A Penny in Time

by Anna Bartlett

  ‘I don’t know. They might eat the rubbish. Once I saw something moving.’

  ‘It was probably just a rat,’ Alan said.

  Janet bobbed her head from side to side. ‘It might have been a goblin.’

  As soon as they reached the tip Alan and Janet stopped to find two long, solid sticks. Then, armed with these sticks, they began to turn over the rubbish that had been dumped in giant piles all around. The smell was bad, but when Alan breathed through his mouth it didn’t seem so strong. He started at the edge of a pile, poking at tins and glass bottles and flipping over strips of corrugated iron, and worked his way up the hill of rubbish towards the centre. The mess under his feet was sometimes soft and squishy and sometimes rough and sharp.

  Something round and lumpy caught Alan’s eye as it rolled out of a rusty tin. He reached for it with his stick, thinking it might be an old potato, but when he jabbed it he saw with disappointment that it was only a hunk of clay. Alan frowned. He wanted to find some fruit or vegetables for Donald, to stop him getting sick. But Pat was right: if anything was still here from last Wednesday it would have gone bad by now.

  Alan thought of his mother’s tears as Muriel’s tiny coffin had been lowered into the ground, and of the look on his father’s face when he’d come home to find his youngest daughter dead. Alan’s dad had been a builder before he lost his job, but now he was away most of the time, hiking the roads looking for work. Sometimes he got a job clearing scrub or digging drains; he came home when he could, and once he’d brought them a few shillings. Alan didn’t want him to find little Donald dead the next time he came home. He didn’t want to see that angry, helpless look on his father’s face ever again.

  Alan glanced over at the rubbish pile next to his, where Janet was busy foraging. She had a hessian corn sack draped over her shoulders, but nothing else except her stick. He turned back to his own pile, where a wooden packing case had fallen on its side, spilling broken crockery everywhere.

  It was over an hour later that Alan finally called a halt to their work. He’d found a chipped but usable enamel bowl and a length of rope, and Janet had her corn sack, but apart from that they’d found nothing worth keeping. He slid through the mud and refuse around him, back towards the solid ground. Nothing worth keeping, nothing worth selling and nothing worth eating.

  Something hard pressed into Alan’s foot as he stepped down onto the packed dirt. He lifted his leg and flicked at the sole of his foot with his stick. A clump of clay fell to the ground, and Alan was about to keep walking when he noticed something round embedded in it. He dropped his stick and the bowl he was carrying and reached down to pull the object from the clay, then wiped it on the front of his coat.

  Alan gasped. ‘Janet, look!’ he called.

  Under the smears of clay was an undamaged copper penny. Alan could hardly believe it; he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a penny of his own to spend. He imagined what his mother’s face would look like when he handed it to her. She could use it to buy a mandarin or an egg for Donald, he thought, or potatoes to last until their next sustenance rations.

  As Alan began the long walk home with Janet, the penny held firmly in his hand and Janet now carrying the enamel bowl, he felt a strange bounce in his step. They’d turned off the road onto the dirt track through the trees, and were halfway to the fork that led to the dole camp when he saw coming towards them the gang of boys they’d met earlier in the day. Alan came to a stop and glanced into the scrub to find a place he and Janet would be able to hide. But it was too late: a shout of ‘Look, the susso kids!’ came from the group, and the boys began swarming towards them.

  Alan stood frozen, Janet beside him, as the town boys reached them and crowded around.

  ‘Phew. They stink more than normal,’ said Gordon, the dark-haired boy. ‘Where’ve you been? The sewers?’

  ‘No,’ Alan said. ‘The tip.’

  ‘Were you looking for a packing case to live in?’ one of the boys asked.

  ‘No,’ said Alan. He swallowed hard.

  ‘Where’s your brother?’ someone asked.

  ‘What’s that in your hand?’

  Alan looked down at the hand that held the penny. ‘Nothing,’ he said and hid it behind his back.

  ‘Ooh, it’s a secret.’

  ‘Show us, Conolly. What is it?’

  Alan tried to move backwards but one of the boys stepped behind him to stop his retreat. Another grabbed his arm just above the elbow and yanked his fist around in front of him.

