Sally Called!

[I love music]

***chapter 20***

***CONSEQUENCES***

Sally knelt up on the bed, pushing up the curtains with her head (hands can’t touch or it’s bad luck, hands can’t touch or it’s bad luck). She pressed her forehead against the window and breathed out, but it was too dark to see to make pictures in the steam of her breath. So she squashed her nose against the glass, shook her head, rolled her eyes and, opening her mouth wide, pulled tongues at the large tree that had dared frighten her by impersonating a monster her very first night under the Fletchers roof.

The glass tasted cold and slightly bitter. Sally didn’t really know why she was tasting it but it had been a very peculiar day. She opened and closed her eyes twenty times to clear her mind and thought about the last part of it.

Like a stone age bird, the helicopter had whirred noisily above them, casting a giant shadow over Summer Bay beach and bringing with it a cold wind that whirled everything in its path like a brewing storm. Even though she could see Tom sitting next to the pilot, Sally clung to Lance’s hand, wondering if she was in terrible trouble for running away. She would have been terrified if she hadn’t been with Lance, Frank and Steven and if they hadn’t all been laughing and singing so she knew everything must be alright.

“It’s just like the Wizard of Oz, Sal! You’re Dorothy going home and I’m the scarecrow who needs brains, Frank’s the cowardly lion who needs courage...” Lance grinned at Frank because Frank was afraid of no one. “And Steven...Steven’s...” Lance frowned, unable to remember the third character from the movie.

Frank looked at Steven, who was standing a little way back as if he wasn’t with anyone.

“The tin man. The one don’t have the heart,” he said coldly.

Sally had been very surprised at Frank’s tone. And even more surprised when Steven turned away without answering. Frank had been joking. Hadn’t he? She knew Frank and Steven fought, usually when Steven had been teasing Sally and Frank didn’t like it, but boys were always fighting. She’d thought they were mates, what with Steven borrowing the guitar and them all singing and everything.

But she didn’t have time to ponder on it too long because, to the cheers of the onlookers, she was up in the helicopter, with Tom ruffling her hair and pointing down to where Steven, Frank and Lance stood waving.

Sally - and Mrs Martha - would never forget the helicopter ride. How breathtakingly beautiful Summer Bay looked as evening fell and lights began to twinkle across the seaside town and the pretty harbour where toy-size ships sailed across the darkening waters. The picture kept coming back into her mind and she fought hard to stay awake, anxious not to miss any of this exciting night. Even at the hospital.

“Would you like to go home with your Mum and Dad?” The lady doctor put down the stethoscope and smiled. Apart from the long gash across her cheek, the little girl was absolutely fine. TLC and the familiarity of home would do her more good than medicine and white sterile hospital wards.

Sally nodded emphatically. Most eight-year-olds would consider themselves far too old for laps, but Sally snuggled against Pippa in sleepy contentment. Warm. Safe. Loved.

Everyone was out and Lynn was to be kept in hospital till tomorrow for observation. She had Tom and Pippa all to herself. How could she ever have felt unwanted? Hugs and kisses goodnight, hot chocolate and marshmallows, a foamy bubble bath, fresh-scented sheets and another chapter of Five Dolls in the House, one of the books that hadn’t been too badly damaged when Steven had trashed the room. (Somehow Sally knew it was Steven, but somehow she didn’t want to dob him in either.)

Five Dolls, one of Pippa’s favourites when she was eight too, was a very funny story of a little girl who could make herself small enough to go inside a doll’s house, where she met the likes of bossy Vanessa, posh Jacqueline, and, most of all, mischievous Lupin and her equally mischievous friend the monkey, who lived on the roof and liked to shout down the chimney at everyone.

Sally loved the story and had slept like a log afterwards, but the bright light and noise of another helicopter had woken her suddenly from her deep, cosy sleep. This one, she knew, would be the “weather watch” that circled the sea at the same time every night, looking out for sudden storms or high winds. But it didn’t stop her hoping. And she still didn’t know what she was going to do about the twenty dollars ransom money that Scott Phillips had demanded for Milko. She couldn’t tell Pippa. She couldn’t tell anyone or they would kill him.

“Milko, where are you?” She whispered sadly into the night. “Because, you know, if you’ve run away from the Phillips brothers and you’re scared of the chopper, you don’t have to be. It’s only come to rescue you. Please, Milko, come back!” She added after listening for a while.

But her voice lost itself in the darkness and still nobody answered. Sally and Mrs Martha were all alone.

*****

There are a million songs for the lonely

a million stars to look up at each night

but there’s no one to hold you and kiss you

and tell you everything’s gonna be alright...

He had a lot in common with Sally really. Sally counted desperately when something troubled her. Steven turned situations into rhyme. He never used to, but, since the fire, he’d begun churning words into songs. Anything to drown out the terrible memory.

“Steven, the fire...”

The fire he had stood cheering with his best mates, Gazza, Andy and Jonno, all of them slightly drunk on four large cans of lager and two large bottles of strong cider, unaware that the electrical sparks flying into the air came from his own home where his parents were burning to death.

There are a million songs for the lonely

a million stars to look up at each night...

Everyone had someone. Tom and Pippa. Sally and Milko. Lynn and her God.

And they didn’t even know they were couples. Not yet. Only people who didn’t have anyone had time to peoplewatch.

Lance and Kathy. Engaged in serious whispered conversation. Steven heard Sally and Milko’s names mentioned several times. He would have joined in except he didn’t feel he was any expert on Sally and Milko. He was the one who’d teased her about Milko most. And he wasn’t an expert on anything anymore.

Carly and Zammo. Carly, still feeling guilty that her drinking had nearly killed Lynn and Sally, unusually pale, but at least smiling now, at something Zammo was saying, leaning her head to one side to listen, curling her hair round her finger like Carly always did when she was pleased but uncertain about something.

Frank and Jenny. Jenny, trying to persuade an unusually shy Frank to play another song. She’d got him to play two so far and some of the diners, swept up in the happy mood of a missing child being found safe and well, sang along. Frank, uncomfortable that they were being hailed as heroes and he was being called the Pied Piper, and adamant he wasn’t singing anymore, caved in. Jenny could be very persuasive.

Steven put down the finished glass or coke, swirling the straw round the glittering ice cubes that rattled in response. The Diner had been Lance’s idea and Lance’s treat, but Steven hadn’t been felt like eating and had settled for two glasses of coke while Lance and Frank had hungrily polished off snags, fries and beans.

He had only come to the Diner because Lance had insisted and anyway there was no place else to go. Kathy, Jenny, Carly and Zammo had since returned from the Northern District Hospital with the great news that Lynn was doing fine and Sally, airlifted to the same hospital, had been doing so well that she was already being allowed to go home with Tom and Pippa.

“Guess I’ll head back,” Steven said.

No one heard. Maybe he didn’t say it too loud. Maybe he didn’t say it at all. He tried to make out it was no big deal, his not belonging anywhere. He yawned, locked his fingers together, stretched his arms high above his head. Frank threw him a look. Dead at ten paces.

Jenny laughed at Frank’s expression, ran her finger down his arm and drew him back to the music. But, wrapped up in their own little world, she didn’t think to turn her head to see what or who he was glaring at. The chair scraped as Steven pushed it back. The coffee machine gurgled and bubbled another frothy coffee. Nobody noticed him leave.

...but there’s no one to hold you and kiss you

and tell you everything’s gonna be alright...

The sweet smell of doughnuts and chocolate lingered on the evening air as he pushed open the Diner doors and a young couple brushed past him inside, like everyone except Steven, eager to be part of the celebrations.

The door swung behind him and he looked back for a moment, at the light and the silhouettes and the singing he’d shut himself out from. He thrust his hands into his pockets and headed down to the beach, the strains of guitar music peppering the summer night. Someone must have bribed Frank into playing a solo next. Steven recognised the piece. Rodrigo’s Guitar Concerto D’Aranjuez. A pretty Spanish melody and, although he preferred the heavy rock he and his band were into, somehow no surprise - Frank loved all music and would have played till his fingers bled. And beyond.

The guitar playing grew fainter and ripples of applause turned into the ripples of the night sea. The lights of the Diner and Summer Bay faded to moonlight and stars.

Steven sank down on the sand and watched the inky blue sea and the rolling waves that seeped on to the shore before quickly creeping back again like timid children. He thought of his Mum and Dad. Of the house, long before it was burnt to a cinder, with its pristine white door and its brass-plated gold numbers 27, the corner of the seven splashed with a careless blob of white paint.

That was from the time when Dad, always too lazy to remove fixtures and fittings before painting, was distracted when Mum, sitting out soaking up the sun, suddenly yelled at the neighbour’s dog, who was making off with the rolled-up newspaper that the paper boy had just delivered by hurling randomly over the hedge and Jip, next-door’s comical-looking rusty-coloured mongrel and probably the most stupid dog in the whole of Australia, had leapt over the fence (three times his height) to catch and run off with.

“Stop him! Catch him! I need the coupon for my free sugar canister!”

Mrs Matheson could easily have afforded to buy a new tea, coffee and sugar set, but she had set her heart on the ugly purple-swirly-patterned plastic containers that were unavailable anywhere else - hardly surprising as, finding the line a flop and sales extremely sluggish, the manufacturers had donated them to the newspaper in return for free advertising space.

The dog panted and ran like a fugitive from justice, with frequent glances behind to check on his progress.

Mr and Mrs Matheson were already giving chase. So was the paper boy. And two workmen, who, from the top of their scaffolding, had seen the dog running off with something and thought it must be valuable. And assorted neighbours, including Jip’s embarrassed owner and the six-year-old twins from down the street, who didn’t know why everyone was running but thought they’d better join in.

Crying with laughter, Stevo and his girlfriend Tina did a U-turn and now headed the race, Tina’s tied-together long blonde plaits rising and flying behind her like wings.

And then, without any rhyme or reason, there being no rhyme or reason whatsoever to his life, Jip stopped abruptly in the middle of a muddy field that was earmarked for a new housing development, flopped down and began chewing the newspaper to pieces. He looked up proudly as Stevo and Tina caught up with him first, his tongue lolling to one side, his tail pounding the ground, bits of soggy newspaper fluttering away like snow. He pressed his paw down hard on the front page and took another large bite. It was sooo nice of everyone to join him for dinner.

Tina. Whatever happened to Tina? Tall, slim, Scandinavian blonde hair, pale blue eyes. They were both barely fourteen and she was his first girlfriend, if you didn’t count the clumsy kisses and shy giggles of primary school romance. Tina, who had been furious to realise she was so mud-splattered till he made her laugh again. Tina, who belonged now to the dim and distant past of a few months ago.

Steven let the sea wind riffle his hair and stared out at the horizon. The house was burned to ashes. Memories and faces and tears and laughter all gone.

He was another Steven. In another life.

“I’m Pippa,” she says. She has kind eyes and a motherly smile.

“Tom.” His new foster father offers his hand, but he holds back, inhaling the canvas smell of the green rucksack clutched tightly to his chest. Since yesterday, all that he has left in the world.

He draws another shuddering breath and glances apprehensively at his social worker as they hear voices outside. The other foster kids arriving home from school. Pippa lightly rests her hand on his shoulder as if she understands all the trembling hidden inside. Tom doesn’t take offence at his slight, but pulls open the door.

“Okay, guys, this is Steven, your new brother. Let’s see how fast we can make him feel at home.”

Home. So this is home now. This strange house, with new faces and new voices, with its high ceiling and mahogany pendulum clock, with its shabby but much-loved furniture and smell of home-baked scones piled high on the plate.

The music came to him again. Soft and melodic, then faster and faster, first drifting, then rushing towards him across the moonlit ocean, curling round his heart. A song without words, filled with memories and faces and tears and laughter. He smiled, reliving the memory of Tina and Jip, and then, suddenly remembering Frank again, sighed deeply into the restless wind. He was in heaps over taking the guitar.

*****

Scott Phillips stood outside the shed for a little while. He wasn’t dill enough to go inside the house.

He’d checked out the window and seen Mum lying in a bloodied heap on the floor and Dad still drinking. So it would be a night in the shed - slightly warmer than sleeping under the wooden bridge of the wharf and safe enough because Dad was too drunk to look for them - but, oh, Jeez! Kane was freaking him out, sitting there all on his own, having whole conversations with himself.

Scott had seen something like this on a TV show once. Is There REALLY Anybody Out There? The show had been called. It was all about people who, even though everybody laughed at them, were convinced that they spoke to aliens or dead people or guys who lived in alternate universes. But this show took a different tack. What if THEY were right and everybody who laughed at them was wrong? It asked. What if they really WERE talking to aliens?

Scotty shoved open the shed door and looked warily round. “You got anything to eat, drongo? I could eat a ******* horse and chase the jockey!”

Kane shook his head. He was starving too.

“Milko had steak, chips and berries for supper though,” he said helpfully, thinking perhaps Scotty would be put in a better mood if he heard their prisoner was being well fed.

But it didn’t have the desired effect. Scotty thumped him and Milko glared at him.

Scotty looked down at his stinging fist, half in satisfaction, half in fear. What if this Milko dude and his weirdo mates Deefa and Fred laid into him for thumping Kane? For ****’s sake! Now he was even thinking like his loopy kid brother! Scotty was fast reaching an inevitable conclusion. There was only one solution to the ever increasing insanity that was threatening to sweep him in its path too. Milko had to go...

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Just a couple of points. I made up the words of the song, not Steven, and I'm quite proud of them so I'm not having him take all the credit! *coughs* On a more sensible note - doubt if anyone else has read Five Dolls in the House as they're out of print (I tried to get one for my niece) but they were a very funny series of kids books, we had a second-hand set when I was little - I think Mum got them from a jumble sale.

[I love music]

***chapter 21***

***BEING TOGETHER***

Lance took a deep breath. “I think Milko’s been kidnapped by the Phillips brothers, Kath. And they’ve told Sal they’ll kill him if she lags.”

Okay, he’d said it at last! He waited for her to fall about laughing. Either that or to stare at him like he’d lost the plot. No way would she be interested in him now. Who wanted to date a thicko? She was way, way out of his league anyway, what with letters after her name and qualifications and certificates in thingummyjig subjects that he couldn’t even spell, let alone figure out the meaning of. But he’d had to say it. If anyone was intelligent enough to sort out the tangle little Sally seemed to be in, it was Kathy Murray.

“Lance, you’re a genius!” Kathy reached across the Diner table and squeezed his hand in delight. Of course! Kane Phillips had acquired an invisible friend, by an amazing coincidence also called Milko, around the same time that little Sally Keating appeared to have lost him. And what about that strange conversation in the playground when Kane and Scott had hinted that Milko might drown? It all suddenly made perfect sense!

Lance blushed to the roots of his hair. “Waaall, I wouldn’t go that far...” He protested bashfully, but pleased to see she was stoked. “I’m no Ernie Stein.”

“Who?” Kathy asked blankly.

Lance shrugged. “Don’t rightly know who he was, Kath. But I’ve heard he was a very, very clever bloke. Maybe he won heaps of TV quiz shows or somethin’.”

“Or somethin’,” Kathy agreed, smiling in gentle amusement as the penny suddenly dropped. Ernie Stein - Einstein! It was a mistake one of her own Summer Bay Primary students might have made, not a grown man.

But Kathy’s heart lurched all the same. Lance may have been at the back of the queue when brains were being handed out, yet he was the sweetest guy she’d ever met. Why hadn’t she ever noticed before how that kind, caring smile lit up his face and eyes and made a happy little knot tighten in her stomach?

