No Stars to Wish on

by Zana Fraillon

  What do you call a circus cat? An acrocat!

  What kind of dog can tell the time? A watchdog!

  What do you call the boulevard when it rains? The poolevard!

  Ha ha!

  THEY don’t do birthdays here. One of the little kids was crying because it was her birthday and there wasn’t even a cake. All she got was two whacks from one of the Nuns for crying and being greedy. I don’t think she was being greedy, though. Birthdays are important.

  One of the bigger kids must have been thinking the same thing because she said so to the Nuns. ‘Lay off! Don’t you lot know that birthdays are meant to be fun?’

  The girl was standing up, her face all red and scrunched and angry. ‘She’s just a little kid! You lot are nothing but a bunch of bullies!’

  It was the same girl who explained to me about Immoral Stock. Her name’s Charlie. Charlie reminds me a bit of Janey. Janey always speaks up when she doesn’t agree with something, even if it might be best to keep quiet. Mum tells Janey all the time to hold her tongue, but Janey never does. I can see that Charlie doesn’t either. I wonder if her mum tells her to hold her tongue.

  I wish Charlie had held her tongue, because yelling at the Nuns like that didn’t do any good. Not for the birthday girl and not for Charlie either.

  The Nun just started laying into her. She got even more whacks than the birthday girl.

  ‘Evil.’ Whack.

  ‘Wicked.’ Whack.

  ‘Liar.’ Whack.

  ‘This is the thanks we get for taking you in?’ Whack.

  ‘Worthless.’ Whack.

  And then Charlie was sent to see the Director. I don’t know what happens when you get sent to see the Director. but it can’t be good. Everyone went still when they took her away.

  The boy I swap my breakfast with, Anthony, knows what happens. He got sent to the Director for running away from a job. Sometimes the kids here get taken out for the day to do jobs. I didn’t know that kids our age could work, but they do it quite a bit here. I hope I get picked because even though the kids look tired after working all day it would have to be better than being locked in here, wouldn’t it? And they do stuff like help farmers or blacksmiths or help build houses. I’d like to help build a house. Then every time I passed by that house I would know I had helped build it and without me it wouldn’t be the way it was.

  Anyway, Anthony ran away. He figured that he could make it back home. He couldn’t. He got caught by the police and brought back here, and sent to the Director. So now he knows what happens.

  I hope I never find out what happens. I don’t want to know what makes that kind of Still.

  It wasn’t much of a birthday celebration. The birthday girl watched Charlie being whacked and looked even more sad. It’s a good thing I didn’t say to the Nuns that birthdays are important, because that would have made the girl even sadder still.

  What has four wheels and flies? A rubbish truck!

  What kind of button won’t undo? A belly button!

  What is a sea monster’s favourite dish? Fish and ships!

  Ha ha!

  WE wake up early here. I don’t know what time, because there isn’t a clock, but it is still dark outside.

  We wake up, get dressed, make our beds, then do chores. After chores, breakfast. After breakfast, morning exercise. You’d think morning exercise would be more interesting than chores but it’s not really. We all stand in lines and follow the leader.

  Sometimes the bigger boys are leaders and are even given a stick to hit kids who are mucking about or not keeping up or not trying hard enough. And that stings more than a Nun’s stick, because sometimes the bigger boys are ones you’ve played with and think should be your friends.

  After morning exercise, more chores.

  I wish I had a book. Just a single book. Something I could think about during chores. I saw some boys reading a book the other day. It made my mouth water looking at it. I didn’t ask for a turn reading, though, because they aren’t really the boys I hang around with. And even if I had, it wouldn’t have been much good, because a minute after I saw them reading, a Nun saw them too.

  ‘We aren’t here to laze around reading books,’ she said. She tore the book in half. I saw the cover. It was The Jungle Book. I love that book. I got a copy for my birthday last year.

  It’s my birthday in two weeks. Mine and Janey’s. Janey always says that the best birthday present she ever got was me, even though I know that’s not really true. She got a bike one year, and I don’t know a better present than a bike. It has two gears and everything.

