in my year. More mature than Homer, for a start.
I asked Jess about Jeremy, just to turn the tables a bit. I was pretty casual. ‘So, have you seen Jeremy Finley lately?’
She did go quite red. She leant back in her chair and fixed her strong eyes on me. ‘Oh, yes, at the weekend. Just for a barbecue. We should have asked you.’
It had already struck me that no-one was asking me to anything these days, I suppose because they were still nervous of me after Mum and Dad’s death. Maybe they thought I was too busy? I kind of hoped these were the reasons. I’d hate to think it was for anything more personal, like I had a bad dose of BO, or my sense of humour didn’t rate anymore, or I was too up myself.
‘So how’s Jeremy?’ I asked.
She’d got back her cool. ‘Sexy as ever.’ She laughed. ‘I’m making some progress. I’ll keep you posted.’
Bronte opened the lid of her lunchbox. It looked pretty interesting in there. Riceballs and something a bit sushi-ish, and silver beet and something light green. Not the typical contents of a Wirrawee lunchbox. ‘What’s that stuff?’ I asked, pointing to one of the vegetables.
‘Celeriac,’ she said.
‘Celeriac.’ Nice word. Up there with insouciance, tissue and alligator.
When the first bell rang I walked back with her. But as we arrived at the lockers I saw Ms Maxwell striding towards me. My heart suddenly sagged inside my chest.
‘Oh, Ms Maxwell,’ I said.
‘Ellie, you were meant to come and see me at recess.’
‘I’m sorry, Ms Maxwell, I clean forgot.’
‘Well, you can come and see me now, thank you.’
‘But Ms Maxwell, we’ve got Drama.’
‘I’m sure Mr Elliot can do without you for twenty minutes.’
I followed Ms Maxwell along the corridor, staring gloomily at her back. She wore one of those tailored suits, an olive green pattern that looked like wallpaper. It made her bum look big. One side of her bum was having a pillow fight with the other side.
In her office she settled herself comfortably at the desk. I settled uncomfortably on the other side. She checked a file then looked over her glasses at me. ‘Ellie, I know life has hardly been easy for you lately.’
She seemed to expect an answer so I nodded obediently. ‘Yes, Ms Maxwell,’ I said, not really thinking much, because people said stuff like that to me so often these days that it no longer had an impact.
‘And we have every sympathy for you, and every desire to help you.’
‘Yes, Ms Maxwell.’
‘But at the end of the day we have to operate within guidelines laid down by the Department.’
‘Yes, Ms Maxwell.’ Teachers mentioned the Department in the same way that priests mentioned God.
‘And, Ellie, I have to say that I can’t see how you are going to meet the Department’s minimum requirements for a pass.’
I s
at there numbly. So much to deal with, and now this.
‘You’ve missed so many classes, you’re way behind on assignments, you’re scoring failing grades right across the board.’
I’d given up saying ‘Yes, Ms Maxwell.’
‘There is one thing. You can plead special circumstances. Certainly in your case there are a lot of special circumstances. There’s your wartime experiences – and of course nearly everyone can claim some kind of special circumstances as a result of the war – but more particularly there’s the death of your parents.’
I nodded.
She waited quite a while but I couldn’t think of anything to add. So she went on: ‘To tell you the truth, Ellie, I’m a traditionalist. Yes, if you put in for it, I have no doubt you’d get special consideration. But where does that leave you? You’d get a pass without earning it. You’d get a pass even though you don’t have the same knowledge other students have. And what happens next year, and the year after that? For how many years would you keep getting special consideration?’
She leaned forward and looked at me earnestly. ‘I know a lot of people would say I’m being hard on you. And I’m not saying you should “get over” your problems and “get on” with life. You can’t force that, believe me, I know. It will only happen when it happens. I am saying that if you can’t pass this year you should repeat the year, and see how you go the second time around. Better that than to get credit you haven’t earned, better that than to go on to university and have lecturers assume you know things you don’t.’
I left her office in a state of confusion. I thought the idea of special consideration was that you would have passed the exams except for some disaster. That seemed fair enough. I mean, if I got that and eventually went to university, I might have problems. But not in all subjects. I didn’t think it would matter so much in English or History, for example.
I didn’t want to seem like I was looking for excuses though. Maybe Ms Maxwell was right. I didn’t know. It was awfully confusing having to think a problem like this through, to work it out on my own. I wanted to sit with someone at the kitchen table for hours, exploring it inside out and upside down, then taking it on a long walk through the paddocks. But instead it just had to take its place in the queue.
CHAPTER 18
I COULDN’T BELIEVE how quickly the court case snuck up on me. So much had happened since the first one, and I’d almost forgotten Mr Sayle was doing his level best to get control of my farm, my money, and my life.
Two days before the next hearing I rang Fi’s mum in the city and was devastated to hear that she couldn’t come.
‘I’m sorry, Ellie, but I’ve got a meeting of the Advisory Council. Did I tell you I’d been elected to the Advisory Council?’
‘No, congratulations.’
I felt bitter. I hardly heard my own voice. All at once the death of my parents, always so close at hand, welled up again, and I was filled with anger at the way I’d been deserted. At the same time as I knew ‘deserted’ was a desperately unfair word I felt it pounding inside my heart and aching in my head. I’d had the same feelings when I thought Homer and Fi and the others had been killed in the attack on the petrol station during the war.
‘To be loved is nothing; it is to be preferred that I desire.’ So many times since my parents died I’d wanted to have the total undivided attention of a large number of people, including Fi’s mother, Homer’s parents, Homer, Fi, Lee, and half the teachers at Wirrawee High. Now, as I leaned against the kitchen bench, glaring at the Aga, the phone hanging off my ear, holding a mental rollcall of all the people who had betrayed me, Gavin wandered past, grabbed a banana, peeled it and sat there grinning at me and eating it like he was a monkey.
