Free When Mum Went Funny by Jack Lasenby

and ran back down to the shed. It didn’t take long, because most of Dad’s tools were still there, in the machine room. I sawed out the shape of a revolver in wood, rasped the barrel round, and sandpapered it smooth. By the time Mum sent Jimmy and Betty to find me, I’d finished the groove across the end of the barrel and the one on the hammer.
    “Mum says you’ve got to come home and chop the kindling, and what are you doing down here when you know you should be doing your jobs –”
    Their voices stopped when they saw my revolver. Silently, I fitted one of the rubber rings over the end of the barrel and stretched it back over the hammer. I pointed it at a fly on the door of the machine room. He was a good big shiny fly, rubbing his feet, twitching his nose, and wriggling his wings, getting ready to take off like a Messerschmitt.
    “Take that!” I said and flicked the end of the stretchedrubber ring off the hammer with my thumb. Squelch!
    “Can I’ve a shot! Give us a go!”
    “Later,” I said.
    “Give us a shot now, or we’ll tell Mum you’ve got a rubber gun.”
    So I let them have a few shots. Betty cried when a rubber came off backwards and stung her cheek, so I said that didn’t count and let her have another go.
    “You’ve got to keep it a secret,” I said, “or I’ll tell on you for firing a rubber gun.” Jimmy looked at me and nodded. I stuck the rubber gun down my shirt, and we ran up to the house.
    Next morning, as we rode out the gate, the Messerschmitt came in fast, thinking we hadn’t noticed him diving out of the sun again. “Ka! Ka! Ka!” I just waited till he swooped up to avoid crashing into our twin tails, overtook us and banked away, and I let him have it.
    “Ow!” He almost came off, dropping the reins out of his right hand and rubbing his ear. “You’re not allowed to throw stones!”
    “Who threw a stone?” Kate said.
    “Not me,” I told her.
    “We’ve just been fitted with a new sort of cannon,” Kate told Billy, but he kept touching the top of his ear which looked red now, and flew the rest of the way to school out of range. I kept the rubber gun down the front of my shirt. With a bit of luck, I might get his other ear on the way home.

15
“I’ll Give Them Bandicoot!”
    â€œ I f you want a job done properly, you might as well do it yourself,” Mum said in her Talking to God voice, when we came home from school on Thursday. “There’s no point relying on others.
    â€œSome people haven’t shifted the steers for several days,” Mum went on. “Some people are too busy to give a hand to their poor lonely old mother, some people. So who do you think had to go up and shift the steers this afternoon? And, on the way, I rode over and had a look at our spuds.”
    â€œCan we start eating them?” I asked.
    â€œCrikey!” Betty and Jimmy smacked their lips. “New potatoes!” We made gobbling noises because we knew it annoyed Mum.
    â€œDo you ever think of anything but your stomachs?” We shook our heads. “I thought not! Well, somebody thinks our potatoes are ready. I could see where they’ve been feeling under a plant here, a plant there all along the creek side of the paddock.”
    â€œMaybe it’s Old Pomp,” said Jimmy.
    â€œOld Pomp doesn’t come down the creek, leavingfootprints, and paw marks, too. No, it’s a man and two dogs by the look of the tracks. Helping themselves to our new potatoes.”
    â€œBilly Kemp says his father pushes his hands into the dirt, feels for the new potatoes, and pulls them out. That’s how they start eating theirs early, Billy reckons,” Jimmy said.
    â€œIt’s called bandicooting. If I catch anybody doing it to our spuds,” said Mum, “I’ll give them bandicoot!” She looked so fierce, Jimmy and Betty cheered.
    â€œYou’ll show them, Mum!”
    â€œYou bet I will! Now, don’t you go getting ideas and