Tomorrow When The War Began by John Marsden Read Free Book Online Page B

to anyone short of a coma.
    The seven of us had got through five days
without a serious argument, which was good going. Quite a few
little arguments, I admit. There was the time Kevin had blown up at
Fi for not doing any cooking or washing up. It was after the Great
Snake Shemozzle; I think Kevin was embarrassed that he hadn’t come
out of that with much credit. Then his Sausage Surprise got such a
poor response, so he probably was feeling a bit sensitive. Still,
Fi was getting a reputation for disappearing when work appeared, so
Kevin wasn’t too far wrong.
    There was Corrie’s frequent cry of ‘That’s not
funny Homer’, heard when he tipped cold water on her in her
sleeping bag, when he did cruel and disgusting things to a black
beetle, when he dropped a spider down her shirt, when he tore out
the last page of her book and hid it so she didn’t know whether the
lovers made up or not. Corrie was one of Homer’s favourite victims:
he only had to give her a glimpse of the red cape and she charged
straight at it every time. He was lucky she didn’t hold
grudges.
    If I’m going to be honest I’d better admit
that I managed to annoy one or two people once or twice. Kevin told
me I was a know-all when I made a few suggestions about rearranging
the fire. In fact the fire got me in trouble a few times. I guess I
liked fiddling with it a bit too much. Whenever it died down a
little, or the smoke started coming in the wrong direction, or the
billy wasn’t over the best coals, I’d be in there with a stick,
‘fixing’ it. Well, that’s what I called it. The others called it
‘being a bloody nuisance’.
    My worst fight was really stupid. I don’t
know, maybe all fights are really stupid. We started talking about
the colours of cars, which ones are the most conspicuous and which
ones the least. Kevin said white was the most conspicuous and black
the least; Lee said yellow and green; I said red and khaki; I
forget what the others said. Suddenly it got quite heated. ‘Why do
you think they paint ambulances and police cars white?’ Kevin
yelled. ‘Why do you think they paint fire engines red?’ I yelled
back. ‘Why do you think they have so many yellow taxis?’ Lee yelled
a bit, although I don’t think his heart was in it. It went on and
on. I thought I was on safe ground with khaki for inconspicuous,
because that’s what the Army uses, but Kevin told some long story
about how he nearly had a head-on with a black car a week after he
got his P’s. ‘That doesn’t prove black’s hard to see,’ I said, ‘it
just proves you shouldn’t be allowed on the roads.’ I can’t even
remember how it ended, which goes to show how stupid it was.
    But on our last night, sitting around the fire
playing True Confessions, Robyn unexpectedly said, ‘I don’t want to
go back. This is the best place and this has been the best
week.’
    ‘Yeah,’ Lee said. ‘It’s been great.’
    ‘I’m looking forward to a hot shower though,’
Fi said. ‘And decent food.’
    ‘Let’s do this again,’ Corrie said. ‘Back here
in the same place with the same people.’
    ‘Yeah, OK,’ Homer said, obviously thinking of
another five days to spend adoring Fi.
    ‘Let’s keep this place a secret,’ Robyn said.
‘Otherwise everyone’ll start using it and it’ll be wrecked in no
time.’
    ‘It is a good campsite,’ I said. ‘Next time we
should have a proper search for where the hermit lived.’
    ‘He might have just had a shelter here and
it’s fallen down,’ Lee said.
    ‘But he built that bridge so well. You’d think
he’d build his shelter even better.’
    ‘Well maybe he just lived in a cave or
something.’
    True Confessions resumed, but I went to bed
before they could make me confess to all the things I’d done with
Steve. I figured I’d told enough already, so I got out while the
going was good. But I still didn’t sleep well. Like I said,
normally I was a heavy sleeper, but the last few nights I just
couldn’t