Of course, Summer Bay being a small town, Kathy already knew who Lance Smart was, but they’d never exchanged more than two or three words until the day the flower garden had been trampled.

Kathy’s much older colleague, Janice Drummond, suffered greatly from arthritis in her knee and, on particularly bad days, would need a walking stick to help her get around. Lance had happened to be passing by Summer Bay Primary just as she’d parked and, seeing her struggling to carry a box for a school project from her car, had offered to help. And so they came round the corner just as Kathy had discovered the damage.

“You know, we can fix this. And fast,” Lance had said, as much for the kids’ benefit as Kathy’s. Some of the youngsters were sobbing their hearts out and, with only one exception, they were all obviously upset.

The exception was Kane Phillips, who was whistling under his breath as he surveyed the scene and watching Lance and Kathy out of the corner of his eye in case he overheard a snippet of information he could perhaps use to his advantage some time. Like his brother Scott, Kane was always on the alert to making a fast buck.

However, noticing that Kathy was just as angry and upset as her young pupils and probably needed to sound off, Janice had wisely begun to lead the children back inside. They could discuss the obvious vandalism in the staff-room later, where little ears didn’t get to hear what they shouldn’t.

Kathy glanced round, taking comfort from his strong, kind voice, but also feeling a stab of guilt. It was almost as if he knew about her secret deal with a national Australian newspaper. After all, the old, crumbling indoor games block at Summer Bay Primary, that also housed the locker rooms and even a small stage, had been condemned and was scheduled for imminent demolition. There being no money in the coffers to build a new block, the kids had no choice on rainy days but to sit at their desks inside stuffy classrooms during recess or games periods. Or maybe not...

...If...

............Kathy, as she had, arranged for a journalist to call on Summer Bay to write about the talent show as a human interest story...and showed same journalist round Summer Bay Primary...and people read of the kids’ plight...and the newspaper started a fund-raising campaign...

But, having grown up in a rough, tough city, the young teacher was no naive backwoods country hick and she knew that papers could do just as much damage as they did good. News, Kathy realised, especially bad news, was what sold newspapers, not technicolour toytown all-is-well-with-the-world bedtime stories. She was well aware that if any journalist saw the ruined flower garden, he or she might decide instead to focus on the problems of vandalism in a little seaside town and give Summer Bay a publicity it could well do without.

Kathy decided to take Lance into her confidence and “‘fess up” as one of her kids might say. Lance proved a willing listener.

“See, what we need are a few volunteers to help fix it,” he said thoughtfully.

“But time’s running out, Lance. How would we find volunteers fast enough?” Kathy asked worriedly. “This isn’t a TV show. People have busy lives even in small towns.”

“Oh, they don’t have to do waste time doing boring stuff like volunteering!” Lance grinned. “I think we might save them all the bother and do the volunteering for them...” He and Kathy exchanged a conspiratorial look. Where kids were concerned, they were a formidable team.

Kathy smiled again. After the day the flower garden was ruined, they’d both been so busy with drumming up press-ganged “volunteers”, repairing the damage and then preparations for the talent show that they hadn’t had time to talk properly until now. But, despite their intellectual differences, Lance was kind and funny and loved kids as much as she did, and Kathy had a feeling that they’d share a great many more heart-to-hearts.

“You know, Lance, I wrote about kids and their imaginary friends as part of my thesis and even I couldn’t come up with that answer. But you understand what goes on in kids’ heads. Better than anyone,” she said in admiration. “And I think if we put our heads together, we just might be able to figure out a way to kidnap Milko back...”

*****

Perhaps there had been other starry summer nights as breathlessly beautiful as this one. But, if there were, Carly never knew them. All she knew was the breathless beauty of this night as she and Zammo, arms entwined around each other, strolled along the silvery water’s edge, their toes digging into the warm, gritty sand while the white foam of cold, quiet waves rolled gently across their bare feet.

For some reason, Carly felt more comfortable with Mike “Zammo” Langford than she’d ever felt with any other guy. Maybe there was something in going out with a guy her own age instead of trying to impress older guys who weren’t interested, she thought, surprised to realise the world wasn’t a bad place without the fog of alcohol to blur its sharp edges. Or maybe it was just something to do with being with Zammo, the way his voice sent tingles down her spine, the way he looked at her that made her heart patter furiously and her knees weak.

She squealed in delight as another rush of icy water ran over her toes.

“It’s magic!” She laughed, looking up at the twinkling stars and down at the moonlight-tinged sea with the excitement of a small child. “I wish I’d tried kicking off my shoes and walking along the water’s edge before.”

“You’ve never done this before? Not even when you were a kid?” Zammo couldn’t keep the astonishment out of his voice.

Carly shook her head. “We didn’t leave close enough to the beach when I was a kid.”

“But everywhere in Oz is close to a beach!” Zammo protested in surprise.

Carly smiled sadly. “My olds were always too busy to take us. And the au pairs we had to look after us...They never had time to take us to the beach either. They left as fast as they arrived. It wasn’t Sammy’s fault. It was mine.”

Zammo heard the tears in the last three words and he pulled her closer.

“Carly, stop that!” Judith said firmly, looking nine-year-old Carly straight in the eye.

Carly gave a small, patient sigh. Didn’t she know she COULDN'T stop? Oh, she knew she was spoiling the picnic. But then she was EXPECTED to spoil things, wasn’t she? She always was.

The moment Judith had picked up the picnic bag ready to leave with her charges, Dad had warned Carly, “And don’t you be bullying Sammy like you usually do.”

Mum and Dad were forever warning her about her bad behaviour before it actually happened. Carly felt she had to live up to it. Where else could all the anger inside her go?

“Yeh, well, tell Snotty Sammy not to LOOK at me like that!”

“I’ll look at you how I want!” Her twin sister Sammy fired back, wrinkling her nose like Carly was a bad smell, and dusting off her shoulder the grass that Carly had just furiously thrown at her. “You’re common as muck, Carly Morris, and you eat like...”

Carly snatched up another handful of grass.

“This might have ants in! I’m sure I saw some crawling!” She cried gleefully as she poured grass and soil over her twin’s head, well aware that Sammy was terrified of all insects, but especially ants.

Poor Sammy jumped up, screaming, doing what looked like a funny little dance as she frantically tried to shake grass out of her hair, which made Carly cruelly laugh all the more.

“Sammy, Sammy, keep still! There aren’t any ants! Carly was joking,” Judith said, hugging the little girl to her.

Carly almost pitied her. Carly had seen off several au pairs. Judith was brand new to this looking after kids lark. She was around nineteen, fresh out of college with a clutch of impressive qualifications, and believed in doing everything by the book.

“Okay, Carly, that was your first warning,” she said, looking sternly at her. “This is your second and last. Stop throwing grass at Sammy. Or your Mum and Dad will get to hear about it and there’ll be no more picnics.”

“So what?” Carly said defiantly.

Yeh, like her olds gave a stuff about her! She picked up a fistful of their empty food wrappings and, dodging round Judith, threw them over Sammy’s head.

“It wasn’t grass! It wasn’t grass!” She yelled triumphantly to Judith. “But it’s food so it’ll DEFINITELY have ants in!” She added helpfully for Sammy’s benefit, though Sammy was already screaming hysterically.

Of course, Judith left. The latest in a long line of childminders who couldn’t cope with Carly. And yet again Dad predicted Carly would end up in jail and yet again Mum predicted that meanwhile Sammy would have a high-powered job. Maybe in fashion; she was so delicate, so pretty, so clever. And Carly would, they both agreed, end up dependant on drink and drugs, inadequate and alone, dividing her grown-up life between prison and living on welfare hand-outs.

Carly bit her lip to stop the tears at the bitter memories, glad of Zammo’s arm round her. Life was so different now with Tom and Pippa Fletcher. They believed in her and, slowly, tentatively, Carly was beginning to believe in herself.

“Hey, there’s my bro just ahead!” She yelled, suddenly espying him. “Yo, Steven!” Carly wolf-whistled and yelled in a manner that would have horrified her parents and Sammy had they been there to witness it.

“Everything okay, mate? You look like you just lost a million bucks!” Zammo observed as they caught up with him.

Steven shrugged. “Oh, just got things on my mind.”

“Yeh? Like the latest mathematical calculation to reach...oh, I dunno! Three trillion x squared equals xyz!” Carly grinned. She was hopeless at math and didn’t have a clue what she was talking about.

Steven laughed, picking up on Carly’s good humour. Normally they were at daggers drawn over something or other and the teasing would have been laced with acid. But it was easy to love the world, and even brothers, when you felt so loved. And Carly did feel loved this breathlessly beautiful night. Sally and Lynn were safe. She had a home where she belonged and a family who cared about her. She had handsome Zammo, who made her knees weak and her heart patter furiously, walking her home.

She smiled warmly. “Guess being the smartest kid in Summer Bay High you like chewing over algebra and stuff. Your brain must be like a computer!”

Steven smiled weakly back. Carly hadn’t meant anything by what she said. She was actually making a huge effort to be nice and for once the word geek hadn’t even crossed her lips. But that was the trouble. He wasn’t a robot. He was a human being. And being the smartest kid in Summer Bay High was the loneliest place on earth to be.

*****

“So, okay, he took your guitar, but...” Jenny said.

“I’m not gonna lose face, Jen.” Frank had inherited a lot from the man he admired most when he was young. His father Frankie didn’t believe in losing face either. No matter how much trouble it caused.

Frank remembered the time Frankie Morgan had staggered home with a broken nose, two black eyes, several teeth knocked out and $500 out of pocket, and all because he’d refused to back down over a stupid argument, made when he and the guys he’d arranged the bet with had been pumped full of grog and that none of them could recollect with any particular clarity anyway.

Seven-year-old Frank had jumped out of bed and run downstairs immediately he heard his father cussing as he staggered home after a boozy night out. Dad’s latest girlfriend, yet another shapely blonde with a prematurely aged face from too drinking and too many cigarettes, was puffing away on yet another cigarette and yelling at him to keep still while she tried to stem the flow of blood.

But Frankie ignored her to turn to his son, drunkenly waving his arms to ward off the chick’s attempts to bathe his injuries, although blood was flowing copiously down his nose and chin and seeping a large crimson patch into his shirt, to Frank’s wide-eyed terror.

“You listen good and you remember, Frank. A Morgan never backs down. Don’t matter what over. We got our pride and we don’t back down. Not EVER.”

Since then Frank had had another father figure to admire. Tom Fletcher lacked Frankie’s swagger and aggression but, just like he had when Eddie Brookes had tried to gain a new customer with underhand practice, in his own quiet way Tom stood his ground too. But with one vital difference. Frankie Morgan didn’t back down out of vanity. Tom Fletcher stood up for what he believed was right.

Frank often found himself torn in two. His loyalty to the father who loved him in his own way was unquestionable but, more and more, he couldn’t help feeling Tom Fletcher’s way of dealing with things was a far better way.

“You don’t understand, Jen,” he added, feeling he had to justify himself because his argument sounded so inadequate. “It’s a guy thing.”

Jenny glanced across the table at her older sister. Kathy was chatting animatedly with Lance and Jenny smiled as she noticed her smitten expression. Lance would never dream of breaking her heart and two-timing her like her last boyfriend, madly-in-love-with-himself Robert “scumbag” Jenkins had. Jenny may have been youngest, but she’d always felt fiercely protective of soft-hearted Kathy. And she understood far more than Frank realised. It wasn’t a guy thing. It was a family thing.

Living in the shadow of a sibling who breezed through school and then uni while you struggled to string two sentences together to produce a half decent essay was no fun. And yet Jenny saw something else.

“You know, Frank, it’s tough being perfect,” she said quietly.

“What?” Frank spluttered with laughter, genuinely believing she was having a lend of him.

“I’m serious. Think about it. You and me, we got it easy. We flunk an exam and nobody’s surprised. But If Kath or Steven ever flunked an exam there’d probably be a world international outcry at Prime Minister’s Question Time - well, okay, not quite. But almost.” She added, seeing his frown. “So Steven took the guitar. So big deal. Maybe he just wanted some time out from all the pressure on him.”

“Yeh, well, you don’t know this jerk.” Frank plucked absently on the strings of said guitar resting on his lap. “He’s been picking on little Sal since day one. What’d little Sal ever do to him?”

“Oh, right. So that makes it okay for you to pick on him?”

Frank sighed. Jenny made him feel ashamed of himself. Using fists was Frankie Morgan’s way and Frank was a better person than that. Living with the Fletchers had taught him that violence was never a solution.

“Okay, okay, you win! I won’t bash Steven for taking the guitar.”

“Thanks! I always suspected you were a much nicer guy than the dropkick you keep pretending to be!” Jenny teased, jumping up and kissing him quickly on the cheek as she snatched the guitar out of his arms. “What’s it worth to get it back?”

Frank laughed. Steven Matheson didn’t seem very important when he was with a beautiful girl with mischievously sparkling eyes and his cheek still tingling deliciously from where she had kissed him. Oh, but Frank hadn’t forgotten he owed Steven! And he had another plan. A much better one. Like he’d promised Jenny, Steven wasn’t going to get bashed. But he wasn’t going to get off scot free either...

[I love music]

***chapter 22***

***OLD FRIENDS***

Lynn had been awake long before breakfast. She swallowed the last spoonful of boiled egg and looked round at the little private ward. Yellow sunlight filtered gently through the blinds, cheerful bouquets of flowers scented the air with their beautiful fragrance and, scattered among the ward’s furniture, were chocolates, toiletries and small gifts, bottles of fruit juice, a brand new matching nightdress, dressing gown and slippers, crossword books, CDs, magazines and the largest basket of fruit she had ever seen. And then the get well cards! So many that one of the nurses had put a long piece of string around the walls to be used as a makeshift card holder.

A lump came suddenly to her throat. It was as though she mattered. Lynn had never felt as though she mattered before.

Growing up in a family of ten, it was easy to be overlooked. She had never forgotten the time when she was six and Mum had dished up one of her delicious stews, filled with heaps of barley and potatoes cooked in their skins, and asked if anyone wanted seconds.

Now Mrs Davenport was a fantastic cook (oh, Pippa tried, she really did; but, like painting, cooking wasn’t Pippa’s strong point, though everyone loved to hear her telling of her mishaps in the kitchen and cried with laughter as they ate, glad that Tom had rescued yet another almost ruined dinner) and Lynn’s brothers and sisters immediately held out plates they’d scraped clean while poor Lynn burst into tears and exclaimed, “But I haven’t had firsts yet!”

Which had made everyone laugh and fuss over her. Funny how, whenever she ran away, she always remembered the laughter and not the fussing. But she remembered it now.

Mum had put her arm round her, kissed her hair and said, “My little angel Lynn! Always the quietest. How could I have missed my little angel?”

What really amazed Lynn was that, as well as Pippa, Tom and her foster brothers and sisters, her own Mum and Dad had visited! And not just Mum and Dad either, but two of her four sisters and three of her six brothers (the rest being too young). The hospital staff, who could only let her visitors in two at a time, said that Lynn was so popular they suspected she was related to royalty but was keeping quiet about it. In fact, the kindly doctor with the thick sandy hair remarked to the nurse, when they’d done the blood test on her admission, it had definitely been blue...but, seeing Lynn’s horrified expression, and remembering that her foster parents had warned Lynn believed everything she was told, he gently explained that he’d been joking.

