It’s like he’s really nervous, ’is hands’re all fidgety when he’s tellin’ me, ‘Your mother can’t come to visit you because it’s too far away for her to travel and she has your little sisters to look after.’
I nod my head. ‘I know,’ I tell ’im.
Sittin’ in the chair next to me, holdin’ his hat in his lap, he runs his murra through his grey hair, and leans forward, lookin’ nervous.
‘Are they looking after you well in here?’ he asks, lookin’ at me concerned.
I nod and give ’im a minya bit of a smile ’cause he looks real worried. He smiles back, but it’s kind of crooked, like he’s in pain. Lookin’ at ’im sittin’ next to my bed, he doesn’t seem as much of a mystery to me any more. Enid Blyton’s clues are more interestin’ to me now. I wonder why he puzzled me so much before. He’s just an old farmer who ’elps our family out because we ’elp ’im on ’is farm.
He looks down at the plaster on my leg, frowns and takes a deep breath.
‘Does your leg still hurt?’ he asks.
I shy-way nod.
His eyes go all shiny and he pats my hand. ‘The doctor will make it better soon.’
A minya smile comes across my face. Old Rod’s always got that way of making me feel safe, just like Mumma.
‘I can’t stay long,’ he says, lookin’ down at the floor and turning his hat in his hands. ‘It’s a long drive home and I’ve got sheep on the back of the truck, prize ones for breeding.’
I nod again.
‘I got lots more bananas for your sisters too. I’ll tell them I’ve seen you,’ he says as he stands up.
A minya lump come up in my throat and I want to say ‘thank you’ to him, just like Mumma and Papa taught us kids to show manners around walbiya mooga, but nothing comes out of my mouth. So instead I just give a minya wave.
Then he’s gone. I look down at the shiny floor and feel a minya ache in my chest.
Old Rod was right. Not long after he visited me, and after nearly a year of being in hospital, Doctor decides to operate on my leg. Afterwards the pain’s even worse than before and I cry all the time for it to go away. But the nice nurses come and sit with me and hold my murra, and talk nice-way to me. Even though a long time has passed from when I left home, it’s these times I miss Mumma, Ada and my sisters most.
When the pain starts to go away I ’ave to learn to walk again after not usin’ my leg for so long. The nurses take me to another part of the hospital where they make me walk on a movin’ machine. Real slow first, then later a bit faster. They make me walk up and down the stairs and that was hard and really hurt my jinna mooga too. But when I start to walk all the pain comes back again.
One day I ’ear the doctor say to one of the nurses, ‘I think she’s almost ready to go to Escort House.’
I start thinkin’ they claimed me now and they gonna send me away, I’ll never see Uncle Murdi, Mumma, Ada, Eva and my minya sisters again. It’s like welfare, they got me now, so I’m finished.
Not long after that a big black car come to pick me up. The nurses pack my suitcase and a box with all my minya toys in it. I give them big hugs, ’cause they’ve been like my mummas at the ’ospital. Two men take me out to the black car and tell me we’re goin’ to a place in Sussex Street. What’s that mean? Will there be Nyunga kids there that ’ave been stolen from their familes too, I wonder. Who are these people? I real frightened then. But when we get there a nice lady come and get me from the car and speak real nice-way to me and tell me I’m safe. She says I’m gonna go on the aeroplane tomorrow. They sendin’ me ’ome. I’m goin’ ’ome at last. ’Ome. I can’t believe it.
After eleven months in ’ospital, I’m goin’ back ’ome. I think about how much I’ve grown and wonder if they’ll remember me. My birthday’s close to Jesus’ birthday and I left after Christmas last year, so that means I’m nearly eight now. I always forget my birthday ’cause it gets lost in all the things that happen ’round Christmas time.
When the aeroplane lands in Ceduna, Mr Dryner, a welfare worker, picks me up from the airport to take me ’ome. He takes my suitcase and box and puts them in the back of the car. Then he opens the door for me to get into the front seat. When he shuts ’is door he says, ‘Well, show me where they did the operation.’
He’s lookin’ down at my legs. I feel shame, the scar’s under my skirt and I don’t want to show ’im.
‘Well, come on then, lift up your dress,’ he tells me. ‘I want to see.’
