Elsewhere Girls

by Emily Gale

  ‘Dew,’ I whisper. ‘I need to…’ I pause, panicking about which words to use. I go with what my gran says. ‘Nature’s calling.’

  ‘Eh?’

  No good, I’ll try what Dad says: ‘The dunny.’

  Dew yawns and turns over in bed. ‘Just use the chamber-pot, and shush now, Fan. I’m bone-tired.’

  ‘It’s under our bed,’ whispers one of the girls from the other side of the room.

  My face heats up. I can’t pee into a bowl in a room that three other people are in! I get out of bed, determined to find a proper toilet.

  Mary props herself up on her elbow. ‘Here, take the candle if you’re going to the dunny. And mind the Dunny Man doesn’t catch you!’ All three girls giggle. Could this get any worse? What’s a Dunny Man? Maybe it’s made up, like the Tooth Fairy, but for poo.

  I creep through the kitchen and down the back stairs where I saw Frankie take the dead rat. In a yard there’s a leaning shed with a corrugated roof and doors into two cubicles. Both have a wooden bench with a hole cut in the middle and there’s a small stack of newspapers that I think is meant to be toilet paper. I go into one, put the candle in the corner and close the door, hitching up my nightie.

  I can see the moon over the top of the door, high above the roof of the pub. I miss home and as my lip wobbles, hot tears roll down my face again. I can’t do this. I can’t!

  But after I’ve cried for a bit, I gulp down the sadness like a pill and a laugh pops out. Because look at me! I’m on a dunny by candlelight in 1908! And at least the Duracks are kind and funny. Maybe I can get through this. I have to believe there’s a reason, and that there’s a way back if I can find out more about what happened at Wylie’s Baths.

  Even if I feel like falling apart, I won’t.

  Fan

  14

  Morning

  It’s dark when I wake, and for a second I hope that when I stretch out my legs I’ll find Dewey’s feet and I’ll be home. But there’s no Dewey. My hair’s still short. And I’m still in the future.

  Last night I couldn’t sleep. I was all jittery like I am before a race. It didn’t help that music was playing somewhere on the street and cars were whirring past all night. I lay there and tried to work out how I came to be here. I’m sure it was something to do with Wylie’s Baths. So the plan this morning is to get up before anyone else and sneak back there. I have to get home. I’ll never make State if I’m stuck here. And as nice as everyone is in 2021, I miss my family.

  I get up and go out to the kitchen area in the dark, letting my eyes adjust like they do at home. Then, because I can spark light with just a switch, I do and the room is flooded with bright light. No candles or gas lamps; this is electricity, which is rarely used in private houses. Mina is the only person I know who has it. Ma would love this.

  I wonder what she’d make of the food in the can that we had for dinner last night. Father opened it with a metal contraption and poured the contents into a bowl and put it in a large box with a window at the front. He pressed some buttons, there was a ding and it was ready. The dinner was cooked in seconds. I keep imagining what Ma would do with all the time she’d save. She could swim at the baths with me. She could read. She could eat biscuits from a box. Or make tea from a bag.

  I am missing home like an ache, but there are such wonders here, and Cat’s family is kind. I know I would learn much from them if I stayed, but I have to get back to my family.

  I decide to eat before I leave. I take out two slices of the fluffy white bread and stick them in the top of the metal box Father called the toaster. They sit up, not descending into the box like they did last night. I stare at them, hoping they will behave as they should. Nothing happens. I push at the buttons. The bread drops in. I watch. Seconds later the bread pops up brown and hot.

  Here there is butter as rich as cream. No dripping or lard to be seen. There are jams and something called Vegemite too. I take that down from the shelf. Sniff the top. It’s brown and salty and I stick my finger in to taste.

  At first, I want to spit it into the sink. It’s like day-old overcooked stew, but as my mouth adjusts I find I quite like it.

  I learned a few things about Cat from Maisy. Except for Lucy all of her friends are at her old school, which is far away. She’s on a scholarship for swimming and she can only stay at the school if her times are good. Maisy doesn’t think Cat is very committed.

  I discovered that there is a mother but that she is away, working. I couldn’t get to the bottom of that, but obviously things are very different in this future world.