The portable television that her eldest brother Simon had brought in specially for her was repeating one of her favourite programmes, but Lynn found the luxury of watching TV on her own wasn’t half as much fun as watching with someone. And yet, not so long ago, she’d have given anything to have a room of her own! Even at Pippa’s, she had to share with Carly, and while she didn’t mind too much, Carly being so sophisticated, she envied Sally being small enough to have the tiny boxroom all to herself.

It was strange, she thought, how she was suddenly missing sharing with her sisters. Was Denise still telling her wonderful ghost stories and Wendy still clicking the torch on and off to make scary shadows for the three younger girls? Were Susie and Sophie still fighting over who’s turn it was to sleep in the top bunk? Did Denise and Wendy, who, as eldest, were lucky enough to be only two to a room, still have all their pictures of “good looking hunks” on the whole of one side of their bedroom wall and was Dad still sighing, “All my hard work decorating, ruined by pictures of silly boys who need to get proper jobs instead of all this cissy acting and singing!” (But said with a good-natured tolerance; after all, he had five daughters.)

Old Lizzie had been yet another visitor, her arms red from permanent damage to her skin when, as a young girl of fifteen, she’d accidentally scalded herself in the Laundry one afternoon, in the days when sheets still had to be soaked in hot, soapy tubs, long before labour-saving devices such as automatic washing machines were invented.

Lizzie was retired now (a paper sift of staff records had discovered that Lizzie should actually have retired fifteen years earlier) but she kept herself busy these days by working voluntarily, part-time as a cleaner at the local church, in the little town she’d left so long ago to work in the Children’s Home.

Lizzie was thoroughly enjoying all the town gossip, which she gleefully imparted to Lynn, as though Lynn knew everyone personally, from the news that senior citizens’ local heartthrob Tommy Wilson dyed his greying hair black (Vera Quinn, Lizzie’s great friend, had noticed the tell-tale black dye on his hands when Tommy had been in church) to the rumour Jack Brentwood was giving up a place at Uni to stay at home and help his girlfriend Sarah Potts start her dream of opening up a little seafront café.

She had made the long journey by bus when she heard that Lynn and Sally were in hospital (Pippa having promised faithfully to keep her in touch about Lynn and little Sally) and had barely stopped talking or even to eat from the moment she arrived.

“Sorry. No time to eat,” old Lizzie said, when Tom invited her to the hospital canteen with them to wait while Sally was being given some final tests prior to being allowed home and Lynn’s next visitors were being ushered in. “My bus back is in half an hour.”

“But you can’t travel back at this time of night!” Pippa said, aghast. “You must stay with us. It’ll be a bit of a squash, but it is only for one night.”

Lizzie sighed longingly. “I’d love to, Pippa. I really would. But I’m so tired I can’t stay awake a moment longer. The bus stops just outside the hospital gates and I was hoping to have a nice sleep on the journey.”

“I’ve a better idea,” Tom said. “I’ll book you a room at The Grand. It’s a nice, quite little hotel, reasonable rates, and they do excellent late night snacks and a great brekkie. I’ll ring a taxi right now to take you there.”

“No taxis,” Lizzie said firmly. “I’m not a taxi person. Or hotels. I’m not a hotel person either. Thank you all the same.”

“But, Lizzie, don’t be so silly, you can’t possibly travel back now!” Pippa protested, thinking Lizzie was being unreasonably stubborn. “It would be the early hours before you even reached home. And, what’s more, you could do with a good, square meal. If you won’t come back with us, then Tom will book you into the Grand, and that’s the end of it.”

Lizzie looked sheepish. “I’ve no money for food or taxis or hotels,” she finally admitted. “I only had enough money to buy a return bus ticket. But I just had to come and see if Lynn and Sally were alright.”

“Oh, Lizzie!” Pippa impulsively flung her arms around her. The old lady reminded her so much of Granny Brenda, who although exhausted, had sat up late knitting Mrs Martha for her granddaughter. She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Look, we don’t tell everyone because we’re not supposed to do this, but there’s a spare room at the hospital, a disused ward, that we keep specially for friends. And, just think, if you stayed, you could even watch and vote in the Summer Bay talent contest tomorrow.”

Lizzie blushed proudly at the hug and even more proudly at the invitation. “You want me to come to watch the talent contest? And vote?”

Pippa smiled gently. “Lynn and Sally would be stoked to have you there! We all would.”

And so it was settled. A blind eye was turned by all, a bed was made up for old Lizzie, and the hospital staff fussed round her, making sure she had everything she needed. After years of waiting on other people, Lizzie said she felt like a queen at being waited on herself.

Like Lynn, Lizzie was touched to realise that there were so many people who loved her.

*****

“Look! It’s them!” Sally cried.

Pippa and Tom had gone to collect Lynn from the hospital and, as they wanted to give Lynn some quality time with them as they’d done with their youngest foster daughter, Lance and Kathy had volunteered to take Sally for a stroll along the beach.

Sally was busy collecting prettily-coloured sea shells. Carly had promised, if Sally collected enough, she would show her how to make things like sea shell wind chimes and sea shell necklaces and she was looking forward to sitting down with her older sister later. Carly had been really nice to her lately (she’d even asked how Milko was and, although Sally had replied, as she always did nowadays since Milko had been kidnapped and anyone asked after him, “As well as can be expected under the circumstances, thank you” Carly hadn’t laughed, but had nodded quite seriously and said she hoped he got better and up out of bed soon).

Secretly, Sally was a little worried about Carly. First, down on the beach with Lynn and Sally, she’d imagined Milko had been kicking the water and now she thought he was crook and all tucked up in bed with a hot water bottle! Of course Sally knew it couldn’t possibly have been Milko when he was kidnapped. She’d have to tell Pippa about Carly imagining things, she thought, and let Pippa decide what to do.

Although the day was calm and Lance and Miss Murray sensible enough not to go too near the water’s edge, Sally hadn’t forgotten to keep watch on the terrible sea. It might have looked calm, but she knew you couldn’t trust it for a second and, just to be sure everyone was kept safe, every now and then she would blink ten times. No more and no less or the spell wouldn’t work. She clunked a large pink shell into the bucket she was carrying and opened and closed her eyes ten times exactly, watching through the rapid blinks as the trio approached.

They were all walking along together.

Scotty was skimming stones at birds, Kane was watching curiously to see if he managed to hit any, and Milko was jauntily tossing a cent into the air and catching it, not a care in the world. While poor Sally had been fretting over him! She bit her lip and held Mrs Martha tightly to her.

Lance exchanged a look with Kathy. Now was their chance!

“The Phillips brothers!” He exclaimed. “I was wondering when we were gonna catch up with ‘em.”

“And Milko,” Sally added, very surprised that Lance hadn’t noticed him.

She expected as much of other people, but Lance knew all about things like jumping jellybeans, and how you should always scare away fish you didn’t want to catch by making as much noise as you possibly could so that they didn’t hook themselves on to the fishing rod. Most grown-ups were too stupid to know about things like that, but not Lance!

Lance thought unusually quickly and winked at Kathy . “Of course! He’s been with ‘em both for so darn long, damned if I wasn’t starting to think he was a Phillips brother too!”

“Milko’s seen us!” Sally announced, as Milko suddenly looked up on hearing her voice.

So had Kane and Scott. All three ground to an abrupt halt.

“He ain’t goin’ back,” Kane said warily, realising by their expressions and by Sally’s observation that the game was up. “He likes hanging out with us.”

“I think we better let Milko decide this one,” Lance said, desperately hoping his idea would work. “Okay, Milko, think about this carefully. Who’s your very best mate?”

It was a tense few moments. Sally drew a sharp breath and looked hopefully at Milko. Kane glared at Milko in silent threat. Kathy locked her fingers in Lance’s, and, like Lance had done, followed Sally’s gaze. Scotty stared in bafflement at the empty spot all four were gazing at and wondered if everyone had gone crazy and if he was the only sane person left in the whole of Australia.

Nobody could know who Milko would choose.

And then the sun slipped behind a cloud, casting a dark shadow across the sand, cold wind whipped up from the sea, sending shivers down the little boy’s spine, and his mother’s voice suddenly seemed to come whispering on the breeze. “You don’t have nothin’ in this life, Kaney, so you just have to take it.”

“Milko ain’t goin’ back,” he said again. Through clenched teeth.

****

Richie had finally gone asleep, almost comatose, drugged up to the eyeballs and drunk as a skunk.

Bruised and bleeding from his blows, Diane had limped outside to tell the kids it was finally safe to come inside and sleep in their own beds instead of hiding out in the garden shed. And not before time, she thought. Poor Kaney and Scotty looked pale and exhausted and both had large bags under their eyes, having had to spend the previous night outside to escape their father’s violent mood swings.

Little Kane had dried blood matted in his hair, probably from some fall or other, though Scott slyly dug his fist in his ribs when his mother commented on it. Diane ran them both a hot bath, washed the blood and filth out of Kane’s hair and gave them a light supper of tinned spaghetti on toast. They even managed to watch some TV together undisturbed, the sound kept down to a minimum and the door kept closed. Kane and Scott crept around, young as they were, understanding it was essential they didn’t wake Dad.

Diane herself barely slept. She spent the night on the couch, trying in vain to find some position that wouldn’t hurt her broken bones more, while her husband, stretched out luxuriously on the bed upstairs, snored and snorted like a pig,.

Although she was aching badly, she still carried out her usual morning routine to avoid his wrath, emptying the overflowing ash-tray, picking up emptied tinnies and the remains of the Chinese takeaway that he’d brought home with him last night, the cold food and its wrappings now strewn over the floor and bed.

Richie gave an unusually loud snore and she paused to stare at him in disgust.

Saliva had run down his open mouth, gravy stained his shirt and he stank of last night’s booze, fags and sweat. A half finished can of strong lager had fallen out of his hand and spilled its contents on to the floor, two more empty cans had rolled under the bed and stubs of cigarettes that hadn’t made the ashtray had been flattened into the threadbare carpet.

Richie had already bashed her for giving the kids the bacon. And no doubt when he woke he’d remember it all over again and bash her all over again. A surge of fury ran through her. Well, in for a penny, in for a pound!

So she gave the kids brekkie again.

Heaps of it, when they came downstairs looking like different kids, scrubbed, clean and bright-eyed, refreshed from a proper night’s sleep and a half decent supper, wearing the clean clothes that she had laid out for them last night.

Instead of dishing out their usual cheap cereal and thinly-buttered toast, Mum was frantically opening tins, flinging open the larder and fridge and tearing packets as though her very life depended on it. Kane and Scott sat watching her, open-mouthed in astonishment. And hungry. They were always hungry. Meal times in the Phillips household were hit and miss affairs. Sometimes you got them, sometimes you didn’t.

“Fruit-caaaake time!” Scotty said to Kane under his breath in a sing-song voice.

Kane stared at him, wide-eyed. Cakes! There were there were going to be cakes as well! “D’ ya think Ma’ll mind if I eat the cakes before the other stuff, Scotty?” He whispered, worried he might miss out.

But he couldn’t figure out the answer because Scotty only kicked him and said he was a ******* jerk.

Diane had never grilled anything in her life and the Phillips didn’t own a microwave. Everything was chopped or cut and stirred or fried at breakneck speed. Fresh mushrooms tumbled out of a paper bag and, before they’d had a chance to take in their new surroundings, were sliced and sizzling in the large frying pan. Baked beans, with typical baked bean laziness, fell reluctantly into a saucepan and found themselves heating on the gas before they were barely out of the tin. Double eggs, fried bread, several rashers of Dad’s best bacon, two fat sangas each, even fried sliced potatoes. The plates were heaving under the weight.

“Once you’ve had brekkie though you gotta go out and stay out.” She was in for the hiding of her life. But she didn’t care. It was worth it to see her sons’ faces when the food was put before them.

“Will Dad be okay with ya? About us havin’ brekkie?” Kane anxiously looked up at her inbetween shovelling mouthfuls of food down his throat in case Dad woke up any moment and snatched it away. The smell had been enough to whet his appetite; he could sort out the expected fruitcake dessert later.

She pinched his cheek gently, smiling sadly.

“You don’t have nothin’ in this life, Kaney, so you just have to take it,” she said in a funny kind of throaty voice.

*****

He knew she’d be bashed for it. That was why she’d sent them out again. And the bashing would make her cry and he hated for her to cry. But he’d let his hunger win out.

Milko shook his head in disgust, obviously remembering how Kane had eaten all the bacon that led to Mum getting bashed too. Kane shuffled and looked up at the darkened sky. He didn’t want to look at the freak in case she cried again and reminded him of his Mum, who was no doubt being bashed again right now. Scotty always said he was too sooky, but he couldn’t help it.

Kane Phillips had turned away! Milko winked at Sally, put his finger to his lips and took five gigantic steps forward on his long, skinny legs.

A smile lit up Sally’s face. “Milko!” She exclaimed happily as at last he stood beside her, grinning. “I’m so glad you’re back!”

“I’m glad to be back!” Milko said, with a bow and a flourish of his hat.

It was over! And it was all his own fault for being sooky! Scotty was always telling him not to be sooky and he should have listened. He’d turned his back for a second and Milko had gone.

And now Scotty was asking, to Kane’s horror, “Yeh, well, what about Deefa and Fred? If you’re taking Milko, you better take them too.”

“No waaay!” Kane protested breathlessly.

“Who?” Lance asked, startled. He hadn’t bargained on there being anyone else. Lance’s brain had barely got round dealing with the kidnapping of one.

“Milko’s invisible mates,” Scott supplied helpfully.

Milko had invisible mates? He’d never told her! Sally stared at him, wondering what else he’d kept from her, but Milko put his hands in his pockets, began whistling and pretended to be engrossed in watching the rippling waves.

He was wearing a hat Sally had never seen before. Red and black, with a yellow circle like the sun as a motif, just like the Australian Aboriginal Flag (Sally had been learning about flags at school that week and so recognised it at once).

There were lots of things she didn’t know about Milko, she suddenly realised. Like where did he get all his hats from? And was his favourite food really steak, chips and berries or had he just invented that? And had he really gone surfing all the times he said he had or had he go off with the Phillips brothers to shoplift or throw stones at people from the bridge over the wharf, splashing himself with water just before he came back to fool Sally into thinking he’d been off riding the waves on his surfboard?

“What do they look like?” Kathy asked carefully.

“Uh...a dog and a dragon, ain’t they?” Scott asked Kane, who nodded miserably.

“Recognise them, Sal?” Lance asked gravely.

Sally shook her head. “They’re not mine!” She admitted honestly.

“Don’t matter. You can have ‘em,” Scotty offered, with uncharacteristic generosity. After watching that TV show, Is There REALLY Anybody Out There? he wasn’t taking any chances!

“Scott, you can’t give away Kane’s invisible friends! If they’re Kane’s, then they must stay with Kane.” Feeling as if she’d just been dropped into some kind of surreal universe, Kathy was playing it by ear. Her thesis on kids and their invisible friends had been very thorough and much acclaimed, but in all her research she’d never before come across a situation where kids apparently traded their invisible friends with each other.

“Guess,” Scott shrugged.

Kane managed a weak grin as Deefa and Fred yelled “Yesss!” and high-fived each other with their paws. At least, he thought, he got to keep Deefa and Fred, even if Milko had deserted him.

