‘Ah, no. That is your journey; I have my own. I will go to my sister Lakshmi’s place in the hills. She has been begging me to make a visit for a long, long time.’ Sumati picked up the bucket and went out into the hall. Then she stopped and called back, a little shyly, ‘You will come back, though? You won’t stay there?’
‘Of course I’ll come back. This is my home, and yours.’
When Sumati had gone, Kalpana went to the window again. The blue sky dazzled, vast and empty, except for a big dark bird circling high above the trees. Her little great-granddaughter had loved the Indian sky.
‘I have had that dream again, ’ Kalpana whispered to the great black bird. The dream she’d been having all through this winter, over and over again. The dream of flying – not in a plane above the world, as she would do very soon, on her way to Australia; no, not like that at all. In the dream Kalpana flew by herself, like magic, her feet skimming only a little way, a hand’s height, over the ground. Small pink clouds sailed above her; on her right there was water, a blue lake reflecting sky, on her left, a bank of silvery unfamiliar trees. It was no place Kalpana had ever seen, yet she knew with utter certainty that it was a place that existed on the earth – a place that she would one day see. In the dream she flew faster and faster, the cool breeze fanning her cheeks, her sari floating out behind. And she knew that if she flew fast enough, a small crack in the world would open and she would see Raj’s face again. She would see that special smile he kept for her alone, the one that brought the tender light into his eyes, and made the hidden dimple show, that secret little hollow at the corner of his mouth.
Kalpana turned away from the window. The great bird circled once more, slowly, and then flew away, across the river towards the great desert, over the ragged rooftops of the dusty little town.
3
Count Dracula’s Essay
It was three whole weeks before Ms Dallimore handed out her first essay to 7B.
WHO AM I? she printed in big bold letters on the board.
Easy. It didn’t look as if He had set it.
Because by now most of 7B knew who ‘He’was. They’d heard the rumours the Year Eight kids passed round: how Ms Dallimore’s boyfriend – the driver of the big black car that waited for her every afternoon outside the gate – was Count Dracula. ‘She’s getting paler, ’ the Year Eight kids kept whispering. ‘Paler and paler, every day.’
They said Count Dracula chose the essay topics for Ms Dallimore. But ‘Who am I?’ didn’t seem the sort of topic a vampire would select. All the same, a chorus of complaint rose from the ranks of 7B.
‘But, Miss! That’s baby stuff.’
‘Dead boring!’
‘Embarrassing!’
‘We’ve done it heaps of times.’
‘All though primary school.’
‘You start off in Prep, with this drawing, and your name–’ ‘Next year it’s in printing.’
‘And then joined up.’
‘Longer and longer–’ ‘More and more words–’ ‘I want you to forget all that, ’ said Ms Dallimore. ‘All those other times. This time I want you to think–’ and she turned round and wrote the word up in the same big bold letters, so firm and fast you could see the chalk dust spurt into the air. ‘I want you to use your brains, and your imaginations!’ She smiled radiantly around the classroom. ‘Writing can be like flying when you do that, ’ she said.
Flying??? There was a disbelieving silence from 7B, so thick you could hear the chief school cleaner and her Hoover noisily entering the staffroom at the bottom of the hall. ‘Disgusting!’ snorted Mrs Drayner. ‘What a rats’ nest! A hole! Worse than the kiddies, any day!’The rest of her grim displeasure was drowned in the outraged roar of her machine.
Kerry Moss spoke up. Her voice was a low ragged growl. ‘My mum says it’s unhealthy to think, ’ she told Ms Dallimore.
‘Then you can ask her to see me, ’ the teacher answered calmly.
There was a gasp from the other kids who’d gone to Short Street with Kerry: Kate and Neema, Big Molly Matthews and Blocky Stevenson. Tough Mrs Moss had been the terror of the Short Street teaching staff. That day in Grade Four, when she’d bawled out poor Mr Pepperel, Mr Pepperel had – left. He’d packed his bags and gone; he was teaching in the country now. ‘Somewhere along the Lachlan, ’ Neema’s doctor dad had told her, for Mr Pepperel’s old mother was one of his patients. ‘Somewhere along the Lachlan, ’ her dad had carolled, ‘at a place called Booligal. Sounds like it should be set to music, doesn’t it? Poor Mr Pepperel!’
