The Audrey of the Outback Collection (6 page)

‘Is that so?’ Her mum raised one eyebrow. ‘All right, Audrey. You might find out how hard it is for me to get you and Price to sit still.’

She limped to the kitchen door and opened it. ‘Price,’ she called. ‘Now, please!’

Price yelled something. His words were muffled.

‘Be quick,’ said Mrs Barlow. ‘Gentlemen to the left of the house, remember. Ladies to the right.’

Audrey giggled. Since the dunny blew up, the family had to kick the bushes instead. It was a bit of a nuisance tramping out to the bushes several times a day for privacy. But Audrey didn’t mind too much. Not everyone got to explode a dunny. Audrey had already written it all down in a letter to her cousin, Jimmy, in Adelaide. He’d be so jealous.

‘Quick. Quick,’ said Douglas.

‘Can Stumpy come in for lessons too?’ Audrey asked her mum.

‘I don’t think so, Audrey. There aren’t enough chairs.’

Audrey’s shoulders slumped. Then she pushed back her chair. ‘I’ll be back in a minute.’

She dashed through the lounge room into her bedroom and reached up to the clothing hook on the wall.

The kitchen door squeaked open. Then Audrey heard her mum ask Price if he had washed his hands.

Price mumbled and there was a thump. Audrey guessed that was her brother throwing himself into his chair.

Audrey dragged her mother’s old green dress over her head. The colour suited her, but it was far too long and dragged on the ground. It was her one dress-up outfit. When Mum was finished with her clothes, she usually cut them down to make smaller clothes for Audrey or her brothers. But Mum let her keep the green dress.

It was faded and ripped at the back. The material was so thin you could spit through it. But it still had all of its red buttons in a line down the front, and only three of them were broken.

Audrey used to have an old hat of her mum’s too. But one day the wind had snatched it from her head and tossed it into the goat pen. Sassafras ate it.

Now for her bead necklace. It was all colours of the rainbow, with only a few beads missing. Audrey looped it around her neck three times. Then she tied her two thick plaits together at the back with a piece of string.

Breathless from hurrying, she held up the hem of the green dress and stumbled back into the kitchen.

From the corner of her eye she saw Stumpy peering in through the kitchen window. She refused to look directly at him. If she did, he might make her laugh.

Price screwed up his face. He looked like a dried plum. ‘It’s lessons, Audrey. Not playtime.’

‘I’m not playing. I’m the teacher,’ said Audrey. ‘You have to call me Miss Barlow.’

Her brother threw a questioning look at their mother.

Mrs Barlow nodded. ‘Yes, it’s true. I have some mending to do, in the lounge room.’ ‘But …’ Price began. ‘Just for today.’ Douglas scrambled onto the chair next to Price. ‘Pway teachers too.’

Audrey stood as tall as she could. ‘There’s only one teacher. Me. But you can be a boy learning to read.’

Douglas giggled.

Price glared at Audrey.

She tried to think of something to say. ‘Today we are doing alphabet letters.’

‘The alphabet
is
letters,’ grumbled Price.

‘That’s what I said.’ Audrey sniffed. ‘And you have to call me Miss Barlow.’

‘I will not,’ he said. ‘I don’t call Mum,
Miss Mum
, do I?’

‘She doesn’t want to be called
Miss
. I do.’ Price glared even harder.

‘I changed my mind,’ said Audrey. ‘Let’s do something different. Not the alphabet. Let’s do questions.’

‘Questions?’ said Price.

‘Qwestons.’ Douglas stuck his thumb firmly in his mouth.

‘I do the questions. You do answers. Ready?’ Clasping her hands behind her back, Audrey tried to look clever. She pushed her mouth into a pout and half-closed her eyes. ‘I want you to vestigate this—when you have a bath, why doesn’t the water get inside your skin?’

‘The word is
in
vestigate,’ said Price. ‘Not vestigate.’

‘It’s
in
vestigate if you look
in
something, like a book. But we only have four books and they don’t say things about baths. It’s vestigate if you don’t look in something, but you think about it.’

Price tapped his pencil on the table. ‘I don’t want to think about it. It’s a silly question.’

‘No, it’s not …’ Audrey aimed a stare at Douglas. ‘Young man, don’t suck your thumb.’