“Your mate Milko’s a dag anyway,” Scott remarked, for the hell of it, and grinned in satisfaction when he achieved his objective of seeing Sally’s face crumple.

“Look,” Kathy said, as Lance put a comforting arm round Sally. “There’s no point in arguing like this. It just makes everyone unhappy. You could all be friends. Why don’t you both come with us to watch the talent show later? Lance is going to sing in it,” she added proudly, making Lance blush.

Scott and Kane looked at each other and guffawed. “You think we’re as dorky as her and him?” Scott demanded in disbelief.

Kathy sighed. The Phillips boys were clean and well dressed; they didn’t seem to be hungry, particularly tired or unusually afraid, the giveaway signs of neglect that might suggest something in their homelife was responsible for their behaviour. Their father was, as everybody knew, workshy and dabbled in small time crime, such as fiddling welfare benefits or “accidentally” forgetting to pay in a shop, but nothing too serious. And, while he was a drinker, so were many of the men in the rough, tough town of Summerhill where the Phillips lived. Kathy never saw the bruises hidden beneath their clothes and their mentally ill mother never collected them from school. Richie was too smart to allow that.

“Well, if you change your minds later, I’ll buy you an ice cream each at the show,” she said.

Fruitcake and ice cream! Kane hoped Scotty would change his mind later. Maybe Mum hadn't been bashed after all and it would turn out to be quite a good day, even if Milko had gone off with the freak. And maybe they could even kidnap him back again at the talent show...

But Kathy, Lance and Sally were barely out of sight before Scott turned to his younger brother

“Say goodbye to your hallucinations, drongo. Either they go back to La-La Land right now or I beat you to a pulp.”

Kane looked at him, alarmed by his chilling tones and vaguely puzzled by what some mysterious chick called Lucy Nations had to do with all this. “Where?”

“Over the water, drongo! Don’t you know nothin’?”

Realisation dawned. “You can’t do this, Scotty. The guys just lost their best mate an’ all. And I dunno if they can swim...Can you swim, guys?”

Deefa and Fred exchanged worried looks and then turned to Kane anxiously. Deefa nodded slowly (although he was only a puppy, he was always the more sensible of the two) while Fred nervously puffed out red and orange flames.

“Go! Go on, ya drongos! **** off!” Scotty knew he would never live it down, if anyone saw him now, talking to the air and shooing “them” off like this, but he had to convince Kane.

Tears shone in the little boy’s eyes. “They’re my mates, Scotty!” He croaked. “You can’t send them away!”

“Tough! They’re goin’, jerk!”

When Scotty said something, it was done. Shivering, Deefa and Fred reluctantly took to the cold water. Kane could only watch helplessly until they were dots on the horizon. And then they were gone. Forever. There was nothing anymore. Nothing but all this hurt and emptiness inside.

He curled his fist around a large stone he’d picked up and hurled it furiously at the cruel world.

“Good shot!” Scotty roared.

And that was when he realised he’d hit something. A small mongrel dog yelped in pain and shot off in terror towards its owner, its tail curled round its legs.

“Run!” Scotty yelled, laughing, as the dog owner spotted them.

They only stopped running when the man, panting, had to give up the chase to see to his injured and bleeding dog.

You don’t have nothin’ in this life, Kaney, so you just have to take it

So Kane would. Milko, Deef and Fred had all gone so he wouldn’t be a sook anymore. He’d be like Scotty. Always.

“That was one hell of a ******* shot!” Scott said in admiration.

“Yeh. It was,” he grinned proudly back. “What should try hitting next?”

[I love music]

Well, this chapter began life as a ramble but in the end I was quite pleased with it. Hope you enjoy it too.

***chapter 23***

LONG MEMORIES

“Go on!” Milko said. He was sitting beside Sally, watching with her as Carly showed them how to make the sea shell necklace. “Ask her!”

Sally pulled a face, but Milko kept insisting and anyway Sally was curious to know herself. Until Kane Phillips nobody else had ever said they could see Milko. But Carly had claimed she could too. Milko was getting very big-headed about being so popular.

“Carly,” the little girl said at last, very gently, remembering this might all be a “figment of her imagination”, as the reports at the Home had always written about Sally. Of course Sally knew her Milko wasn’t. But Carly’s Milko might well be and Sally knew from experience, from the way doctors and psychologists and social workers had spoken to Sally herself about it, that for some reason you had to speak very, very gently when you asked the question, and add the usual term of endearment at the end. “Can you see where Milko is now, dear?”

Carly looked up in amusement from threading string through the pin prick holes she’d made in the shells with a strong, sharp needle and, stricken by guilt that she was checking out her older sister’s delicate mental state, Sally had to look away. She gazed outside, at the perfect blue sky, to where Steven was mowing the lawn round the caravan site, the chore he should have done last week, wondering why he looked so sad.

“Sure, Sal!” Carly replied, deciding to humour her. She looked towards where Sally was looking. “There he is! Standing by the window.” Without giving it a second thought, she bent her head again to concentrate on the delicate work.

Sally and Milko exchanged knowing glances. Milko was sitting right there at the table, not standing by the window. Carly really was imagining things!

“Best pack up now anyway, kid. I’m meeting Zammo soon. There! How’s that?” Carly tied the finished seashell necklace round a delighted Sally’s neck. She had to shout for her little sister to hear. The constant whirring of the mower had been drowned out further now by the buzz of a saw to accompany the racket of hammering and intermittent whistling from upstairs.

Pippa was always complaining about a lack of storage space so Tom and Frank, neither of whom ever needed an excuse to fix, paint or build anything, had decided to make some shelving and wall cupboards and put them up the main bedroom.

It seemed everyone was ultra busy today. Carly and Sally had barely finished scooping the seashells back into their plastic bag when Pippa suddenly gave a little scream mixed in with a laugh and they ran into the kitchen to find out what had happened.

Tears of laughter spilled down old Lizzie’s wrinkled cheeks while Lynn stood by Pippa, looking down in horror at one of two baking trays newly removed from the oven.

Lizzie, Pippa and Lynn had been busy baking all morning. Pippa, the world’s worst cook, had rashly promised a selection of cakes of the highest standard would be baked in time for the buffet to follow that afternoon’s talent contest, and had needed to recruit Lizzie and Lynn to help.

“You put too much jam in,” Carly told Lynn, surveying both baking trays, one with such perfect jam tarts they could have come straight out of a TV commercial, the other a sorry-looking affair with jam seeped out from under the pastry lids and burnt on to the metal at every angle.

“I know!” Pippa sighed. “Lynn and Lizzie did try to tell me, but I wouldn’t listen. I insisted it wasn’t enough.”

“Pippa! They’re yours?” Carly squealed with laughter.

“The good ones are Lynn’s. I’m hopeless.” Pippa winked and shrugged humorously at Sally.

“Don’t be downhearted, Pippa. One can’t expect to be excellent at everything one does,” Sally said primly, quoting her grandmother the day Sally had been so very disappointed not to have been able to make paper chains from the crepe paper that she’d asked Gran to buy specially and the arthritis in Gran’s hands preventing her grandmother from helping out. “And you’re very best at being a Mum.”

“Why, thank you, sweetheart!” Pippa wiped away a tear, swallowed the lump in her throat and dusted the flour from her hands to hug Sally to her waist.

Unfortunately, Pippa had been concentrating so hard on the baking that she had forgotten all about the flour that was still on her apron and Sally giggled helplessly as she caught sight of her reflection in a shiny ornamental copper pan hanging on the kitchen wall. Her face was covered in so much flour that she looked like a friendly little ghost!

“She’s right, you know,” Carly whispered, turning from her rifling of the fridge and, before anyone could stop her, snatching one of Lizzie’s secret recipe apple cakes, fluffy and still slightly warm after its brief sojourn on the cooling tray, her brown eyes shining with affection. “The very best. But, Pip, I don’t think you better try baking anymore! Remember the rock cakes?”

“Cheek!” Pippa laughed, flicking some cake mixture from the wooden spoon at her.

The rock cakes were notorious in Fletcher family history. Nobody ever found out exactly what Pippa had done wrong to make them turn out even harder than they were meant to be, but Tom lost a tooth and Lynn and Sally, who found them too hard to bite into but were too shy to say so, it being their first meal in the Fletcher house before they stayed over, had been discovered, much to their embarrassment and Pippa’s amusement, feeding them to the birds in the garden. Except the birds, after pecking ineffectually at the crumbs, couldn’t eat them either...

After that, whenever anyone was about to try something new, such as when Lynn agreed to accompany Carly on a particularly fast white-knuckle ride or Frank had the daunting task of returning a hugely expensive car to Dawson’s Garages’ wealthiest customer, someone would inevitably shout in gleeful warning, “Remember the rock cakes!”

The cake mixture missed. Carly had already made good her escape.

*****

Frank took the stub of a pencil from behind his ear and measured the line drawn on the wall.

“Yup! That should do fine!” He informed his foster father. Tom nodded, raised the newly-sawn wooden shelf and screwed it into place.

Sweating from their labours, they both stood back to admire their handiwork with justifiable pride.

“Grand job, mate!” Tom said, peeling the ring from a can of lager and passing a second can to Frank.

Banned from the kitchen while the baking session took place, they had had to resort to standing the cans in a bowl of cold water in lieu of a fridge and Tom spluttered as the much-longed-for drink slid down his throat and left a tepid taste instead of the anticipated iciness.

“Best forget this stuff, Frank,” he added. “I’ll shout you a beer after the show instead. Though, if you’re seeing your girl, we’ll take a rain check. I’m sure you’d rather spend time with Jenny than your olds.”

Frank grinned. He had only very recently turned eighteen and enjoyed being treated as an adult. A whole decade spent with the Fletchers! Funny how he’d arrived here a scared little kid.

He remembered sitting under the table, screaming, having just smashed every dish and pelted them with handfuls of food, even trampling bits into the carpet with his heels and thudding his fists down on the floor.

He wanted them to be angry, to banish him forever. In his mixed up mind, he saw himself being thrown into a prison cell, reunited at last with his beloved Dad. His beloved Dad, who’d told him to do everything these foster people said, and he would, he’d do anything for his Dad - but these foster people jerks hadn’t told him he COULDN'T smash plates and throw food about and scream, had they?

So he sat on the floor and he screamed, and he clung on to the table leg for dear life so that he’d be ready for when they tried to pull him up in fury. It was hard to believe that only yesterday, the day that had begun like any other, but it had ended with the cops taking away his Dad...

Frankie Morgan stood looking into the mirror of the bathroom cabinet, his chest bare, his chin full of shaving foam, singing Bat Out of Hell. It was one of their favourite rock songs. He turned and grinned as his small son climbed up on the side of the bath and joined in the singing.

Both father and son shared a deep love of music. Frankie Morgan finished shaving, fetched the guitar, pulled down the toilet seat to sit on, and together they sang a whole repertoire of rock.

Eventually Laura, Dad’s latest chick, came storming in, wearing nothing more than a flimsy nightie that made Frankie grin as he looked her appreciatively up and down, though little Frank was innocently more interested in the unremoved make-up that had streaked on her face and in wondering why ladies painted their faces.

“For ****’s sake, Frankie!” She snatched a cigarette from the packet nearby and lit up. “I can do without that bloody racket when my head’s still banging from last night!”

Frank watched, impressed, as his father wrapped his arms around her neck, smiled into her eyes some kind of secret smile that seemed to work magic because she smiled back and said mysteriously, “Make me brekkie then. Scrambled egg, toast, OJ, coffee. Black. And I might think about it.”

Frank never figured grown-ups when he was eight. All he knew was he wanted to be exactly like his father. But it had all gone wrong this terrible day, when all he’d done was take the gun out of the drawer to rob a bank like Dad did, while Dad and Laura had been making out downstairs.

And now here he was, screaming and yelling “I want my Dad! I want my Dad, you ******* b******s!” as he clung on to the table leg, waiting for them to forcibly remove his vice like grip and call the cops to have him thrown unceremoniously into the cell where his father was.

But nothing happened. Nothing at all.

And, after a while, he was hungry and he pulled out the chair and sat back down and Pippa dished out some more casserole and asked if there was any of the veg that he didn’t like because, if there was, she’d try and shake if off the ladle. And he felt bad for a minute, that he’d made the foster people jerks sad. But only for a minute. He told himself he had to remember they were the enemy; he had to get back to his Dad as soon as he could.

He woke in the middle of the night, to an unnatural coldness in his bed and a terrible realisation that his pyjama bottoms were soaking wet, and he sobbed to himself in discomfort and embarrassment. He was eight years old, for Crissakes! He hadn’t wet the bed since he was a tiny kid. He pictured the mates he’d left behind in his previous life, pictured them laughing if they’d known and sobbed all the more. And, worse, the foster people jerks overheard his sobbing.

Tom changed the bedding and Pippa sat with him though his small fists pummelled her arms and stomach, but she just held him tight in a motherly hug till, finally, overcome by exhaustion, he flopped against her.

Music was the only thing that calmed him. Somehow, though he never told them because he refused to speak unless he absolutely had to, they found out and somehow the music centre was playing far more frequently than it used to be.

Tom had a large collection of CDs and, though his taste veered mainly towards country and western and blues, there was a sprinkling of the good, solid heavy rock that Frank knew and loved.

Strangely, suddenly the likes of Tom’s isolated Queen and Rolling Stones CDs, hitherto busy gathering dust at the back of the CD cabinet, were given major air play. Frank said nothing about it and neither did they. He ate their food, watched their TV, disdainfully threw any toys they gave him straight into the bin, and made it clear that he despised them.

One evening Tom gave him an old transistor radio and said, as it was school holidays this week, he could listen to it under his pillow and he’d trust him not to stay awake too late. Frank called him a “******* drongo” and hurled the radio against the wall.

Tom only shrugged, turned on his heel and left the room, leaving Frank alone to stare at the broken radio in confusion and regret as it dawned on him he was the only one who’d suffered.

Next day Tom produced the mended radio and said exactly the same thing. And this time Frank’s curiosity got the better of him. His father, though he tried, was hopeless at mending anything. Frankie Morgan even managed to fuse the lights when he changed a blown bulb.

“How d’ya do that? Make it good as new?”

Tom smiled and said he liked fixing things.

“So do I!” Frank revealed, caught off guard, forgetting he had made up his mind never to speak to the foster people jerks.

“So does Pippa, mate,” Tom said with a grin.

And Frank allowed himself the smallest of grins back though he wasn’t sure why he was grinning. From what he’d seen of her efforts trying to paint a simple undercoat on the under-the-stairs cupboard, Pippa was about as handy as his Dad had been. Anyhow, though he kept the radio, the grin disappeared almost as soon as it hit his face, to be quickly replaced by his usual scowl. Couldn’t have these foster people jerks thinking they’d won. They’d never win. Frank was going back to his Dad and that was that.

*****

“You can talk to me and Pip about anything, mate. Never forget that.”

“You’re not disappointed?” Frank asked Tom anxiously. He’d been living with the Fletchers for five years now. They were no longer “foster people jerks” to him. They were Tom and Pippa. People he looked up to.

“Son, we’ll never be disappointed in you. If anything, I’m proud of you for having the guts to ‘fess up.”

Frank bit his lip. Ironically, wanting to make them proud had been the reason behind his cheating. He constantly struggled with the work at Summer Bay High and it had been too good an opportunity to miss when he was asked to fetch Miss Young’s forgotten wristwatch from the classroom.