  ‘Don’t,’ Alan said. ‘It’s mine.’

  ‘We’re just looking,’ Gordon said with a grin and started to prise Alan’s fingers away from his palm. Alan was grimacing and trying with all his strength to keep his fist clenched, but with one of the boys holding his wrist and another pulling back his fingers, there was nothing he could do. Slowly they managed to open his hand until the coin was visible.

  ‘Money,’ Gordon said, grabbing it from Alan’s palm. He took a step backwards and the boy holding Alan’s arm let go. ‘Where’d you steal it, Conolly?’

  Alan’s head seemed to fill with a rushing noise. They’d taken the penny. His penny. The penny that would feed little Donald.

  ‘It’s mine!’ he yelled and rushed at Gordon, shoving him in the chest. Gordon stumbled backwards, then tripped and fell, dragging Alan with him. Alan saw the penny fly out of Gordon’s hand and land in the dirt further up the track. He tried to pull himself away to run after the coin but Gordon was gripping the front of his coat. He wriggled frantically and punched at Gordon until he could wrench himself free and struggle to his feet. Now another of the boys was moving towards Alan, and he didn’t think he’d be able to dodge him. But out of nowhere a chipped enamel bowl came flying and hit the boy in the shoulder.

  ‘Come on, Janet,’ Alan shouted and stumbled up the track to where the penny had landed. He scooped it up and turned to see Janet just behind him, the corn sack still draped across her shoulders.

  He grabbed her hand and they ran down the dusty track, past the turn-off to the dole camp and along the straight stretch towards home. Alan couldn’t hear anyone following them, but he still ran as fast as he could. His blood thumped in his ears and he was gasping for breath by the time they came in sight of the rusty shed.

  In the clearing in front of the shed Bridget sat building bark houses with Eileen and Donald. She looked up at Alan and Janet running towards her. ‘Are you alright?’ she called as they stumbled to a stop. ‘What’s wrong?’

  Alan took great gulps of air to catch his breath. He looked down at his fist, then opened it to show Bridget the dirty coin. He grinned.

  ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘Nothing’s wrong.’

  Yared pushed himself up on his elbows. ‘And then did he buy lots of food with the penny so his brother didn’t die, and then his dad found a job and came back and they had lots of money and bought a house again, and then won all the races at school?’

  His nanna raised her eyebrows. ‘Well, I suppose that’s up to you to imagine,’ she said. She picked up her empty mug, took the penny back from him then moved towards the door. ‘Goodnight Yared,’ she said. ‘Sleep well.’

  ‘Goodnight,’ Yared said and snuggled down under the blankets again. He was glad he had a cosy bed and enough food to eat. He thought of Alan, who didn’t even have a bedroom. Of Pat, who had no energy to spare on running, even though he loved it. Yared loved running too, and could beat all the boys in the grade above him; he couldn’t imagine ever being too hungry to run, or so cold that his feet went numb.

  The Flower Girls; or, Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better

  Yared lay sprawled on his back under the covers, relaxed and floppy.

  ‘Well,’ said his nanna, ‘I think you might be too tired for a story tonight, after all your gallivanting around this afternoon.’

  ‘No I’m not,’ Yared said. ‘I’m not tired.’

  He was a bit worn out from Aunty Kat and Uncle Michael’s visit – from
building forts with Max and Tamieka and playing cops and robbers for so many hours. But he was sure he could stay awake for a story; he wasn’t that tired.

  ‘Please, Nanna,’ Yared said. ‘I won’t fall asleep. I won’t be grumpy tomorrow. I’ll listen really hard.’

  ‘Well…’ said his nanna. ‘Perhaps I could.’

  She flicked the light switch and came to sit on the end of his bed.

  ‘When did this story happen?’ asked Yared.

  ‘In the early 1940s; during the Second World War,’ his nanna said. ‘If you’d waited I would have told you.’

  ‘Did they have TV yet?’

  ‘No, they didn’t.’

  ‘Did they have cars?’

  ‘If you listen to my story you’ll find out,’ said his nanna. ‘Now keep quiet or I can’t begin.’

  Yared yawned and rolled onto his side. ‘Oh and Nanna,’ he said, ‘can–’

  ‘I thought you were supposed to be listening, Yared, not talking.’