Douglas looked behind him, searching for the person called ‘young man’.

‘You, Dougie. You can’t suck your thumb.’

Douglas’s face went red. He sniffed loudly. The sniffs turned into whimpering. His thumb stayed in his mouth.

Audrey hitched up her skirt and hurried to put her arm around Douglas’s shoulders before Mum came in to stop the lessons. ‘You can suck your thumb if you want. Don’t cry.’

His whimpering faded, but he kept sucking his thumb.

Mum’s voice came from the next room. ‘Dougie’s a bit young for school, Miss Barlow. Why don’t you send him in here?’

Douglas didn’t wait for Audrey to give permission. He shot her a sulky look, slid off the chair, and took his thumb into the lounge room.

Teaching was not as much fun as Audrey had expected. Douglas was too little. Price argued with everything she said. Being the teacher had seemed a good idea at first. But learning to read and write was a lot easier than trying to make other people do it.

‘My pencil broke.’ Price held it up. ‘I can’t write anything.’

‘I quit!’ Audrey put both hands on her hips. ‘You can grow up to be a iggorant bird, looking for food.’

‘The big one will be the dad.’

Nineteen

Audrey stepped out of her cubbyhouse. Although she had three of them, she’d chosen this one because its thick brush roof gave more shelter from the sun. The walls were also made of brush, but there was no door, just an opening. She didn’t know how to make a door, but that didn’t matter. This way, the wind could blow through more freely.

There was a crackling sound, as if some one had stepped on dry grass. She stared through the scrub.

‘Did you hear something, Stumpy?’

It was probably just birds or a kangaroo.

The quandong stones hanging on strings from her hat jiggled back and forth. Flies still hovered around her face, but not as many. They were frightened off by the swinging stones. There was a gap where a stone was missing. Audrey hoped Price would give her one to replace it. He had a bag of them that he used for marbles. Price wasn’t too old to play marbles.

Audrey’s stomach rumbled. ‘It’s too hot to play pirates or flying doctors. And I’m hungry.’

Stumpy agreed.

‘Let’s go home.’

Most of the grasses were withering in the hot sun. But there was plenty of grey saltbush. Scraggy, with twiggy branches, the tallest of the bushes were only as high as Audrey’s waist.

‘Saltbush can last for a year without water,’ Audrey told Stumpy as they skirted the bushes. ‘Fair dinkum, a year is a long time. Almost forever.’

A skink shot across the red sand, just missing her feet. Audrey jumped. She wasn’t scared of them, but they dashed out so quickly.

She stopped walking and pointed. ‘Look, there
was
something moving.’

Ahead of her, through the trees, she saw an emu with a line of striped chicks behind him as though they were playing follow-the-leader. The chicks seemed to appear and disappear between the saltbush. Audrey hoped the grown-up emu wouldn’t lose any of them.

‘The big one will be the dad. Emu dads look after the babies.’ Audrey felt sad. ‘I wish
our
dad would come home.’ His latest trip out bush had been a long one. She couldn’t remember exactly how long. But it seemed like forever. ‘Do you think a year and a long time and forever are the same?’

Stumpy didn’t have a clue.

Warm red sand slipped between Audrey’s sandals and the soles of her feet as she headed home. ‘Lucky tomorrow’s Saturday, Stumpy. I reckon I need a bath.’

On days when the wind was strong, sand flew into the house and got into everything. Audrey understood why her mum wanted real glass windows instead of hessian. But Audrey was pretty sure the sand would still find a way into the house.

As she neared the track that led home, a flock of cockatoos suddenly rose into the air, squawking and complaining.

She squinted against the bright sunlight. ‘Someone’s coming.’ Audrey began to run. ‘Dad!’

Twenty

Red sand puffed around Audrey’s feet as she ran. The quandong stones swung wildly, bobbing against her face.

‘Try to keep up, Stumpy,’ she panted.

She kept an eye on the ground because she didn’t want to put her foot down a rabbit hole or tread on a snake. The scrub thinned as it met the track. Someone was coming towards them on a camel. Audrey put one hand up to shield her eyes from the glare. A water mirage shimmered along the sand.

