While I live ec-1

by John Marsden

  ‘I’ll get an injunction,’ Mr Sayle said, but it was kind of automatic, like he wasn’t even listening to himself. He was too busy reading.

  He was reading these words: My name is Ellie Linton and I live on a cattle and sheep property twelve kilometres from Wirrawee. My parents were murdered earlier this year. Before they died they appointed Mr Murray Sayle, a solicitor in Wirrawee, as executor of their estate. When I was orphaned Mr Sayle got permission from the court to be my guardian as well. Since that time Mr Sayle has set out to steal my property from me.

  I knew when Mr Sayle reached this part. He suddenly stood up. He went quite white and said, ‘You can’t say this.’

  But he didn’t even look at me. I didn’t reply, and he kept reading. He and Mr Kelvin Rodd, also from Wirrawee, have a plan to set up a resort on my place, offering luxury mountain holidays. They have a company called Kelsey Developments Pty Ltd. They made a secret agreement for Kelsey to buy my place at a dirt-cheap price. Because Mr Sayle is my guardian I can’t stop him. Then the two of them will set up their resort, and make a huge profit. These men are criminals. What they are doing is illegal. If you deal with them, expect to be ripped off. If you’ve had any dealings with Mr Sayle, you should get another lawyer to check what he has done, in case he’s stolen from you too.

  At the bottom was my signature and the date.

  Well, there was no shit to hit the fan, and no fan. But it seemed for a few moments that everything else hit everything else. Mr Sayle threw the sheet back at me. Mr Rodd tore his up. Mr Sayle started around the corner of his desk but then stopped again. It was like he suddenly realised it mightn’t be a good idea to stomp me to death on the floor of his office. Instead he grabbed the pile of papers I’d put in front of him and threw them at me too. He followed up with a newspaper and a couple of finance magazines. Then he started shouting at me. It was hard to understand some of it but in general he was saying that he would sue me for defamation, that he’d ruin me, that I could even go to prison.

  I didn’t think prison was too likely, given how old I was, and that I was an orphan, and assuming that Mr Sayle’s behaviour wouldn’t look too good under close examination. Zola yes, Ellie no.

  I had thought this through quite a bit, even in the short time since I’d had the idea of doing it. So I took a step forward, trying to stay calm. I’ve noticed a few times now how powerful it is if you stay calm when someone else has lost his temper.

  ‘Sure,’ I said, ‘go ahead and sue me. If you can sue a minor for defamation.’

  That rocked him right to his Reeboks.

  I followed up fast. ‘I don’t know if you can or not. But suppose you can. What happens then? Either you win, and you get some money from me, but I won’t have much left anyway by the time the case is finished. And your reputation will be shot and you’ll have a stain the size of California on your name. Or you’ll lose, and your reputation’ll be even more shot. And face it, you’re a good chance of losing. There’s nothing in my letter that isn’t true.’

  Mr Rodd sneered at him: ‘I told you what she’s like.’

  ‘I’ll get an injunction,’ he said again.

  ‘We’ll ignore it,’ I said. ‘We’re teenagers. We don’t do injunctions. We’ll scatter these notices like confetti. By tomorrow morning you won’t be able to walk down the street. You’ll need an umbrella to keep the spit off your head.’

  I’ve got to hand it to myself, he was definitely whitefaced. I decided Zola was a pretty good role model. He’d known what he was doing.

  I couldn’t give Sayle any more time to think. I pulled out my pen. ‘Sign it,’ I snarled. ‘And then I’ll try to get to my friends and stop these papers going out. But I’ll have no hope of doing anything after three thirty. It’s now or never.’

  Mr Rodd was still sitting there sneering. Then he suddenly saw the look in Mr Sayle’s eyes. ‘Don’t sign,’ he said, jumping up.

  ‘I have to, Kelvin,’ he said. ‘Her family’s been here forever. Everyone knows them. Especially after that stuff she did in the war. These local yokels are going to read her bit of paper, the ones who can read that is, and it’ll be the end of the story. No-one’s going to listen to us.’

  With the signed statement in my hand I turned and headed for the door. I didn’t think it would be a good idea to run but I expected at every step to get a letter-opener buried in my back or a wastepaper bin shoved down on my head. I couldn’t believe it when I got to the door without a word being said, and I couldn’t believe it even more when I opened the door and left, and nothing and no-one followed me down the street. It had been as bad as any encounter with enemy soldiers in wartime. All the way back to school I shook like a tissue in a typhoon.

  EPILOGUE

  Bloody Homer. How often have I put those two words together? It’s like the official adjective for Homer is bloody. Or, to put it another way, there are two words for Homer, and the second is Homer. And the first one needn’t necessarily be bloody, either.

  He really wasn’t interested in my great victory over Mr Sayle and Mr Rodd. Oh, he listened of course, because he knew he was expected to, but because it wasn’t about him he only half listened, and the moment I was finished he went back to talking about Liberation, which was all he seems to care about these days.

  I suppose if you weren’t there you wouldn’t realise how difficult it was, and how it felt so dangerous, and how much it meant to me to have succeeded. Not only for the obvious reason that it looked like I’d saved the farm, for a short time anyway, but also because it proved that I could win my battles in the adult world of post-war Wirrawee, against the movers and shakers and lawyers and developers and sharks.

  It gave me more hope that I could make a go of things by myself.

  I shouldn’t say by myself, because Gavin was doing it too, and it was Gavin who seemed to understand how much it meant to get that letter of resignation from Mr Sayle. When I showed it to him he ran around the kitchen three times waving it in the air and making noises like a train that’s trapped in a tunnel.

  He then kissed me, which shocked both of us I think.

  So now I’m in the kitchen looking around, one minute thinking, ‘This is mine, I’m in charge, I own it all, it’s my kitchen, my house, my farm,’ and the next minute I’m, ‘Oh my God I’m too young, this is the scariest thing that’s ever happened, I can’t do this.’

  Can I do it? ‘I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.’

  Well, I’m not a train, and anyway, even a train can be derailed by a landslide. Or blown up. I’m just me, just Ellie, sitting at the kitchen table, trying to make my life work, barely holding it together some days, some days feeling too big a flood of grief for the house to hold, but some days feeling pride and strength.

  I know my life’s different to other people’s but everyone’s life is different to everyone else’s. All I can do is keep living it, keep moving it forward every day I can. Lots of days it’s three steps forward, four steps back. If at the end of every month I’m a step or two ahead — well, I’ll settle for that.

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