Stay Well Soon

by Penny Tangey

  Mr Parks writes the topics on the board and we have five minutes to work out our pairs and decide what we’d like to do.

  Morgan and I decide on our order of favourites: World War II first, obviously, because it was so tragic. Our next choice is the First Fleet. Our final back-up choice is the Gold Rush because Morgan really likes Sovereign Hill.

  April and Charlotte are pulled out of the hat first.

  They choose World War II. April smiles at us. She knows we wanted that one.

  Julian and Tim get to choose next. They pick the 1956 Melbourne Olympics. That is because Julian wants to go to the Olympics because he thinks he’s a really fast runner.

  Morgan and I wait and wait. Finally, there are two groups left and two topics: the Depression and the Suffragettes. They are the two most boring-sounding topics ever. Morgan and I look at each other. She mouths, ‘Depression’, and I nod. At least I know what the Depression is, and maybe we could beg for money from the Grandparents and Friends.

  Mr Parks pulls out the second-last pair: James and Deng.

  James and Deng choose the Depression.

  That means we have to do the suffragettes.

  ‘Noooo . . .’ says Morgan, putting her head down on the desk.

  ‘Who even are the suffragettes?’ I ask.

  ‘I hate history that’s not about wars,’ says Morgan. ‘How is it even important if nobody dies?’

  ‘If you don’t settle down,’ says Mr Parks, ‘I will take a marble out of the jar.’

  We have worked too hard for those twenty-eight marbles to lose them now. But other people in the class won’t shut up.

  Mr Parks says he has had just about enough. He takes a marble out of the jar.

  What a nightmare.

  Lara is on one of the beanbags in the Kidz Space when I arrive after school. I sit down beside her.

  ‘I’ve drawn another horse,’ I say. I show Lara the picture.

  ‘Wow, you’re really improving,’ says Lara.

  ‘It’s for you,’ I tell her.

  Lara takes the picture. ‘Thank you so much! It’s fantastic. I’ll stick it up next to my bed.’

  ‘I’ve got new pencils,’ I say. ‘Will you draw another one for me?’

  ‘Nah, I’m not in the mood for drawing horses today.’

  I guess if you used to ride horses all the time, drawing them isn’t as interesting. Maybe Lara is missing Finnigan again and it is too painful to think about horses.

  ‘Maybe I’ll do a drawing of something else,’ says Lara. ‘Can I borrow your pencils?’

  I say yes, but I hope she doesn’t press too hard.

  Luckily, Lara’s drawing is just a few lines and she doesn’t do any shading. She draws the nurse who is sitting at the desk outside the Kidz Space. She draws her with a really big nose (the nurse’s nose is big, but not that big) and a sticking-out forehead. It is very funny. The black pencil is even more used up, but this time it is worth it.

  ‘That’s great!’ I say. ‘Are you going to be an artist when you grow up?’

  ‘I doubt it, I’m not good enough. I wanted to be a vet.’

  ‘Me too!’ I say. Actually, I want to be a vet and a horse breeder and a chemist. ‘Are you still going to be a vet?’ I ask.

  ‘Nah.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Just can’t see it happening. How was your day anyway?’ asks Lara.

  ‘A nightmare,’ I say.

  ‘Why?’ she asks.

  ‘We have to do history projects.’

  ‘Don’t you like history?’

  ‘I love it. But me and Morgan got the worst topic.’

  ‘What’s the topic?’

  ‘The suffragettes.’

  ‘But that’s great!’ she says.

  ‘Is it? I don’t even know what it means.’

  Lara sits forward in the beanbag. ‘The suffragettes were brilliant. They fought for women’s rights. Can you believe that a hundred years ago women weren’t allowed to own a house or vote or have a job after they were married?’

  I shake my head.

  ‘It was so unfair. Anyway, the suffragettes were awesome ladies. Some of them went to jail and went on hunger strikes.’

  Lara lets me borrow her iPad to look up suffragette on the internet. She is right, they are very interesting. Some of them even died. Fighting for women’s rights was like a kind of war. I can’t wait to tell Morgan.

