Free The Sunnyvale Girls by Fiona Palmer

she ready?’
    â€˜Just having a shower. Go grab a beer and head inside, dinner’s ready. I think I spotted a pavlova too.’ It was her favourite.
    â€˜What?’ He slammed the fridge shut and spun around, beer in hand. Jimmy linked his arm in hers and practically dragged her back to the house. ‘You trying to get me to stay home?’ he asked with a teasing glint in his eyes.
    Toni nearly tripped over her feet. ‘No.’
God, what made him say that?
    Jimmy strode inside. Toni didn’t want to follow, but he wasn’t letting her go. They found Flick doing up the buttons on her shirt while her damp hair dripped down her back. She was looking at a photo album open on the table in the dining room.
    â€˜Did Maggie make a pav?’ Jimmy demanded.
    Flick glanced up and frowned. ‘I don’t know, I just got out the shower. Nan’s in the kitchen plating up.’
    Toni let out her breath. Mum was busy. Good. Toni glanced over Flick’s shoulder. ‘What are you looking at?’
    â€˜This was open at the old photos. God, it was so different back in those days,’ said Flick.
    â€˜Oh.’ Toni had seen these black and white photos before. Only now they had a completely different meaning.
    Flick pointed to a black and white photo. ‘That’s Phyllis and John Fuller out the front of the old cottage. Amazing what they had to live in back then. Are they hessian bags, Mum?’ She indicated a room that was built on the side of the cottage. It looked so rustic against the wooden slats of the main cottage.
    â€˜Yes. Mum said that room had a tin roof but they had sewn the hessian and made a wall with it. Apparently a great spot when summer was at its hottest. They could wet the hessian and the breeze would make it cool.’
    â€˜And these are the Italian prisoners, right? Which one was Rocco?’ asked Flick.
    Toni’s fingers caressed the edge of the photo. Two men stood by two big gum trees, guns in their hands and a massive kangaroo propped up between them. Her focus was on the photo of the man in boots, pants, and a dark V-neck jumper over his collared shirt, the long barrel of the gun pointing to the ground. She studied Rocco, but it was so hard to get a clear picture of him in the blurry image.
    Without colour she couldn’t really see his eyes. But looking at him now brought out a whole new feeling. This was her real dad. And she was half Italian.
    â€˜He’s handsome. No wonder Nan fell for him,’ said Flick.
    It was then that Toni noticed how worn the edge of this particular photo was. As if someone had been back to look at it many, many times over.

7
    â€˜ HAVE you got the cake?’ Phyllis was by the stove putting the tea into the beer bottles.
    â€˜Yes, Mother. A big slice each.’ Maggie had wrapped them in butter paper and then again in newspaper.
    â€˜Just don’t let the paper fly away —’
    â€˜I know, it will scare the horses. I’ll be careful. It’s not that windy outside.’ Sometimes her mother talked to her as if she were still eight instead of sixteen. Maggie put the cake into the small wooden crate. Phyllis finished corking the bottles and put them in too, along with four cups.
    â€˜Don’t be down there too long. They need to get back to work and I’ll need you here to clean up and get ready for dinner. Charlie got an emu so that will be a nice change from rabbit and roo.’
    Maggie tried not to screw up her face. Emu wasn’t her favourite. Picking up the crate she headed outside and started walking to where the men were working in the new paddock. It had only been a week since the Italians had arrived, but already they had done so much. Last night she had overheard her father telling her mother that hiring the Italians was the best thing he’d done. Not that Phyllis would ever agree. She was far too worried about what the locals thought, but John had reminded her that