Free Between My Father and the King by Janet Frame

the prospects of the picnic, and after Christmas the supply of Dot’s Little Folk badges was very low. It was unwise to start writing to Dot after Christmas. You had to wait so long for your badge.
    We never attended any of the festivals connected with the page. They were held in another town. We merely read of them. Time after time we read, ‘Dot was forced to be absent because of a heavy cold.’ ‘Dot was unable to be present, but sent good wishes to all.’
    Dot was a powerful part of our lives. Who was she, who was she really, what was she like to look at, what colour hair did she have, what colour eyes? Week after week I sent my guilty love to her, for I knew that I still did not love all the Little Folk and her own dear self.
    Once I sent her a poem. It was about a flower dreaming of thelove of a golden moon. Dot answered curtly in the three-line reply which she made to all the letters (‘I am glad you had a pleasant holiday. You must tell me more about your fishing.’ ‘How nice to have a new baby sister. What is her name?’ ‘You seem to be doing very well at your new school.’ ‘Yes, Charles Dickens, mountains are indeed fascinating to study.’) In her answer to my poem Dot wrote, ‘I like your poem very much, but I wonder if flowers, even poetically, ever dream of moons?’
    I was extremely hurt. I knew that flowers did dream of moons. I could not understand why Dot had even raised the question.
    For so many years we all confided in Dot. She remained a mystery, a kindly, motherly, auntly person who yet never took shape in our minds. She knew of changes of schooling, of passes and failure at school, of new brothers and sisters, of hobbies, expeditions, dreams of thousands of children, and each week she never failed to find a suitable reply, or to give in her letter her advice on our moral obligations.
    The nature of our confidences changed as the years passed. We grew more secretive. Our words passed through a stage of being long and ponderous. We talked of the world as ‘one’: ‘One does this and that.’ We wrote of the ‘wickedness of people today’, while Dot commended us for our ‘thoughtfulness’.
    The war came. As the confidences of children are not essential to national economy, Dot’s page ceased for a time, and was printed once a year only. The picnics and parties continued, although Dot never appeared at them.
    Sometimes I thought, with horror, What if one day I come face to face with Dot? What should I say? Surely I would tremble and dissolve into shyness! After all those poems I had sent in, and all those dishonest references to ‘Love to all the Little Folk and your own dear self’!
    All that was long ago.
    â€˜But this set down. Set down, This.’
    I read a paragraph in a local newspaper recently.
    â€˜At the Dunedin Central Court Mr Harolde Clarke, former subeditor of the Daily Times , and known to his colleagues as ‘Dot’ of ‘Dot’s Little Folk’, was today remanded, bail refused, pending an investigation into the alleged rape of an eleven-year-old girl, daughter of Charles Dickens and Sugar Plum Fairy.’
    â€˜A tragic case,’ the judge commented a few weeks later when Mr Harolde Clarke was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment. I saw his picture in the paper.
    Dot was tall, thin, with grey hair. He was well dressed. He was standing between two policemen, being hustled through a crowd of women who surged to get at him, crying, No child is safe while he is at large, hanging is too good for him, he needs horsewhipping . . .
    Dear Dot.
    Dear Dot, bewildered and frightened, being hustled into the police car while Dancing Fairies, Pear Blossoms, April Showers, Baden Powells, struggle to tear you to pieces.
    Love to all the Little Folk and your own dear self.

The Gravy Boat
    Gregory Firman is dead now. Do you remember the night he retired from the railway? The