He’d accidentally knocked over a half-finished bottle of mineral water and had pulled open the desk drawer to look for something to mop up the spill. The exam papers stared back at him.

Drawing a deep breath, Frank ran the paper through the photocopier at the back of the classroom and later painstakingly memorised every question and answer, vaguely thinking how glad he was to have done so. None of the questions seemed to relate to anything they’d covered in history!

But it weighed heavily on his mind and he heaved a sigh of relief after he told Tom what he’d done. Frankie Morgan had always got by on his wits, but it wasn’t the way Tom and Pippa did things and more and more he was impressed with Tom and Pippa’s way instead of his father’s.

As it happened, Frank needn’t have worried because the exam papers turned out to be for another class. He got a lecture from Flathead Fisher and the satisfaction of an honest mark. Not a good one, but much higher than he’d expected.

*****

Recalling the incident, Frank opened his mouth, about to tell Tom something, when Carly poked her head round the door. “I’m your angel of mercy!” She announced. “Look what I robbed from the fridge before I had to do a runner!”

“Angel of mercy! Don’t think the description fits you somehow, Carl!!” Frank laughed, gratefully accepting the proffered can of ice cold diet coke.

“Okay, I’m psychic,” Carly said. “Nah, okay, I’ll tell the truth,” she added, as though she thought there might actually be a possibility of them believing the psychic claim. “I got them for me but I overheard you moaning about warm beer so I took pity and made the ultimate sacrifice.”

“Thanks, Carl! Appreciated,” Tom said. It was truly a sacrifice - Carly was a diet coke addict! “But I won’t even ask why you had to do a runner!”

“Best not,” Carly grinned. “Don’t forget, bro, we’re meeting Zammo and Jenny at the Diner. And I claim the bathroom as of now!”

“Women!” Tom said, man to man. “Anyway, have a great time this arvo. You deserved a day off from Dawson’s after all your hard work there and at college. And it’s been real good of you to spend all morning helping me out when you could’ve been studying!”

Frank looked at the sunlight dancing on the walls, at the freshly-painted cupboards and shelves he’d thoroughly enjoyed creating, and all of a sudden the words came in a rush. “Tom, I wanna quite college. I HATE college. I hate books and writing and reading and learning and exams. And I wanna quit Dawson's Garages. I HATE working at Dawson’s Garages. I don’t fix engines. I never did. I wash cars, sweep up, make the tea. I hate being cooped up in their office, doing their filing and taking their messages and running out for the blokes’ sangers. I just wanna make things. And my music. That’s all I need. That’s all I’ll ever need.”

“Free electric band, huh?” Tom muttered.

Frank stared at him in amazement. He didn’t think Tom would even have heard of the song, with his preference for country and western and Johnny Cash. Even the Bruce Springsteen music was Pippa’s.

Oddly enough, it had been one of the repertoire of songs he and his Dad had gone through that day in the bathroom. He could almost hear Frankie Morgan and his younger self singing it again:

**My parents and my lecturers could never understand

why I gave it up for music and the free electric band

well, they used to sit and speculate upon their son’s career

a lawyer or a doctor or a civil engineer

just give me bread and water, put a guitar in my hand

‘cos all I need is music and the free electric band

“Back in my younger days, me and my mates, we formed a band too though we didn’t last long,” Tom explained. “Frank, mate, all Pip and me want for our kids is that they’re happy. Maybe some time in the future you’ll want to go to college, maybe not. Maybe some time in the future you won’t mind taking a job you hate just to get some cash, maybe not. You’re not a kid anymore. You’re old enough to make your own decisions. Go for the dream of the rock band if it’s what you want.”

“You wouldn’t mind?” Frank looked at him hopefully.

Tom smiled wryly, lost in memories of his days at Uni. “We thought our band was gonna shake the world. We didn’t. But you’ve got something we never had - you’ve got talent. Real talent. Maybe you’ll hack it. Who knows? All you can do is give it your best shot. And while you’re waiting for that big break, if you’re interested, I’ve got a vacancy here for a maintenance man to help out on the caravan site. Pay’s not much, in fact it’s lousy, but there’s heaps of job satisfaction.”

“I’ll take it, boss!” Frank said at once, shaking Tom’s hand.

To think, he never dreamed, when he’d been that scared little kid who sat under the table screaming, that ten years on he’d be standing here, talking about beer and girls and rock bands, seeking his foster father’s advice!

And pretty soon Frank would have to make another major decision. Frankie Morgan was due to be released later that year and had asked Frank if he’d consider moving in with him when he eventually found a place. But Frank already knew the answer. His Dad would always be part of his life, but the Fletchers were his home.

*****

“Hey!” Steven said, clicking off the mower. “Cool necklace!”

Sally smiled shyly as she plucked flour out of a wet tendril of fringe. Pippa had tenderly washed the flour off her face with a damp cloth, but Sally had somehow managed to add to it again while sampling Lizzie’s delicious chocolate cake.

Milko was back and the little girl was happier than she could ever remember. She hadn’t even needed to count from twenty backwards before she got up out of bed today like she usually did. And she had confided in Pippa about Carly’s imaginary Milko and Pippa had promised to sort things out so Sally wasn’t worried about Carly anymore either. But something else was worrying her.

“How’s Milko?” Steven asked, wondering at her silence. Sally was a funny little kid.

Sally glanced at Milko for an answer.

“Fine,” he said curtly, folding his arms and pointedly turning his back . He still didn’t entirely trust Steven. Sally couldn’t blame him. It hadn’t been very nice to be told every single day, three or four times a day, that you didn’t exist and even have a nasty song made up about you.

Milko’s dead

he fell on his head

now he can’t make a sound

cos he’s deep in the ground

“He’s okay,” she said, ignoring Milko’s bad mood and sitting herself down under the spreading branches of the magnolia tree, on the bench that Tom and Frank had made for the caravanners last summer.

She rested her chin on Mrs Martha’s head, pink blossom falling down on her hair and mixing itself in with the white patches of flour, and frowned, deep in thought. Gran had always said you should say what was on your mind. Well, there was flour and pink blossom on her forehead, which was where her mind was. But surely Steven didn’t want to talk about self-raising flour and magnolia petals? And neither did Sally. It was perplexing.

“So talk about what you want to talk about,” Milko advised, unable to resist not minding his own business.

“Okay,” Sally nodded agreement. “Steven, we’re mates now, aren’t we?”

“‘Course we are, Sal!” Steven was busy emptying grass cuttings into a container for later transferral to the compost bin.

“And mates talk.”

“Sure they do.” He looked up in concern. “What’s up then, Sal?”

“You. I don’t know why you’re so sad.”

Steven laughed, stunned by her acute perception. “I’m okay, Sal. Just a bit worried about Lance, that’s all. You know how nervous he gets just before he goes on stage.”

“Honest? That’s all you’re worried about?”

“Honest,” Steven lied, not batting an eyelid.

“He’ll win,” Sally said confidently.

“Yeh. I know.” Steven had no doubt about it. The prize was a hundred dollars, which Lance had already agreed to donate to the Summer Bay Primary school fund. The big question was not who’d win, but who’d be runner-up. After all, the only competition in the Bay would have been Frank and Frank wasn’t entering.

A smile of relief lit up Sally’s face. “Well, as long as you’re okay...”

“No worries, Sal. Swear.”

Sally’s smile grew broader. She’d been worrying about nothing! She ran off happily with Milko, glad that she didn’t have to worry about Steven anymore either. She hadn’t realised how many people the youngest in the family had to look after!

Steven sighed as he turned back to the mower. Jeez, he was good at acting! Maybe they should put him up for the next Logie award!

He was meant to have met Lance, who had no idea that Steven had been taking the guitar without asking Frank if he could, for a final rehearsal but he couldn’t chance waltzing off with the guitar again and no way was Frank going to agree to him borrowing it. Frank was still furious. Blazing, in fact.

He’d told Steven to meet him later at the talent show and warned him he’d better show up or his life wouldn’t be worth living.

“‘Cos, guess what, Einstein? It’s payback time...” Frank had promised grimly.

**© Free Electric Band (Albert Hammond)

[I love music]

***chapter 24***

WHISPERS

“So that’s the condemned block? You ever get the local teens in there of an evening? You know, making out, doing drugs?”

Kathy Murray turned round, shocked at the implication. “No! Of course not!”

“You don’t have any security round your school, sweetheart, and it happens.” The representative from Sydney-based newspaper, Daily Review, Stella Nolan commented dryly.

“Not here it doesn’t.” Kathy was almost breathless with fury.

“So they’re all Stepford* teens in Summer Bay?” Stella’s gravelly smoker’s voice was coated in sarcasm.

Kathy’s Murray’s eyes flashed angrily. “No. Just nice, normal kids.”

“Trust me, Katy. Teens who don’t get up to that kind of stuff ain’t normal kids.”

“Kathy.” Kathy corrected, gritting her teeth.

The journalist’s visit wasn’t going well. In fact, it was going downright badly. Stella Nolan had barely glanced at the flower garden that Kathy Murray, the reception class children and press-ganged “volunteers” had put so much effort and love into. Although she was very interested in Summer Bay Primary’s gym and drama block. For all the wrong reasons.

“Yeh, yeh. Kathy, Katy, whatever. Apologies.” Stella Nolan lit a cigarette from the stub of the previous one and blew out a plume of blue smoke.

Kathy’s dreams of a sympathetic public launching a fund-raising campaign after reading the Daily Review's heartwarming story ebbed away. Stella obviously had no intention of bringing lumps to throats or twangs to hearts by writing of how the kids had no choice on bad-weather days, but to sit inside stuffy classrooms and watch the rain lash the windows, because the indoor gym and drama block was too dangerous to be used and there was no cash in the coffers to build a new block. Or of how the Summer Bay residents had rallied round to create their very own talent show to raise what little money they could.

But all wasn’t lost. She glanced at her watch. Maybe Stella would find something nice to write about this afternoon’s talent show.

“Am I boring you?”

Kathy flushed. “Sorry. I said I’d help out with the talent show ticket sales if it got busy. And my boyfriend’s one of the first acts so I wanted to get there extra early.”

Stella rolled her eyes. Oh, for Christ’s sake, it got better and better! Her bloody boyfriend was in the talent show? Didn’t the bloke have any kind of life? Didn’t any of these people have lives?

God Almighty, she could think of far better things to do with her time than accompany a prissy school teacher, who looked barely old enough to be out of school herself, round a ******* primary school in a small backwoods town, where the highlight of the day, for Crissakes, was a bloody talent show!

Take time off to have a bub because your relationship was on the rocks and you were two years off pushing forty so the biological clock was ticking and see where it got you with your career when you returned to work. Stella was still fuming at being sent out on a story that rookie journos, straight out of TAFE, could have cut their teeth on.

To add insult to injury, the bub hadn’t cemented their crumbling relationship as they’d hoped but had had the opposite effect. She and Richard had split up soon after Dominic was born and, though he sent regular maintenance payments, he didn’t want any part in the kid’s life. Neither did Stella as it turned out. Thank God for the nanny agency.

Hannah and Dominic adored each other from the first and the arrangement worked like a charm. Whenever Stella felt in need of some amusement, she took Dominic out and showed him off. The little boy cut a cute figure in his designer gear, designer stroller and old-fashioned thick, curly hair and gained many an admirer on their way to visit friends and relatives or out shopping. But it was a relief that Hannah was always in the background to do the distasteful stuff like change nappies and take him off her hands if he started whingeing or being sick. Stella often thought that Dominic was one very lucky kid. After all, he had everything he needed, no expense spared, and a trust account that would make him a very rich boy indeed when he reached eighteen.

The Kathy Murrays of the world, who imagined kids were even vaguely interesting, were beyond her comprehension. But those flashes of anger that Julie Andrews here was displaying, now they were promising. Wind her up, get her riled. With any luck, she’d spit the dummy, shoot her mouth off about everything that was wrong with this town and Stella would have a lovely controversial story to be splashed over the pages, even if she did have to sit through an incredibly boring small town talent show to get it.

And then suddenly things looked up a thousandfold for Stella “no punches pulled; tells it how it is” Nolan.

“Hi, Kath!”

From the school gates, Jenny Murray waved and flicked her long red hair back like a shawl in a mannerism that alerted Kathy at once. Jenny always flicked her hair back that way when something was bothering her.

“Jen!” Kathy waved back. “This is Stella Nolan, who’s covering the Summer Bay story like I told you. Stella, my sister, Jenny.”

“Hey.” Jenny grinned warmly, but her mind was someplace else.

Stella nodded briefly, uninterested. Obviously another Stepford clone, even if the two sisters did look unalike.

“I thought you were meeting Frank at the Diner?” Kathy slipped her arm into her younger sister’s.

“Yeh. I am. Just thought I’d come along and warn you - the queue for ticket sales is right round the Town Hall!”

“Wow! Sounds like I’m needed!” Kathy smiled at the cynical newspaperwoman, fervently hoping that Stella was at least impressed enough to write about the Summer Bay community spirit.

“Yeh, well, who’d miss it? Everybody’s there, kids, teenagers, wrinklies, even the lamppost look-a-likes who have that posh gift shop in Yabbie Creek. Oh, and the dysfunctional Fletcher family will all be coming...Carly the ex-alcoholic, Sally and her imaginary friend Milko, Lynn the religious nut, Steven and his genius IQ, Frank and his rock star temper...”

Jenny bit her lip, little realising how much weight her humorous remark had just carried. Like Tom Fletcher, humour was her way of dealing with things that worried her and she was very worried about Frank’s hot temper right now. He had promised Jenny he wouldn’t bash Steven and she had said she’d finish with him if he ruined the show that Kathy had poured her heart and soul into, but...

“It’ll be okay, Jen,” Kathy said reassuringly, squeezing her arm.

“Sure it will!” Stella predicted brightly, surprising Kathy with her sudden compassion.

Oh, better than okay, Stella thought, congratulating herself. Forget the plans to rile the naive schoolma’am, looked like she was about to get her sensational story after all without even trying. She couldn’t wait to meet the dysfunctional Fletcher family!

*****

“No sign of him.” Tom said. “We’ll have to go.”

“But we can’t!” Sally protested.

“Sorry, sweetie,” Pippa said, ruffling Sally’s hair. “We’ll miss the show and we might even miss Lance singing too if we don’t leave right now. Steven will find the note we’ve left him.”

Sally sighed and shoved up to make room for Milko, who’d been helping Tom look, and who shrugged and shook his head at Sally as he got inside the car.

Frank and Carly had gone on ahead to meet Zammo and Jenny at the Diner. Tom, Pippa, Sally, Lynn and old Lizzie were all ready, carefully carrying the cakes they’d baked. Tom and Milko had looked everywhere and asked around the caravan park but it was no use.

With a swiftness that Milko must have envied, Steven had disappeared into thin air.

*****

Janice Drummond, music teacher at Summer Bay Primary, clicked her tongue impatiently. Janice played piano whenever and wherever it was required and the Summer Bay talent show was no exception.

“Mr Smart, if Guitar can’t be bothered turning up for his show, then I can’t be bothered with Guitar. (Janice had a habit of demoting the people behind the musical instrument in favour of the musical instrument itself) Piano will be perfectly adequate on her own.”

Lance sighed, coughed in a desperate attempt to clear his dry throat, and wiped beads of sweat from his forehead. He suffered badly from stage fright and Steven’s unexplained absence wasn’t helping matters. The audience were filing in now, the contest was due to start in less than half an hour and still no sign of Steven, who was meant to be providing guitar accompaniment to Lance’s singing and Janice’s piano.

