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  ‘Doesn’t look very swampy around here,’ I said.

  Grandpa wound down the ute window and pointed at the bush paddock. ‘An old bloke called Swampy used to live in that block during the winter. He’d arrive mid-May and leave to go who-knows-where before October. He used to help Dad with marking lambs, fencing, keeping the fox numbers down, general farm jobs.’

  ‘What happened to him?’ I asked.

  ‘Don’t know. He just stopped turning up when I was about your age.’ Grandpa stopped the ute beside a cement thing, which I figured was the trough we’d come to check. ‘Jumping out?’

  ‘I’m right,’ I said.

  Checking the trough involved lifting a piece of cement off the top, then pushing a plastic ball up and down a couple of times. Water gushed out the pipe, filling the trough. Grandpa nodded and replaced the cover.

  ‘Seems to be right. Temperamental thing,’ he said, climbing back into the ute. He didn’t speak on the way back to the house.

  Even though I’d eaten breakfast only a couple of hours before, the smell of roast meat, onions and potatoes made my stomach rumble.

  ‘Wash your hands,’ said Nan as we walked into the kitchen.

  When I returned, Grandpa was standing at the bench carving a steaming lump of meat with a bone-handled knife. The middle of the steaming meat was pink. Flesh coloured. Liquid that looked like watery blood, oozed from it.

  ‘Callum? Sunday roast?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I said, do you and your mother have a roast on Sundays?’ asked Grandpa.

  ‘Um, no … we don’t eat any red meat. I mean, not much red meat.’

  Grandpa tutted.

  Nan stopped pouring water into a dish on the stove. ‘I didn’t realise you were vegetarian.’ She made vegetarian sound like a crime.

  My skin prickled. ‘We’re not. We just eat more chicken and fish than red meat.’

  Nan raised her eyebrows, then held a wooden spoon towards me. ‘Would you stir the gravy while I serve?’

  I stared at the brown stuff bubbling on the stove. ‘Stir it?’

  Nan nodded. ‘Until it thickens.’

  I stirred, watching the bubbles grow then disappear as the spoon passed through them. The bits of black stuff floating in the gravy were just wrong.

  Nan peered over my shoulder. She balanced two plates heaped with meat, roast potatoes, pumpkin and beans on one arm.

  ‘Is it okay?’ I asked.

  ‘It’ll do.’ She reached past me to spoon gravy onto the plates, then handed them to me. ‘Your grandfather’s and yours.’

  I placed Grandpa’s meal in front of him and mine in the place I’d sat last night. He poured red wine into Nan’s glass. This time, when Nan sat down, I waited for Grandpa to do his grace thing.

  While he rattled off grace, I stared at my plate. Despite the gravy covering the meat, I could still see the pink bits. When Grandpa reached for his knife and fork, so did I. I started on the roast potato, cutting through the crisp skin. Steam rose from the white centre.

  Grandpa twirled his wine glass. ‘Callum, your mother called again after you’d gone to bed last night. I came to get you, but you were asleep.’

  I nodded and shoved a piece of potato in my mouth.

  ‘She and your grandfather discussed how long you’d be here,’ said Nan, cutting her lamb into small squares.

  ‘Your mother thinks you’ll be here for at least the rest of the term,’ said Grandpa.

  Term. A school word. The potato wedged in my throat. I coughed, tears stinging my eyes.

  Nan ignored me. ‘You’ll continue your studies while you are here.’

  ‘Could be hard,’ I said, my voice croaky. ‘Mum didn’t let me bring my computer. But if you’ve got a computer here, school could email me work.’

  ‘That won’t be necessary.’ My grandmother gave me a tight smile.

  I squeezed my hand into a fist, forcing myself to stay calm. ‘You don’t expect me to bus there and back every day do you? I mean, school’s at least four hours away.’

  Grandpa frowned. ‘What are you talking about? You are going to school at Winter Creek.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your grandfather spoke to the principal this morning,’ said Nan. ‘It’s all arranged. You’ll start tomorrow.’

  I clawed my brain for something, anything to save me. ‘But I don’t have a uniform.’

  ‘Jeans and a windcheater will be fine, for a start.’ Nan raised her hand. ‘And before you tell me you don’t know anyone, we’ll pop over to the Frewens this afternoon, so you can meet Jack. He’s your age.