  I have been wondering, too, where the real Cat is. I know she didn’t go training yesterday morning because the first thing Maisy asked me when she found me at school was where I’d been. And last night Maisy wanted to know if I ‘wagged’ training so I could lie in bed watching Netflix, or meet a boy. I had no answers for her. I don’t know this Netflix. And I don’t know if Cat knows any boys.

  But I also don’t know where Cat was for those hours.

  After all my questions, Maisy was particularly suspicious when I offered to brush her hair. I promised not to pull the knots. She finally let me and it was nice. I only hit a few snags and managed to do a special braid down her back. She seemed happy, which made me giggle, because at home my sisters are always doing whatever they can to avoid being stuck with me fixing their hair.

  I had something called a shower too. I didn’t have to heat the water, I just turned a tap, and it ran so hot I had to turn the other one too until it cooled down. They don’t make their own soap and they have liquid shampoo just for washing their hair. It comes in bottles and it smells so sweet like the flowers near the Lavender Bay baths. I used a handful and it foamed all over my head and I had to wash it out from my eyes because it stung a little.

  ‘You’re up early, Cat,’ whispers Father, shutting the door so Maisy can sleep.

  I should have snuck away without stopping to eat bread.

  ‘Morning, Fath—Dad,’ I say.

  He takes down two cups from the cupboard, fills up a metal jug with water and presses a red button on the side.

  ‘There’s no training this morning. Thought you’d be in the land of the dead!’

  ‘Dead?’ I ask, alarmed.

  He laughs. ‘Sleeping, like your sister!’

  ‘Oh,’ I smile. ‘I thought I might go to Wylie’s Baths.’

  ‘Where?’

  I shrug, trying to copy Maisy who uses shrugs to explain things instead of using words.

  He laughs and the sound is light, like Da’s laugh sometimes. ‘In Coogee?’ he asks. ‘It’s a bit quicker to go to the local pool.’

  I nod and focus on my toast. Once I leave he doesn’t have to know I’m actually going to Wylie’s.

  ‘Excellent! Coach will be happy. Let me have my cuppa and I’ll drive you.’

  ‘I can get there,’ I tell him.

  ‘We’re not in Orange anymore. You can’t wander the streets of Surry Hills alone at five in the morning.’

  I have no idea what Orange is other than a colour, but I know better than to admit it. It must be a place we lived—they lived. Strange that Surry Hills is dangerous now, when it seems so clean and modern. No cases of the plague or infestation of rats here.

  Obviously making my way to Wylie’s Baths will have to wait because Father isn’t going to let me go alone. I’ll have to try later in the day.

  ‘I’ll go and wake Maisy,’ I say. But first I make my new sister a cup of sweet tea. Carrying it in to her, I switch on the lights, like Father did, causing Maisy to growl and burrow under her pillow.

  ‘I made you tea. We’re going swimming!’

  She lifts her blankets and peeps at me. ‘You did?’

  ‘Three sugars! Is that…cool?’ I try out the new word and like how it rolls off my tongue.

  ‘Three? Wow. Thanks, Cat,’ she says taking the cup from me. I perch on the end of her bed.

  ‘Why are we swimming today? You do everyth
ing you can to miss training, and now when you could be sleeping, you want to swim. I don’t understand you, Cat,’ she says.

  ‘That makes two of us,’ I tell her lightly.

  She slurps her tea and watches me suspiciously.

  The car ride is gripping. I should be scared but I’m not. I press the little button on the window so it goes down and up and down again and I hang my head out and feel the cool morning air in my face, until Maisy tells me a little gruesomely that we’ll pass a truck and I’ll be beheaded.

  The car is much finer than a tram. The seats are soft and comfortable and there’s even music playing inside. We sort of glide along like the car’s on skates. I can’t stop smiling.

  ‘You’re happy this morning, Cat,’ says Father looking at me in the mirror.

  ‘Am I?’ This Cat person must be cranky, not as happy as I am to be riding in the back of a car.

  We pull up outside a large building. It’s impressive and nothing like any of the pools I’ve ever seen. I fling the car door open and try to get out, forgetting I have a strap across my waist and get all tangled and stuck. Father leans back and snaps the button so I come free and fall out of the door, laughing. My new family look at me oddly and I vow to try to be more like Cat. If only I knew what she was like.

