Free The Lost Child by Suzanne McCourt Page B

sense, putting fence guards around oleanders. Be better off grading the roads.’
    Mum peers up and down the street. Reggie Patchett is on his shop veranda having a stickybeak but there’s no one else around. Mrs Bloomers says Mum’ll have to drive up the hill and report it to Constable Morgan. She says to get some iodine onto her nose as soon as we get home. Then she says: ‘I heard about Mick. How are you getting on, Nella? By yourself?’
    Mum opens the door and nods me in but the wing window is open and I can hear everything. ‘He’ll be back. He just needs to get her out of his system. Then he’ll be back.’
    Why didn’t she tell me? And if he’s coming back, why is he building a house? Mrs Bloomers opens and closes her mouth. ‘You’ve got a lot on your plate, Nella. Come out to the farm and see me, anytime at all. Have a bit of a break. Come and stay. It’ll do you good.’
    As we drive off, Mum waves and waves.
    On the last day of school, Dunc gets a black eye. Suddenly there’s a fight and everyone’s running to the far end of the tennis court. Before I’m close enough, Miss Taylor is pushing through a ring of boys, yelling: ‘Stop it! Stop it! You’re not wild animals! Stop it!’
    Then I see Pardie pulling Dunc off Peter Leckie, who has blood on his nose, and Kenny Sweet is holding Peter Leckie’s arms behind his back. Miss Taylor says we don’t have hooligans at this school and they’re to report to Mr Tucker immediately. She pushes them in front of her the whole way across the quadrangle, her skin red and blotchy from so much yelling.
    Kenny Sweet is the tallest boy in school. He looks over everyone’s head until he finds me. ‘Leckie said your old man’s shacked up with the town tart.’ He says this loud enough for everyone to hear and, in the sudden hush, I want to disappear off that court like a lost tennis ball. I just stand there looking down at the ground, to dirt and worms underneath, to a cave where I could hide, maybe a hidden river flowing far below.
    Lining up, everyone is talking too much, too loudly. Miss Taylor blows hard on her whistle and Lizzie whispers behind me: ‘It’s true, though, isn’t it?’
    Suddenly my legs are too heavy to walk on. Miss Taylor waits until we’re all seated then says, Sit up straight, arms folded . She says, We don’t have fights in our school and anyone who wants to start one had better think twice . She says, We don’t make judgments about other people’s lives, because we don’t live in their skin, is that clear?
    Yes, Miss Taylor.
    Her eyes are an angry blue and she looks hard at everyone but never once at me. She says, Living in a small town means minding your own business and not spreading idle gossip, otherwise none of us could live together, is that clear?
    Yes, Miss Taylor.
    She says to take out our readers and turn to the right page. Then she gives me a tiny, kind smile. And that smile is everything.
    The Trollop is still in my father’s system. He is living with her in Ron Quigly’s bungalow; I’ve seen his jeep parked out front. Mum knows too. Sometimes I find her peeking through the fence, watching his house grow walls and a silver roof on the other side of the lagoon.
    â€˜I’m not stupid,’ she tells Mrs Winkie. ‘I could go back to school and get my Intermediate. There was nothing wrong with my compositions. I could write. Better than I could talk. I got good marks.’
    Mrs Winkie says she has to run along.
    â€˜I could have another baby,’ says Mum. ‘If I wanted to. He’ll be back. Then we will.’
    I would like Dad back, but I’m not sure about a baby. And no other mothers go to school.
    In the morning, Mrs Winkie brings us eggs from her bantam chooks. ‘I work harder than you,’ says Mum to Mrs Winkie. ‘I mow my own lawns.’ Then she drags the