Fire Song by Libby Hathorn Read Free Book Online Page A

with her and she had to somehow distract Mum and whisk Pippa away.
    After Ruth’s shyness melted and her English improved, she turned out to be really funny.
    In the ice-cold playground, on that first day, as the winter wind swooped up from the valley in gusts that sent them all into a wild frenzy, Robyn Smithers started it – just as she had with Dom, when he arrived the year before. She had teased him about being a dago, but it had backfired because he was a good fighter and great with a football. Poor little Ruth, though…
    ‘Jew-girl, you go back where you came from. We don’t want you here,’ Robyn chanted as an interested group formed round them.
    There were Ruth’s short, scared breaths again.
    Ingrid took her freezing hand. ‘And we don’t want you here, Robyn Smithers. You can go to hell!’ She’d marched Ruth away and ignored the handful of gumnuts tossed after them, and Robyn’s voice above the wind.
    ‘You swore, Ingrid Crowe, and I’m telling. And she is so a Jew. Mum said.’
    ‘That ain’t real swearing, Robbie,’ Evan Evans cut in. ‘And what’s a Jew, anyway?’
    ‘Same as a dago or a chink, but different,’ said Robyn Smithers. ‘My mum says that their religion is different and she says we don’t need any more foreigners here, overrunning the country.’
    Evan had lost interest. There was a game of footie starting in the paddock. Dom was one of the players, and he was Dom’s mate.
    ‘Righto,’ he said, because he was a bit sweet on Robyn Smithers – but that was all – and then he was gone.
    Ingrid couldn’t bear Ruth’s grateful smile, so she made her draw a hopscotch on the tarred bit of the playground near the school with some old bits of chalk she carried in her pocket, exactly for that purpose. And then watched Ruth’s strange-looking boots do some good, as she kicked her way round the chalk marks – not expertly, but not as pathetically as she’d imagined. And it was good to see Ruth could laugh and that made Ingrid laugh too, as if they were old friends. Even so, she couldn’t help saying when the bell rang and they walked back towards the class line, ‘You better get a proper school uniform, Ruth, quick as you can.’
    That afternoon she’d asked Mum a dangerous question. Mum was in a good mood at the time, because a new boarder was going to arrive at
Emoh Ruo
and had paid a month in advance. She’d been baking that afternoon and she offered Ingrid a slice of teacake before she’d even hit the kitchen. Things were peaceful.
    Ingrid slid her Globite school case clear across the verandah, patted the dog and promised him a walk. Then she went straight into the kitchen, took Pippa on her knee and jiggled her up and down in the warmth of the stove and Mum’s happy face. She ate the whole slice without speaking and then Mum sat down opposite them as if, for once, she were waiting for Ingrid to speak.
    ‘Robyn Smithers called the new girl, Ruth Klein, a Jew-girl, Mum,’ Ingrid said, licking her fingers and feedingPippa the white creamy icing she liked, ‘as if it was a real bad thing to be.’
    ‘As if I care,’ Mum said quickly, ‘whether she’s a Jew or a Calathumpian. Or about anything that Smithers girl says.’
    Ingrid looked up a bit alarmed at Mum’s tone, to see a warning frown creasing her brow. ‘But aren’t we a bit Jewish?’ She knew she was risking a change in Mum’s mood by asking this, but it seemed like as good a time as any, because Grandma Logan had told her a bit about their family. To her surprise, Mum didn’t yell, but leant across the table and said quickly, almost urgently, ‘For heaven’s sake don’t go blabbing about that in this town, or you’ll know what is.’
    ‘Know what
what
is?’
    Like so many adults, her mother often spoke in riddles. But she cut another slice of teacake and Ingrid took that as a good sign.
    ‘Mum?’ She thought she might get more out of her if she trod softly.
    ‘My grandmother was a Jewish woman,