Free Pip: The Story of Olive by Kim Kane Page B

Every time I try she just freezes up, so I don’t. It’s easier.’
    Olive folded the sheet again and again until it was so thick it wouldn’t bend. She held it to her nose, breathing in the clean smells of cotton and washing powder. It was hard to explain to people that she wouldn’t even recognise her own father if he turned up to collect her from school.
    ‘What does he do?’ pressed Pip. She was leaning forwards on the spare bed, trying to catch Olive’s eye.
    ‘I don’t know what he does, where he lives or whether he’s even alive.’ Olive stared at the faded flyspot pattern on the sheet. ‘All I know is that he was a flaky hippy who was too liberal with his love.’ She picked at a cotton thread trailing from the sheet’s corner.
    ‘That’s not much to go on. There must be clues. Haven’t you checked the mail? Maybe he sends cheques or Christmas cards or something?’
    Olive shrugged. ‘I don’t think so. Mog wouldn’t like that. I don’t think he cares.’
    ‘You’re nuts. I bet he’s gazing out at the night sky as we speak, wondering where his baby is, feeling happy that no matter what, he’s under the same moon.’
    ‘Babies.’ Olive shook her head. ‘That might freak him.’
    Pip flipped her plaits over her shoulders and started swaying about the room. She threw her arms about theatrically, trying to reflect the gravitas of the situation (although she looked like Nut Allergy doing an impression of an elephant in Drama Dance). ‘I bet he studies every girl and tries to work out how old she is and whether she could be his daughter. Maybe he has an entire room filled to the ceiling with letters addressed to you and stamped ‘Return to Sender’ – and maybe he goes into his room every night and cries, wishing that he’d never been such a flaky hippy who was too liberal with his love.’
    ‘I don’t think so.’ Olive gripped the cotton thread and tugged until it snapped. ‘I’m twelve and he’s never tried to contact me. Not once.’
    Pip shrugged. The air in the room had somehow flattened, lost its zest. It had become solemn and grown-up. Not grown-up in an exuberant Mog way, but grown-up in a severe discussion-about-bills, children-go-to-the-next-room, Grahams sort of way.
    Olive took out a pair of pyjamas and handed them to Pip. Her mood had congealed. ‘Come on,’ she said, more primly than she’d intended. ‘It’s a school night. Let’s get ready for bed.’
    Olive sounded just like Mrs Graham.

11
    Plankton or Krill
    When the girls woke the next morning, Mog had already come and gone. In her wake was a trail of burnt toast crusts, laddered tights and documents. Pip picked up a folder tied in pink ribbon.
    In the matter of the DPP v Miss Sarah McNamara
Brief to Counsel to appear in the Supreme Court of
  Victoria
Prepared for Ms Mog Garnaut QC
Instructing solicitors for the defendant, Glickfeld &
  Saratchandran
    ‘Don’t.’ Olive tried to snatch the papers from Pip. ‘They’re Mog’s, and she doesn’t like anybody to touch them. Not even me. They’re very important and very confidential.’
    ‘Sorry.’ Pip put them down, a darn sight more carefully than she had put down Olive’s clothes, Olive noted. Mog set very few rules for Olive, but the one thing she was picky about was her work.
    While Pip slopped chocolate spread and peanut butter onto her toast, the kitchen bench and the floor, Olive tore around the house trying to cobble together two school uniforms. The uniforms they’d had on the day before were soiled, and Olive’s school was very strict about presentation. In junior school the teachers had checked the girls’ undies every day to ensure that they were regulation green, and sent very terse notes home to the parents when they weren’t.
    Uniforms sorted, Olive parted her hair in front of the bathroom mirror and bound it in two straight plaits, which hung like fish spines down her back. She carefully covered the elastics with green satin ribbons,