  When I arrive at school the next day I hurry over to Morgan, who is sitting on the bench. ‘I found out about the suffragettes!’ I say.

  At the same time Morgan is saying, ‘It turns out the suffragettes are great!’

  We are both excited to tell each other about it.

  ‘They went on hunger strikes!’

  ‘They were force-fed!’

  ‘One of them was trampled by a horse!’

  ‘They were in Mary Poppins!’ says Morgan.

  ‘What?!’ I say. I used to love that film when I was little.

  ‘You know the first song, where the lady marches around with a sash? She’s a suffragette.’

  ‘Oh. I just thought she was mad.’

  We both can’t believe that women weren’t allowed to vote. It is so wrong. Morgan says just thinking about it makes her angry.

  When we go into class we do silent reading first thing, but we get no marbles in the jar because of Brendan James’s silly behaviour with a pencil sharpener. After silent reading Mr Parks gives us time to work on our history projects.

  Morgan and I are very busy doing internet research. There are so many interesting websites. Unfortunately, it turns out that the Australian suffragettes didn’t throw bombs or go to jail. They wrote letters and signed petitions.

  Morgan says we could get everyone in the school to sign our petition for women’s rights and then chain ourselves to the basketball ring. We’ll see.

  Charlotte and April are using the computer next to us. They are not even researching the Second World War like they are supposed to. They’re looking at saddles. The saddle on the screen costs $879! I don’t even know if Mum earns that much in a year.

  Morgan says, ‘Stevie, have you finished reading this page?’

  ‘No,’ I admit.

  ‘Stop daydreaming,’ she says. ‘We have work to do.’

  ‘We’ve got heaps of time.’

  ‘Don’t argue. There’s only a few weeks to go.’

  ‘Okay, okay.’

  ‘We could work on the project on the weekend,’ Morgan suggests.

  ‘I guess so,’ I say.

  ‘Could I come to your house?’ asks Morgan.

  I don’t say anything.

  ‘Or you could come to my house again?’ she says.

  ‘Okay. Can your dad pick me up though?’

  ‘Sure.’

  This will be better. Morgan would have too many questions if she came to my house.

  After school I am back at the hospital as usual. When the lift doors open I start to walk towards the Kidz Space but Mum calls me back.

  ‘Where do you think you’re going?’ she asks.

  ‘To the Kidz Space,’ I say.

  ‘Forget it. We’re here to visit your brother, you know. I’m sick of you running off.’

  So I have to sit in the room with Rhys. He eats some custard. I don’t get any. Mum says Rhys has to have an operation, so the custard will be the last thing he eats all day and he can’t have breakfast tomorrow morning. I would be starving if that happened to me.

  ‘Why is Rhys having an operation?’ I ask Mum.

  ‘To make him better.’

  I’ve never had an operation. I would not like to have people cutting into me, even if I was asleep. I wonder if Rhys is scared but I don’t want to ask him in case Mum gets mad.

 
I try to use the time productively, thinking of ideas to get money for a horse and horse equipment. But I can’t think of any.

  On Saturday we meet Morgan and her dad in the supermarket car park. Morgan’s dad says it is no trouble because he always comes into town on Saturday morning.

  Morgan and I talk about the suffragette poster all the way to her house. The poster will be purple, green and white because the suffragettes really liked those colours. I have brought my new pencils. There are six shades of purple and eight shades of green. That should be enough.

  At Morgan’s house we spread out on the red rug in her bedroom. I can see under her bed where she keeps all her shoes. We have already decided that we will have three sections on our poster: ‘Who were the suffragettes?’, ‘Australian suffragettes’ and ‘Achievements’.

  Morgan is typing up some information on her dad’s laptop while I draw the headings on the poster with my pencils.

  I sharpen the black pencil. Then I draw a big black umbrella to symbolise Mary Poppins. After I’ve finished shading it I have to sharpen the black pencil again. The black pencil is going to be used up ages before all the other pencils.

  Morgan’s dad comes in to tell us that lunch is ready.

