Season of Hate by Michael Costello Read Free Book Online Page B

whispered,
    "Walk away."
    Dad looked at me and paused in thought, then smiled and ruffled my curls with his hand.
    "Come on son, it's getting late. Goodnight, gentlemen," Dad stated as he took my hand and we headed back to Nan. Doug was sitting on a log, stuffing a miniature meat pie in his mouth as we approached.
    I counted up with Doug. I had one mug of soup, three sausage rolls, some of absent Miss Kitty's trifle, a chocolate brownie and four coconut macaroons. I could have had five as there were heaps, but I could hear Nan's voice inside my head admonishing me with 'don't be a guts.' Doug had as much as me, but managed to fit in an extra sausage roll and another meat pie.
    Toward the end of the night, I saw Mrs Symonds disappear into the darkness, heading toward the camp fire of the group by the creek, with a tray of leftovers. I shook Doug's arm and pointed. We followed after her, remaining at a short distance away. She went up to the group and offered the tray of food. We got closer and saw they were indeed a group of Aborigines as Mr Wood had stated earlier. I recall thinking at the time, with their faces lit from underneath by their fire, that they looked as savage as the ones holding spears in the drawings in our social studies book.
    "They're just like the ones that killed the first white settlers. Let's get outta here," Doug whispered. Mrs Symonds didn't seem a bit worried, though. Later she slipped back to our group with the empty tray. I saw Mr Symonds and her exchanging a smile and a nod, and then noticed Steve whisper something to his dad and point out Mrs Symonds as she rejoined the women clearing up the food table.
    Doug and I were getting sleepy. My eyes were stinging a bit from all the smoke and I was blowing steam from my mouth into to the cold air. I circled the tables one last time with Barry and Raymond. The glow of the dying bonfire was still reflected in Raymond's glasses. Some of the men made sure the fire would not flare up after we left by pouring the buckets of water over the embers, before kicking dirt over the lot. Still half a dozen macaroons left. I looked at them for a long while before I took one last one. Cracker Night – mmm, magic.

Chapter Five

    Next morning before anyone was up, we crept out our window and down through the yellowing leaves of the jacaranda. Autumn was upon us and by mid winter all the leaves would have fallen. Joined by Barry and Raymond, our eyes scoured the bonfire site, trying to find any unexploded bungers. We collected five, of which Doug found three.
    Barry had got his dad's matches and we sneaked off to the edge of the creek, about two miles down stream. At that distance the sound couldn't be heard back at our homes and no one would see us letting them off. The creek there was shallow enough for us to walk out ankle deep on a sandbar to a dry mound in the centre.
    Raymond brought along a length of piping and wedged it between rocks to make a cannon. He sat behind it and held on to the shaft. Doug demanded he be the one to light the bungers and drop them in the pipe as he'd found the most. Spotting an old tin can at the side of the sandbar he told Barry to collect it, with the instruction to quickly place it over the top of the pipe once he'd dropped the lighted bunger in. I was happy not to have either role in what I thought was a dangerous albeit exciting game.
    Raymond held the bunger while Doug fearlessly lit it and dropped it in, followed by Barry's quick capping of the pipe with the can. I put my hands over my ears and waited – nothing. We waited some more, just to be on the safe side. The tension built as Doug kicked off the can with his foot, just in case the bunger suddenly exploded. Raymond counted to ten out aloud then lifted the pipe to retrieve the bunger. It was declared a fizzer. Luckily all the others weren't duds.
    When the second cracker did explode, it made such a loud reverberating 'Boom!', that a whole gum tree of sulphur crested cockatoos