Birrung the Secret Friend (2 page)

I began to trudge back along the track between the huts, my feet squishing in the mud from last night's storm. Most of the walls were half washed away already, and the cabbage-tree-frond roofs were rotting.

Bullock Man followed me. Just like I knew he would.

I'd be safe while the storeman could see me. But I had to turn the corner soon. I knew some tricks that would protect me against coves like this. I'd bitten a man's leg once when he tried to steal my damper, and poured a shovel full of coals on a man's head when he grabbed Ma, while Ma was already busy kneeing him in the stomach and squashing his nose with her fist. But this time I was on my own. If I bit Bullock Man, I might startle him enough to let go of me long enough to escape. But I'd have lost my rations.

I'd have to run as soon as I got to the corner. Fast!

One! Two! Three! I began to sprint, fast as a rabbit, except there weren't any in New South Wales. Fast as a lizard, maybe.

I heard Bullock Man's feet pound behind me. He was big, but he was fast too. He was nearly onto me! I could
smell him, sweat and dirt and rotting teeth. I heard him laugh. And then I heard . . .

‘
Ow!
'

I glanced back. Bullock Man grabbed his knee in agony. He stared at a rock at his feet.

Had someone thrown that rock at him?

No time to find out. I ran.

I ran past the huts, all higgledy-piggledy along the shore, then climbed the hill between the cliffs streaked with seagull droppings and onto the beach. You could see the harbour from here, blue and grey, with its green fingers covered in trees. It was empty now, of course, apart from its tiny islands, with no Indian canoes or the big transport ships that had brought us from England. I couldn't even see the colony's own two tiny ships. They'd sailed off somewhere. England? Norfolk Island? To get more food? No one told the likes of me.

We were stranded here, hungry and ragged. Except I'd been hungry and ragged back in England too. At least here I had the harbour and the bright birds — Ma had loved those birds — and no rats trying to bite my face like there'd been back in prison.

Now I had Elsie too. And today we weren't even going to be hungry!

I stopped for breath, enjoying the harbour and the tickle of the breeze, then ran down into the colony's huts again. That was the trick, see? No place to hide in the bush. Even the trees had tall straight trunks you couldn't climb unless you were an Indian. But in the straggle of huts up from the beach there was this one shack that had half fallen down. If you pulled a bit of roof aside and squeezed underneath, there was a tiny room, big enough for me and Elsie to sit up or lie down in.

It wasn't much. But it was safe. It even kept most of the rain off us. I'd pinched another blanket. I'd pulled up grass and bracken to make a bed too, just like Ma had shown me.

Elsie stared up at me as I slipped under the roof then carefully pulled it over us, her face small and white in the dimness. She got scared being alone. I grinned and held out the cheese. ‘Got it!' I whispered.

Elsie didn't say anything. Elsie never said anything. Elsie couldn't talk. Don't know why. She'd never said a word since I'd found her. Never smiled neither. But she almost smiled then. She gazed at that cheese like it was a chest of treasure.

I'd have hugged her, but Elsie didn't like being touched, except when we huddled up for warmth at night. I crouched next to her and broke the cheese in half.

‘Don't eat it too fast,' I reminded her. Ma taught me that. If you eat too fast when you're hungry, you vomit it up and then you're worse off than before.

I took a nibble of cheese. Oh, it was good. I nibbled again. I tried not to think of the first months in the colony when Ma was alive. I was never hungry then. I had a tent to sleep in, and fire outside, as big as we wanted because the trees here dropped so much dead wood it looked like they grew it just for folks like us to burn.

The third day after we landed at Sydney Cove was the first time I had enough to eat in my life. Two days of stumbling, feeling the land go up and down like the sea, while all the sheep and cows and pigs stumbled around us. I'd have laughed if I hadn't felt so dizzy. Then the governor ordered Ma and some other women to gather oysters, down on the harbour rocks . . . and me too.