Frail Ms Dallimore would be no match for Mrs Moss, thought Neema.
Or would she be? Neema didn’t believe the Dracula story – how could you? – but there was something a little unearthly about their English teacher. She was so very pale and her curls were such a dark vivid red, as if her blood was rising up into her hair. Could she be sick? Was that why she was so pale? But Ms Dallimore didn’t seem sick: her movements were brisk and energetic, and when she spoke about writing, and thinking, her big eyes glowed, and her pale face took on a kind of shimmer, like the lustre of a pearl.
‘Think, ’ Ms Dallimore went on serenely. ‘Think at strange times.’
Strange times???
‘When you wake suddenly in the middle of the night, and everyone’s asleep except for you – don’t you feel a different person then? A secret person? And mightn’t that secret person be the real you, that rare person who’s never been on earth before? Mightn’t you then, in the quiet, hear the heavenly music of your own soul?’
Huh?
It was all too much for Blocky Stevenson. His hand shot up. ‘Miss!’ he called sternly. ‘Miss!’
‘Yes?’
‘Miss, I’m not rare. I’m just an ordinary kid who likes football. But, ’ Blocky folded his arms across his solid chest, ‘I’m not a leatherbrain.’
‘Leatherbrain?’ echoed Ms Dallimore.
Big Molly Matthews creaked round in her chair. ‘It’s what Mr Crombie – he takes us for history – calls boys who love football, Miss. Boys who play football even in the summer!’
‘I didn’t say “love”, I said “like”, ’ muttered Blocky.
‘Mr Crombie thinks they’ve got shrivelled brains, ’ Molly went on. ‘Shrivelled brains like leather, see? He says for every goal they kick they lose a hundred brain cells, and in the summer, it’s a thousand – but that’s not true, is it, Miss? Because if Blocky had no brains, then he wouldn’t care about being called a leatherbrain, would he?’
‘I suppose not, ’ replied Ms Dallimore, a little uncertainly. ‘And Miss, what you love shows who you are, doesn’t it? So if you wrote about something you love, you’d be writing about your real true self, wouldn’t you?’
‘Oh yes!’ replied Ms Dallimore.
Molly beamed at her. ‘So I’m going to write about my baby shoes!’
A muffled groan rose from the Short Street kids. Molly Matthews’ baby shoes! She’d talked about them at Show and Tell for years: how beautiful they were, how soft and tiny, how she could remember her mother’s hands fastening the two little buttons on the side . . .
Molly glared round at them. ‘I’m going to!’ she cried. ‘I can, can’t I, Miss?’
‘Yes, of course you can, Molly.’
‘See?’ Molly flounced in her chair triumphantly, and the chair gave a mighty creak.
Molly Matthews was a big, big girl. Her hands were big, and her feet, and her kind face was round as a plate – a very big plate, a Christmas plate you could fit a whole turkey on. There were kids from Short Street who said Molly Matthews had never worn those shoes. They were made of soft blue leather, tiny as fairy slippers. Even when she was five, both little shoes had fitted neatly into one of Molly’s broad pink palms.
‘It stands to reason, ’ Kate had said to Neema when they were both only in Grade Three. ‘She’d have been an enormous baby, with enormous feet. Her gran might have bought those shoes for her, like she says, but I bet her mum could neve
r squash them on.’
It was one of the few things Kate and Neema disagreed about, because Neema felt certain there would have been a time, even if it was a very short time, a few days, or perhaps a single week, when Molly’s new pink feet would have fitted perfectly into those fairy shoes.
Neema’s gaze drifted towards the window: across the playground she could see three boys helping Mr Lazenby carry sports equipment, and one of them was the boy she’d met outside the library on her very first day at Wentworth, the one who’d seemed so strangely familiar. His back was towards her, yet she knew it was him – something about the set of his shoulders and the way he moved. And once again those words came drifting oddly into her mind: sheep, shepherd, lamb . . .
‘Ms Dallimore?’ Brainy Jessaline O’Harris raised an earnest hand.
‘Yes, Jessaline?’
‘Ms Dallimore, when does the essay have to be handed in?’
‘Oh, six weeks or thereabouts, ’ said Ms Dallimore casually.