I lift it just far enough for ’im to see.
‘Lift it higher,’ he says.
I clench my fists, I don’t want to lift my dress any higher, he can see good enough from there.
‘Lift it higher,’ he says again, but this time in a firm voice.
I feel scared and angry, I wanna punch ’im, but I don’t ’cause I don’t feel safe with ’im. I lift my skirt a minya bit further just above the scar and no more. I feel really shame. It’s a long and nervous drive back to the Mission and I’m so relieved when he drops me off out the front of our minya cottage.
Even though I’m ’appy and excited to be ’ome, I feel real shy, even a bit scared, ’cause I’ve been away for so long and everything’s been so different being ’round white people all the time, except for little Terry. And now being back with my Nyunga family, it’s almost like I’ve forgotten how to be the me that left a long time ago because the me now is a different girl.
‘Grace’s ’ome,’ I hear Mumma’s voice.
Uncle Murdi comes outa the house and picks up my suitcase and box. He gives me a big smile that say, ‘Hello there, Grace. It’s real deadly to see you again, girl.’ That makes me feel all warm inside but I feel shame too so I put my gugga down.
Eva, Polly and Sandy come runnin’ round the corner and stop. They starin’ at me, smilin’, but they can see I’m real shame.
Feelin’ my eyes wellin’ up with tears I turn away and pretend to straighten my dress. It feels real strange seein’ them again too, and the longer I stand there the harder it is to move.
Then Aunty Wendy walks outa the front door wavin’ ’er murra, wantin’ me to come inside.
Still I don’t move.
‘Come and meet your new baby sister,’ Aunty Wendy says, movin’ towards me. ‘Her name’s Jane, like Tarzan and Jane, Queen of the Jungle.’
She’s gently pushin’ me into our minya cottage, and I limp into the bedroom. Eva, Polly and Sandy run past Aunty Wendy and gently tug at my dress. I’ve forgotten what our bedroom looks like, the old cupboard with the broken door in the corner and the big double bed covered with the same old stained blanketie. It smells quite bad in the room, I screw up my wah. Everything looks real drab and dirty. Near the bed’s my suitcase and box that Uncle Murdi’s brought in. I straighten my dress and carefully climb on the bed and look at my new little sister. She’s such a pretty baby. I put my finger in the palm of ’er chubby, little ’and and she squeezes it real tight. I smile at ’er, then look up at Ada.
Ada’s smilin’ too. ‘It’s good to see you again, Grace,’ she says. Then she asks to see my leg.
Just as I’m liftin’ my skirt up again, the biggest mob of my sisters and brothers come runnin’ into the room and start openin’ my suitcase and box. My bultha go in all directions and they’re grabbin’ my brush and comb, books and toys. I can see dolly’s head go flyin’ and hear pages being ripped.
‘No,’ I scream, springin’ off the bed. ‘Don’t take those things, they’re mine.’ I’m crying and trying to get my books and toys off ’em but I can’t stop ’em.
‘’Ow come you talkin’ like a real walaba?’ Eva asks me, ’er ’ands on ’er ’ips.
What? I stand there with my mouth open. What’s she talkin’ about? I don’t sound like a walaba, do I?
‘They my things and you kids got
no right stealin’ ’em,’ I say. I can feel my anger wellin’ up inside.
‘Hey,’ Molly yell out to me, walkin’ into the cramped room. ‘You got real fat.’
‘And you just the same, Molly, still real ugly,’ I answer ’er back cheeky-way, my shyness giving way to anger as I tug-of-war Joshy with my book.
After I manage to grab back most of my things and push them under the bed, I look up and there standin’ in the doorway is Mumma. I nearly cry when I see ’er. She’s just as I remember. I stand up and she walks towards me with ’er arms wide open and warm.
Mumma gives me big hug like she did when I was a minya wunyi. ‘Hello, my girl. It’s so good that you back with us again.’
She squeezin’ me tight and jigglin’ me ’round. I squeeze ’er back.
That night, Mumma makes us a nice big feed and we light the fire outside. There’s lots of laughin’ and singin’ to Uncle Murdi’s guitar. All the kids runnin’ ’round the backyard, but not me, my leg’s still gettin’ better and I’m so tired from the plane trip.
