Free A Little Wanting Song by Cath Crowley

in front of the television. The curtains stay closed, and the light from the box throws this eerie blue glow over him. If I wrote a sound track to the life we’re living now, it would be a slow note echoing from a saxophone.
    He’s asleep when I look into his room late this morning. I shake his shoulder but he doesn’t wake up, so I get close to his face and check that he’s breathing.
    “Is there something you want, Charlie?”
    “Shit, Grandpa. You nearly gave me a heart attack.”
    “It’s strange, but that’s almost exactly what I was about to say. What is it?”
    Now that I’ve woken him, it doesn’t seem so important. “It’s Christmas tree time.”
    “There’s an old plastic one in the cupboard under the stairs. We’ll use that this year.” He closes his eyes, and that dusty note rises again.
    I let him sleep. I know a few things about ghosts. The only way to stop them getting inside you is to spend every second of the day thinking about something else. Fighting like that makes you tired, and it doesn’t matter how hard you fight anyway. They chip till they make a crack, and before you know it there’s a ghost squatter in your living room. It’s hard to get them out. Hard because they settle in. Hard because you like the company. If Grandpa’s too tired to get a tree, then I’ll go and bring one back for him. Someone in this family has to make contact with the Christmas spirit. “That’s funny, Charlie,” Mum says. I’m a funny kind of girl.
    Dad’s working in the shop. I walk in and tell him in a way that’s meaningful, “Our family needs tinsel.” He looks at me and says there’s some in the third aisle. I go for the tree on my own.
    It’d be a great plan if it included a map and a mobile phone. I left both at home. I’m about halfway to nowhere, taking a break under a tree and singing a punk version of “White Christmas” to distract myself from the heat of my nowhere-near-white Australian Christmas, when Mrs. Robbie’s car pulls up.
    Dave leans out of the passenger window. “What are you doing?”
    It’s a Christmas miracle. My words are back from vacation. “I’m just out enjoying the burning heat of the day.” He grins, and I walk over to the car. “How’d you know it was me from the road?”
    He doesn’t answer my question, just flicks his eyes over Grandpa’s old yellow rain boots, my short dress, and this hat that Gus says makes me look like the revolution’s coming. I see his point. “You need a lift somewhere?” he asks.
    “I’m going to the pine plantations for a tree.”
    “This road doesn’t lead to the plantations. It doesn’t really lead to anywhere.”
    I open the car door. “In that case, I’m going wherever it is you’re going.”
    “Hi, love,” Mrs. Robbie says. “Come to our place. You can have one of ours.”
    On the way to Dave’s, we drive past the skeleton tree. There still aren’t any leaves. But there’s one bird sitting on a branch.
    “So which one do you want?” Dave asks. The back section of the side paddock is covered in pine trees about the size of me. “Dad thought we could make some extra money at Christmas.”
    “I want that one.” The tree I pick is breaking all the Christmas rules. It’s lopsided, and one of its branches is longer than the rest. “It looks like it’s giving us the finger.”
    “I’d be fairly pissed, too, if someone was about to hack me off, stick me in a living room, and throw me out come New Year’s,” Dave says.
    “I’ll decorate it.”
    “Then it should think itself lucky.” He starts chopping. “Mum says she’ll drive you back after lunch. You can ring home when we get to the house.”
    I watch the tree falling. “Dad and Grandpa won’t notice I’m gone.”
    We carry it slowly up the hill, Dave leading the way. “So what’s with the rain boots in summer? Is that some city thing?”
    “Yeah, Dave. Plastic yellow rain boots are very in at the moment.”
    “Really?”
    “Not