Free Bill Rules by Elizabeth Fensham Page A

fishing trip at a swimming pool. During the school week, he played cricket every lunchtime. He’d walk home with Mat after school, eat afternoon tea at the Grubs’ place, and just muck around.
    â€˜Mucking around’ might mean climbing into the two trees on each side of the boundary fence and communicating with Mat on the tin-can walkie-talkies. If it was hot, it meant having an outdoor soak in the Grubs’ bath. It might mean helping Donald out with some furniture making, or having a yarn with oldMr Riley who had forgiven Bill for not sticking to his guns.
    Bill was happy. His mum, Pam, was excited about how well her folk art wall plaques were selling at the craft markets; she had now extended her range of homeware to include painted wooden compost buckets for the kitchen. Donald was making them for her. Mat was even taking a rest from her grand schemes and plans.
    Later, when Bill had time to think about it, he realised that expecting life to stay peaceful was childish and unrealistic. That term at school, they were learning about European history from medieval times up to the colonising of Australia. Bill had begun to see the history of the world as a whole string of wars and troubles with little peaceful moments in between. Maybe that was what peace meant – a lull between dramas. It kind of made you want to make the most of good times to build up your strength. Like it or not, you’d have to eventually face some sort of challenge.
    If anything was going to disturb Bill’s tranquillity,he expected it to come from Isabelle Farquay-Jones. He and Mat might have given up on the idea of joining the Girl Guides, but Isabelle would be seeking revenge for her public telling-off. Just as the sun rises and sets each day, Bill just believed that it would be natural for Isabelle to plot something nasty. Therefore, it was a shock that the something nasty that was to rock his little world did not come from Isabelle Farquay-Jones, but came in the form of a letter.
    At first, Bill felt guilty that he would ever consider the contents of the badly spelt letter that lay on his mum’s kitchen table as nasty. It was disloyal of him. He should have been feeling over the moon. Well, he did have moments where he felt a great terror had lifted. But it was a roller-coaster where he’d swing from grateful relief to a new kind of terror. He felt better when he realised that Pam, too, felt less than happy – ‘uneasy’ was the way she put it. Bill’s dad had been given parole for good behaviour. He would be home in a week. He was getting out of jail and, if he behaved himself, he would stay out of jail. Pam and Bill both knew that the key problem was could Troy O’Connell behave himself?
    â€˜Not for more than a few days,’ said Pam to Tessa and Donald Grub as she wept into her coffee mug. ‘It’s a pattern. Troy sweeps me off my feet. Fills the house with flowers. Brings me a cup of tea in bed in the morning. Kicks a footy with Bill in the garden. Then he just runs out of puff. Everything stops. He sits around all day watching TV; he drinks, smokes, won’t find a job, feels sorry for himself, talks about his tough childhood. Next thing, one of his thug buddies turns up. There are top secret talks. Troy becomes all motivated and chirpy. He refuses to listen to my concerns – calls me a ‘wet blanket’ and worse – and I just know it’s a matter of time before Troy is involved in crime.’
    Bill wasn’t supposed to hear this. He and Matty were hovering near the doorway that led into the Grubs’ family room. Tessa had her arm round Pam’s shaking shoulders. Nan was tut-tutting while she re-filled people’s tea and coffee cups; and Donald was leaning forward, his hand resting on Pam’s knee.
    â€˜Don’t let him back, Pam,’ said Donald. ‘Get tough.’
    Pam sobbed. ‘He’s Bill’s dad. He’s family.