Free Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta Page B

valuable: the Club House. There are bike trails, walking trails, bridges, and sheds. Finally there is the Prayer Tree, which Raffaela believes should be on the top of the list. We discuss and argue about the importance of each item. The access path for trail bikes owned by the Cadets. The falling-down shed owned by theTownies. The more we discuss, the more I am convinced of the stupidity of my past leaders. The access for trail bikes, for example, would be our quickest way to town. During the Cadet season our means of transport is limited and our journey to town is twice as long. The shed once housed a car for us, which the leaders would sneak out in during the night, especially if a band was playing in one of the larger towns. But Raffaela always comes back to the Prayer Tree.
    “What’s so important about it?” I ask Raffaela on one of our morning checks around the river. Apart from the fact that all three of us feel somewhat guilty that it was handed over because of us.
    “Spiritually or pragmatically?” she asks.
    “What do you think?”
    “I swear to God, if you go out there it will change your perspective on the world.”
    “Don’t believe in God. Love the world just the way it is.”
    “Okay, then come and look at it from a pragmatic point of view.”
    “Townie territory,” Ben says. “If it’s booby trapped…”
    “It’s seven o’clock in the morning,” she reassuresus. “They’ll never be up this early.”
    The Prayer Tree is located smack in the middle of the property within easy distance of the Jellicoe Road. It’s the area I am the least familiar with because it’s closer to the township and there are no proper tracks to reach it from where we are. In actual fact it is a chore getting to it and in the future Ben advises that we should hit the Jellicoe Road and access it from there.
    By the time we reach the clearing we have grazes from flying branches and our bodies itch from insect bites. The clearing is small and the tree takes up most of it. I look up and am shocked at just how massive it is. It’s almost like Jack’s beanstalk and probably one of the highest trees I’ve ever seen on this property. Right at the very top, lodged amongst the branches, is a small house, cleverly camouflaged by a creative paint job. But it’s the trunk that fascinates me the most. There are carvings and symbols and messages and history.
    So much romance and so much ugliness. A girl named Bronnie, her name in love hearts with almost every boy around; a boy named Jason who hates wogs, Asians, coons, and towel heads. And poofters,too. The patience it would have taken him to carve out so much hate.
    The messages are everything rolled into one. Wise and uncool. Profound and repugnant.
    We circle the tree over and over again, trying to decipher all the messages.
    Do you remember nothing stopped us on the field in our day?
    I stare at the words, tracing my fingers in the grooves created by the carving.
    “Your hands are shaking,” Ben says.
    Because I’ve heard these words so many times before.
    “Check this one out,” Ben says to me.
    Kenny Rogers Rules.
    “Who?” I ask, still wanting to return to my dream lyrics.
    “You don’t know who Kenny Rogers is?” Ben asks like he can’t believe it. “‘Coward of the County’? ‘Don’t Fall in Love with a Dreamer’? ‘Islands in the Stream’? ‘The Gambler’?”
    It’s like he’s speaking another language and he shakes his head with great disappointment.
    “You need to get in touch with the seventies andeighties, my friend.”
    I find myself reaching up and touching words engraved right in the middle of the tree. It’s bigger writing than the rest. MATTHEW 10:26.
    “Maybe it’s one of those ‘God is Love’ quotes,” Raffaela says, coming up behind me. I think of Hannah’s manuscript until I realise that Ben and Raffaela are staring.
    “So where’s the pragmatism you promised me?” I ask.
    She points up. “We have to go up for me to show