  ‘Good kid,’ added Grandpa.

  ‘Forget it.’

  Nan jumped.

  ‘I’m not going. Not to meet Jack, whoever he is, or to some country school. That wasn’t the deal.’

  Grandpa placed his hands flat on the table.

  ‘Deal? There’s no deal, Callum. You start school at Winter Creek tomorrow. End of discussion.’

  Blood pounded in my ears. ‘No wonder she hasn’t spoken to you for fourteen years,’ I spat.

  Nan gasped.

  Grandpa leant towards me, face twisted. ‘And no wonder she sent you away.’

  As I stood, my plate crashed into the jug of daisies. They scattered across Nan’s meal.

  ‘Sit down,’ bellowed Grandpa.

  I stormed to my room. I punched the pillow, again and again until the anger drained from me.

  Then I paced.

  What was healing about a new school?

  But what could I do about it? It’s not like I had anywhere else to go. No one wanted me—not Mum, not Chris, not even Michael or Lochie. Michael and Lochie were supposed to be my best mates. If they had turned on me, who else was there?

  Even Hendo, the school’s welfare officer, had avoided me after what happened. The first time I rocked up to her door to talk for real, instead of hanging out in her office to avoid RE or Geography, she’d given me that look—the same look everyone gave me since Nic—and turned me away. A meeting. Right.

  I slumped on the bed.

  CHAPTER 4

  BEFORE…

  Catch!’ A rubber rocketed into CJ’s head. He spun around to the back of the room where Nic now sat. ‘Watch it, Nicco.’

  Nic shrugged and grinned. ‘I said “catch”. Thanks for the lend, dude.’

  ‘Any time.’ CJ bent to pick up the rubber. The stoppers on the stool legs squealed.

  ‘What’s going on, CJ?’ asked Ms Callaghan. She stood beside Spew, pencil in her hand. Spew stared at his book.

  ‘Nothing, Miss. Just picking up my rubber.’ CJ held the rubber, covered in writing, in the air.

  ‘I made a mistake with my genetics, Miss. CJ very kindly leant me his rubber so I could fix it,’ said Nic, his hands clasped on the edge of the desk. ‘I was just returning it, with my thanks.’

  Ms Callaghan’s eyes darted from CJ to Nic. She fiddled with her watch buckle.

  ‘You could have borrowed Emily’s rubber, Nic.’

  ‘But she was using it, Miss.’

  ‘It’s all sorted, Miss,’ said CJ. ‘You go back to helping Spew.’

  Spew scowled. CJ winked at him.

  ‘His name is Stu, CJ.’ Ms Callaghan folded her arms. ‘Remember, you two, if separating you doesn’t settle you both down, your next move will be to Mr Franchini’s office.’

  An ‘ooooh’ ran around the classroom.

  CJ took an exaggerated bow.

  ‘That will do,’ said Ms Callaghan, her voice shrill.

  The jeers grew.

  Nic and CJ leapt off their stools and sprinted towards each other. They bumped chests, high-fived and sprinted back to their seats.

  ‘Stop it,’ yelled the teacher, her hands clenched in fists by her side. ‘I mean it.’ Tears made her eyes twinkle.

  CJ sat back in his seat.

  CHAPTER 5

  A motor started somewhere in the blackness. I rolled onto my back and checked my watch. I’d be
en in a dreamless sleep for about an hour. Outside the window, Grandpa sat on the ride-on mower, a green cap pulled over his wiry hair. The mower looked tiny under his long legs. Nan pushed the wheelbarrow towards the bed of roses the drive looped around. It was as if I didn’t exist.

  Maybe it was better for everyone if I didn’t.

  I scratched my head, nails scraping my scalp. Fresh air, that’s what I needed. Just not the same air they were breathing. On my way outside, I grabbed a slice of bread from the pantry. Someone had cleared the kitchen table and benches.

  On the veranda, gumboots hung upside down on a wooden rack. I picked a pair that looked about my size and wiggled my feet inside. The boots were loose and clumpier than shoes. I took a bite of bread and clomped past the clothes line to the back gate.

  Beyond the gate and grass was a gravel road. On the edge of that, facing the house, were three sheds. Inside the largest shed with no doors was a tractor, bits of fierce-looking machinery and a red quad bike.

  A couple of months ago, I’d have taken the quad bike for a ride. Not now.