  ‘That is great work, girls!’ he says, looking at our poster. ‘Your presentation is going to rock!’

  On the way to the kitchen we go through the lounge room. The room is basically a building site with bits of wood everywhere and a ladder. Morgan tells me it is slow progress on the renovations and her mum is getting sick of it.

  There are cheese and tomato rolls for lunch. Morgan’s dad cuts us up some pear and we eat that too. Morgan and I talk about how fruit tastes better cut up, except for plums.

  After lunch, Morgan suggests we dress up as suffragettes to help us understand what it was like.

  We go into Morgan’s parents’ room. It is a very big room with no furniture except for a bed, which has no legs. It is very tidy and empty. There are no clothes on the floor or anything.

  One wall of the room has mirrors from the floor to the ceiling. Morgan slides across one of the mirrors and behind it there is a long row of dresses, skirts and coats hanging up.

  ‘Are you sure your mum won’t mind?’ I ask.

  ‘No. She thinks it’s funny when I try on her clothes.’

  We both put on long dresses and cardigans, like in the olden days. We go back to Morgan’s room and make signs by sticking pieces of paper onto rulers. Morgan’s says, ‘equal rights for women’ and mine says, ‘votes for women’.

  ‘We should do a protest now,’ says Morgan.

  ‘Okay,’ I say.

  We march out into the lounge room. Morgan shouts, ‘What do we want?’

  She looks at me, but I don’t know what to say.

  Morgan explains, ‘I say, “What do we want?” and you say, “Votes for women”.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘Dad took me to a protest for the refugees once. That’s how you do it.’ She tries again. ‘What do we want?’

  ‘Votes for women!’

  ‘When do we want it?’

  Morgan mouths, ‘Now’, at me.

  ‘Now!’

  ‘What do we want?’

  ‘Votes for women.’

  ‘When do we want it?’

  ‘Now!’

  Morgan’s dog Tasha starts barking as a car pulls into the driveway. Tasha is small, black and yappy. If Angel ever met Tasha she would try to eat her.

  ‘It’s Mum!’ says Morgan.

  Morgan’s mum has long black hair like Morgan. She’s wearing a skirt and stripy red and white socks that go all the way up to her knees. I have seen them for sale at the Captains Hill market.

  We do the protest for Morgan’s mum and dad and they both say it is really good.

  Then Morgan and I go on the internet and find a video of Emily Davison being trampled by a horse at the Epsom Derby. She did it to protest for women’s rights; it wasn’t the horse’s fault.

  Morgan goes funny and starts staring at the wall. She says she’s just realised how Indigo and Jade died. They were trampled by a spirited thoroughbred. It wasn’t the horse’s fault, he was just sad because his mother died when he was a colt. We go outside and hold our bracelets up to the light to remember Indigo and Jade.

  Mum lets me stay home on my own on Sunday. She has bent the rules just for today because there is so much washing to do because we are never home. We are all running out of clean socks.

  This is the first time I have ever been allowed to stay home by myself. I can watch whatever I want on television.

  The house is very quiet. The only sound is the washing machine.

  I turn on the television.

  The washing machine beeps, which means it is finished. I turn off the television and go into the laundry. I put the wet washing in a basket and put in another load. I lean against the machine until the water has finished filling up.

  I pick up the washing basket and take it outside to the line. It is a cloudy day. Fingers crossed that it won’t rain.

  We are running out of pegs so I have to hang the socks up in pairs. Mum bought a new packet of pegs only a few months ago but we are always losing them.

  I look in the grass for pegs and I find thirteen.

  Back in the laundry I put the basket on top of the machine. It is very quiet in the house now. But then I hear a creaking sound. I stop still. There’s another creak and a rustle. It sounds like the noise is coming from the kitchen. Like there’s a person in the kitchen.

  I want to escape. I quickly open the back door and go outside into the backyard.

  Maybe I am being silly. If there was someone in the house, Angel would have barked. She always barks when strangers come. Dad Tony trained her that way. Angel loved Dad Tony even though he was always yelling at her.

  I crouch down and give Angel a pat on the head. She rolls over and wants a scratch on the tummy.