But Janice Drummond, busy setting up music sheets ready for the first act, an over-ambitious troupe of gymnasts, refused to listen to Lance’s pleas that they postpone his performance.

“Coo-eeee! Lanceeeee!” A shrill voice cut the air like a knife, making Janice shudder. Her ears were finely tuned to even the slightest hint of off-key and sensitive to any disharmony of tone.

Lance grinned and raised a hand in greeting as his mother, in her best purple hat, purple coat and purple dress, teamed with every item of jewellery she could find, entered the hall with her great friend Madge Wilkins and espied him on stage. As Madge Wilkins had been the one who phoned both the ambulance and Colleen’s husband when Colleen had gone into early labour with Lance some twenty years ago and, as the friends saw each other and each other’s grown-up children quite regularly, there was no need for Colleen to draw her attention to him now, but Colleen and Madge apparently thought otherwise.

“There he is, Madge! That’s my Lancey!”

Madge, in her own best outfit of red-and-white horizontal-striped twin-set and red pillarbox hat with bright red lipstick to match her attire, held up the line behind her while she put on her glasses to stare.

Behind them, Stella Nolan was furious to be jolted to a sudden halt. She grimaced and shielded her eyes in a reflex action as she saw the two garishly-dressed, barrel-shaped, women. With its grotesque inhabitants and small town mentality (Kathy had told her proudly that there was always tea, coffee, soft drinks, cakes and snacks but strictly never any alcohol served at the Town Hall bar) she was going to have a wonderful time caricaturing the Summer Bay residents.

*****

“You look as fed up as I am,” Steven remarked.

The scruffy ginger cat, who was basking on the rock in the sun, stretched and swished the tip of his tail in vague acknowledgement.

“Yaaaw,” he responded lazily, without troubling to open his eyes.

“See, Frank wants payback for me taking the guitar and he’s got one hell of a temper.”

“Yeee-owww!” The cat replied, as if it knew of Frank’s violent temper and sympathised.

Steven turned his attention away from the turquoise sea and scudding clouds and back towards his companion. He had meant to make his way to his private beach, to sit in the cave and think things through, but it wouldn’t have been the same without the guitar to play the music that could soothe his troubled heart and, coming across the ginger cat, he had stopped where he was instead, sensing from the creature an overwhelming loneliness that matched his own.

“So...what’s the deal with cutting school then, Tobs?”

After all the times he’d teased Sally, Steven couldn’t believe he was sitting here having a conversation with a cat! Yet it was strangely relaxing. Maybe little Sal had a point about Milko.

Of course, the cat himself had been instantly recognisable. No other in Summer Bay looked half as war-weary as old Toby, with his horrific battle scars and one ear torn off by the young upstart tabby who took over his territory in a notorious long-ago fight that had led to Toby’s desperate life on the run till Billy Jackson, janitor of Summer Bay Primary, took him in.

Toby apparently chose not to answer awkward questions. He opened one green-yellow eye to look at Steven, then closed it again as though even the effort of opening his eye had proved too great.

And that was when Steven sat bolt upright in sudden realisation.

The beach was so close to Summer Bay Primary that it was almost on its doorstep, but Toby was too old and weak now to wander far from the school grounds. It would have required a valiant effort for him to make it.

“Hey, mate, what you doing out here anyway?” Steven asked gently. “You crook or somethin’?”

He had his answer soon enough. The cat screeched in pain the moment Steven touched his badly broken hind leg.

Toby had curled up on the rock to die.

*****

“Ya shoulda tracked it down and killed it,” Scott said. “What was the point of chasin’ it from the school if ya didn’t finish the job? A crackshot should always finish the job.”

“But it was Toby,” Kane protested.

“So what, drongo? You chickenin’ out on me on somethin’?”

Kane looked down at their collection of large pebbles and small rocks, carefully chosen for their weight, sharpness and potential to inflict maximum damage and wiped a tear from his eye with a grubby fist.

“No,” he gulped.

“Good. ‘Cos this is the way it is and this is the way it’s gotta be.”

Kane nodded miserably. He wished he could stop being sooky over stuff. Fred and Deefa were never coming back. Milko had decided to go back to the freak. It was just him and Scotty to take on the world. A rough, tough world of Dad’s bashings and Ma’s fruitcakiness. A world where you got hurt over and over and over again. Where hurting anything or anyone else was the only thing that took the pain away from yourself.

*****

Steven yelled round for the janitor in vain. Like everybody else, Billy Jackson had gone to watch the talent show.

“No one around,” Steven told the seriously ill cat nestled in his arms, wondering what to do now. He knew Billy Jackson would want to be with his beloved cat if he was hurt but the nearest vet was based in Settler Point, quite some way away, and in the opposite direction to Summer Bay Town Hall.

And the school itself was eerily empty and silent. As if no one had set foot inside the building for many years and never would call again. As if ghosts had left behind their echoes and shadows and nothing more.

But all that day had not been still.

Breezes had chased the clouds, stirred the blades of grass and caused the flowers in the children’s flower garden to bob their heads like old-fashioned villagers in a busy village market dancing and curtseying in old-fashioned greeting to their neighbours.

One such breeze uncovered Stella Nolan’s carelessly discarded smouldering cigarette and rolled it out on to the path.

Mistaking it for food, a sharp-eyed bird had swooped and carried it high into the air. Discovering its error, dropped it out of its beak and down on to the fragile wooden roof that housed the small library annex (the school had intended to, but never found the money to replace the wood) where a stray wind, wilder than the rest, gathering strength from the sea and seeking to make mischief, caught a sudden spark.

Grey smoke curled ominously into the air. A familiar orange glow shot into life with a gleeful crackling.

“Steven, the fire...”

The fire that had murdered his Mum and Dad and swallowed everything in its path...

Frozen with terror, Steven stood and watched...

*AUTHOR'S NOTE: For anyone's who's never seen any of the movies (Stepford Wives; Stepford Husbands and - never seen the last one so not sure about the title - Stepford Children) Stepford was a supposedly "perfect" town. I think the people were robots, but it was never really made clear.

[I love music]

***chapter 25***

***CHANGES***

Wavering lines of blue-grey smoke like a wispy sea blur images into a strange underwater world. A car door slams somewhere in a vague distance. Clattering footsteps. Voices shouting in urgency. Foreign voices.

“¡Necesitamos agua! ¿Dónde podemos encontrar nosotros agua? ¡Rápidamente! ¡Debemos apurar!”

His quick brain soaks in languages as easily as it soaks in everything else and he knows they are talking about water to put out the fire, emphasising the urgency of the situation. But his voice has lost itself somewhere in this strange dream. Mistaking his silence for an inability to understand, they try desperately to communicate. How are they to know he can’t move? How can they know of his fear? He may only be a boy of fourteen, but he is native to this country and he may be familiar with the layout of the school.

The woman clutches his arm. She is startlingly pretty. Beautiful glossy black hair falls in waves and frames a heart-shaped, olive-skinned face.

“Niños?” She pleads, flecks of gold in her large brown eyes where tears are spilling. “Pliss - where are the leetle ones?”

He finds his voice at last although it’s croaky and not his own.

“Empty,” he explains, shaking his head to emphasise the meaning. “El edificio es vacío.”

She smiles through the rain of tears and, gently, the man pulls her away, talking in rapid fire Spanish, his wedding ring flashing momentarily in the sun as he places a hand on her stomach.

She hugs her husband and begs him in her native tongue to be careful. Unlike his wife, his own grasp of English is poor, but his liquid brown eyes speak a thousand words, filled as they are with anxiety and love for her. His skin too is dark, his hair too black as night and given to curls but smaller and tighter, unlike her own flowing locks.

He has about him an air of strong, quiet determination and his tender kiss of her tear-stained cheek and brushing away of her tears quickly reassures. She says something about el gato and Steven surrenders the cat in his arms.

“¡Vayamos!” He yells to the man. “Let’s go!”

Never would he have thought he’d ever go willingly towards fire, but it’s alright, it’s alright, this must be a dream, and, as in a dream, memories, long forgotten in waking, rise and dance again. He recalls a moment when passing by the school: sunlight casting patterns through newly-painted railings, a brief glimpse of an open shed and janitor Billy Jackson, watering the grass around the flower garden, while a handful of kids run up to tease, then to scatter, screaming in delighted fear when a Billy amusedly pretends to turn the jet of water their way.

Shoulders bruised against the locked shed door, the long hosepipe attached to the stand-pipe his memory located, unfurling the hose, heart pounding in terror, mouth dry with fear, intense heat burning on his face, and then they are running, he and this stranger, towards the angry flames...

*****

Stella Nolan couldn’t stand the urgent whispering or the small hands on the back of her allocated - and extremely uncomfortable - town hall seat any longer.

“What ARE you doing, child?” She demanded, laying down the notepad she’d been scribbling into and turning around.

Sally buried her face in Mrs Martha’s yellow hair. “I’m v-very s-sorry. I’ve T-TOLD Milko n-n-not to keep r-running up and d-d-down b-b-but he w-w-won’t listen,” she mumbled almost inaudibly.

“And who or what, pray, is Milko, you silly little girl?” Stella shuddered inwardly and surreptitiously raised her feet off the floor, casting wary glances downwards, suspecting a pet mouse or pet rat.

It wasn’t what someone normally took with them to a talent show but nothing would have surprised her about this insane little town where anything could happen and often did.

Such as the unofficial “interval” that had arrived immediately after the second act when the third act, the boyfriend, after falling over his untied shoelace the moment he got on stage, loosened his collar, blushed beetroot red and declared he couldn’t possibly go through with it. Instead of booing like a normal audience, the Summer Bay audience had heaved a collective sigh of disappointment, mixed with shouts of encouragement for “Lancey” - all to no avail, as the boyfriend had covered his face with his hands in embarrassment and fled off stage.

After hurried conversations with mysterious people hidden behind the wings, the wild-haired woman on piano established that the next three acts, respectively a ventriloquist, a comedian and a three-piece band, weren’t quite ready yet either, and, anyway, she announced, her arthritis was playing up so she needed her tablets and a break from the foot pedals. Then the principal of Summer Bay High, who apparently went by the peculiar name of Flathead and who seemed to carry some clout, climbed up on stage, announced they should all “take five” and just about everybody, including the madwoman from piano, went off without a murmur of protest for ice creams, soft drinks and toilets.

Now Flathead, Julie Andrews and the two barrel-shaped, rainbow-lorikeet-dressed ladies were gathered at the foot of the stage, trying to persuade the boyfriend to go through with the singing and the boyfriend was protesting he couldn’t, while people calmly streamed past them as if it were nothing out of the ordinary.

“M-Milko’s my...my friend,” Sally stammered, close to tears, to Stella’s impatience. She hated kids who blubbered, and was just about to say so when the two teenage girls, who were also in the row behind, each put a protective arm around the annoying little brat and glared at Stella.

“Hey, Sal! You being given a hard time here?” The eldest said in a dangerous voice.

Stella didn’t scare easily (rodents excepted) but even she withered under the harsh gaze. Having been deserted for the unexpected break, the seats in the whole of her own row and that of behind were empty except for herself, the bratty kid and the self-appointed bodyguards.

Fortunately, at that precise moment, the arrival of an extremely tall, good-looking youth with floppy fair hair and an easy smile broke the tension.

“Best get these before they melt,” he advised, four ice-creams dripping pools of liquid down through his fingers. “Pip, Tom and Lizzie said to tell you they wouldn’t be long, they’ve gone to see how the cakes are selling and Jenny’s still trying to talk Frank...” Zammo suddenly realised he’d interrupted something. “What’s going on?” He asked.

“I...I j-j-just want-wanted to go see L-Lance and...and M-Milko w-won’t stop r-running up and d-d-down,” Sally said, growing more and more alarmed by the looming confrontation she was the cause of, and wondering how Milko dared pull faces behind the woman’s back.

“You have a problem with my kid sister’s invisible friend running up and down, lady?” Carly took an ice-cream from Zammo, bit into the wafer and delivered the question like a Mafia threat.

Invisible friend! Like whirring machinery starting up after being laid idle for the weekend, things started to click into place in Stella’s mind.

Without even realising she had, thanks to Stella’s subtle questioning, Julie Andrews had divulged more information about the dysfunctional Fletcher family that the Daily Review’s star correspondent was looking forward to lampooning to the point of narrowly-avoiding-libel-damages, but, thanks to soaring ticket sales and the boyfriend’s stage fright, she hadn’t yet had time to actually point them out to Stella. And here they were, sitting behind her all along! Stella wanted her controversial story and to get it she needed this lot onside.

“Ah! The Fletcher family!” She said in conciliatory tones, smiling down at the youngest Fletcher with large, polished teeth that put Carly in mind of a shark. “You must be little Sally...?”

“So what if she is?” Carly took another mouthful of ice-cream and pulled Sally closer as if she thought Stella might bite her little sister any minute.

“My name’s Stella Nolan,” Stella said sweetly and proffered her hand, which she withdrew when Carly ignored it. “I’m a reporter for the Daily Review. Kathy Murray - lovely person! - invited me to write about the talent show. And I was hoping to write about Tom and Pippa too - you know, as a nice surprise for them to read in the papers tomorrow. Kathy has told me all about what great foster parents they’ve been to you all.”

“Oh, yes! They are!” Lynn said trustingly. “What do you want to know?”

Carly, deciding she’d over-reacted, shrugged and backed off, grinning at herself, and Zammo snaked his arm round her shoulders and grinned back at her, glad everything had been sorted so amicably.

Lance and Miss Murray were looking back towards the stage and Milko, his curiosity getting the better of him, had finally decided to sit down quietly and listen. Sally smiled shyly, ready to answer any questions about Milko if asked.

It was easier than taking candy from a baby, Stella thought gloatingly, as she retrieved her pen.

*****

Coughing and laughing, they congratulated each other.

The fire hadn’t been given a chance to take hold. All that remained of its angry onslaught was the blackened library annex, a few burnt books and the acrid smell of smoke.

Attention turned back to Toby and quickly Steven told of the dilemma, of the Town Hall, where the cat’s owner Billy Jackson was at that moment, being in the opposite direction to the vet’s in Settler Point. And somehow, in the confusion, it never occurred to anyone it might have made more sense to collect Billy first.

The car engine faded into the distance and Steven stood alone once more.

It was only now, now that he thought of the flames, that he began to shake uncontrollably. For some reason, despite the smoke, the fire alarm still hadn’t activated and a strange silence, broken only by the crash of the nearby sea to the shore and the cry of the gulls, ensued. And yet it was as though nothing had happened. As though the strangers had never existed outside his imagination.

And yet they knew Sally! He frowned up at the sky where puffy white clouds sailed unhurriedly past.

“We come here for Sally. Sally Keating,” the woman had explained their reason for being at Summer Bay Primary before they climbed back in the car.

Sally! What the hell did Sally have to do with anything? None of the day made any sense. Nothing did.

Steven sighed. His original plan had been to skip the talent show and dodge Frank. But someone had to break the news about Toby to Billy. And there was no one else.

*****

*When you’re weary, feeling small

When tears are in your eyes,

I will dry them all

I’m on your side

When times get rough...

