Forgetting Foster

by Dianne Touchell

  Dad usually enjoyed the car ride to collect Foster from school but this particular afternoon when Foster climbed into the back seat he could tell that Dad was cross and Mum was clearly close to losing her shit again. Aunty must have been at work because Mum wouldn’t usually make Dad get in the car in this mood if there was someone she could leave him with at home.

  ‘Let me out,’ Dad said. ‘Let me out now. I know what you’re doing. Let me out!’ Dad pulled on the doorhandle and slapped the car window.

  ‘It’s all right, Malcolm. We’re going home now.’

  ‘Why are you doing this to me?’ Dad said. Mum pulled onto the street and put her foot down. She was in a hurry. Foster had told her he could walk home. It wasn’t far at all. But she said it wasn’t safe. Foster wasn’t feeling particularly safe right now, especially when Dad swung his arm wide and slapped a stinging blow on Mum’s upper arm. She pulled the car so suddenly into the kerb that the front tyre skidded against the concrete and Dad hit his head on the side window. They just sat there then. Engine running, Mum breathing hard, Dad still doing battle with the car door. Foster could see his hands through the little gap between the front passenger seat and the door. Dad’s fingers were grasping, scratching, prying, as if he were being covered in dirt and was trying to punch a hole through to the sky. It frightened Foster terribly.

  ‘Foster, how are you doing back there?’ Mum asked, her head resting on the steering wheel. ‘I didn’t bring anything for his hands. I’m sorry.’

  They were supposed to do that. They were supposed to always have a distraction ready. That’s when Foster remembered he had one.

  He quickly unzipped his backpack and pulled it out. He had been carrying it around with him since the birthday party. His hands were shaking. The wrapping had taken a bit of a beating. The corners were worn and the shiny red paper was scuffed and scratched. He removed his seatbelt and leaned forward, poking it through that little gap until it rested on the back of one of Dad’s shimmying hands.

  ‘Dad, I have a present for you,’ Foster said.

  Dad took hold of the bright red package immediately. Foster slid towards the middle of the back seat and leaned forward to watch Dad turning the present this way and that, running his hands across the paper. Mum looked on for a moment then reached over and picked at the edge of a piece of sticky tape. It was enough to encourage Dad to start picking at it as well, and then eventually start tearing the paper away altogether.

  Foster hadn’t seen it in so long himself he had forgotten just how good the cover was. Dad opened the book, lifted it to his face, and smelled it. He always did that with new books.

  ‘It’s beautiful, Foster,’ Mum said. And to Dad, ‘Foster made that.’

  ‘I wrote it too,’ Foster said.

  ‘The General,’ Dad read. ‘It’s lovely. Look at the pictures.’

  ‘Let’s go home and read it,’ Mum said.

  ‘Let’s read it now,’ Dad said.

  Foster saw Mum hesitate. They were stopped outside someone else’s house with the car running and were so close to home. They could see their street sign from here.

  ‘Look, I think—’

  ‘Once upon a time,’ Foster said.

  Mum turned the engine off.

  Routine isn’t always routine. Foster reckoned sometimes it’s just better to crawl under the overturned peg basket yourself.

  acknowledgements

  I would like to thank everyone at Allen & Unwin, particularly Erica Wagner for her guidance and support from the onset. Thanks also to Sophie Splatt, because editing me can’t be one of the fun jobs.

  My love and thanks always to Linda Brooks, Ainslie Douglas and Jenny McDonald, who have supported me during a year they were barely able to stand themselves.

  And to Robert Schofield for his invaluable insight into the first draft and for always having the breath of kindness.

  about the author

  DIANNE TOUCHELL was born and raised in Fremantle, Western Australia. Her debut novel Creepy & Maud (Fremantle Press) was shortlisted for the Children’s Book Council of Australia’s Book of the Year Award in 2013 in the Older Readers category. Her second novel, A Small Madness, was published by Allen & Unwin in 2015. She has worked as a fry cook, a nightclub singer, a housekeeper, a bookseller and manager of a construction company. Sometimes she has time to write books for young adults, who she thinks are far more interesting than grown-ups. She lives with animals.