The January Stars

by Kate Constable

  ‘Never mind your back. Let’s take Dad home,’ said Polly. ‘He must be exhausted.’

  ‘Sp-sp-sp!’ protested Pa.

  ‘He’s feeling heaps better,’ said Clancy.

  ‘And he wants to know what we’re going to decide,’ said Tash.

  ‘We’ll talk about it tomorrow,’ said Tim firmly.

  ‘Woo-hoo!’ yelled Bruno. ‘I bags the green room!’

  ‘Bruno! Nothing’s been decided yet,’ said Harriet sharply.

  But Clancy and Tash were exchanging looks of wild hope. If they were both keen … and Pa was keen … and Bruno was keen … and Tim was taking it seriously … their mother was beaten already, even if she didn’t know it yet.

  ‘Well, now we’ve got ten people and a wheelchair to fit into two cars,’ said Tim. ‘Not very big cars, either.’

  ‘Nine people,’ said Polly.

  ‘What?’ Tim glanced around the room. ‘You’re right, nine. Where did I get ten from?’

  There was a snort from Pip, leaning against the wall with her eyes closed. ‘Call yourself a teacher! No wonder the education system’s in trouble.’

  But Clancy, looking out toward the night, had seen their reflections in the glass. Just for a second, she thought she glimpsed the shadowy figure of a woman standing beside Pa’s wheelchair; and she knew why her father had counted wrong.

  Clancy dropped her Tutt’s Flat Secondary College schoolbag by the front door (Tim would later growl at her for leaving it there), kicked off her runners and followed her nose to the kitchen where fresh Anzac biscuits were cooling on a tray.

  ‘Don’t touch those,’ warned Polly, stacking the dishwasher. ‘They’re for your pa.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’m not a massive fan of Anzacs,’ Clancy assured her. ‘They smell good, but, you know – coconut. Blerch. No offence,’ she added hastily.

  Polly looked surprised, but not as annoyed as Clancy feared she might be. ‘Well, that’s just un-Australian,’ was all she said. Perhaps they’d been wrong about Polly, and she did have a sense of humour after all. ‘How was school?’

  ‘Good. There was a meeting after school about the astronomy camp later in the year. I really want to go.’

  ‘Sounds like fun,’ said Polly politely.

  Clancy lolled against the bench. ‘What were you into when you were at school, Polly?’

  Polly laughed. ‘Would you believe, musical theatre? I starred in West Side Story. I was amazing. I’ll bring my videos next Friday and show you.’ Polly struck a pose, beaming nostalgically.

  ‘Wow,’ said Clancy, stunned. ‘Can I put your videos on YouTube? The Dancing Dentist?’

  ‘Absolutely not,’ said Polly, picking up her keys. ‘I’ll be off now. You’ll be right till your dad comes home?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Clancy.

  ‘You could take some bikkies out to Pa and Bruno,’ suggested Polly as she headed for the door.

  ‘Theoretically, I could,’ agreed Clancy. ‘But the question is, can I be bothered?’

  ‘Oh!’ Polly paused at the threshold. ‘I forgot – a parcel came for you. It’s on the dining table.’

  Feels like a textbook, thought Clancy, as she ripped open the packaging. There was no return address on the wrapping, nor a sticker to show its origin. But when Clancy pulled the heavy book from its bubble wrap, she felt a shock of recognition. It was the star atlas of the southern sky that she’d found at The Magpie Bookshop.

  Clancy hugged the book to her chest; it was solid and weighty and definitely real. It was a full stop at the end of the magic.

  After a few moments, she laid the book on the table to be savoured later. She dutifully piled a plate with warm biscuits and carried them, past the corner where Nan’s telescope was nestled, out onto the deck where her brother and grandfather sat side by side, absorbed in one of Pa’s bird books.

  Bruno looked up. ‘Hey, Clance! Pa’s helping me with my bird list. I started it with Mark in New Zealand. Did I tell you about the time I got lost in the bush there and the fire brigade had to rescue me?’

  ‘Only about a gazillion times,’ said Clancy kindly.

  ‘Sp-sp-sp.’ Pa tapped his finger on the cover of his own bird book and flipped it open to show Clancy a page of cockatoos.

  ‘Cockatoo Bay?’ Clancy gasped. ‘Did Pip have her baby?’

  ‘No, no, no,’ said Pa impatiently.