Satisfied that the home-baked cakes were selling “like cold cakes” as Tom put it, earning himself a dig in the ribs for his terrible joke, Pippa, Lizzie and Tom had barely had time to settle back into their seats and for a brief introduction to Stella, before Lance launched into his song.

And friends just can’t be found

Like a bridge over troubled water

I will lay me down.

Like a bridge over troubled water

I will lay me down...

Sally knew it must be a love song because Lance was singing it specially to Miss Murray, who was smiling and weeping and blowing her nose. But somehow the words seemed to be about Pippa and the terrible sea too...

She stood up to lean against Pippa’s lap and Pippa smiled as she put her arm round Sally’s waist and smoothed back that inevitable stray tendril of hair. Tom whispered something in Pippa’s ear. This was one of their special songs.

When you’re down and out

when you’re on the street

when evening falls so hard

I will comfort you

I’ll take your part

When darkness comes

And pain is all around...

Stella Nolan, popped a fresh piece of gum into her mouth. (The backwoods town didn’t allow smoking in its precious town hall.) She had to admit it. The boyfriend was good. Bloody good.

His singing echoed all around the ancient building, up to the wooden rafters surrounded by the peculiar narrow high windows and down against the strange, sloping floors, sending shivers down everyone’s spine.

Concerned about Janice Drummond, Lance had insisted that she gave herself a little extra rest from the arthritis bout but the strength of his voice easily carried the beautiful harmony without musical accompaniment. He met Kathy Murray’s eyes as he reached the end of the song and, whistling and cheering, the audience rose as one to its feet. Thunderous applause rattled non-stop like pebbles of hailstone hitting a million windows. It was a foregone conclusion that he would win.

Nobody could live up to such perfection. And nobody did. The acts that followed varied in being good, fairly good and absolutely dire.

If only the kid with the dark Italian good looks, heavy scowl and delusions of being a rock star could have gone on stage, Stella thought, intrigued by a scene that had lately begun playing out at the arched doors of the entrance, certain this was Frank, one of the two missing members of the Fletcher family.

Rock star temper, she recalled the sister had said, and he certainly looked like he wouldn’t hesitate to smash up drums, stage, even a whole theatre, given half a chance.

Stella hadn't been a journo for years without getting a hunch for a story. The rock star wannabe was gunning for somebody and Julie Andrews’ sister was having no luck in trying to talk him out of it.

She only half watched the final act, a tone-deaf singer who, after admitting he’d only entered to win a bet, consistently sang off-key, taking the audience’s laughter in his stride. Though she couldn't hear what was being said, the little scene playing out at the door was far more interesting.

*****

“You don’t understand, Jen. Einstein’s good at everything. Music’s all I ever had.”

“And that’s a good enough excuse for ruining all Kath’s hard work?”

Frank bit his lip and ran his fingers through his hair. “I’m not gonna ruin it, Jen,” he said stubbornly. “I told you what’ll happen and we agreed it’d just teach Steven a lesson. You know how big-headed he is. Reckons he’s better than the rest of us. This’ll bring him back down to earth with a bump.”

Jenny sighed. “Yeh, well, I had second thoughts. I don’t trust that journo somehow. Frank, maybe we should think about this...”

But suddenly it was too late to think about anything.

Steven burst through the doors and charged straight into his foster brother, who grinned and slammed the guitar and its case against him so fiercely that he was winded for several moments.

“Been waiting for you, mate. See, I got a great payback lined up. You get to play guitar. On stage. And you even get to play your very own tune.”

“Frank, listen...” Steven managed to catch his breath at last.

But Frank Morgan was in no mood for listening and he was too strong for Steven to pull free from his grip.

Donald Fisher smiled when he saw Frank with his arm round his brother’s shoulders bearing down towards the stage. Frank had already given him details and explained that Steven was keen to enter but apparently, like Lance, he suffered from stage fright, which was why he hadn’t turned up earlier. He was delighted to see Frank must have persuaded him after all.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we have a late last entry. Steven Matheson playing a solo guitar composition written by himself.” Flathead sounded and looked suitably impressed.

Ripples of polite applause greeted the lone figure propelled by Frank onto centre stage. And Steven froze. He was about to lose street cred with every single one of his mates and every single chick in the school.

At first he’d thrown himself into life at Summer Bay High to try and forget the guilt over his parents’ deaths. But more recently he’d deserted everyone, knocking back invitations to parties and not turning up for footie games that they went on to lose without their star player. Easier to be a geek, staring at computer screens and complicated mathematical theories that didn’t care when memories made tears sting your eyes. It wouldn’t take much to put the final nail in the coffin.

None of his mates from his life before Summer Bay would have recognised the Stevo Matheson they knew as the hottest, most popular guy in the school, back then.

His face, hair and clothes were still blackened by smoke that resembled simple unwashed-away dirt and there was a rip in the sleeve of his T-shirt from when he and the stranger had dragged the heavy hosepipe out of the shed.

Still shaken by the fire, he strummed nervously on the guitar and the strings sounded tunelessly back like an elastic band twanged against teeth.

Convinced it had to be a joke like the previous act, someone stifled a laugh. It reached a stream and flowed down the river. The first small giggle was followed by a giggle/cough and then an outright guffaw. And the music, an idle little tune that Frank insisted he played, would kill his reputation forever. This was it. The death knell had sounded.

Steven Matheson took a deep breath, squinted into the spotlight and prepared to die.

*Bridge Over Troubled Water © Paul Simon

AUTHOR’S NOTE: I took the Spanish/English translations from a free website, hope they made sense!

[I love music]

***chapter 26***

***THE WAY WE WERE***

Nothing to lose. They were already laughing. Who cared anymore? But there was still Toby. The spotlight blurred Steven’s vision through a mist of tears. Like sun in his eyes.

“First off, I got an important announcement. If anyone knows where janitor Billy Jackson is, he’s gotta get to the vet’s in Settler Point immediately. Toby’s seriously ill.”

He never saw Billy, idly leaning against a wall to take a well earned break after helping shift some scenery, turn deathly white and drop the plastic beaker of warm coffee. Never saw the so many worried expressions in the audience (everyone in Summer Bay knew Toby, Summer Bay Primary’s adopted cat) or Penny Bryant, the principal of the primary school, impeccably dressed as always, today in neat trousersuit and matching chiffon neckscarf, leap from her seat, not caring that her carefully cultivated image of mystique and control was shattered when she dropped her car keys, losing an ear-ring and ruining her new hairstyle as she retrieved it from under the seat, in her haste to help Billy out.

He saw something else.

He saw the golden sun of yesterday and the neat little house with its pristine white front door and brass-plated number 27, the corner of the seven splashed with a careless blob of white paint; his father mowing the lawn and his mother pruning the roses.

He never heard, as he began playing the tune that had haunted him ever since his parents’ deaths, a silence descending as the audience’s laughter gave way to tears and smiles. All that he heard were long ago voices carried on the breeze...

Sniffling back tears, Pippa curled Sally’s hair round her fingers.

And when she went down to breakfast next day there was Mrs Martha sitting in the chair.

“Mrs Martha wasn’t meant to be here till your birthday but she couldn’t wait to meet you,” Brenda said, folding up the knitting pattern and smiling at the rapt look on her small granddaughter’s face.

Not a whisper breaks. Nothing but silent tears and silent smiles and strumming guitar. Gentler now. Memories of lullabies and being in the crook of a mother’s arms.

...And Sally had felt warm and safe. She didn’t remember her mother but she remembered when she used to sit Sally on her lap and her breath would gently tickle her neck. Where Pippa’s breath had tickled.

The guitar picks up speed. Faster, faster. There are mountains here. Mountains and rivers and freedom. There is room to grow.

“Frank. Son, listen to what I say. That’s loser talk and I don’t want you being no loser.”

Music was the only thing that calmed him. Somehow, though he never told them because he refused to speak unless he absolutely had to, they found out...

Frank wiped his eyes where, to his embarrassment, the tears were in free fall. Jenny smiled and held him tight.

The music slows. A lonely sadness creeps into the air. Shadows cast from the narrow high windows where sunlight glances only briefly and hurries on by.

And somewhere in the world a child is crying.

“Scotty! Scotty, you ‘wake?”

“Sshhh, ya *******drongo, he’ll hear us!”

So they listen. Listen to their mother’s beating, to their drunken father’s footsteps on the stairs, trying not to breathe and draw his attention. Too late. He hears an involuntary cry of fear and storms into the room, lashing out, ignoring their terrified screams.

Guitar notes like teardrops fade into memories. First days at school, first days at Uni. Memories of home, of brothers and sisters, of Mums and Dads. Protecting.

“Now listen to me,” Brian Fletcher said. “This kind of thing is always going to happen unless you know how to defend yourself. Judo is the answer.”

“Judo!” Mrs Fletcher exclaimed as she dabbed poor Tom’s bloodied nose. “I don’t know, Brian. He’s such a small, skinny thing.”

“Exactly the reason the kid needs to learn judo,” Tom’s father said decidedly. “I’ve enrolled you for ten lessons at the community centre starting this Saturday.”

Tom gulped. But he had to do something about the bullies. He couldn’t go on and on getting bashed because he was an easy target. But judo...? As it happened, his father was right. Learning judo turned out to be the best thing he ever did...

Music. Universal language of love. Each listener in the audience wrapped in their own moment. Home. Reaching out when no one else does. Family. Your heart, my soul. Everything we are, everything we become.

Mum had put her arm round her, kissed her hair and said, “My little angel Lynn! Always the quietest. How could I have missed my little angel?”

What really amazed Lynn was that, as well as Pippa, Tom and her foster brothers and sisters, her own Mum and Dad had visited her in hospital! And not just Mum and Dad either, but two of her four sisters and three of her six brothers (the rest being too young)...

The music speeds again. Skimming chattering brooks, running across flower-strewn meadows and flying with the playful clouds. Chocolate flavoured candy, balloons and Xmas, fairytales and fairyfloss! Jokes and fun and hope! So much hope!

Sally clasped a hand over her mouth and sprang to her feet.

“Milko!” She gasped.

“What’s he up to now, sweetie?” Pippa asked in amusement.

“He’s dancing on the stage behind Steven,” Sally said in an awed whisper. “Because he knows no one but me can see him.”

“I can,” Carly said loyally, affectionately tugging at Sally’s hair, grinning at Pippa.

“Carly, tell me where it says that family just give up on one another. Because I never read it anywhere.” Pippa spoke to her as tenderly as though she were talking to little Sally. “Sweetheart, family is about having a home and a place where you belong.”

The blubbering kid was rocking her town hall seat again but somehow it wasn’t annoying her anymore. In an odd kind of way, it was even strangely comforting.

Stella had deliberately blotted out the memory when the brat had innocently whispered to her all about Milko. It was just another story to fill up the papers, for readers to mock and laugh at this dysfunctional family living in its fluffy bunny town. After all, it was a cynical world. Dog eat dog, everyone out for what they could get. But, listening to the guitar music, the vague pulling at Stella Nolan’s cold heart couldn’t resist any longer and gave a mighty tug.

“We’re paying a fortune for your private school education. How can you expect to get a good career if your math grade isn’t up to scratch?”

“But my English paper...” Stella blinked back hot tears of disappointment.

She was eight years old, with braces on her large crooked teeth, curly, carrot-coloured hair and thick glasses. The exam papers hadn’t been proper exams, just another of the many tests they were always having to take, but, all the teachers agreed, in the whole twenty year history of the exclusive private school, nobody had ever produced such a brilliant English paper ever before and Stella well deserved her mark of 98%.

“That's all very well.” Mummy sighed impatiently. “But, Stella, darling, Math is REALLY important. You don’t want a dead-end job , do you?”

“YES!” Stella yelled defiantly. “Yes, yes, yes, I DO!”

Of course she didn’t. She wanted to go to Uni and have a career and earn heaps of money like Mummy and Daddy said she should. But it wasn’t fair! No matter how well she did in anything, they found fault.

She was ace at writing essays, for instance, but her parents said imagination didn’t matter, what did matter was her grammar, spelling and punctuation. Sometimes the teacher would choose the best essay-writers to read their story out to the class and the other kids always loved Stella’s more than anyone else’s. It still didn’t make them want to be friends - she had to march straight up to kids who were jumping rope or playing House and MAKE them let her join in. But it was how her parents told her she should be. Being nice wasn’t how he’d got to be a top TV executive, Daddy said, and Mummy said her insurance firm would never been half as successful if she’d listened to sob stories and paid out.

Her parents looked at her now, disgusted by her outburst. “I suggest, young lady, you go to your room and practice from your math text book. I’ll check how well you’ve done later,” Daddy said sternly.

So Stella stomped angrily upstairs, knowing it meant her grounding would be extended, but what did she care? The other kids didn’t like her much anyway and nobody bothered calling for her if she didn’t turn out to play. Sometimes she wished she still believed in Bunny. See, Buddy...

Well, Buddy was an invisible teddy bear. He’d been exactly the same height as Stella because he was four, exactly the same age, with exactly the same birthday, and he always agreed with everything Stella said. Sometimes he liked to sit in Daddy’s favourite arm-chair and two or three times Daddy nearly sat on him but Stella screamed a warning and Buddy managed to get up just in time. Mummy and Daddy said not to be stupid and Bunny didn’t exist, but Stella knew better. Or thought she did then.

Now she was eight, she too knew Buddy didn’t exist though she wished he still did. She’d been about five and not long started school when one day Buddy got mad because she had other kids to play with now so he walked out the door and she never saw him again.

Hadn’t even thought about him in all these grown-up days, when she was considered a beauty by everyone she met, when she dyed her hair chestnut, wore contact lenses, and braces had long since straightened her crooked teeth. No longer the lonely little girl who invented Buddy to compensate for having parents who thought that all a child needed to be happy was money. Never, from them, the games and random hugs and silly moments that she saw other kids enjoying with their Mums and Dads and that little Stella yearned for; they were far too busy building successful careers and making their fortune.

And they'd taught their daughter to grow up as cold and emotionless with her own child as they’d been with herself. To her amazement, Stella suddenly found herself wiping her eyes and thinking about how much she was missing her small son.

The guitar solo spiralled to a climax, echoing in a ringing crescendo all around the hall. And into a void of silence.

Steven drew a deep breath and blinked at the spotlight, waking from the music and suddenly aware of where he was again. God, he must have been so bad that nobody was even going to bother clapping! He made to slide off stage as unobtrusively as possible when, like a sudden downpour, rapturous applause broke out, accompanied by loud cheers and whistles.

“And so ends our talent contest,” a delighted Donald Fisher was shouting - or trying to shout - above the hubbub. “If everyone could put their votes in the envelopes found under the seats and, after the interval, they’ll be counted up to find our winner.”

As though in a dream, Steven made his way through the clapping, whistling, cheering crowd. Lance slapped him on the back, a broad smile on his good-natured face.

“Think you’ve walked this one, mate! Well done!” There was no jealousy that his crown had been stolen. Lance’s words and actions were genuine as was Kathy Murray’s smile.

“Ta.” Steven said, feeling unusually shy.

Proudly, the Fletcher family gathered around him, Carly and Lynn leading the applause, Sally showing Mrs Martha and old Lizzie how Milko was dancing on the stage, Tom and Pippa’s faces wreathed in smiles.

Frank grinned, his generous nature, as always, winning out over his temper. “Guess payback backfired on me big style, bro! Bloody hell, mate, that was brilliant!”

“Thanks,” Steven mumbled warily. Praise from Frank was rare indeed.