Jessaline gaped at her, and so did the rest of 7B. Six weeks? It was ages; in six weeks a whole long summer holiday could pass, a kitten grow into a cat, a baby learn to smile. You could grow your hair long, fall in love and out again, get slim, grow fat, learn Russian, become an entirely different person. Jessaline twitched at her long skinny plaits. ‘Ms Dallimore?’
‘Yes, Jessaline?’
‘Ms Dallimore, why have we got so long?’
7B listened, and Ms Dallimore’s radiant smile shone over them again. ‘So you can think, ’ she answered, ‘and imagine, and – and learn to fly!’
4
Sweet Lucy
Kate raced along Lawrence Road in the direction of Kindness Kreche, her bag banging on her shoulders, dodging old ladies out shopping with their trolleys, and stragglers from the primary school who chanted at her, ‘Kate thinks she’s great! Just because she goes to high school!’
She was late. Her little sister Lucy would be waiting, giving poor Miss Lilibet what Mum called ‘Lucy-Hell’. She was late because she’d hung out at the gates with Neema and the other kids from 7B, whingeing about Ms Dallimore and her essay and the mysterious fact that she’d given them six whole weeks to do it, which meant she must be expecting something truly special . . .
And as they’d stood there, grizzling heartily, who should come by but Ms Dallimore herself – long skirt swirling, her dark red hair fizzing with some kind of weird electricity. ‘Thoughts flying already, I see, ’ she called as she swept past them, heading for that waiting, big black car.
Not even Tony Prospero, whose dad ran Lawrence Motors, could identify the make of the glistening black car. It was huge and solid, with a long sloping bonnet and big spoked silver wheels. ‘Like a bloody hearse, ’ growled Kerry Moss. Its windows were black too, tinted darkly against the light – you couldn’t hope to get the tiniest glimpse inside. Ms Dallimore wouldn’t be at Wentworth High much longer, the Year Eights kept hinting darkly. Soon, perhaps very soon, Count Dracula in his big black car would speed her away to his castle in Transylvania.
Which was a fairytale, of course, thought Kate. All the same, when Ms Dallimore started on about thinking and imagination and flying, and heavenly music of the soul – when she started giving out wacky homework – you couldn’t help hoping the fairytale might be true.
Because what did Kate have to write about? She was ordinary, like Blocky Stevenson. There was nothing the least bit unusual about her, and her family was ordinary, too. She didn’t have exotic parents like Neema had: a glamorous Indian mother who worked at the university, and a doctor dad who, when he was a baby, had been found in a cardboard box on the back step of a children’s home . . .
‘Oh!’ Kate skidded to a halt. Across the busy road, she saw a small square girl in a paint-smeared kinder smock, all by herself, gazing entranced into the window of the hardware store. Lucy. Lucy where she shouldn’t be, again.
‘Lucy!’ Kate fought her way grimly through the heavy afternoon traffic, the streams of trucks and fuming buses, the angry hooting cars. ‘Lucy, what are you doing here?’
Her little sister turned. Ignoring Kate’s question she pointed to the window, where a big shiny mulching machine was displayed behind the glass. ‘Katie, if you put a person in there, a bony old person like Lilipet, and switched it on, would–’ ‘You’re not supposed to be here. You know you’re supposed to wait at the crèche for me.’
‘You were late. All the others had gone home. There was only Lilipet there.’
‘That doesn’t matter; you still have to wait.’
‘I was helping you, ’ said Lucy, as she often did.
‘What?’ Kate was breathless and angry from her struggle across the road. She’d almost been run over by a pale pink florist’s van. Looking down at her little sister’s bland face, she felt a sudden painful jab in the middle of her chest and thought it might be actual hate. If only Count Dracula would spirit Lucy away.
‘I saved you walking all that way, ’ said Lucy virtuously, ‘like – like her.’ She pointed down the road, and Kate turned to see a small dishevelled figure hurrying anxiously towards them: Miss Lilibet.
Poor Miss Lilibet was breathless too, her face all flushed and blotchy, big black hairpins tinkling to the pavement at her feet. ‘Oh, Lucy dear, I’m so glad you’re safe and sound!’ She put out a hand to pat Lucy’s arm, but Lucy flinched away. ‘So careless of me!’ Miss Lilibet exclaimed. ‘What will your mother think?’
Nothing, thought Kate. There was no way she was telling Mum that Lucy had run off again.