  ‘Pip’s never going to have that damn baby,’ groaned Bruno.

  ‘It’s not even due yet,’ said Clancy. ‘Not till next week.’

  ‘A-hem!’ Pa coughed for her attention. ‘Sp-sp.’ He pointed to his binoculars, then to the tallest gum tree.

  ‘We saw a cockatoo, but we can’t decide if it’s a glossy black cockatoo or a red-tailed cockatoo,’ said Bruno. ‘We’re waiting for it to come back.’

  ‘That’s nice,’ said Clancy absently, then laughed as she recognised the echo of Polly’s bland reaction to her own excitement about astronomy camp. People were different; they were into different things. It was just the way the world was; you couldn’t do anything about it. It could be fun when your interests overlapped with somebody’s else’s, like she and Toby with astronomy, or Bee and Nan with yoga, or Pa and Bruno and Mark with birds, or Tim and Tash with football. But Clancy was never going to be interested in football, and she was never going to be the same as Tash. And Clancy was cool with that.

  On the other hand, she was changing, a little at a time. Starting a new school hadn’t been as terrifying as she’d expected. Much to her father’s delight, she’d begun reading more books. And slowly, one step at a time, she was teaching herself other things.

  She jumped up. ‘I’m going to make a pudding in a mug. Anyone else want one?’

  Pa bit into an Anzac biscuit and shook his head.

  ‘Are you cooking?’ said Bruno.

  ‘It’s barely cooking,’ said Clancy. ‘But if you don’t want one …’

  ‘I didn’t say that,’ said Bruno.

  As Clancy spooned cocoa, self-raising flour and sugar into two mugs, she remembered how Antonia had shown them how to make puddings. Their visit to The Magpie Bookshop seemed like years ago. But she felt much older now than she had then. And she was pretty sure that she was taller, too.

  Clancy stirred through the milk, and put the mugs into the microwave. As she stood waiting for the puddings to cook, she glanced through the window at the deck, and saw a large, black-feathered bird alight on the rail.

  Pa and Bruno were frozen, gazing intently at it. Pa reached out his hand, palm flat, with the last morsel of Anzac biscuit. The black cockatoo sidled up and pecked it from his hand. Bruno let out a shout of delight. The cockatoo squinted a disapproving look at him, and ponderously flapped away.

  Pa twisted around to see if Clancy had witnessed this triumph, and gave her a thumbs-up, beaming. If only Nan could see him now! thought Clancy, as she returned his signal; but maybe she can.

  The microwave pinged, and Clancy jumped. She took out the steaming mugs. Was there cream in the fridge? Why, yes, there was. She carried the puddings out to the deck, and that was where Tash found them when she arrived home a few minutes later.

  ‘Yum, Anzacs!’ She’d grabbed a handful from the rack on the bench. ‘Polly?’

  ‘Well, it wasn’t me.’ Clancy dug her spoon into her pudding.

  Tash stretched out her legs on the sun-warmed planks of the deck and munched contentedly. Pa patted his stomach and let out a satisfied belch, which made Bruno laugh, and Tash and Clancy groan in disgust.

  ‘Hey, Tash! We saw a black cockatoo!’

  ‘Yeah? Good for you.’

  ‘Can’t wait to tell Mark,’ said Bruno with satisfaction.

  ‘Sp-sp-sp,’ agreed Pa.

  Tash squinted up at them. ‘You know Mark’s dating one of the staff from The Elms now?’

  ‘No way!’ squealed Clancy. ‘Not Belinda!’

  Tash shuddered. ‘No, not Belinda. One of the nice ones.’

  ‘How
do you know?’

  ‘I heard Polly telling Dad. She is such a gossip. Mark brought them home for dinner the other night.’

  ‘Sp-sp-sp?’ asked Pa, agog.

  ‘I don’t know who. But I’ll find out.’

  Harriet had succeeded in getting Mark released, and he’d come back to Australia, rather less wild than before. He was living with Polly until he found a job and a place of his own. Polly grumbled about it, but Clancy thought she was secretly enjoying having a housemate. Mark would be fun to live with.

  It was a sunny autumn afternoon. They’d agreed to buy the house and moved to Rosella in a hectic rush just before the start of term. Clancy was still trying to get used to the sight of their own familiar furniture sitting in Pa’s house. A few boxes they hadn’t had time to unpack yet were piled in corners. When Pa visited, he’d point to them and raise his eyebrows at their slack attitude and they would all look back innocently and pretend they didn’t understand.