  Janey let me ride it once. She didn’t even get too cross when I rode straight into a tree and bent the wheel a bit. Janey fixed it back up, good as new. She’s clever with stuff like that. Stuff with her hands.

  The only bad time on the bike was when the brakes stopped working on the big hill down from the school. My cousin Phin dared Janey to see how fast she could go. Phiny was timing her down the bottom. Then the brakes went and Janey couldn’t stop. She whizzed past so fast that Phin forgot to check the time, so we never did find out how fast she went.

  We found her bike lying on the side of the road. Janey had wandered off somewhere. It wasn’t until really late that night, after dark and everything, that our neighbour Miss Rosa found Janey. She had a big bump on her head that lasted about a week. She talked all night about Noddy and Big-Ears, which was funny but also kind of scary because she wasn’t really Janey then. She was all right the next day, though, and got back on her bike and everything.

  I’m excited for my birthday, but also sad because I don’t reckon there’s much chance of us getting home by then. My tally on the wall says I’m up to fifteen. It is a bit confusing, though, because if it rains the way it did the other day then the marks wash off and I just have to try to remember.

  And if we have been here for longer than two weeks already, and my birthday is in two weeks, and I still haven’t even found a single clue, then I don’t reckon there is much chance of getting home by then at all. But maybe the clues are all together and really simple and easy to follow. So maybe we will be all of us together again, and then this will seem like a kind of nightmare that you don’t want to think about, even in the safety of daylight, just in case it can creep back into the real world and turn everything upside down.

  Mum always puts on a feast for birthdays. Amrei cooks, and you can feel the happiness running through your blood. Some days we have so much food we have to stuff ourselves even if we aren’t hungry, because otherwise all the food goes bad, and that’s a waste. It’s crazy that you can be so hungry one day, and then the next not be able to eat any more even if the food is right there in front of you.

  And once Amrei stopped doing school and started working too, we were doing really well. ‘The end to our troubles!’ she cheered when she got the job. I really miss Amrei. I miss how good she makes me feel, just by being there. She was getting her first pay at the end of the month. We were going to have a birthday feast, never mind that it wasn’t anyone’s birthday. I wonder if they will have the feast even though we aren’t there.

  At home we never have to eat watery porridge with weevils.

  We are all wanted at home. Even GurrGurr. Gran said she never wanted a cat, but when GurrGurr turned up on our doorstep with his ribs showing through, we still took him in. And Gran loves him, really. It turns out she wanted him after all, she just didn’t know it yet.

  GurrGurr knew, though. He stuck to Gran’s leg like a kind of furry tick. She would yell at him and threaten to cook him in a stew, but we all knew she was putting it on. Especially after I caught her one night. GurrGurr had gone out to look at the stars. Gran picked him up and brought him inside. She sat him on her knee and wouldn’t let him go. After a second he settled, and Gran tisked and told him to get off, but all the while she was patting him and making sure he didn’t go anywhere.

  It’s not true what the Nuns say. It’s not true that we’re here because no one el
se was looking after us. Everyone looked after me. And it’s not true that they’ve forgotten about me already. I had a whole house looking after me, and now there will be a whole house looking for me. Then those Nuns will see. See how much my family loves me.

  I’m not an Orphan. I’m not Unwanted. I’m not Number 49. I am Jack, and I do not live here.

  AMREI’S Vision haunted her. It was always hovering, just out of reach, a shadow stopping her from ever being truly happy. Other Visions came and went, but she never mentioned them, especially when they came true. She wished she had never been cursed with the mark of the spider.

  Ever since she could talk, Amrei had known how to sing. And her singing could break the heart of any passer-by, or lift their soul soaring. As soon as she was tall enough to stand on a stool and reach the stove, she took over the task of making the evening soup. While she worked, she would sing songs of comfort and happiness into the meal. Those lucky enough to eat it were filled with loving warmth.

