Free The Road to Gundagai by Jackie French

turning it blue and green and red. Blue squinted through it. The glass distorted the view, like trying to see through a boiled lolly. It must be late morning. How had she slept so deeply and for so long? She looked at the bottle next to the bed. Had they drugged her?
    She waited for the morning’s nausea. But for the first time in months there was none. She held out her hands. They were steady, and there was no dizziness when she slowly got out of bed, just a feeling that her knees weren’t quite up to keeping her erect. But they managed.
    She looked around the caravan. I need clothes, she thought. I can’t go outside in my nightdress. I need a chamber pot.
    No chamber pot. Clothes that were obviously Madame Zlosky’s hung on a wooden peg. She didn’t feel she should put on someone else’s dress. She settled for a shawl to cover the absence of underwear under her nightdress, and slipped on her shoes. She grasped the door handle.
    The door was locked.
    No! The first emotion was panic. The second was anger. How dare they lock her in, like Aunt Lilac had? Then fear. She suddenly realised that even a ransom of a hundred pounds might seem like a fortune to a barefoot boy and a circus woman in tattered shawls.
    Anger returned. If they thought she was going to wait here obediently, then they were mistaken!
    She banged on the door with both fists. ‘Let me out! Now!’
    The door opened at once. A boy scowled at her, but with Gertrude’s face. She was dressed in patched shorts and a faded check shirt, the trimmed ends of her hair tucked up under a hat, her feet bare. Her bosom had vanished, bound perhaps by a tight camisole. ‘Shut up! Do you want to bring the coppers down on us?’
    ‘I will if you don’t let me out!’
    ‘You were willing to come last night. What do you want to go out for now?’
    ‘Why did you lock the door?’
    ‘To stop any strangers wandering by coming in while you were asleep, of course. What are you getting your knickers in a knot about?’
    Blue flushed. ‘I need a chamber pot.’
    She expected Gertrude to sneer. She didn’t. ‘I’ll get you one. Just don’t let anyone see you. Or hear you,’ she added.
    ‘Why not?’ demanded Blue.
    Gertrude looked at her with annoyance. ‘Because they’ll be looking for you, stupid. Your aunts. The police.’
    ‘The police! But I said I was safe in the note!’
    Blue suddenly wished she’d asked them to give a note to Mah too. But Mah heard everything. She’d learn about the note to the aunts. Surely she will, thought Blue desperately.
    ‘You really think those aunts of yours will let their niece vanish? If they don’t report you missing, the coppers might think they’ve done you in.’ Gertrude looked at her steadily. ‘I don’t want you here. You’re not circus. You’re not even family. But you are here and … well, whoever was poisoning you will still want you dead. And anyone who doesn’t will be worried. So you need to stay hidden. If they find you, it’ll be bad for you, and even worse for us. We’re risking a lot for you. All right?’
    Blue nodded.
    ‘Thank goodness you’re showing some sense. Are you hungry?’
    To her surprise, she was. She nodded again. She shut the door, then looked at the bottle on the table and took another swig. It tasted horrible, bitter and mouldy at the same time. But it made her feel better, stronger, as though she could cope with anything.
    She sat back on the bed, and wondered exactly what she was going to have to cope with, and when.

Chapter 9
    Gertrude brought the chamber pot, with a cloth to cover it, and a chipped white plate of strange-textured bread and sweaty cheese, and a jug of water.
    Gertrude waited outside while Blue used the pot — she was glad she could use the bed and the table on the other side to help lever herself down onto it and then haul herself back up — and covered it. Blue handed it to Gertrude — somehow it seemed worse to give your chamber pot to someone who didn’t