Oh, them oysters. Small and sweet and tasting of the sea. I just sat and ate and ate till no more would fit in my stomach while Ma and the others bashed them with rocks, then put the shells in big bags to burn to make the stuff called lime that held the bricks together that were used to build the officers' chimneys and the governor's house.

Day after day we ate those oysters. Most of the women were assigned to care for the officers, but not Ma and the other oyster-shell gatherers. I grew so fast my trousers almost rode up to my knees. I didn't care. Ma and I were warm and safe and our bellies were full. After the work bell rang each afternoon Ma and I could do what we wanted, gather wood for the fire, or more bracken for our beds. Every night we sat by the fire and Ma made damper in the ashes — someone called it that because the coals had to be damped down so the outside didn't burn and waste precious flour — and a stew of peas and salt pork and watercress picked from the stream in our pannikins. Ma held me close and sang me songs, songs I'd never heard before because she'd always been too tired, her belly too empty to have energy for singing.

We'd had a year here, me and Ma. And then Ma died.

I ate my last crumb of cheese slowly. I'd sleep with the rest of the rations under my shirt tonight, to keep them from the rats and ants. ‘We can eat the pork tomorrow morning,' I told Elsie. ‘Then tomorrow night I'll find a fire to cook some damper.'

Elsie looked scared again. Scared someone might find her when I wasn't there. Scared I might not come back too. It was dangerous going out after dark. Some of the convicts had been made nightwatchmen: they bashed you up good if they found you out at night. But I was good at keeping to the shadows. And flour made you sick if you ate it raw. I knew. I'd tried.

‘Maybe even find some oysters if I can sneak around to a cove where no one will see me,' I added. Oysters were free for the gathering, but if the convict foremen saw, they'd put me to work. If I had to work, Elsie'd be alone all day. I patted her hand. She didn't draw it back any more. She knew I wouldn't hurt her. ‘Don't worry. I won't get caught. I'm the best hider in the colony!' I boasted. ‘No one can ever find me! I'm —'

I stopped. I heard voices not far away. Footsteps coming closer. Elsie froze. Had Bullock Man found us?

I clenched my fists. No one was going to hurt Elsie without a fight.

Someone scrabbled at the ruins of the hut. I'd been followed all right.

‘There he is!' The hut roof lifted off us. Light speared into the hut, so bright I couldn't see who was out there.

Elsie rolled quickly under a bit of fallen roof, silent as a mouse, invisible. She couldn't talk, but she could hear danger good enough.

I hoped whoever was out there hadn't seen her hide. No use trying to run, not trapped among the wreckage of the hut. I was cornered. I blinked up at the light.

‘You can have me rations. Here.' I held them out. Just don't hit me, I thought. If you hurt me too bad, I can't bring Elsie water. We can live for a few days more with no food, but we can't live without water. Please, don't find Elsie . . .

‘I don't want your rations, boy.' I looked up, my eyes still getting used to the light. It wasn't Bullock Man. This man sounded like a gentleman. He even sounded gentle too. ‘Come out of there.' He also sounded like he was used to telling people what to do.

I glanced back into the shadows of the fallen hut. Elsie was still hidden. I wriggled out into the daylight and stood up.

And there was the black girl, just like she'd looked by the storehouse, except now she wore a bonnet over
her hair. She grinned at me, triumphant because she'd tracked me down, showing those white teeth again.

I glanced at the man she was with, ready to hand over the food fast, so he'd go away. Then I relaxed a bit. He was only Mr Johnson, the chaplain to the colony. We were all supposed to go to church to listen to him preach each Sunday, except there wasn't a church, just a big tree Mr Johnson stood under, or a crumbling storeroom when it rained. Most of the convicts didn't bother to go, and no one made them either. Neither Elsie nor I went, of course, because Elsie was scared and I couldn't leave her. But when Ma was alive, I'd liked the singing, and how Mr Johnson spoke to us like we were people just like him, not convict scum. Not that I was a convict, but you know what I mean.