  But at times when the Vision lingered in her memory, her food was tainted with a fear and sadness that was hard to shake. She learnt that at these times, it was better if she stayed away from the kitchen.

  Then, exactly seven years after her first Vision, Amrei sat bolt upright in bed. She couldn’t yet hear the two trucks rumbling down the road, or the boots as they thundered up the stairs. She couldn’t yet smell the stale cigarette smoke on the men’s breath, or hear the screams of the adults as they begged to be heard. But she knew what was coming.

  Amrei shook every one of the children awake. She told them to run. To hide. But they were slow to move, and Jack just rolled over and went on snoring.

  And when the children were taken, one by one, no one noticed Amrei screeching curses from the doorway. No one put their rough hands on her and dragged her out of her great-grandmother’s arms. No one prised her fingers from the doorjamb, or ripped her from the desperate grip of her family members. No one shoved her roughly into the two waiting trucks, already full of children, and locked the doors. No one took Amrei.

  Perhaps they thought she was too old. Perhaps they didn’t see her. Perhaps she no longer really existed.

  And just as she had foreseen, the house woke up empty. There were no children left. Amrei wandered from room to room. Their clothes were strewn on the floor, their books and papers scattered. It was as if the Pied Piper had whispered them away under cover of darkness.

  Amrei picked up her little sister’s blanket. Baby Sal couldn’t sleep without her blanket. She fingered the book of jokes Jack had left under his pillow, the cricket ball Janey was sewing, and the football Phin treasured above all other possessions. She realised that in all her Visions of the future she had never Seen Baby Sal grown up. Never Seen her older than she was now.

  Amrei wrapped the blanket around her shoulders. She made her way to the kitchen, and started cooking. An old lullaby fell from her lips and, as her tears dropped one after the other into the soup, she pitied those who had to eat it.

  Why were the teacher’s eyes crossed? Because he couldn’t control his pupils!

  Why was Six afraid of Seven? Because Seven ate Nine!

  What do you get if you cross a kangaroo and a sheep? A woolly jumper!

  Ha ha!

  I wish I had my joke book with me. I’m running out of remembering. I’ve even started making up jokes, but they’re not very good. Every joke I’ve read is somewhere in my head, I just have to find where. I must have read hundreds, maybe even thousands.

  I’ve only just started going to school, but my teacher says I read better than kids in Grade 3. I got tired waiting for everyone to read stories to me, so Janey taught me. Then everyone wanted to read to me, but I said no.

  I wish I hadn’t said no. I wish I had let every one of them read and read and read to me for ever. I wish I could be sitting with any one of my family now, watching their lips say the words on the page, and never have to leave again.

  Mum tried to pull Janey out of the policeman’s hands. Janey has long blonde hair like my mum’s, but her eyes are like mine. Like my dad’s. That’s how you know we are brother and sister, because our eyes are the same. And our feet. We both have toes like a frog’s. But unless we both have our shoes off you wouldn’t notice.

  There haven’t been any classes here yet. Except for when they teach you about God. That happens on Tuesday, right after lunch. You can choose to go. Some kids are told they have to, I don’t know why. But I don’t go, and they haven’t told me to. I suppose they think I can’t learn anything because I’m deaf. I reckon learning about God would only make you more like the Nuns, so I’m better off without their classes.

  But there have to be real classes soon, or when we get back to our own schools we won’t know as much as the other kids. Perhaps when it’s term time again they’ll let us go to a real school, outside this place. Or maybe the Nuns don’t think we’ll ever get back to our old schools. They think we’re staying here. But they’re wrong. Maybe I should tell them? Ha.

  It wouldn’t do any good, anyway. They should have listened to the real Number 49. They should have learnt from him when he escaped. One day they’ll wake up and we’ll all be gone. There will be no kids left to polish the floors and clean the windows and dig holes for people’s swimming pools and mend the clothes and cook and scrub. No one left to scream at or drag away. And all the Nuns will hold up their hands and ask each other why, but no one will be able to answer.