  Clancy and Tash had chosen the big pink bedroom. Part of the deal they’d hammered out with Tim and Harriet was that they would share a bedroom, so Pa could have one of his own. But this room was much larger than either of their old ones, so it was worth it. They were still debating whether to paint the walls purple, like the back room of The Magpie Bookshop; or terracotta and green, like the dormitories at Bee’s ashram; or white with cherry trim, like the Breakfast in Kyoto café. Clancy had argued for a black ceiling with stars and planets, but Tash had vetoed that. So for the moment, it was still pink.

  Pa was living with them part-time. He spent most of the week at The Elms, and came to stay at Rosella at weekends, ferried by Sidhu the taxi driver. It turned out that Neneh had been joking when she’d threatened that Belinda would expel Pa from The Elms. They had been hugely relieved and pleased to see him again, and some of the staff had even cried, which was a massive ego boost for Pa. (Clancy hoped it was Neneh that Mark was dating; she really liked Neneh.)

  There was still some complicated money stuff to sort out, but Tim and Harriet and Polly were working on it. Polly had rearranged her week so that she could spend Fridays with Pa at Rosella. Usually he stayed for the weekend, and the family would drive to the park, or to watch Tash play footy, or just spend time in the garden or on the deck, birdwatching. On clear nights, Clancy was making good use of Nan’s old telescope. Bruno was lobbying for a dog. Harriet had cut back her work hours, and sometimes she worked from home. Tash said their mother had got a fright, seeing what had happened to Mark in New Zealand. ‘Her theory is he went off the rails because Nan and Pa didn’t spend enough time with him. Apparently.’

  ‘But he seems okay now,’ said Clancy. ‘And how did Dad and Polly and Bee and Pip turn out so well?’

  ‘You think Polly turned out well?’ said Tash automatically; but she didn’t mean it. Polly, like most people, was improving on closer acquaintance.

  Perhaps it was a coincidence that they’d caught Harriet at a vulnerable moment with Clancy’s grand plan (Plan D, as she and Tash called it, though no one else apart from Toby and Pa knew why). Or perhaps that was Nan’s magic at work again.

  Bee had been cross at first that Clancy had told everyone about the ashram, but to her surprise no one had particularly minded. ‘It’s your life,’ shrugged Pip. ‘If I can have a baby on my own, why shouldn’t you stand on your head all day if you want to?’

  ‘Not all day,’ said Bee. ‘Just sometimes.’

  Clancy was relieved that neither she nor Tash had been sent to prison for kidnapping their grandfather, although the local sergeant had given them a talk about wasting police resources and letting people know next time, okay?

  And the new spirit of family had extended itself to Harriet. She’d called her mother and her brothers for the first time for ages, and there was talk of Po Po coming down from Sydney for a visit sometime.

  Now Clancy said, ‘Hey, Tash. Come here, I want to show you something.’

  Inside, Tash picked up the star atlas and turned it over in her hands. ‘Wow,’ she said, after a long pause.

  ‘It’s the one I found at Antonia’s bookshop,’ said Clancy.

  ‘Yeah, I remember. And this arrived today? That is truly bizarre.’ Tash put down the book and leaned in. ‘You know I had an excursion to the city today? I thought I’d drop in and say hi to Antonia, tell her about Pa and moving and everything—’

  ‘But the bookshop disappeared. The arcade disappeared – everything.’

  ‘And I didn’t believe you,’ admitted Tash. ‘Or maybe deep down I did believe you, but I didn’t want to. Anyway, I went looking today …’ She pulled out her ponytail and retied it. ‘And yeah, you were right. It was gone.’

  ‘I told you!’ said Clancy.

  ‘So then I looked up The Magpie Bookshop on the internet and it came up as permanently closed.’

  ‘Did you look up Antonia Wildwood?’

  Tash screwed up her face. ‘I don’t really want to. I’m a bit scared of what I might find. What if it says she died five years ago or something? That’s too spooky for me.’ She touched the book. ‘But if she is dead, then where did this come from?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Clancy.

  They were silent for a moment.

  ‘You want to know something else weird?’ said Tash. ‘You know how I was pushing Pa around everywhere, all over the city, and up and down hills and out at Quoll Creek?’