  ‘I was just going to ask to hold the penny.’

  His nanna shook her head, but smiled as she passed him the coin. Yared held it in his fist and closed his eyes.

  Betty was crouched at the bottom of the trench with a wooden clothes peg clenched between her teeth. The hessian bag draped over her head and shoulders as camouflage was itchy and smelled of onions. She was hot and sweaty and thirsty and hoped that the air-raid drill would soon be over.

  Betty scratched at her scalp. She didn’t mind trench drill, because it interrupted lessons, but she wished they didn’t have to wear the hessian capes; she would have to wash her hair tonight to get rid of the onion smell, and that was so much bother. A fly began crawling up her leg. As Betty reached down to brush it away her elbow bumped Harry Holthouse, who was squatting beside her picking at the dried mud in the bottom of the trench.

  ‘Watch it,’ said Harry. He’d taken his clothes peg from his first aid kit but hadn’t bothered to put it in his mouth. There had never been any real bombings before.

  Betty didn’t answer. Harry was often unpleasant; she was sure he wouldn’t wash his hair tonight, no matter how much it smelled of onions or potatoes, or whatever his hessian bag had carried before it was turned into a camouflage cape.

  ‘Listen,’ said someone further up the trench.

  A faint humming noise reached Betty’s ears and as she listened it gradually grew louder and louder to become a buzzing drone. She clamped her teeth tighter on the wooden peg as the noise of the plane grew closer. Perhaps this wasn’t just a drill after all.

  ‘Where is it?’ asked George Morrissey, Betty’s other neighbour.

  He and Harry peered upwards, craning their necks.

  ‘There,’ George said, pointing towards a clump of clouds on the horizon, where a large speck was growing larger. ‘It’s a… It’s a…’

  ‘Cobra,’ Harry said.

  ‘No it’s not, it’s a Kittyhawk,’ said George.

  Betty wasn’t very interested in aeroplanes, but now that she knew this one wasn’t an enemy her jaw muscles relaxed. She watched the small shape move across the sky, and wondered if the man inside could see them.

  ‘It’s probably come from Amberley,’ said Harry. ‘They must be testing it.’

  ‘It’s going to Archerfield, I reckon,’ said George.

  ‘Or Eagle Farm.’

  ‘No, that’s the wrong way,’ George said. ‘Eagle Farm’s over that way. It’s heading towards Archerfield.’

  Betty sighed. Just her luck to be sandwiched between two boys like Harry and George, who could prattle on about planes for hours. She always found trench drill much more fun when she could talk to her best friend, Jocelyn Paterson. But today Jocelyn was hidden somewhere around the corner; the trenches had been dug in a zigzag shape so that enemy planes would have trouble shooting them, and Betty couldn’t see more than a dozen children.

  The noise of the Kittyhawk faded as the plane passed into the distance.

  ‘My dad flies one of them,’ Harry said, staring after it.

  Betty spat her wooden clothes peg into her hand. Harry was always boasting about his father. ‘You’re a liar, Harry Holthouse,’ she said. ‘Your dad isn’t even in the air force, he’s in the army.’

  Harry made a face at her. ‘Well at least he joined up,’ he said. ‘At least he’s gone to fight, instead of staying at home like your dad.’

  Betty went red. ‘He’s not allowed to fight, they won’t let him,’ she said fiercely. ‘They’d stop him if he tried.’ She repeated the explanation her mother had given her: ‘Suppliers are too important and if they all went to war then there’d be no-one to make sure the shops had enough food in them.’

  Harry made a rude noise and from further down the trench the shrill blast of a whistle came back, like an echo, to signal the end of the drill. Betty snatched off her hessian cape and slipped her clothes peg into her first aid kit.

  ‘Besides,’ she said to Harry as she scrambled to her feet, ‘if all the fathers went to war, who would have dug our trenches for us?’

  ‘Anyone could’ve,’ Harry said. ‘And if your dad wasn’t a coward he would’ve joined up anyway.’

  Betty’s eyes narrowed. ‘My father’s not a coward.’

  ‘Yes he is.’

  ‘He’s not,’ Betty said. ‘You don’t know anything.’

