Free The Bower Bird by Ann Kelley

keeping watch for one right now. Charlie’s sitting patiently next to me, hoping I’m after some tasty four-legged furry creature for her tea. Well, no, I don’t think you’d like lizard sandwich, Charlie.

CHAPTER TWELVE
    MUM’S GOT A renewal reminder from the library. Luckily, I get to the post before she does and put the letter in my pocket.
    To play for time I go to the library and renew the books. I can hardly tell Mum I left them in the Memorial Gardens while I attended the funeral of someone I didn’t know.
    But what can I tell her? Or shall I just tell the library the books are lost and pay for them?
    It’s like the horse story when I was at Sunday School. I told my Sunday School teacher I had a horse when I didn’t, and the lie followed me like a malevolent spirit until I was found out. I haven’t told a lie since, until I threw away the books. I’m in deep shit.
    Mum has always said that telling lies is a complete no-no. It’s because of Daddy, of course. She said she can’t ever trust him again, since his infidelity with TLE .
    Why did I lie about the books? Guilt, self-preservation, denial. She would be shocked that I went to a complete stranger’s funeral. Mum doesn’t really want me to contact Daddy’s family. She acts as if she’s angry with them as well as Daddy. But it’s my family too. My family! I’m angry with her. It’s her fault I have to lie to her. Why can’t I tell her that? She doesn’t realise she’s forcing me into a life of deception. I’ll spend sleepless nights of scheming and skulduggery. I’ll be cunning and shifty, sneaky and furtive, so much more interesting than being honest and open, except I don’t think I can keep it up. It’s too wearing. Perhaps the library people will give up. Perhaps I could go and tell them she has left the country and I think she took the books with her because she needs Small Garden Design and Building a Wildlife Pond in Australia. Perhaps not. Anyway, it’s hardly first-degree murder is it, lying? Or maybe it is the first step towards hell and damnation.
    My lizard is boring. He stands on a twig and stares at nothing. There’s plenty of garden stuff in there with him, like leaves and earth and pebbles, but he doesn’t seem interested in exploring. Perhaps he’s depressed, being imprisoned and observed. I find a grasshopper for him to eat. It takes ages. I thought it would be easy, but it isn’t. I feel terrible choosing a creature to be sacrificed. I have all this power to destroy.
    Once when I was visiting Grandma and Grandpop I was on the stone jetty near where they lived, watching boys fishing for crabs, and I was horrified when the boys jumped on the crabs, crushed them with their shoes and threw them back. I had thought they were going to take them off the mussel bait and put them back in the water. I shouted at them and when they laughed at me I pushed one of the boys in. It wasn’t deep but it was cold and he was suitably humiliated. His friend couldn’t stop laughing so I pushed him in too. I have a quick temper, Grandma says – said. I inherited it from my mother.
    My lizard has grabbed the grasshopper by its back legs and has been hanging on to it for ages, simply sucking it. Why doesn’t it swallow it? I have been watching it for half an hour and the lizard hasn’t moved. It’s as if it is paralysed. The doomed grasshopper occasionally jerks in a feeble attempt to escape the jaws of the dragon, but the lizard, grim-mouthed, keeps hold. I don’t like the lack of expression in its eyes. I used to be fond of lizards, I’m not so sure now. I can’t watch any more, it’s horrible. The grasshopper will die from starvation and terror before it gets eaten. What do grasshoppers eat, anyway? I’ll release the lizard tomorrow.
    Maybe insects should be my line of study, or spiders. I don’t mind them. Mum does. She cringes when one gets in the bath and I have to rescue it for her. There are little black jumping spiders in