  Father holds the door to the large building open and I follow Maisy inside. There’s a strange smell and the air is thick and swampy. Father stops and chats to the man at the counter. I walk after Maisy trying to look like I know where I’m going.

  Then I see the pool. It’s enormous and the water looks so clear and blue. There are long ropes separating the lanes and people swimming up and down and I can’t get over how clean it looks.

  ‘Coming, Cat?’

  I hurry after my new sister. She takes off her clothes at the side of the pool and dumps them. I immediately start folding them, imagining what Ma would say.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Oh, sorry, just trying to neaten up.’

  Maisy tilts her head like she’s trying to work me out. I toss Maisy’s clothes in the air and they scatter on the seat. She laughs at me. ‘That’s more like it!’ she says.

  I watch as she stretches a strange green thing onto her head, tucking her long ponytail up inside it. What is this cap made of and why is it so tight and bright? I wonder.

  ‘Are you swimming or what?’ Maisy asks.

  I quickly take off my outer layers, feeling very underdressed in this skimpy piece of fabric, but at least this time my stomach isn’t bare. I don’t know if I need a cap too but I’m not sure where mine is, so I skip after Maisy who is already in the water and fitting some glasses across her face.

  ‘You look funny!’ I tell her playfully.

  She dives under the water and starts swimming breaststroke down the pool. She’s strong, her body arches well and her legs hardly break the surface.

  I dive in and chase after her, wanting to see what my new body can do. My arms don’t reach the same distance and my head comes up too quickly for breath. I try to find a rhythm but it is hard swimming with someone else’s limbs.

  My hand hits the wall and I look up to see Maisy has already turned. She’s faster than I expected. Come on, Cat, I tell myself. You can go quicker than this. I set off again.

  As soon as I hit my stride, there’s a whispering sound. The words are hard to make out and I can’t tell where they’re coming from, but I can hear them under the water. I stop mid-stroke to look around. The whispering stops. I have the lane to myself. I must have imagined it. I plunge under the water again.

  The hand unwinds…

  That time I heard it properly! Are the words inside my head? I don’t know what they mean. I keep going, swimming as fast as I can. The hand unwinds…the hand unwinds. It seems I can’t outswim the whispering or catch up with Maisy. She turns in a neat flip underwater when she reaches the end and keeps going. I power after her. Three more laps up and down, until I find her waiting for me.

  ‘You’re slow today,’ she says as I glide in. ‘And where are your goggles?’

  ‘Goggles?’

  ‘Yes. These things remember!’ She slides hers up so I can see her eyes.

  ‘Oh! Goggles.’ I smile. ‘Not sure. Could you hear something just then? A voice saying something about hands and winding—no, unwinding?’

  ‘What on earth are you talking about?’

  ‘Forget it,’ I say. She hasn’t a clue. I hoped the whispering message might be some new magic of modern swimming pools, but it can’t be if I’m the only one who can hear it.

  ‘Cat, you’ve been acting strangely…’

  ‘Since yesterday? I know.’

  Maisy shakes her head. ‘No, I mean extra strange since yesterday, but you’ve seemed weird about swimming for weeks. It’s like you don’t care if you’re slow anymore. You were fast in the heats, but then you wagged training. I don’t get it.’

  ‘I’m not trying to swim slow!’ I say. I wish I knew why Cat wagged training. I’m convinced it has something to do with wherever she is now.

  ‘Fine. Come on then. I’ll race you again,’ she tells me.

  She pulls her goggles over her eyes and takes off. I know how to beat her. Even Mina can’t always keep up if I swim trudgen.

  I swim as hard as I can, like I’m back at Lavender Bay and, instead of Maisy, it’s Dorothy and Mina beside me. My arms power through the water and my feet scissor kick like I’m at the Olympics. I can’t see Maisy but I bet she’s miles back. This time there’s no voice in my head.

  I touch the end and leap up, grinning.

  ‘What. Was. That?!’

  I realise that Maisy touched the end before me.

  ‘You beat me,’ I say.