I’m ’ome at last but I’m not sure if I want to be.
When I go to bed I can’t sleep, the old goomboo smell’s still there and the blanketie’s rough and scratchy on my skin. I’m used to them clean white sheets at the ’ospital. And what’s that bitin’ me? Probably them bedbugs and fleas. They never stop me from sleepin’ before but now I can’t sleep for the itchin’.
In the mornin’ I think, ‘Oh, no. My goomboo minyi ways are back again.’
In the ’ospital from ’alfway through stayin’ there I hardly ever wet my bed, and now on my first night back, it’s wet. Damn. No one growls me though, they must be pleased I’m ’ome.
As soon as I get back from the ’ospital, Mumma Jenna decides she’s gonna get me to eat as much bush tucker as she can to help my leg heal.
‘Make your jinna strong again, girl,’ she’d say, giving me Nyunga mai to eat all the time when we out back in the scrub.
Mumma Jenna teaches us kids a lot about how to survive in the bush, what mallee roots will give us water, how to look for the joongu joongu and what food to collect in the different seasons. Spring’s the best time for plenty of mai like boorar. We eat the thin layer of skin on the outside and sometimes we crack open the hard seed and eat the nut on the inside. Some of us kids even use the boorar seed for marbles too. Mumma shows us how to look for special bark of the mallee tree to peel back from the trunk to find honey sap. We lick the sap and it tastes delicious. Honeysuckle bushes are one of my favourites, we pull the little flower off the stem and suck the honey from inside. I always think of the minya bees suckin’ the sweetness out to make the honey for the bee-hive. Us kids really like womoo too, it’s small fluffy white bits that are sweet to eat and real easy to find on one side of the mallee leaves.
Then, there’s the ngoonyin bush with see-through berries. They real sweet too, and they’re tiny, only the size of a match head. Another favourite is walga, the bush tomato that grows between spring and summer. In the winter time there’s the big mushrooms that grow under trees where the bark falls on the munda. They’re not like the other mushrooms you pick in the paddock, they’re real tough ones, and have a strong smell and taste, a minya bit like wood or bark. If we found a big mob of them, we might light a fire and cook them to eat right there. They’re so yummy.
Mumma takes us kids out all the time and we have a good feed so even if we got no mai at home, our djuda mooga always full when Mumma takes us out, most of the time anyway.
When it comes to kuka, Mumma always takes us to dig for rabbity mooga too. The first thing is to check if their goona and tracks are fresh. Then we walk along and cave in all the minya gudle mooga, so they can’t get away. Mumma’s got a long stick that she breaks off the mallee bush and sticks it in the main hole to see which way it goes. Then she takes ’er crowbar and digs along the hole. We can tell when the rabbity mooga are gettin’ closer ’cause when she pokes ’er stick in and pulls it out and their fur’s on the end of it, she knows they not far. Then she reaches down in the hole and grab the rabbity and stretch it from its neck to its legs real quick-way. When you hear the neck snap you know the rabbity’s dead. On a good day, she might get as many as six out of one hole. At the right time of the year they’re real fat and juicy too. After she catches ’em, she guts and skins ’em, then pushes a jibin through their skin to thread up the hole in the guts. When she gets ’ome she singes off the hair then puts the rabbity in the oven, same as malu tail and gulda. If we real hungry we light the fire straight ’way, heat up the munda underneath and make a ground oven by diggin’ a hole in the shape of the rabbity mooga. Then we cook up enough to ’ave a feed, then take the rest back for the others.
When the men go out they hunt malu all year round, gibara and gibara eggs, but wadu only sometimes. When they come home from huntin’, we all ’ave a good feed. Walbiya Mission mob don’t mind us goin’ out bush for food ’cause there’s never enough mai to go ’round for everyone an’ the bush tucker gives Nyunga mooga a good feed.
My leg keeps healin’ and gets stronger all the time from me havin’ good feeds of Nyunga mai. Mumma keeps rubbin’ her nguggil into my leg too, to make it strong. That walbiya gu minga’s pretty much gone now.
