Mullumbimby by Melissa Lucashenko Read Free Book Online

flaming horse properly I wouldn’t have to re-educate her every three weeks.’
    Ellen stiffened.
    â€˜She went fine for me at Oliver’s,’ she yelled. ‘Maybe it’s you that needs to ride her “properly” and not be so mean to her.’
    â€˜Yeah?’ Jo reacted. ‘Well, if I’m “mean” to her it’s because she needs to know who’s in charge – not her. Same as you’re not. Goddit?’
    There was no reply from Ellen, who was now stalking back towards the house with her fists clenched at her sides. Jo fumed and bellowed at this insubordination, swinging the horse around.
    â€˜Ellen! Don’t you walk away from me! Have you been riding this bloody mare the way you’re supposed to, or not?’
    The girl stopped and stood stock-still without turning around or acknowledging her mother’s question. Her thin body radiated displeasure and tension. Fuck you.
    â€˜Cos I had a visit last week from a neighbour who reckons you’ve been riding his horses up the bloody road. Without asking.’ Jo was horrified to hear this come out of her mouth. She’d meant to broach it tactfully, over hamburgers or something, when Ellen was in a mood to open up. But she was aching all over from fixing the farm – had been aching all over for a fortnight – and now Athena was being a mongrel, and Ellen had turned her back on her, which you just don’tdo to your mother. Not if you don’t want attention, you don’t. Real quick attention upside of the head, same as she got as a kid with far less provocation than this.
    â€˜Well?’
    â€˜Yes. I’ve been riding her!’ Ellen turned to face Jo. They both knew it was only half an answer.
    â€˜Just bloody watch yaself, alright? We’re always gonna be easy targets around here.’ Jo’s voice was hard, but she didn’t know what else to do. She had a mighty job on her hands. Keep the locals onside, keep Ellen in line and talking to her, not a silent hating teenager like so many of them seemed to be, keep the cops well away so that disaster in a uniform didn’t have a chance to find them, keep the animals healthy and alive, get the farm cleaned up, get to work on time five days a week and keep Basho happy, especially now there was a mortgage to consider.
    â€˜Is anything I say to you sinking in?’ she asked, at last allowing Athena to come to a breathless halt. Ellen shrugged. ‘Well, is there anything you want to tell me?’ Jo asked in exasperation.
    Ellen suddenly spoke the truth. ‘I miss my town friends. And I’m sick of all the work here. I never wanted to move here in the first place, it was your idea to buy a farm. Not mine.’
    The girl stood with her arms folded in the shadow of the Piccabeen palms hanging over the bathtub. Jo sighed, and hauled Athena’s head up from the paspalum patch she’d just found. Hadn’t she spent night after night explaining to Ellen what it meant to have their own place? To have the horses right outside the back door, and much more important, to be owners again of some Bundjalung land? To take back even a tiny fraction of what had been lost? She thought Ellen had wanted it, too, as badly as she did.
    Comet neighed and half-reared, his anxiety growing with every minute his mother was on the other side of the fence.
    â€˜Well, look at it like this,’ Jo told Ellen shortly: ‘You’re gonna spend about six billion years turning back to dust in that bloody cemetery once ya dead, so take this as a very short enforced holiday away from the place, okay?’
    â€˜Oh, you’ve got what you want, and I’ll just put up and shut up. Fine!’ Ellen stormed away into the house muttering curses under her breath that she wasn’t foolish enough to say to her mother’s face. Jo heeled Athena into a canter and left the latest drama of motherhood behind, as Comet took to his