  They’ll walk around the empty hallways and rooms, and they’ll have to pick up the scrubbing brushes and make their own fingers raw getting the floor to shine just the way they like it. Perhaps some of them will wish they’d been nicer to us. Perhaps they’ll let their heads fall into their hands, and they’ll cry because they miss us. Their tears will flood through the hallway and out into the street, and a whole new river will whoosh right through the town. Or perhaps they’ll just close the doors for ever and head back to their homes.

  Do the Nuns have homes? Or is this place their home? I know where my home is. And it’s not here. I’m not lost. I know exactly where home is, I just can’t get there.

  I suppose that means I am kind of lost, after all, but I don’t want to think about it. There’s lots here I don’t want to think about, but I do. I wish I could just turn my brain off, like a wireless. If I didn’t think about stuff so much, I wouldn’t feel so bad.

  Crazy. Which is why we need to keep up our lessons. So we can go straight back into our own classes as if none of this craziness ever happened.

  What is smaller than an ant’s mouth? An ant’s teeth!

  What is the biggest ant in the world? An Eleph-Ant!

  What do you call a cat with eight legs that likes to swim? An octopuss!

  Ha ha!

  THERE aren’t any books here. Or toys. At least, none we can play with. All the toys that arrive here are taken away and put in the top room, in the tower that perches right on top of the building. I think of the toys up there, like Rapunzel trapped in her tower waiting for her Prince Charming to carry her away. If any adult comes to visit, they’re shown the top room. The visitors all think we get to play there at play time.

  We don’t. And there isn’t even a play time.

  When the top room gets too full, the Nuns take a sackful of toys to the market and sell the lot. About a week after I arrived, I saw a Nun carrying a sack. I saw my rabbit’s arm sticking out of a rip in the side. Great-great-aunt Annie gave me Mr Rabbit. It wasn’t even for my birthday or Christmas or anything. Like I said, Great-great-aunt Annie knows about babies, and kids too. She knew I needed him. Before I was brought here, Mr Rabbit and I did everything together. We understood each other with just a look.

  When I saw the Nun, I wanted to run and pull Mr Rabbit into my arms and smell his smoky smell that he got when I held him too near the fire. I wanted to close my eyes and feel the cosy happiness that only Mr Rabbit can bring. But I didn’t. I’d heard how the Nuns had smashed and torn and burned toys befor
e. I didn’t want that to happen to Mr Rabbit. His arm bobbed up and down as the Nun walked away. It almost looked like waving. I waved back. I hope someone nice bought him. Then Mr Rabbit could make that person feel good. And maybe, one day, Mr Rabbit will find his way back home. I will too. And then we can be together again.

  Great-great-aunt Annie always found toys for us kids. She used to make things for the babies to play with, too, whenever we had a baby living with us. She said that babies needed toys, to help them discover themselves. When my cousin, Baby Sal, came to live with us, Great-great-aunt Annie made a box with holes in the top so Sal could post things into the box. We all played with it, when no one was looking. She also knitted a blanket for Baby Sal. It has different animals all over it.

  Great-great-aunt Annie must have known that the blanket was just what Baby Sal needed, because Sal never went anywhere without her blanket. Until she was taken, because then her blanket got left at home.

  The Nuns here aren’t like Great-great-aunt Annie. They don’t know about babies. They probably don’t know about potatoes either. And they definitely don’t know about kids. The babies here don’t even have a ball to chase or a doll to hold on to. They don’t have a posting box. They just sit in the Infant Room on the big green rug, or lie in the line of cots. If they cry, no one is allowed to even pick them up and comfort them. A sign says No.

  Most of the babies don’t even cry much any more. They just stare around them. And I know they’re thinking, like me. Wondering how someone big enough to be in charge got this all so mixed up. Wondering where the rest of their families are, and what they are doing. Worrying about how upset their families will be. Trying to work out how to get word back home to say they’re okay, but still hurry up and rescue them because they’re only babies and can’t take much more of living without being touched and held and loved the way a baby should be.