  ‘Yeah. Dad could beat you swimming like that! Don’t let Coach see you swim like that! You’ll be off the team!’

  ‘But…’ I try, but Maisy is already powering back down the pool. Obviously I’ve done something else wrong, but I have absolutely no idea what it is.

  Cat

  15

  Wash Day

  Someone’s shaking me. I peel open one eye expecting to see Maisy dressed for training.

  ‘You were talking in your sleep, Fan,’ says Dewey.

  So I’m still here, and still her.

  ‘What did I say?’ I ask, all groggy in my throat.

  ‘You kept saying the hand unwinds over and over. What were you dreaming?’

  ‘I don’t remember.’

  ‘Well, c’mon, lazybones. It’s wash day.’

  ‘Sleepy,’ I mumble. I pull a pillow over my head. It’s heavy and smells like a farm.

  ‘Stop acting the maggot, Fan. Get ready before Ma skins us. Kath and Mary have already started.’

  Outside there are unfamiliar sounds mixed in with calling voices, the clatter of trams, horses’ hooves and bicycle bells. I peek out from under the pillow to see Dewey pulling the sheets off the other bed like she’s done it a thousand times. She feels like a friend, and I have a sudden urge to spill.

  ‘Dewey…I have to tell you something.’

  ‘Mm?’ She piles sheets into a large basket.

  ‘But you might not believe me.’

  ‘Is it about your race on Saturday, Fan? Because you’ve told me fifteen times that you’re going to win it and I believe you, all right?’ She laughs and hoists the basket onto her hip. The words ‘race on Saturday’ strike a new fear into me.

  ‘What race?’

  She rolls her eyes. ‘Come on, strip the bed. I know you’re up for the State team, but the sheets won’t wash themselves.’

  I can’t believe it. Fanny’s going for State just like I was before this thing happened. What does that mean? Are we connected somehow? Is she sleeping in my bed like I’m sleeping in hers, or am I in both places at once? I wish I knew what was happening. I feel completely alone.

  I’m back to thinking that telling Dewey would be a mistake. Maybe she’s more likely to help me if she thinks I’m her sister
. If I tried to tell her what was going on, she could tell Ma and Da and they’d lock me up. Old books are full of girls and women being locked up in asylums for being mad, that’s what Mum always says.

  I must find out more about yesterday. I wish I could Google, but all I have is Dewey. Was anyone else at the baths? Have other strange things happened there? What if I swam into a kind of Bermuda Triangle? I need to do some detective work.

  ‘Dewey, did you think I was fast yesterday, at training?’

  ‘Very. But I wish you were faster with those sheets.’ She starts to peel them off while I’m still sitting on the bed.

  ‘Who else was there?’

  ‘Only Mr Wylie, right at the end when he came for the watch.’

  ‘The watch—you mean, he came to watch me?’

  ‘The stopwatch, Fan,’ she says, yanking the sheet from under me. ‘Would you help?’

  The stopwatch. For the first time, I think about the one Maisy found in Aunt Rachel’s things. I had it with me yesterday morning. Is it a clue?

  ‘What did it look like?’ I ask, realising as soon as it’s out how strange I must sound and then fumbling more questions to cover myself. ‘I mean, er, what did you like about it? Was it the pretty silver case?’

  ‘Sure, nice enough. But the button was stiff and I had to use both thumbs. Come on, I’m taking the basket to Mary.’

  Mr Wylie’s stopwatch. The words I was saying in my sleep. I’m covered in goosebumps! I must go back to Wylie’s Baths.

  I grab Dewey by each arm. ‘Cover for me. I have to go out.’

  ‘Have you lost your mind, Fan? We’ll be lucky if we finish the washing by dark as it is.’

  ‘You don’t understand. I need to train, Dewey. For the race. State trials! Please, you know how important this is to me,’ I say with desperation. I have got to follow the clues and get to Wylie’s.

  Dewey pulls away. She looks angry for the first time since I met her.

  ‘You can’t leave, Fan. It’s not fair.’

  ‘But this is more important than anything!’

  ‘If I can miss school on wash day, you can miss swimming. If Ma, Kath and Mary can do it week after week their whole lives, so can you. I know you love swimming more than anything else in the world, but this is life.’