Ruby of Kettle Farm (2 page)

‘H
ELLO
, Brenda,' said Ruby.

‘Hello, Ruby,' said Brenda. ‘I wondered when you'd notice me.' She looked down at Ruby's feet. ‘You're not wearing any shoes.'

‘I know.'

‘And your knees are all dirty.'

‘I know.'

‘And there's something in your hair. It looks like a bit of feather.' She peered at Ruby's head. ‘Honestly, Ruby, you're a complete fright. What on earth have you been doing?'

Ruby looked at Brenda's good navy-blue coat with its velvet collar, her neat hat like a felt pudding basin, and her shiny shoes. Her socks were nicely pulled up and held in place with garters. ‘I've been in the chook yard,' she said. ‘Collecting chicken poo.'

‘Chicken poo?' Brenda stared at her. ‘Why?'

‘We eat it, of course.'

‘You eat
poo
?'

Ruby nodded. ‘We put it on our porridge. It's awfully good for you. D'you want to see the chooks? It's my job to feed them every day, and collect the eggs.'

‘All right.' Behind her round spectacles, Brenda's eyes were very big. ‘You seem different, Ruby,' she said, hurrying to keep up with her. ‘You've changed. You look . . .'

‘Like a farm girl,' Ruby finished. ‘Mind your shoes. It's mucky out here.'

‘It's big, isn't it?' Brenda said, when they were standing outside the chook yard. ‘And the chooks smell disgusting. Sort of like old gumboots.'

‘They smell like chooks,' Ruby said. ‘Shall I show you the rest of the farm?'

‘Are there horses?'

‘No.'

‘I don't want to see any more, then. It's very run-down, isn't it? Doesn't your uncle have any money?'

‘Not much.'

‘Mama's cousin in Angaston, the one we've just visited, is doing terribly well. He has more than a thousand acres, Mama says. How many acres does your uncle have?'

‘A bit less than that,' Ruby said. She wished she could say that Uncle James had
much
more than a thousand acres, and that he was doing terribly well too. Uncle James wasn't the nicest person in the world, but she didn't want Brenda to make insulting remarks about him. ‘He works awfully hard, though, and he only has one arm. He was a hero in the war.'

‘Was he?' Brenda glanced up at the sky. ‘Oh no, it's starting to drizzle, and it'll spoil my hat. Can we go somewhere and talk, just us two? It's such ages since I've seen you.'

There were lots of things Ruby wanted to ask Brenda, too. ‘We could go to the sunroom,' she said. ‘I'll get us some scones.'

‘Mmm,' Brenda said, munching. ‘These are delicious. Mama says you can always judge a cook by her scones.'

‘May baked them this morning,' Ruby told her. ‘And she is a really good cook. You probably remember May from my fancy-dress birthday party last year.'

‘How could I forget?' Brenda giggled. ‘She stuck out like a sore toe. Marjorie Mack said she was like a cabbage in a rose garden.'

‘I remember Marjorie saying that. How is Marjorie? She said she'd write to me, but she never did.'

‘You know what Marjorie's like,' Brenda said. ‘She's our form captain now and she's always terribly busy. She organises everyone to bits. She made us all put in money for a wedding present for Miss Fraser, and Marjorie chose it herself. It was a cigarette box, a brass one with an elephant on it.'

‘Does Miss Fraser smoke?'

‘I don't think so, but it doesn't matter, does it? Almost our whole class went to her wedding last weekend, and we wore our school uniforms and we made a guard of honour. Miss Fraser wasn't a pretty bride at all, though. She was wearing a really old-fashioned dress, and she didn't even have a veil, just some orange blossom in her hair. She could have at least tried to be fashionable.'

‘I expect it was the wedding dress she would have worn if she'd married her first fiancé, the one who was killed in the war,' Ruby said, half to herself. She wished she'd been at Miss Fraser's wedding.

‘Well, it didn't look very good. It was lace, sort of droopy. I know Miss Fraser was engaged to someone else before, but you shouldn't dwell on the past. Mama says it's unhealthy.' She bit into another scone. ‘Anyway, we've got a new form mistress now that Miss Fraser has left. Her name is Miss Butcher, and she's really pretty and terribly popular. Her hair is naturally wavy. I wish my hair was naturally wavy. I say, is there anything apart from this milk to drink? It tastes funny. At home we have lemonade and ginger beer in the refrigerator. I didn't tell you we have a refrigerator now, did I?'

Ruby had a little inward struggle with herself. That's
my
home Brenda's talking about, she thought.
My
home, that
my
father built. And now they have a refrigerator! I always wanted one of those. She remembered how Mrs Traill, her family's housekeeper, had kept her home-made ice-cream in the old icebox, and suddenly she longed for an ice-cream. She saw it in her mind, a big scoop in a frosted silver dish with a cherry on top . . .

‘Sorry, Brenda,' she said. ‘Milk is all there is, unless you want water.' And then, although it hurt to say it, she asked, ‘How is our house? Are you enjoying living there? Are the fish in the fishpond still alive?'

