Free Four Fires by Bryce Courtenay Page B

Sarah told him to stop fussing, that someone might be looking. He stopped then, but you could see he was pleased with what he'd done, and no wonder. We left our sister outside the Town Hall and you could hear her dress rustle when she climbed the steps and turned to wave goodbye to us. Then she said to Mike, 'Thank you for my lovely dress,'
    but not so loud that anyone could hear and Mike was so proud he nearly burst wide open. 'enchants!' he said.
    But then a nice thing happened at the dance. Murray Templet on, who could have had any girl in the school because the were all falling over him, didn't come with a partner either. So everything was all right in the end, head prefect and vice-prefect for the next year sort of being together but not being together so tongues could wag, if you know what I mean?
    As it was a Saturday with a sleep-in Sunday, we all stayed up to see Sarah come home. She wouldn't allow us to go and fetch her and said she was quite capable of walking home on her own. Sarah didn't want us hanging around the Town Hall steps at midnight so that people would think she needed to be protected or anything.
    Anyway, then came the big surprise. Sarah arrived home in a brand-new yellow Holder, it was a colour Murray's dad had specially sprayed for his dealership so it would be different from the other Hold ens around. Nancy started to bawl again. 'The Princess has
    arrived home in a pumpkin carriage,' she sobbed.
    -The Yerberrys' shit-coloured Packard was the best car in town but the Templetons' Holden was the one most of us noticed because of its Page 45

    bright pumpkin colour. Murray, the football captain and all-time hero, had brought Sarah home. He was eighteen so already had his driver's licence. They didn't kiss or anything, he came around to her door and opened it and then said goodbye and she said goodbye to him, shaking his hand and holding her new shoes in her left hand. After he drove off, we came rushing out of the house to welcome her home. Sarah looked happy and the lipstick was off her mouth.
    That was a big month for us Maloneys with the Melbourne Show also in September. I guess these days everyone's been to the show so knows what it's like. But we'd never seen anything like it. We were country
    kids so we knew about animals and stuff and that part wasn't all that different to the agricultural show at Wang, only more of the same.
    They had about a thousand types of chicken in the poultry section, some even had feathers sticking out their legs and these plumes from their heads. Weird-looking buggers. Did you know chickens came from China?
    Nancy must have saved real hard, because she bought us each a show bag and we spent money like water, going on the Big Dipper and Bozo won a pink kewpie doll with a ballerina skirt for Colleen by knocking down three sets of skittles with three balls. Later we went into the boxing tent, that is, Mike, Sarah, Bozo and me.
    There is this skinny-looking Aboriginal guy who challenges all corners within twenty pounds of his own weight. Bozo says he'll have a
    go and Mike says not to and Sarah gets mad and says she'll tell Nancy and then she leaves the tent. But Bozo is pretty stubborn and he steps up to the scales and is three pounds heavier than the Abo. The promoter asks him how old he is and Bozo fibs and says sixteen.
    Some of the old blokes in the tent, who are full of hops, are shouting encouragement, saying, 'Give the kid a go, yer mug!' and things like that, waving one-pound notes. 'A quid on the kid, what odds?' and everyone laughs except Bozo and me and the bloke in charge. So with all the pressure, the bloke in charge, who had this thin pencil moustache and greasy curly hair like some wog, finally says to Bozo, 'Are you sure you're sixteen?'
    'Ask my brother,' Bozo says, turning to me.
    The bloke doesn't ask me, but I nod, so it is only half a lie. 'Righto, put the gloves on,' the promoter says. 'Three rounds or a k.o.! I have the right to stop the fight at