  ‘Yes …’

  ‘Well, when I try to push him up the street now, I can hardly do it. It’s like, really hard! Even if it’s only a little slope – it’s like pushing an elephant over a wall. So what’s that all about? It’s not like I could have got less strong.’

  ‘Maybe Nan was helping you?’ said Clancy.

  Tash pulled a face. ‘Yeah, right.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘But – how?’

  They stared at each other.

  ‘Magic?’ said Clancy.

  ‘That’s just another way of saying I don’t understand,’ said Tash. ‘That doesn’t explain anything.’

  ‘I told you Nan was helping us out, showing us where to go. Maybe she was helping you to push Pa, too. Maybe she opened up a wormhole or something so we could go back in time and visit Antonia.’ Clancy clutched her sister’s arm. ‘You know that podcast, The Grandfather Paradox—’

  Tash smirked. ‘The one Toby told you about?’

  ‘Yes – whatever – the other day they were talking about pocket universes, and multiple universes. I couldn’t really understand it, but what if Nan made a little pocket in time, so that Pa could see Antonia one more time and say goodbye?’

  ‘So now you’re saying Nan’s ghost created a whole universe, so that we could hang out with an old friend of hers? I’m not buying it.’

  ‘Or maybe we just went back in time.’

  ‘Just! Oh, yeah, that’s a much simpler theory.’

  ‘Have you got a better one?’ demanded Clancy.

  ‘No,’ said Tash crossly.

  ‘Maybe it’s better not to think about it too hard,’ said Clancy. ‘I mean, if you can explain magic, then it’s not magic anymore.’

  ‘Pfft!’ Tash flipped her hand, imitating Pa. ‘Nan’s ghost, Antonia’s ghost, we went back in time, it’s all crazy. But I did it, you did it, Pa did it. We’ve got the evidence. We’ve got those books, and now this one, too. We can’t all be mad … Speaking of, have you seen Nan’s ghost hanging around since we moved in? Any more of your spooky signs?’

  Clancy shook her head. ‘No, nothing. But hey, we’re here, Pa’s here, the whole family is talking to each other again. Maybe it’s all worked out the way she wanted, so she’s gone.’

  ‘Personally, I’m okay with that.’ Tash wrinkled her nose. ‘I’m not a hundred per cent comfortable with the idea of a ghost creeping round our house.’

  ‘Not even Nan?’ said Clancy wistfully.

  ‘Not even Nan.’

  There was a small pause, then Tash heaved her schoolbag onto her b
ack. ‘Well, some of us have homework.’

  ‘So that’s what you call playing music and watching movies on your phone?’ said Clancy.

  ‘Your turn will come,’ said Tash ominously. ‘One day you’re going to have so much homework that you’ll need to take a little break occasionally, just for your own sanity. You’re lucky to have me to help and advise you.’

  ‘I so cannot wait to reap the benefit of your wisdom,’ said Clancy.

  They grinned at each other in a friendly way, then Tash loped off to their bedroom. Clancy stayed in the dining room, hugging the star atlas close to her.

  It was sad to think that Antonia might be dead. Or was she still alive in a parallel, pocket universe? Maybe, one day, Clancy might be able to wriggle back into it and say thanks for everything. Or perhaps Antonia was hanging out with Nan, two ghostly friends together? Clancy didn’t mind that idea.

  She sighed. She had the star atlas to explore, and a good view of Saturn tonight. There were some kids at her new school who seemed like they might become friends, and she had a text from Toby on her new phone to reply to. Astronomy camp. A new baby in the family, the possibility of a dog, and Pa looking happier every day.

  Yes, decided Clancy as she gathered the wrappings from the parcel. There was a lot to look forward to.

  Thank you to Dr Duane Hamacher, Associate Professor of Indigenous Astronomy & Science at the University of Melbourne, and to Sophie Splatt, Jodie Webster and Eva Mills at Allen & Unwin.

  Kate Constable was born in Melbourne but spent much of her childhood in Papua New Guinea, without television but within reach of a library where she ‘inhaled’ stories. She studied Arts/Law at the University of Melbourne before working for a record company while she began her life as a writer. Kate had stories published in Meanjin, Island and other literary magazines before realising she was actually a children’s and YA author. Kate has written ten novels for young people, including the internationally published Chanters of Tremaris series and the CBCA award-winning Crow Country. Kate lives in a northern suburb of Melbourne with her family, a bearded dragon, a rabbit and a dog.