For the Forest of a Bird by Sue Saliba Read Free Book Online Page B

began at the top shelf, which she had to stand on a chair to reach. She was halfway through pushing aside tangled extension cords and piles of magazines when she came across a brand-new-looking box. It stood out amongst everything else that seemed to be worn and used and somehow to belong. This box was glossy, almost reflective. Nella pulled it from its wedged-in position and she saw written on its side,
laptop computer
.
    How strange – she didn’t know her father had a computer. He’d always said he didn’t need one, that he was happy to be far away from technology and machines.
    Nella stepped down from the chair. The box was empty; the computer must be somewhere. That’s when she decided to go into her father’s room. She hadn’t wanted to, something told her she shouldn’t. Something told her to stay outside. But now she pushed the door of his bedroom open very, very slightly and she looked through the tiny crack she’d made and then she pushed it further so the gap widened and she stared inside.
    Darkness turned to dimness and then she could make out the shapes of furniture in his bedroom. The bulky old-fashioned wardrobe, the familiar dressing table she’d helped him choose at the local Salvation Army op shop, the large double bed. And then, near the window, beside the closed curtain, she saw what looked like a table. She moved closer. It wasn’t a table exactly, it was a desk. Its surface was neatly organised with pens and a pencil in a glass holder, papers stacked into a perfect pile, a digital clock facing the chair and in the middle rested a computer.
    Why hadn’t he mentioned it? Perhaps he’d been a bit embarrassed – he was often teasing Nella about how strange it was that she found out so many things about nature and wildlife through a computer. He did know her email address, though – she’d written it for him once on the back of a bus ticket when she’d left the island – so perhaps he’d sent her an email. Perhaps he’d sent her a message to tell her when he was coming home.
    Nella fiddled with the catch on the casing and then opened up the computer. She pressed a button, the screen lit up and she typed until her email inbox appeared. Yes, there was a message. There’d been a message received at 9.09 this morning.
    Nella clicked it open without reading the sender. It could be no one else.
    I didn’t think I would need to explain it all to you. It seems you misunderstood. I know you’ve gone to the island. You need to come back.
    Matthew
    She hadn’t expected Matthew. She pushed herself back from the computer, her hands like fists against the edge of the desk and her arms outstretched. Nella looked at the floor, then closed her eyes as if invisibility might make her brother disappear forever. But it didn’t.
    Even there in the stillness, in the darkness, she felt Matthew.
    It seems you misunderstood.
His was the voice she fled, and had tried to push herself so far from. If she had been in Melbourne now she would have gone to the creek, she would have gone to the swallows.
Take me away with you
, she might have said because, after all, that was the other side of their return – their leaving.
Take me away, please take me away.
That’s what she might have said if she could put words to it, if she could translate the forces inside her into some kind of language that made sense.
    Instead she opened her eyes and she went to her father’s bed. She pulled the blanket from the top of it and she held it close to her. What did Matthew mean anyway?
It seems you misunderstood.
What did he know of understanding, of her understanding?
    For him, life was school, study, a career. That’s probably what this was about, Nella needing to return to school. But Nella hated school. She hated the uniform she had to wear, she hated the subjects she had to study, she hated the lunchtime conversations she was never part of.