I couldn’t help grinning back. For better or for worse he was still around.
‘So what do I do about Mr Sayle?’ I asked Fi’s mum.
‘It seems to me that the main issue for the magistrate was that she didn’t have much confidence in Mr Yannos to look after your finances. So you’ve got to convince her that she’s wrong about that.’
‘How?’
‘Now come on, Ellie, you’re one of the more resourceful young people I’ve ever met. I’m sure you can think of ways. References, evidence of successful financial activity, whatever. I’ve got to go. That bank loan you got, the one Mr Sayle didn’t like, if you can prove that was a good move, it’d help a lot. Sorry, Ellie, I really have to run.’
The following night I went over to see Mr Yannos. While Mrs Yannos fussed over Gavin, giving him cup-cakes, which he loved, and Turkish delight, which he didn’t love, I sat down with Mr Yannos. He was very methodical, but slow. He wrote everything on a pad of green writing paper. He took ages, and I got quite frustrated waiting for him to finish each point.
I explained how we needed evidence that he was a good manager, with sound financial sense. He immediately got insulted at the idea that anyone would think he wasn’t. I had to keep calming him down. But eventually he said, ‘OK, I get the bank manager. He tell everyone I am no fool with money.’
‘That’d be a great idea. And I’ll try to get my bank manager, to say the loan I took out was a smart move.’
He pointed his pen at me. ‘You know what? You get Mr Jerry Parsons and he say you bought cattle good at the sale. What you pay for those cattle?’
I told him.
‘Ah!’ he said. ‘Already you up a hundred dollars a head.’
‘You think so?’
‘Sure! Where you been? You not looking at prices? Prices are crazy. Them cattle, you up a hundred bucks easy.’
Even so, it wasn’t until we were standing outside the Courthouse waiting to be called that Mrs Yannos dropped her bombshell.
‘I don’t know why Mr Rodd want your place,’ she said. ‘What he want more land for? He got enough.’
‘Mr Rodd? What are you talking about?’
She looked at me doubtfully.
‘You know Mr Rodd!’
‘Yes of course I do. He’s a pig.’
Mr Rodd lived down the road. Somehow he’d kept virtually all his land after the war. There were ugly rumours going around about how he’d managed that, but I’m not going to repeat them here, the reason being that my dad had got really mad when I tried to tell him about them.
Mrs Yannos was still looking at me in puzzlement.
I frowned back at her. But you have to be patient when you want to find out stuff from Mrs Yannos.
‘Are you saying Mr Rodd wants to buy my place?’
She pressed her lips together and shook her head. ‘I know what I know,’ she said. ‘But maybe I wrong about this.’
‘Well, maybe you’re right.’
She raised her eyebrows and shrugged her shoulders.
‘He’d be a very difficult neighbour,’ I said, trying to tempt her into talking.
‘Is not for me to say who you should sell to, Ellie, if God forbid you sell at all.’
‘I don’t want to sell to Mr Rodd.’
‘Yes, and what I say is, why his brother-in-law tell you what to do? Is not right I think.’
‘His brother-in-law?’ I was getting more and more confused.
‘Well, you know Mr Sayle is brother-in-law to Mr Rodd.’
‘Mrs Yannos! Who have you been talking to?’
But I’d scared her off again. ‘Just what people say,’ she said.
A moment later my case was called. I walked in with my mind spinning. Already things were tough enough. Both the bank managers and Jerry Parsons had been unavailable. I’d asked them for written statements, and got them from Mr Yannos’s manager, and from Jerry, but my bank manager, although she’d promised to have it ready, had gone to Stratton for the day and her assistant couldn’t find any trace of it in her office.
Mr Sayle stood up and said pretty much the same things he’d said last time. I handed up the statements from Mr Yannos’s bank and the letter from Jerry saying my cattle had gone up in value, but the magistrate only glanced at t
hem. She seemed to be in a bad mood. ‘Great,’ I thought. ‘My future gets decided by a judge with PMT.’
I told her again how much I wanted Mr and Mrs Yannos to look after me, how I didn’t know Mr Sayle, and I added that I thought it was good to have three different points of view instead of just one. I knew I couldn’t say anything about Mr Rodd because I’d only just heard about it, and I didn’t know whether it was true. I wasn’t sure if there was anything wrong with him being Mr Sayle’s brother-in-law anyway.
When I’d finished, the magistrate wrote a lot of stuff. She seemed to take forever. I knew Mr Yannos would approve. Finally she looked down at me.
‘Ellie, I know this is difficult for you to understand, but at your age you don’t require the amount of parenting a young child would need. The main function of a guardian for you is to look after your financial interests. It seems to me that Mr and Mrs Yannos, who are obviously very good friends and good neighbours, will be there for you no matter what order I make today. But I’m not convinced they have the financial sophistication to look after your parents’ estate. Therefore I am going to assign Mr Sayle as your guardian. Obviously your parents felt comfortable with his judgement, to make him trustee of their estate, so I’m sure they would approve of his having the legal care of you as well. And in the fullness of time you will appreciate that this is in your best interests.’
I didn’t hear the rest of it, just sat there gaping at her. How could she? How dare she! How dare Mr Sayle! What kind of stupid morons made up these laws anyway?
My eyes stinging with rage I followed Mr and Mrs Yannos outside. Mr Sayle came up, looking as smug as a bull who’s fetched top price at a stud sale. ‘Well, there you are,’ he said. ‘I have to say it’s a very sensible decision, Ellie. As she said, you’ll soon realise that it’s the best solution. Now why don’t you give Mrs Samuels a ring and arrange an appointment and we can have another look at your affairs?’