‘But Dad took both camels with him, and where’s Grease?’ said Audrey. ‘He and that old dog are always together. Just like you and me, Stumpy.’

Then Audrey realised the shape of the rider was wrong for Dad. Either he had an enormous head or he was wearing a turban.

Audrey slowed down, her chest tight with disappointment. Her feet felt strangely heavy. She had hoped so hard that it was Dad. Her face flamed with heat.

But any visitor was better than none. Especially this visitor. He brought letters and news.

The man on the camel wore a white turban and a long-sleeved shirt over loose trousers. His skin was brown and he had a long, hooked nose. He held a book in his hands, which he was reading as he rode.

‘Mr Akbar!’ Audrey waved at him.

Mr Akbar looked up from his book and raised a hand in greeting. As he drew closer he smiled down at Audrey.

‘
Salaam aleikum
,’ said Audrey. She wished him ‘peace’, just as he’d taught her on earlier visits. In Mr Akbar’s country that was how they said ‘hello’.

Mr Akbar’s smile broadened as he wished Audrey peace in return.

‘Where are your other camels?’ asked Audrey.

Mr Akbar owned seven camels. Although he didn’t bring them all, he often had a string of two or three with him.

‘Ah … trucks.’ He sniffed and tucked his book into a saddle bag.

Skipping alongside Mr Akbar on his camel, Audrey wondered if a truck had run over his other camels. She’d seen a truck once, but it wasn’t big enough to squash six camels at the same time.

‘I released my other camels into the bush,’ said Mr Akbar. ‘They are no longer needed. Perhaps, this is my last visit. A truck will bring your mail from now on.’

Audrey wasn’t sure whether to say she would miss Mr Akbar or that it would be exciting to see the truck. So she said nothing. Privately she thought she would never give Stumpy away. Not even in exchange for a truck.

‘Peanuts!’ Mr Akbar exclaimed.

Audrey tried not to laugh, but ended up snorting. When Mr Akbar was annoyed, he said ‘peanuts’ as though it was a swearword. He had better words than that. But Mum had warned Audrey not to remember them. When Mr Akbar got really fired up, he rolled his eyes and spittle shot from his mouth. He didn’t spit on purpose. He just forgot to swallow.

The ropes binding Mr Akbar’s belongings creaked and the water in his canteen swished as his camel swayed along the path. Its feet drummed on the sand.

Audrey couldn’t wait any longer. She crossed her fingers for luck and asked, ‘Have you got a letter for me?’

Twenty-one

Audrey, Mr Akbar, Price and Mrs Barlow sat outside the kitchen door on kerosene tins. Douglas waddled back and forth to the chookyard. His hands were tucked under his armpits, which made his elbows stand out like wings. Today he was a chook.

Flies clung to the back of the house where it was shady. They always found the coolest wall.

Price’s smile stretched from his left ear to his right as he jingled Mr Akbar’s coins in the pocket of his shorts. Price had worked hard, snaring rabbits and stretching the skins. And Mr Akbar had paid a fair price.

Audrey wondered if Price was rich now, then decided he probably wasn’t. Rich people didn’t live in houses with mud floors and no glass in the windows.

Mr Akbar had brought letters. Audrey’s was tucked under her pillow. She longed to rip open the neat envelope and read the words that had been written just for her. But it was good manners to give Mr Akbar something to eat first, and chat with him. He had travelled a long way since they’d last seen him—which had also meant months without letters.

‘Another scone, Mr Akbar?’ Mrs Barlow offered him the plate.

He had picked the right day to call. Maybe he had a good nose for the aroma of scones.

Mr Akbar shook his head. ‘No, no, no. As God is my witness, I am full to bursting.’

Smiling, Mrs Barlow insisted.

They all knew that Mr Akbar always said no at least twice, and then dived in. Audrey counted to ten before he finally agreed.

‘It would be impolite of me not to eat more. You have gone to much trouble, Mrs B.’

Audrey’s dad had called Mum ‘Mrs B’ for so long, that other people did too. Her real name was Everhilda, but that was a mouthful. Audrey stuck to ‘Mum’.

Mr Akbar took one scone, then a second. And a third. ‘To save you having to offer me the plate yet again,’ he said.