Jessica by Bryce Courtenay Read Free Book Online

them jump astride her body, one on her chest, pinning her wrists to the ground, the other sitting on her legs. There’s sheep milling about and bleating and dogs yapping but the other four keep them away so there’s a clearing in the middle of the pen.
    â€˜Let me go, you bastards!’ Jessica yells. ‘Let go of me!’ The sheep are panicking and one comes flying down the race and crashes into Jessica and the two boys, sending them flying. Jessica rolls free and tries to get to her feet but another of the young blokes falls onto her and pins her down again while a second takes hold of her feet.
    â€˜You’ll take what’s comin’ to you, Jessie Bergman!’ the boy sitting on her chest shouts. ‘Yer too bloody cocky.’ ‘Yeah, bloody oath!’ the one who’s holding her legs shouts. ‘Here, gi’s a hand!’ he shouts at one of the others, who immediately sits astride her stomach. ‘You think you’re better than us, don’t yiz?’ says the tar boy on her chest, the biggest among them. ‘Well, you bloody ain’t, see!’ he grunts. ‘Yer just a fuckin’ sheila!’
    With the sound of the donkey engine, the yapping of the dogs, bleating of sheep and the clanking of the wool presses they have to shout to be heard and Jessica knows it’s pointless to yell for help — the men in the shearing shed won’t hear her. So she saves her strength to curse them with every obscenity she’s ever heard Joe use and some private ones of her own as well. But the three of them on top of her are too strong. ‘Bastards! Let me go!’ she cries.
    The three remaining tar boys now get to work, rubbing a preparation of Stockholm tar into her scalp with their tar sticks. It’s all over in a matter of moments and the boys are up and away, leaving her lying on the ground in the sheep pen with the newly shorn sheep closing in, pissing and shitting and milling about her.
    Jessica jumps to her feet, panicking the sheep around her legs. ‘You’ll pay for this, you miserable bastards!’ she screams after them as a wether bumps hard into the back of her knees and she falls down again, the hot tar burning and stinging her scalp.
    She is shaking with anger and humiliation and wants to cry, but wouldn’t give them the satisfaction. She chokes back the tears and, still on her knees among the sheep, searches for her hat, which fell off her head when she was knocked down. Jessica is still snorting and swearing when she finds it trampled in the dirt and smelling of sheep shit.
    She rises again, bleating sheep up to her waist, and slaps her misshapen hat against the rump of the nearest ewe to dust it off. The slapping gets rid of some of her rage, and she gathers her wits. Jessica pushes her hat roughly into shape and pulls it over her head as far down as she can to cover her tarred hair.
    She’s got no time to feel sorry for herself. Smoko’s only a few minutes away and she still needs to boil the billy for the lads, catch up on the sheep she’s missed tarring and then sweep the second cuts and bellies away so her section of the shearing board is clean.
    Jessica doesn’t know how she’s going to hide what’s happened from Joe when she gets home. He’d be just as likely to come looking for the tar boys who worked her over and all hell would break loose. Then, like George Thomas said, any trouble in the shed because of her and Jessica gets the chop, no questions asked.
    She’s still cranky as hell because the only thing she’s done wrong was to be a girl, but she can’t do anything about it. She knows Joe needs her six shillings to help pay the bank interest on the mortgage. The man from the bank has been around twice in the last month and after he’d left the last time Joe went quiet and didn’t speak a word to her for two whole days, so Jessica knows things must be real bad.
    While