  Wedged up against the large shed was a smaller building with a wooden door. A padlock hung from the latch.

  There was a gap of about a metre between the padlocked shed and a monster chook yard, five times the size of the one Mum, Chris and I had built in the backyard last summer. Our chooks, Posh and Peck, were Rhodesian reds. Plump, strutting chooks with evil eyes. This chook yard was like a United Nations meeting. There were chooks of all sizes, white, brown and black hens, three different types of roosters, fluffy chooks with feathered feet, white ducks with orange bills and black-and-white spotted birds that clacked like the old typewriter Chris owned.

  Forehead pressed against the chicken wire, I lobbed the last piece of crust over the top. There was a flurry of feathers as the birds charged for it. The winning hen raced across the yard with the bread in its beak.

  A white chook strutted out of the hen house and into the yard, neck outstretched and squawking. There was only one reason a chook carried on like that—she’d laid an egg. As I turned away from the chooks, I noticed a mural painted on the side of the shed with the locked door.

  In it, a woman wearing gumboots held secateurs and a basket of roses. Beside her stood a tall man, cap on his head, shirt sleeves rolled up. A golden dog lay at his feet, its pink tongue hanging out. They were in a garden filled with pink and purple flowers, watching a girl riding a black pony. Painted beneath the green grass was ‘Our family—Pat, Jim, Maeve, Floss and Zebedee Alexander.’

  I reached out to touch the girl’s flowing brown hair.

  ‘She was younger than you when she painted that.’

  I jumped.

  Grandpa stood on the gravel road, arms folded, cap in his hand. ‘She always had a pencil or paintbrush in her hand.’

  ‘Did she lose them all the time?’

  Grandpa laughed through his nose. ‘She lost everything.’

  ‘Drives me nuts,’ I said.

  We stared at the mural until the silence became too heavy. I turned back to the chookyard. ’What’s the go with the chooks with fluffy legs?’

  ‘They’re silky bantams. Champion little bird. Great mothers. And the white ones are leghorns. Good layers.’ Grandpa’s hands on the chicken wire were like an eagle’s talons.

  ‘We’ve got two Rhodesian reds. Had a rooster too for a while, but it was feral,’ I said.

  ‘They tend to be.’

  ‘What are the spotty ones?’

  ‘Guinea fowl. Flighty things,’ said Grandpa. ‘Your grandmother loves them.’

  We watched the birds scratch and peck in the dirt. The ducks shovelled under the water trough.

  Grandpa pulled his cap back on his head. ‘Better get that mower fuel.’

  I listened to the thuds and scrapes coming from the huge shed.

  Grandpa returned holding a metal tin that smelt of petrol. ‘Want to give us a hand out the front?’

  ‘I guess so.’

  I bit into the toast and homemade strawberry jam. It tasted like cardboard. Nan wrapped two Vegemite and cheese sandwiches in plastic.

  ‘Winter Creek is a lovely little school, Callum.’

  Little? ‘How big is it?’

  Nan frowned. ‘There are about eight classrooms I think. No. There must be more than that.’

  A chill spread into my chest. ‘I meant, how many students?’

  ‘Well, your grandfather would know for sure, he’s on the school council, but I think there are about 130 students.’

  She slipped the sandwiches into a lunch box.

  Last year, when we went on camp to the Grampians, our year level had filled four buses. Four! This whole school would only fill three. It sounded so small. I would be so exposed.

  ‘How many students at your old school?’ she asked.

  ‘About nine hundred. And it’s not my old school. I still go there.’

  Nan’s smile was almost a sneer. ‘Winter Creek will be … more personal.’

  I pushed my plate away.

  ‘Put that in the dishwasher, thank you.’

  I shoved the plate on the top rack, not sure if I needed to spew or scream.

  My grandmother handed me the lunch box. ‘Your grandfather is in his office. He’ll drive you to school.

  Suited me. The less time I had to spend with her, the better.

  Grandpa talked the whole way to school.

  Apparently, nobody around here owned farms; they had ‘properties’. My grandparent’s property was called Marrook. There were heaps of different breeds of sheep. I said they all looked the same to me—dirty and woolly. Grandpa told me his family had bred Corriedales at Marrook for three generations. Judging by the look on Grandpa’s face, Corriedales were never to be confused with merinos.