11
Some things stay the same, some things change
When I go back to school, just as I thought, Teacher’s surprised how far I’ve come with my reading, writing and arithmetic. This year, I come top of the Mission school with my marks ’cause of all the schoolin’ I’ve had at the ’ospital and as usual the teasin’ kids are still cheeky. But it’s real frustratin’ sometimes, because Teacher won’t let me play any sport or move ’round too much in case my leg gets sick again. She treats me like someone who can’t walk but after being in the ’ospital bed for so long I just want to be like the other kids again. I think of how us kids use to run flat-out and throw ourselves at the bottlebrush trees to see how far they can fling us back. These big strong bushes can chuck us way up in the air and we lucky if we land on our jinna again. I wanna do that, I wanna run with my sisters and brothers. Instead I just skip along behind ’em.
My life on the Mission seems different now. It’s like I’ve grown up five years in the one year with what I’ve learnt and what I know about life outside the Mission. It’s like I’m this minya fish in a fishbowl that’s jumped into the wanna, swam around for a bit, then jumped back into the fishbowl again. I’m startin’ to feel safe, and all right again at ’ome just where I want to be. Or is it?
Improving at school work means more teasin’ from the nasty kids, more ‘whitefella kid’ taunts. Even more kids get jealous now that I sit back and read a big thick book while they struggle with their times tables and ABCs.
When the teasin’ gets too much I just get a book from the classroom or the school library and sit down somewhere quiet and read. Being stuck in a hospital bed for so long with nothin’ to do, I started to make friends with books. Like when I sing with Uncle Murdi or along with Yours for the Askin’, I go to another place, another world away from all the hurt. Books take me to a peaceful place. The more I read the more I understand about the world and people outside of the Mission. But there are still some big gaps I want filled. One thing the teasin’ does is make me want to find out who my father is again and with all my reading of Enid Blyton, I feel I’m more prepared than ever. My fair skin must have come from somewhere, I reckon.
Then a little walaba girl about my age comes to the Mission with her family. Her name’s Gerta and she sits near me in class. She thinks I’m a walaba girl like her ’cause of my fair skin and she’s nice to me. Every time there’s a test for spelling, arithmetic, or speed and accuracy we try to outdo each other. Sometimes I beat her and sometimes she beats me. It makes me want to do better and for a while I forget about the teasin’ and put all my thoughts into my school work. I think Nyunga mooga c
an be just as clever as walaba mooga and try to prove it every day.
One day somethin’ happens that makes the teasin’ worse, makes me real scared, and changes lotta things on the Mission. A truck pulls up with strange Nyunga mooga. They real wild-lookin’ mob with dust all over ’em like they been travellin’ long time out bush. Some of ’em ’ave red bands on their gugga like jinardoo and that frightens me. After Superintendent pulls up in the truck, he jumps out, gets people off the back real quick-way and starts buzzin’ ’round like blowfly organisin’ things, orderin’ people ’round, bein’ real boonri boonri. He wanna be careful one of the old fellas don’t put mumoo in him, if he get too cheeky with ’em. He’s tellin’ some of our Nyunga workers to get wood for fire and sheets of iron to make shelters for these people. Then he jumps in the truck again and takes off to get another load of people.
This goes on for long time ’til we got the biggest mob of strange Nyunga mooga on the Mission. They look real confused and worried, talkin’ their language flat-out-way. Some of the minya gidjida mooga are clingin’ to their mummas and cryin’ and I feel sorry for ’em ’cause they look real sad. Maybe they ’omesick like I was when I first went to ’ospital in Adelaide. Where’s their ’ome, I wonder. Then, all the kids get taken to the Children’s ’Ome for a wash and for clothes, ’cause they all nigardi.
Kids in our family lucky we don’t get put in the ’Ome. Papa and the uncles work on Old Rod’s and other farms, shearin’ and reapin’ season and fencin’ other times to get food for us. Mumma, Ada and the aunties work too. Papa real strict with us kids to make sure we behave. He would fight them Mission mob if they tried to take us ’way. He would say, ‘My family good Christian people, hard workers. We keep our children fed and clothed. We the best ones to look after our kids.’ I don’t know why them other kids get put in the ’Ome, maybe Mission mob think they not good enough Christians, or not gettin’ enough food, or not wearin’ clean enough clothes? Who knows what them walbiya mob think, I can’t work ’em out.
Mazin Grace Page 12