  ‘He’s a coward if he won’t fight,’ Harry said and turned to file out of the trench.

  Betty clenched her fists and wished she was a boy. Then she would be allowed to hit Harry. She knew her father wasn’t a coward – he wasn’t afraid of thunderstorms, he talked politely to fierce dogs and he even seemed to like spiders. And he would have gone to help fight overseas if only he had been allowed to; she’d overheard him talking to her mother one night, suggesting that he try to join up anyway by writing a false occupation on his enlistment papers. But Betty’s mother had persuaded him not to: if the government thought that food suppliers were too useful to go to war, then they must have had a good reason for thinking so. Besides, she had added, it would be lying, and that would be a terrible example to set for Betty and her younger sister Joan.

  But sometimes Betty wished that her father had joined up. She felt left out when the other children talked about their fathers or brothers who were overseas, where they were stationed and what news they had sent. She did have cousins and uncles in the forces, but somehow that didn’t feel quite as special.

  She tried to make up for it by doing her best to help with the war effort at home. Miss Shaw always talked in class about how important it was for everyone to do their bit for the war effort: to do things like saving paper by writing on both sides, or during holidays helping to weave camouflage nets. Betty’s class had even organised to hold a stall at the train station the next morning, and Betty was looking forward to it. She wanted to show Harry Holthouse and the rest of her classmates just how committed she was.

  So when Jocelyn called at her house at a quarter to nine the next morning Betty was ready and waiting in her freshly-ironed blue frock. She slipped out the front gate and together she and Jocelyn set off down the wide grassy footpath dotted with paperbarks.

  ‘You might have told me you were going to wear your blue frock, Betty,’ said Jocelyn as they ambled past the wooden fences and weatherboard houses, knitting as they walked. ‘If I’d only known I would have worn mine to match. But I do think yellow’s a much nicer colour, don’t you? Did I tell you that I’m to have a new skirt from the material Mum bought with the last of my ration coupons? I hope I won’t have to wait long for it.’

  ‘Yes, you told me that,’ Betty said, trying to count stitches at the same time as talking. She and her friends always knitted when they had spare time – as they walked to and from school, or during lunchtimes. Sometimes they knitted squares to make hospital blankets, and often they knitted socks or scarves to send to the soldiers. It made Betty feel special to think that she was helping her country, even though her socks weren’t alway
s quite the right shape.

  As it was a Saturday there were plenty of people around as Betty and Jocelyn strolled towards the station. They waved to old Mr Carmel down the street, who was busy tending his garden, and said good morning to Mrs Williams and her two small sons when they passed them walking home from the butcher’s.

  ‘Don’t you think it will be fun to sell flowers?’ Jocelyn asked as they came in sight of the train station. ‘I am looking forward to it. It’s just exactly like Eliza in Pygmalion, you know, only of course it won’t be on a street corner in London.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Betty, ‘and her flowers weren’t for the war effort. They were just for herself.’

  They made their way past an overhanging wattle tree and up the wooden steps to the platform. Further along, Miss Shaw and a handful of their classmates were gathered behind two worn trestle tables – the boys behind one and the girls behind the other. Miss Shaw wore her usual crisp blouse and skirt, but the children were specially dressed in bright frocks or buttoned shirts, their leather shoes shiny.

  Betty followed Jocelyn along the dusty platform and slipped in behind the girls’ stall. On the table were jars crammed with colourful clumps and bunches of the flowers that they had grown: bright orange marigolds, velvety purple pansies and clusters of sweet-smelling lavender. She glanced over at the second trestle table, which was heaped with pumpkins, tomatoes, squashes and other vegetables the boys had grown in the school vegetable patch. They were rather small, Betty thought, but she supposed they would taste the same.

  People wandered past the stalls in dribs and drabs, and Betty watched them eagerly, waiting for her first customer. At last a thin, spectacled lady stopped in front of their table and began inspecting a bunch of marigolds.

  ‘And where is the money from your sales being sent?’ she asked in a scratchy voice.

  ‘It’s going to the Prisoner of War Fund,’ Betty said.

  ‘Did you know,’ said Jocelyn, ‘that if we raise twenty shillings we can support one whole prisoner of war?’