‘The house is much better than it was when you lived there,' Brenda replied, through another mouthful of scone. ‘Mama had all the rooms painted. She said they looked a bit grubby. The front room is pink now, and your bedroom, or rather
my
bedroom, is pale green. It looks very fashionable. I'm afraid some of the fish have died. How many were there?'

‘Six.'

‘There are only four now. I try to remember to feed them, but I keep forgetting. I'm not used to having pets.'

Ruby's heart was very full. Two of her goldfish dead, and her bedroom painted green!
Green!
‘I loved that house,' she burst out. ‘I wish, wish,
wish
we hadn't had to sell it.'

Brenda gazed at her through her owlish spectacles. ‘It must be strange for you, hearing me talk about it. But we like the house as much as you did, and it's our house now.'

‘I know it is. I just wish . . . I wish it wasn't.'

Brenda leaned forward. ‘You know, Daddy always wanted your house. He used to say it was just the sort of house he'd like to live in, and he'd do anything to get it. Isn't it marvellous that he did get it, in the end?'

‘Yes, marvellous,' Ruby said. She had to force the words out.

‘We're putting in a tennis court, too, so we can give tennis parties.'

‘Are you? That's . . . marvellous.'

There was a long silence, and then Brenda said, ‘By the way, who was that frightful old woman who was so rude to Mama?'

‘Oh, that's Aunt Flora. She's Uncle James's great-aunt.'

‘She looks like a witch, all dressed in black like that.'

Ruby laughed. Thinking about Aunt Flora made her feel better. ‘She does, doesn't she?' she said.

‘What a beaut car,' said Walter. ‘I wish we could have a car like that instead of the rattly old Ford.'

The Walkers had just left, and Baxter was chasing the Humber down the driveway, barking furiously.

‘We could never afford it,' Uncle James said. ‘You'd best stick with reality, boy. Our way of life mightn't be good enough for you, after two years in that pricey boarding school, but it's all you've got.'

‘No harm wishing,' Walter said, under his breath.

‘If there's one thing I can't stomach, it's people showing off their wealth,' Aunt Flora said. ‘In difficult times like these there's no call for that sort of vulgar display.'

‘Brenda told me Uncle Donald always wanted our house,' Ruby said. ‘She told me he'd have done anything to get it.'

‘I'm sure Donald deserves his good fortune,' Mother said. ‘He works very hard, and Harry always used to say he was a wizard with money. Harry relied on him completely.'

‘And now Harry, who relied on him completely, is in the depths of poverty while Donald Walker is riding high on the hog,' Aunt Flora said, lighting her pipe and puffing out a cloud of blue smoke. ‘Well, well.'

‘It's not like that at all, Aunt Flora,' Mother told her. ‘Donald has been a good friend to Harry. He's protected him and made it possible for us to stay in touch when . . . Without Don, I don't know what we'd have done.'

‘I didn't like his wife much,' remarked May. ‘She kept looking around as if she thought the place wasn't clean enough for her.'

‘It didn't stop her hoeing into the scones,' Uncle James said bitterly. ‘I thought she and her husband were a pair of scroungers. Ruby, call that blasted dog of yours back here right now, before he gets through a fence and has a go at my sheep.'

‘Yes, Uncle James.' Ruby raised her voice. ‘Baxter! Baxter! Come here!' But as she started off down the driveway after him, she wasn't thinking of Baxter.

Where are you, Dad? she asked silently. We need you. Why won't you write and tell us where you are?

W
HEN
Ruby hopped out of bed next morning the freezing air took her breath away, and it was all she could do not to hop straight back again. It was warm and cosy in bed, thanks to her dressing-gown on top of her quilt, and her overcoat on top of that, and Mother's travel rug spread over everything else. Thank goodness she didn't have to milk the cows this morning!

She dressed quickly. First she pulled on two pairs of socks. Then she put on her drawers, a singlet, a liberty bodice, a petticoat, her warmest skirt, two jumpers and a cardigan. May and Bee had crawled out of bed and were dressing, too, shivering in the cold.

‘There's a hard frost outside,' May said. ‘I went out earlier, and everything's white. Shep and Sparkie were asleep on top of their kennels, and both of them were so covered in frost they looked like white dogs instead of black ones. At least Baxter stayed inside his kennel.'

‘See?' Ruby said. ‘Baxter might not be a farm dog, but he does have
some
sense.'

She raced out to the chook yard, fed the chooks, used the feed bucket to break the ice on their water bowls, looked for eggs, found just two, and raced back into the warmth of the kitchen, where the wood stove had been burning all night. I've never been so cold in my life, she thought. No wonder the chooks aren't laying – they're too busy trying to keep warm.

After breakfast she and May and Bee set out for school. The sun was up, and the air was so clear and crisp that it almost seemed to crackle. The paddocks were covered in frost for as far as Ruby could see, and there were patches of ice on the road where puddles had frozen over. Uncle James's sheep looked dirty brown against the whiteness of the pasture, and the sun shining on the melting frost was so dazzling that Ruby had to squint against the glare.