  I stand up and go closer to the back door. I can’t hear anything now except the washing machine.

  I walk around the house to the kitchen window and look in. I can’t see anyone.

  I go back into the house and step into the kitchen. I hear the rustling noise again and I see a plastic bag on the bench waving around in the wind. I shut the window and it stops.

  That still doesn’t explain the creaking sound. I will have to investigate.

  I pick up a big frying pan for protection and I walk into each room of the house. To be on the safe side I check behind the doors and in the cupboards.

  Rhys’s room is last. There’s no-one in there. I guess the creaking was nothing after all. I put the frying pan back in the kitchen and go back to Rhys’s room. His room smells gross, like him. There are tissues and clothes all over the floor.

  I pick up a big armful of clothes. I try to hold them far out in front of me so I can’t smell them. I take them to the laundry and put them in the dirty pile.

  The dirty washing pile looks the same size as it was this morning. Will it never end?

  I am getting hungry. Mum told me there was cheese and bread in the fridge but I don’t want a boring old cheese sandwich for lunch. Maybe after the next load of washing is hung out I will ride my bike down the street to the shops and get a sausage roll. Except sausage rolls are three-fifty and obviously I have to save all my money for horse equipment.

  In the lounge room I pick up all the cushions from the couch. I find a dollar coin and a fifty-cent coin. I look on the dresser in Mum’s room. There’s a ten-dollar note, but she will notice if I take it.

  I walk past Rhys’s room and see his savings jar sitting on his dresser. It is in the shape of a motorbike.

  I turn the jar upside down and try to shake the coins out of the slot in the rider’s helmet. They won’t come out. I pull the rubber stop
per out of the bottom and some coins rattle out. There’s exactly three dollars fifty. If I take that plus the one dollar fifty, I can have a sausage roll and a can of Creamy Soda because of the special deal.

  When I’ve hung out the next load of washing I ride my bike to the Langwarrin shops. I am so hungry now. My mouth starts watering when I smell the chips being cooked in the shop.

  Mrs Baker, who used to be a teacher at school until she started crying all the time, is working in the shop.

  ‘Hello, Stevie,’ she says.

  ‘Hello, Mrs Baker,’ I say.

  I order the special sausage-roll-and-can-of-drink deal. She puts a sausage roll in a bag and hands me a can.

  I give her my money. The cash register takes ages to open up. ‘Sorry, love,’ says Mrs Baker. ‘This register’s as slow as a wet week. What are you up to today?’

  ‘Doing the washing,’ I say.

  ‘The washing-up?’

  ‘No, the clothes washing.’

  ‘You do the laundry all by yourself?’

  ‘Yes.’ Me and Dad Ben used to do it together, but now it is just me.

  ‘You are such a good girl, helping your mum,’ Mrs Baker says. ‘How’s Rhys going?’

  ‘He’s okay.’ I pick up my lunch. ‘Thank you,’ I say.

  ‘I wish my children were more like you.’

  I ride my bike to visit Star, but he’s not there. I sit on the stump to eat my lunch. The sausage roll has gone a bit cold, but what can you do?

  When I get home the washing is all dry. Even though it was cloudy, it was a good drying day, warm and windy. I get the washing in and fold it in front of the television. Mum comes home and she helps me finish the socks.

  The phone rings and it is Dad Ben. He talks to Mum for ages and then finally I get a turn. I tell him all about the Australian history project. He says it sounds like I’m busier than a one-legged man in an arse-kicking contest.

  Dad Ben has a way with words.

  I tell him that the presentation is on Grandparents and Friends Day but he doesn’t take the hint.

  Morgan is late to school on Monday, so I have to sit by myself again. Luckily, I have brought Prancer in the Dark to read.

  We have Indonesian first thing. I ask Morgan how to say, ‘I’m fine’, but she says she doesn’t know. That is a surprise; Morgan is really good at Indonesian because she’s been to Bali. The first time I went to Morgan’s house she showed me the blue and silver sarong that she bought. I hope I own something as beautiful as that one day.