  As the huge paddocks dotted with sheep and gum trees shrank to smaller paddocks with tree-lined drives and modern homes, he started talking about evenness of fleece and microns. As if I cared.

  The pine trees and church steeple that marked Winter Creek loomed closer. It would have been so easy to undo my seatbelt and leap from the car. The asphalt biting into my skin, ripping chunks of flesh from my body would have been less painful than starting a new school. Grandpa turned a corner. Ahead were cream box buildings, basketball and tennis courts, a large shed and toilet block—the school.

  Grandpa turned into the school entrance and the car vibrated.

  I looked out the window. ‘What the—?’

  ‘Cattle-grid. Like the one at our front gate.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘The gaps and the pit underneath stop the stock—cattle and sheep—from walking over it. Works like a gate without needing one,’ said Grandpa, parking under the pine trees.

  ‘I know that. But why do they have one at a school?’

  He took the keys from the ignition, holding them in his hand as though he was trying to gauge their weight. ‘I have no idea.’

  I waited on a vinyl chair opposite the door labelled ‘Principal’. To my right, the school secretary sat behind a sliding glass window, frowning at her computer screen. Stuck to the window was a poster of a blue sky covered in butterflies. Underneath in big black letters was ‘Count Your Blessings.’ I wanted to rip it to pieces.

  To pass the time, I read the anti-bullying and head-lice posters, counted the trophies in the cabinet—49—and studied the photos of kids stuck to the noticeboard with T-pins. Most of the kids wore aqua polo shirts with a yellow logo. At my old school our uniform was navy jumper, white shirt, tie and blazer, grey pants and black shoes. We only wore polo shirts for PE.

  I read the names under the photos, stopping at Jack Frewen, the kid Nan wanted me to meet. Jack Frewen had spiky blond hair and blue eyes. His confident smile and the angle of his head reminded me of my school photo that Mum had in a frame on her bedside table. Last time I had looked at it, I didn’t recognise myself. It was taken before…

  I shifted in my seat and the vinyl squeaked. At last
the door opened. ‘You must be Callum.’ The woman walked towards me, hand outstretched. ‘I’m Elizabeth Gray.’

  Her hair, face and jumper were pale grey. She withdrew her hand when she realised I wasn’t going to shake it. She motioned for me to enter her office. ‘Please join us, Callum,’ she said.

  I perched on the chair beside Grandpa opposite Mrs Gray’s desk. Grandpa still held his car keys. I watched him rub the Rotary key ring between his thumb and finger.

  ‘You’ll enjoy Winter Creek P to ten,’ said Mrs Gray, settling behind the huge desk.

  ‘P to ten … you mean there are preps—primary kids—here?’

  ‘Is that a problem, Callum?’

  I slumped against the chair back. ‘Nuh.’

  Mrs Gray straightened the pen and notes on her desk-pad. ‘We pride ourselves on our caring community, Callum. We are quite different from a large city school.’

  I folded my arms. She could shove her caring community.

  ‘We’ll need to organise a transfer.’

  ‘I don’t need a transfer. I won’t be here long.’

  Mrs Gray glanced quickly at Grandpa. ‘I understood…’

  ‘It’s just a legal requirement, Callum,’ said Grandpa. ‘It’ll be fine, Elizabeth.’

  ‘I’ll contact your old principal…’ Mrs Gray peered at her notes. ‘Mr Franchini…’ Her eyes lit up. ‘Dom Franchini?’

  I grunted a yes.

  ‘What a small world. Dom attended university with my sister.’ When Mrs Gray smiled, I noticed her teeth were grey too.

  A bitter taste filled my mouth. If Gray knew Franger, it wouldn’t be long before she knew.

  ‘Well, there’s a coincidence for you,’ said Grandpa, smiling as if this gem was a massive diamond, not a cruddy piece of coal.

  ‘Callum, are you all right? You’re looking rather grey,’ said Mrs Gray, leaning forward.

  I laughed through my nose.

  Grandpa glared at me. ‘Callum’s been through … well, he’s just…’

  A list of words he could use to describe me rolled through my mind.

  Worthless?

  Useless?

  A waste of space?

  What was that word Michael Pham’s father had used to describe me? Abhorrent. I didn’t need a dictionary to work out what that meant. The meaning had been written in his eyes and in the twist of his mouth.