And here was Mr Johnson now, not in his good Sunday suit, but the old rusty black he wore when he was in his garden. Mr Johnson had the biggest vegetable garden in the colony. Three big plots, one near his house and another two Ma had told me that he'd bought from one of the soldiers.

Mr Johnson would want my weevily flour, or salt pork. I bobbed my head to him politely, like Ma had shown me. ‘Sir,' I said.

Mr Johnson lifted his hat to me, just like I was a gentleman. I'd have lifted my cap for him, except I'd lost the cap I'd been given on the ship or, most likely, someone had nicked it.

‘Good morning,' said Mr Johnson, just like I was a blooming duke. ‘I am Mr Johnson and this is Abaroo, a member of our family.'

‘Hello,' said the black girl.

My jaw dropped. I hadn't known Indians spoke proper words. I shut my mouth before the flies could land in it. Then I said, ‘My name's Barney Bean. I weren't doing nothing wrong, sir.'

‘I wasn't doing anything wrong,' he corrected. ‘No one is accusing you of wrongdoing, lad. But perhaps wrong has been done
to
you.'

He looked at our hut. My cheeks grew hot. Our hut stank. There wasn't much I could do about that. It was filthy too, and so was I.

‘Where's your mother?' Mr Johnson didn't ask where my pa was, like someone might in England. Almost no young'un in the colony had a pa, not one who'd claim them, anyhow.

‘Ma is dead, sir. My pa died when I were a baby,' I added.

His voice was even gentler. ‘I'm sorry, lad. How did your mother die?'

‘Cut on her hand from an oyster shell. It puffed up red and then she died. Mr White did his best.' Mr White had been good to Ma. He'd even made the hospital convicts give me dinner while I sat with Ma before she died.

‘No one looks after you?'

‘I looks after me!'

Mr Johnson looked at the rotting hut I'd crawled out of. Then he looked at me. I squirmed, embarrassed at how dirty I was. Even in prison and on the ship Ma had taught me to try to keep my face clean. At last he seemed to reach a decision. ‘How would you like a job?'

I glowered at him. ‘Don't have to do no job. I ain't no convict.'

‘We are all born into this world to work,' said Mr Johnson. He held out his hands. They had calluses and cracked nails. All the officers' hands here were soft, like a gentleman's. ‘We should labour for each other according to the will of God. If you work for me, you will have a room to sleep in. Not much of a room,' he added. ‘But better than this. You will eat at my table. The food is simple, but there is plenty of it.' He smiled. ‘I believe I have the biggest potatoes in all of the colony.'

Potatoes! I hadn't eaten a potato since before we left England. There'd been a hot potato seller on the street as Ma was led in chains to the cart to take us to the ship. She used her last farthing to buy me one. I'd held that potato till it was almost cold, loving its warmth.

‘How many potatoes?' I asked. I wasn't going to work for one potato a day, no matter how big it was.

‘All you want to eat,' said Mr Johnson calmly. ‘If you dig my garden well and help me weed it. And follow the rules of our home.'

I looked at him suspiciously. ‘What are they?'

‘No swearing. No insolence to me or my wife. To treat each other as you'd like to be treated.'

I could do all that, I reckoned. To work in a garden! I loved watching the gardens grow in the colony. Nothing but tussocks and trees when we'd landed, two years back, then bare dirt. But then people put in seeds and soon there'd been bits of green, then big plants growing. I'd watched a man pull a carrot out of the ground and eat it. It was like magic — food coming out of the dirt. Lot of the plants had died. But not Mr Johnson's.

Mr Johnson would let me work in his garden! Feed me potatoes. He'd teach me the magic that made his garden
give so much food. Maybe one day I'd even get land for a garden of me own . . .

But I couldn't do it. I had to keep Elsie safe. She wasn't strong enough to work. Even if Mr Johnson would take a girl who couldn't speak, Elsie would be too scared to go with him.