Miss Lilibet pushed back a straggle of wispy hair. ‘I turned my back for just the merest second, and she was gone. Vanished into thin air. She’s so, so–’ Miss Lilibet stared at Lucy, who stared sternly back. ‘So quick.’
‘Yes, she is quick, ’ agreed Kate.
‘And so determined.’
‘Yes.’
Now they both considered Lucy, their gaze fixed on her small square chin and the way it jutted, firmly, from beneath her rosebud mouth. Lucy would be a match for any vampire, thought Kate.
‘There’s never been another child got out before, ’ Miss Lilibet went on fretfully. ‘Never once!’
‘You can go now, ’ Lucy told her, waving a small dismissive hand. ‘My sister’s here.’
And Miss Lilibet obeyed! She obeyed a four-year-old! Kate watched the small sad figure plodding down the road, shoulders drooping, head lowered in defeat. That was one thing she’d never be when she grew up, decided Kate: a keeper of a crèche.
‘You shouldn’t run away from the poor thing, ’ she scolded Lucy.
There was no reply. Stealthy as a footpad, Lucy had scuttled off again. Kate spotted her almost at once, down at the bus-stop, talking to – Oh no! Kate’s heart gave a little jump inside her chest – a group of Year Twelve girls from Wentworth High, resplendent in their brilliant scarlet sweatshirts! And – and Lucy was dancing round them, one small arm stretched out, one chubby, square-nailed finger pointing at their knees. ‘It’s snowing down south!’ she was chanting gleefully, ‘Snowing! Snowing!’
It was a saying of their gran’s to which Lucy had taken a fancy, ever since she’d heard Gran murmur the words to another old lady in the supermarket. The old lady had looked down at the white edge of slip showing beneath her hem, tugged at a hidden strap and whispered, ‘Thank you, dear.’
‘Snowing down south!!’
The Year Twelve girls never wore slips beneath their tiny skirts. They didn’t know what Lucy meant. Neither did Lucy, really.
‘Down south?’
‘In Tasmania, darling?’
‘No! No! Down there!’ Lucy pointed at their knees again.
‘Isn’t she cute?’
‘Darling.’
‘Sweet.’
Lucy did look sweet, Kate would grant them that. She was very small, and everything about her was square: her short sturdy body, her face, the glossy chocolate-coloured hair that was cut straight all round so that only the tips
of her ears showed beneath it, like drops of rich pure cream. Yet whenever some stranger in the street said ‘sweet’, Kate fumed inside. Oh, it was all right for them! They didn’t have to live with her, they didn’t have to share a room!
‘Why is she here on her own, though?’ wondered a thin spiky-looking girl with a prefect’s badge pinned proudly to her chest.
‘What’s your name, sweetie?’
‘That’s for me to know and you to find out, ’ replied Lucy, in the manner of her gran.
‘Are you lost, darling?’
‘No!’ Lucy stamped her little foot.
The girls laughed. ‘Ooh, she’s cross with us!’
‘Look at her eyes! They’ve gone black – like raisins.’
‘No they haven’t! My eyes are beautiful! My gran says! Yours aren’t though – yours are like, like–’
Kate rushed up. ‘Lucy, come on now, we’ve got to get home.’
The Year Twelve girls gazed at her with disapproval.
‘Are you her sister?’ demanded the spiky prefect.
‘Yes, ’ mumbled Kate.
‘How come you left her on her own? She could have got lost.’
‘Or run over.’
‘Anything.’
Kate flushed. ‘I didn’t leave her on her own. She – she got away from me.’ Kate heard her voice sounding lame and flustered, a little like Miss Lilibet’s.
‘You should take more care of her, ’ said the spiky one repressively.
‘She’s only small, you know.’
‘And sweet.’
‘Snooty Year Twelve snobs, ’ raged Kate, as she marched Lucy off along the street. She bet none of them had little sisters. Or if they did, you could bet they didn’t have to share a room with them; or do their homework with a Lucy hanging round their neck. Or listen to her snoring when at last she’d gone to sleep – really big snores, the kind you might expect from a construction worker who’d had a heavy day on site.
How on earth was she going to get Ms Dallimore’s essay done, when everyone agreed that instead of being easy, it might turn out to be really hard? How was she going to concentrate, to think, to imagine, to – to fly? With Lucy there?
Kalpana's Dream Page 2