Free Stillwater Creek by Alison Booth

afternoon, making her hot and flapping against her leg when she moved.She didn’t know how Mama could have put nasturtium leaves on a Vegemite sandwich. ‘You will love it,’ her mother had said. ‘Nasturtium leaf tastes just like watercress. We had it growing in the stream at home when I was a girl, and how your Papa loved it too, darling Zidra.’
    Zidra knew that Your Papa, as invoked by her mother, bore no resemblance to the Papa that she’d known, or even to that other Father, Who Art in Heaven. Zidra remembered her Papa as the man who wasn’t there. He wasn’t there all day and he wasn’t there at night either. He’d barely exchanged two words each day with her. If it hadn’t been for the trip to the circus, she might almost have been glad that he had gone away. To heaven, Mrs McIntyre had said, and that had confused Zidra for a while, for she knew that Papa was not Thou Father Who Art in Heaven but Thou Papa Who Art in Heaven. There were two of them there now. But Papa had taken her to the circus and the other father had not. The one who had taken her to the circus had enjoyed it almost as much as she had, and had bought her fairy floss afterwards, lovely sticky-sweet stuff that was pinker than anything she’d ever seen before.
    Zidra, salivating as she thought of the fairy floss, was brought abruptly back to the present. ‘Zidra!’ Mama called out. ‘Look, darling, I’m over here!’ She stooped to give her two big kisses, one on each cheek, right in front of all the grinning children.
    Zidra flushed in anger and in embarrassment. Already she could hear red-haired Roger O’Rourke, with whom she shared a desk, imitating her mother. Look dorlink, I am over here! All the other boys sniggered. To give them time to move away, she bent down and pretended her shoelaces were undone. Then, looking at her mother, she saw that her eyes were swimming with tears. Zidra guessed this was her fault and took a deep breath. Mama should know better than this by now. Surely sheshould have learnt to hide her feelings. Zidra glanced from her mother to the other children but they were no longer looking this way. Engaged in kicking stones down the road, they’d forgotten all about the wogs.
    Still she felt angry. ‘I hate Vegemite and nasturtium sandwiches,’ she cried, pulling at the elastic around the right leg of her bloomers and yanking out the horrid-looking sandwich, only partially wrapped in greaseproof paper. So roughly did she tug at it that the elastic snapped back on her legs and hurt. The sandwich landed on the ground in front of her mother. They both stared at it. Squashed flat, it looked like a piece of cardboard. Mama would surely strike her, her face had become so crimson. Zidra would have to act first. Hurling herself at her mother, she hugged her legs. Although unable to make the tears come, if she hid her face Mama would imagine that she was crying. How she hated school, she blurted out through the stuff of her mother’s skirt. The boys were nasty and the girls all had friends and wouldn’t play with her! Except for Lorna, that is, and she’d been away today. And when Zidra had played with her, the others called her a nigger-lover. That didn’t sound nice, whatever it was.
    â€˜No, that is not nice,’ said Mama, her face now restored to its natural pallor. She fumbled in her bag for a handkerchief, and then cuddled Zidra and kissed her hair. ‘That is not nice at all.’
    Zidra let her mother wipe her face, certainly reddened by emotion if not by tears, and submitted to having her hair ribbon retied. Mama, distracted by this, would forget all about the business with the Vegemite sandwich. Maybe she’d even consider letting Zidra stay away from school next week.
    Her mama lapsed into Latvian, which normally she spoke only inside their house, to say, ‘You must not care what people say or think. You must do