“I didn’t realise you were a musical maestro,” Tom remarked.“What else have you been keeping from us? Like how come you’re so filthy? You been under an engine or something?”

“It don’t matter.” Steven shrugged off the memory of how the smoke from the fire had blackened his clothes and himself. “Something else does.” He looked down, unable to live with his guilt any longer. “But...well...there is something else. Tom, Pip, I...It wasn’t Sal trashed the room. It was me.”

“I know,” Pippa said quietly.

“So do I.” Sally had been standing there so quietly that nobody had even realised she was listening. “But we’re mates now 'cos we swapped me being scared of the sea and you being scared of fire, didn’t we? Steven, everybody likes you! Think you might have a girlfriend soon!” She added knowledgeably.

“Thanks, Sal!” Steven blushed, both at Sally’s acute perception and at her generous dismissal of the mean trick he was thoroughly ashamed of now. As for the girls’ attention...the Steven of old, the love ‘em and leave ‘em type, would have expected as much, taking it all in his conceited stride. This Steven was someone quieter. A nicer guy, he realised.

“Steven, why didn’t you tell us you’re still afraid of fire?” Pippa asked gently, squeezing his shoulder. “We’re family. We care about you.”

He bit his lip. “I didn’t want to cry,” he muttered huskily. It seemed such a stupid reason now, especially with emotional tears glistening in his eyes.

“Everybody has the right to cry, mate,” Tom said.

“Yeh, I know that now. I used to think...to think I had to keep up the macho act.” Steven looked round at his family. His family, who’d always be there for him, where he belonged.

“I’m Pippa,” she says. She has kind eyes and a motherly smile.

“Tom.” His new foster father offers his hand, but he holds back, inhaling the canvas smell of the green rucksack clutched tightly to his chest. Since yesterday, all that he has left in the world.

He draws another shuddering breath and glances apprehensively at his social worker as they hear voices outside. The other foster kids arriving home from school. Pippa lightly rests her hand on his shoulder as if she understands all the trembling hidden inside. Tom doesn’t take offence at his slight, but pulls open the door.

“Okay, guys, this is Steven, your new brother. Let’s see how fast we can make him feel at home.”

Happy that everyone else was, little Sally was skipping round the aisles in her excitement, and unwittingly making people laugh. And, after all his earlier efforts to get rid of her, Steven realised he never wanted Sally to go. She was part of his family. His kid sister.

“Pip, there were these people. Spanish people. They were after taking Sal...”

But he got no further because Sally suddenly screamed...

[I love music]

***chapter 27***

Final Chapter

CHILDREN LEARN WHAT THEY LIVE

“Pip, these are the people who were looking for Sally,” Steven whispered worriedly, his imagination going into over-drive as Sally flung her arms round the woman’s waist. What if they were distant relatives of little Sal’s, come to take her back to Spain with them? Surely there were laws against kid sisters being taken away from foster families? And, if there weren’t, he’d fight tooth and nail to get things changed.

“I did not know that you remember me. You were so very leetle ,” Isabel wiped a tear from her eye, touched by the enthusiastic greeting. “But we never forget you, Sally. Always we think of you. We look for you a long time to know you are happy.”

“I am Rico. My wife is Isabel.”

Not good with speaking English, the man spoke slowly and carefully as he offered his hand, which Tom shook warmly though, like the rest of the Fletcher family, Pippa was still staring in astonishment.

And then suddenly it came back to her. Of course! The detailed report at the Home, the same report that had sadly recorded

"Sally has come to the conclusion that those she loves will inevitably leave her and so the wisest course of action is never to get close to anyone in the first place. To compensate, she has created for herself an imaginary friend “Milko”, who can never be taken away from her and therefore always gives Sally the love, security and stability she so desperately craves"

had also mentioned, briefly, that a Spanish couple had looked after her immediately after her parents’ tragic accident although the report hadn’t deemed them important enough to name. But from Sally’s happy expression, it was clear the little girl thought the world of them. And anyone who made Sally happy was an immediate friend of Pippa’s.

“These are...my Spanish friends!” Sally said breathlessly, turning to Pippa. “They looked after me when...”

Her face clouded over. All that she remembered of her parents was the terrible sea sweeping over the shore and taking them and their sailing boat away forever.

“Oh, Sal!” Pippa stooped down and held the little girl tightly to her.

“But I am perfectly alright now,” said Sally primly, remembering that Gran always said it wasn’t polite to complain or cry in company.

“Oh, yes, it is. Pippa and Tom told Steven it was okay to cry. Gran was very old-fashioned, Sally.” Milko had stopped dancing and come down off the stage. He was wearing his best red hat and looking very important. “But you are perfectly alright, you know, because you have a family now.”

Sally nodded. Milko was very wise. “Because I have a family now,” she added.

“I too will have family soon.” Isabel’s eyes shone as she smiled at Rico and touched her stomach. “It is to be a girl, Sally, and we name her for you.”

Stella, listening to everything from the next row, was hardly surprised that there seemed to be hugs, kisses and squeals of delight all round. She dabbed her eyes again. Drat that guitar music. What had it done to her? Even though it wasn’t playing right now she could still hear it in her mind and kept thinking how much she missed her small son Dominic. Wrapped up in her career, she hardly ever saw him. Well, she was going to change things. He wouldn’t grow up with cold, distant parents as she had done. If Summer Bay had taught her anything, it had taught her that people mattered far more than money.

She caught her breath suddenly. There was so much she could write about this little town, especially about how caring foster parents could turn around the lives of children who came to them damaged by early experiences. Would her editor agree to a four-page spread? She even knew how she would begin it. With a poem she had read long, long ago, but dismissed then as a head-in-the-clouds-perfect-world-that-didn’t-exist-dream:

**If children live with criticism,

they learn to condemn

If children live with hostility,

they learn to fight

If children live with ridicule,

they learn to feel shy

If children live with shame,

they learn to feel guilty

If children live with encouragement,

they learn confidence

If children live with tolerance,

they learn to be patient

If children live with praise,

they learn to appreciate

If children live with acceptance,

they learn to love

If children live with approval,

they learn to like themselves

If children live with honesty,

they learn truthfulness

If children live with security,

they learn to have faith in themselves and others

If children live with friendliness,

they learn the world is a nice place in which to live

Janice Drummond, recovered now from her arthritis, played a few bars on piano to regain the crowd’s attention. Donald Fisher tapped on the microphone.

“Ladies and gentlemen, time now for our grand raffle! All proceeds will be going towards the Summer Bay Primary fund and, as you can see, we have a wonderful array of prizes...” He indicated the table with the chocolates, bottle of wine and cuddly toys that Stella had looked at scornfully on entering the town hall and now thought homely, “Including, specially baked by Pippa Fletcher, a delicious chocolate gateaux!”

“Remember the rock cakes!” Somebody yelled, disguising their voice with cupped hands.

Pippa’s reputation for being a hopeless cook was well known and the audience burst into laughter as Pippa turned swiftly. Carly looked round in wide-eyed innocence. She must have thought the voice had come from a corner of the ceiling because she was staring at a certain spot in fascination.

Stella found herself laughing along with everyone else. How could she ever have thought the world so cold and cynical when family and friends were always filling it with touches of love and affectionate humour?

“El GATO...?!!” Rico turned to his wife in bewilderment, as though he half expected to see Toby offered as one of the raffle prizes.

Isabel laughed. “In this country I believe it is cake - bizcocho. Ah, yes. How can I forget? We have message to give - Toby, el gato, he is very well now.”

She was interrupted by a sudden burst of applause. Kathy Murray, as organiser of the talent contest, and Lance Smart, as the previous talent contest’s winner, had begun making the draws and the first winner, one half of the very snobbish lamp-post lookalike couple from the extremely expensive cards-and-china shop in Yabbie Creek Shopping Centre, collected her chosen prize of a life-size cuddly toy puppy.

Everybody watched in surprise as, still walking as though her head might drop off at any minute, she bypassed both her husband and exclusive front row seat and glided elegantly towards the Fletchers, where, finally, she deigned to look down and even smiled - although, it has to be said, it was a peculiar smile and obviously hadn’t been practised for some years.

“For you. I saw the look of longing on your face earlier when you were playing down by the stage,” she said to Sally, who accepted the cuddly puppy in delight and turned to Milko in astonishment, but Milko didn’t know either and could only shrug.

Ticket after ticket was drawn and prize after prize collected. Nobody seemed to mind that, in many cases, they had spent far more on raffle tickets than on the prizes they won and the applause threatened to bring the roof down. The vote counting was finished just as the last raffle prize was collected and a little old lady happily walked off, smiling broadly, the proud owner of a second-hand heavy metal CD.

“And now on to the winners of our talent contest,” Donald Fisher announced. “In third place, that very talented band, The Gold Stars...”

Lance, of course, was placed second. Everyone knew who first place would go to. Except Steven Matheson. He frowned, wondering who on earth could have toppled Lance. He’d voted for Lance himself and assumed everybody else had. Maybe there’d been a mix-up in the counting. After all, Lance was just being nice when he’d suggested Steven would take first prize. He watched curiously, unaware that his family exchanged secret smiles. They were well aware of who’d won even if Steven wasn’t!

The thin, long-haired amateur drummer, a student from Summer Bay High and last year’s runner-up, played the requested drum roll. As it ended, Donald Fisher opened his mouth to reveal the name of the winner when, as though on cue, the doors burst dramatically open and Penny Bryant and Billy Jackson made their grand entrance.

“Wait! Wait! We have an announcement!”

All heads turned as Penny Bryant raised an imperious hand and strode down the aisle, closely followed by Billy Jackson, who was cradling a smug-looking, battle-weary ginger cat. Toby’s hind leg was in a splint but that didn’t seem to perturb a superstar like Toby, who, from behind Billy’s shoulder, surveyed his loyal subjects with catly disdain.

“I’m sure you’ll all be pleased to know that Toby is going to make a full recovery,” Penny spoke down into the microphone, making it give ear-splitting whistles. She paused, waiting for the cheers to die down before she resumed. “Which is a good thing, considering he has responsibilities now. My cat Fudge has just had a litter of six kittens. Toby is the father.”

The crowd burst into laughter. Billy Jackson grinned. It had been easy to identify the culprit. Fudge was a lazy cat who rarely left the comfort of her large garden in Penny Bryant’s house based in the school grounds and Toby had been the only cat to visit. What Fudge thought of her new status as a parent was anybody’s guess, but Toby himself calmly licked his paw and washed his face.

For a few minutes the two principals were locked in serious, hushed conversation before Donald Fisher turned back to the audience.

“Ladies and gentlemen, it seems we don’t just have a winner tonight. We have a hero.”

Donald Fisher went on to relate the story. Of how there’d been a fire at Summer Bay Primary caused by a carelessly discarded cigarette (Stella Nolan blushed). Of how the fire crew had discovered mice had chewed through electrical wiring, which meant the alarm hadn’t sounded when the school was set ablaze, but, thankfully, two tourists and a local had been on hand to put out the fire before it did any serious damage. Of how at least one of the kittens would be needed to help Toby keep down the mice problem, but that the others would need good homes.

“Could we have one? Pippa, Tom, could we? Please?” Sally pleaded excitedly, cuddling both Mrs Martha and the toy puppy to her, remembering how long ago, when Gran and her neighbour Mrs Bellamy were both still alive, that Mrs Bellamy’s two funny cats would run to her to mew all about their day.

“Heavens! I don’t know. I never fostered a kitten before!” Pippa teased, her eyes laughing.

“Though, like you say every time the Home contacts us, there’s always room for one more,” Tom grinned.

“Of course. It’s the Fletcher family motto.” Pippa agreed, nodding gravely as though Tom had only just talked her round. “Okay, Sal. We put our names down to foster one of the kittens.”

“Yay!” Sally yelled excitedly.

“...And so the winner of our talent contest is STEVEN MATHESON!”

Like the rest of the family, Steven was busy laughing at Sally and he jumped sky high when he heard his name. Even when Flathead had been talking about the school fire, he still hadn’t connected it with himself. Had he really done that? Helped put out a fire when fire was his greatest terror? It was strange what you could find the courage to do when you had family to back you.

“Knock ‘em dead, bro!” Frank handed over his beloved guitar.

“We’d say break a leg, like you’re supposed to, but Toby’s already done that,” Tom observed, unable to resist.

“Pleee-ase, Tom,” Carly groaned. “No more bad jokes! I can't take it anymore!”

To deafening applause, Steven walked up on to the stage, still feeling as though today was all a dream and he was likely to wake up any minute.

“We need a title for your guitar solo,” Donald Fisher was saying.

Steven shrugged. He hadn’t thought about titles. He didn’t know any. And then he looked at his family.

Pippa and Tom, his foster parents, always there for their kids, watching his moment of triumph as proudly as his own parents would have done.

Frank, his hot-tempered, generous-to-a-fault older brother, with his arm wrapped round girlfriend Jenny’s waist.

Carly, his kind-hearted, beautiful, headstrong sister, sitting beside boyfriend Zammo, their hands locked in each other’s.

Lynn, the dreamer, his gullible, good-natured younger sister, talking nineteen to the dozen to old Lizzie, no doubt about some harebrained plan.

Little Sally, making him and everyone around her laugh when she carefully sat Mrs Martha and the toy puppy on her lap so that she could raise both arms to give him an enthusiastic double thumbs-up. For a minute there, he was sure he even caught a glimpse of Milko!

And suddenly the title came to him.

“It’s called Going Home,” he answered.

*****

If children live with hostility,

they learn to fight

“Go!” Scott said.

Kane and he sprang out of their hiding place. Taken by surprise, the kid didn’t stand a chance. He was bigger than Kane, smaller than Scotty, and he was to regret ever looking at Scott Phillips the wrong way in school a few days ago.

Scott pushed him against the wall and delivered a hefty kick on the shin that made him howl in pain. Kane curled his fist like he’d often seen Dad do, aimed a punch at the kid’s chin and grinned up at Scotty as he drew blood. He was heaps less sooky these days and Scotty reckoned he’d be top dog of Summer Bay Primary by the time Scotty himself left for Summer Bay High.

In the distance, another world, cheering and applause could be heard from Summer Bay Town Hall.

*****

If children live with acceptance,

they learn to love

Sally stopped. Why was she hopping up and down, first on one foot and then on the other foot? It didn’t have anything to do with superstition and counting and keeping away the terrible sea. She wasn’t even sure she was afraid of the terrible sea anymore.

She looked round at the people who had risen to their feet to clap Steven’s guitar playing and to shout for yet another encore. How could she be afraid of the terrible sea with Pippa and Tom and Steven and Carly and Frank and Lynn and Isabel and Rico and Miss Murray and Lance and old Lizzie and all her other friends to protect her? But she still couldn’t understand why she wanted to hop up and down.

“Well, it’s because you’re a kid,” Milko explained. “And kids like to play. Anyway, I thought you were going to ask?”

“I am,” Sally promised. “Pippa...”

“Yes, sweetie?”

And from Pippa’s warm smile as she looked down and pushed back Sally’s stray tendril of hair, the little girl somehow already knew what the answer would be before she asked.

“Pippa,” she said, returning the warm smile. “Would it be okay if I called for a day or two longer?”

THE END

This story is dedicated to Kate Richie who stayed to play the role of H&A's Sally Fletcher for 20 years 1988-2008

**Children Learn What They Live © Dorothy Law Nolte

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