The Lost Child by Suzanne McCourt Read Free Book Online Page B

Stickynet? With those Daley kids?’ I nod. ‘What were you thinking of? What if you’d fallen in and drowned? Did your mother know?’
    â€˜She was in Muswell.’
    â€˜Well, that’s when you need to use your head and think for yourself.’ She picks up my bandaged hand. ‘What’s this?’
    â€˜Making toffee.’
    She looks into my eyes as if she knows exactly how it happened. ‘You’re too young to be making toffee by yourself.’
    â€˜I’m almost six.’
    Now she looks as if she’s doing sums in her head. ‘Five and a bit isn’t six. How’s school?’
    â€˜All right.’
    â€˜Thank you.’
    â€˜All right, thank you.’
    â€˜Come and stay with me next weekend. Give your mother a bit of a rest.’
    She stamps down the drive. Uncle Ticker has her door open and the engine running. They forget to wave.
    Who is that Wallis woman? What is a divorce? There are prickles inside my nose and my hand throbs. I can’t think why I want to cry, because the Phantom is made of rock. I listen at the door with my thousand ears but there are no more yelling voices. I know I should go in but he who sees the Phantom’s face dies a horrible death so I sit on the step and wish Grannie was still here ruling our roost so I wouldn’t have to use my head and think for myself.

5
    Dad puts his foot on the chair next to mine and ties double knots. His hair is slicked down smooth and he smells of my shampoo. He’s going to the footy because the Roosters are playing at home. Dunc and Pardie are already there. Mum says she might take me after she’s made a sponge but I know she won’t; she doesn’t like footy.
    â€˜Ticker’s lost his marbles,’ says Dad to his shoe. ‘He’s shaved every bloody tree off the ridge on Robe Road. I asked Denver bloody Boland if he knows what’s going on. You know what he tells me?’ Mum’s beating eggs so Dad flicks a look at me as if I’ll do for the asking. ‘Ticker’s building a bloody big ditch. Reckons he can drain the swamp right through the range into the lake.’
    â€˜Big ideas,’ says Mum, putting down the beater.
    It’s not the right answer. I can tell by the way Dad pulls on his nose and frowns at his fingers. ‘Big?’ His voice gets louder. ‘Try barmy. Try ten bob short of a shilling. Goes off to New Guinea and builds a few bridges for the war effort, comes back thinking he’s an engineer. How many years ago is that? Ten?’
    â€˜Something like that,’ says Mum.
    â€˜I worked on the roads in the Top End and dug plenty of dunny holes in the jungle around Darwin and I didn’t come back thinking I was the council engineer, did I?’ Mum doesn’t answer and Dad looks at me. Before I can shake my head, he goes on: ‘Anyway, I said to Denver: How’d this get through council? You’re the bloody chairman, I said, shouldn’t people be given a chance to object? He says it was advertised in the Mail . And I say: Yes, in print the size of fly shit. Then I said: What about the orange-bellied parrot? And ya know what he says?’
    My eyes go cross-eyed with looking and listening.
    â€˜ Orange-bellied what ? That’s what he says. I’d get myself elected if I thought it’d do any good but who’d want to work with that group of mugs. Anyway, I told him the orange-belly breeds in Tassie and comes here to winter. Told him they need saltmarsh and samphire and what’s going to happen when every swamp’s been drained for miles around? You know what he says?’
    I uncross my eyes. Mum turns from the stove with her mouth twitching and I wonder what I’ve missed in my listening because nothing seems funny to me. Then she blinks at me, just one blink—or is it a wink?
    â€˜ Can’t it find another swamp? That’s what he says. Can you believe it?’
    A sound