I wonder what Brenda would say if she could see me now, she thought. As well as everything else, she was wearing green woolly mittens, a pink-and-white striped scarf, and a bright red pixie hood.

She and Bee were pretending to be dragons, roaring and puffing out clouds of steam, while May looked at them as if she thought they were mad. ‘Dragons, indeed!' she said, sounding exactly like Aunt Flora.

‘G'day, Red Riding Hood!' shouted Eric Weber, scooting past them on his bicycle. ‘Careful – the big bad wolf'll get ya!'

‘Not if I get you first!' Ruby yelled back, while Bee giggled and May walked firmly on, shaking her head.

The Wests had been away from school for all of last week, and Ruby was wondering if they'd gone for good when to her relief she saw them standing outside the school gate. Virginia, always the timid one, was hiding behind her big sister Cynthia.

They look as if they'd like to turn around and go straight home again, Ruby thought. And I wouldn't blame them.

While everyone else in the schoolyard stopped what they were doing and stared, she ran up to the gate. ‘Hello,' she said. ‘Isn't it the most freezing day? I'm so glad you're back! I was starting to worry about you. Come on, it's nearly time for assembly.'

She linked arms with Cynthia and took Josie's hand. Virginia took her little sister's other hand, and all four girls walked together into the yard. Darcy shuffled along beside them, scuffing his boots in the dirt.

‘Look at them,' Doris Spinks said in a loud voice. ‘Birds of a feather. There's something real fishy going on there, my mum reckons.'

Ruby felt a moment of panic. Was Doris going to say something about Dad? Then she heard May's voice, equally loud. ‘What are you talking about, Doris? If you keep spreading nonsense like that, I'm going to tell Mr Miller.'

‘Yeah, Doris,' said Eric Weber. ‘We don't want to know about your birds and fish. Save it for someone who wants to hear it.'

Ruby's panic died away, and she felt instead a warm little glow of happiness. ‘You see?' she whispered to Cynthia. ‘It's going to be all right.'

The first lesson for Grade Seven was arith­metic – long division. Ruby raced through her sums so she could line up to have her work marked by Mr Miller. The fireplace was close to the teacher's desk, and she edged closer and closer to it until the warmth of the fire soaked into her bones. Cynthia, who was standing next to her, put her open exercise book down on the hearth and held both reddened hands out to the flames. ‘Gee, that feels good,' she said. ‘It makes my chilblains itch, but.'

‘I wish you had some shoes,' Ruby said, looking at Cynthia's bare and very dirty feet. ‘I'd give you a pair of mine, except my feet are smaller than yours.'

‘My mum reckons I've got feet as big as butter-boxes,' said Cynthia. She sniffed, and wiped her nose on her coat sleeve. ‘It's all right. I don't mind not having no shoes. I'm used to it.' She turned up one foot to show Ruby her leathery blackened sole. ‘See? Tough as nails.'

‘You shouldn't have to be used to it. It's so cold today I'm wearing two pairs of socks.'

Cynthia laughed, as usual covering her mouth with her hand to hide her decayed teeth. ‘We don't have no socks neither. Except for Dad, he has some. Army surplus.'

There was a ripping sound, and Doris, who was behind Cynthia, held up a torn page covered in sums. ‘I'm
so
sorry, Cynthia,' she said. ‘A spark fell on your exercise book and when I picked it up to save it this page came out.' She crumpled it up, and before Cynthia or Ruby could stop her, she threw it into the fire. ‘Never mind. The sums were probably wrong anyway.'

‘Next!' called Mr Miller. ‘Ruby? Cynthia? Hurry up.'

‘Please, sir,' said Cynthia, moving forward. ‘I did the sums, honest, but the page got . . . lost in the fire.'

‘Lost? What are you talking about?'

‘Oh, sir, it was my fault,' Doris said. ‘Cynthia's exercise book caught alight from a spark, so I had to tear a page out. I'm sorry, sir.'

‘That's all right, Doris. Thank you for being helpful.'

‘Sir, it wasn't like that at all,' Ruby said, glaring at Doris. ‘There wasn't any spark. Doris pulled out the page, but –'

‘Doris has told me what happened,' said Mr Miller, looking very irritated. ‘I will not listen to tell-tales, Ruby. Now, if you've sums to be marked, please show them to me. Cynthia, you'll have to do your work again, at recess.'

‘Don't worry, I'll help you,' Ruby said, when she and Cynthia were back at their desk. ‘Ooh, that Doris! She makes me so furious! One day I'll . . . I'll . . .'

‘Forget it,' said Cynthia. ‘There'll always be people like her, and people like us. It's how things are.'

People like us
, Ruby thought. She means people that other people don't want anything to do with. She means me, too. All of a sudden the unfairness of it all made her really angry.

‘That doesn't mean it's right, though, does it?' she said.

‘I s'pose not,' Cynthia said. But Ruby could tell she wasn't convinced.