Daughter of the Regiment (2 page)

‘No, I mean a funny hole. A
really
funny hole.’

‘That’s what you said this afternoon,’ remarked Mum. ‘Harry, don’t leave your silver beet on the side of your plate. Eat it. It’s good for you. I don’t know how you can expect to keep growing if you don’t. What do you mean, a really funny hole?’

Harry took a breath. ‘I don’t quite know. I just thought it was an ordinary hole. Then I took a closer look at it, and I could see trees and the creek.’

Dad looked puzzled. ‘But if you look through a hole in the chookshed that’s what you do see—the trees and the creek.’

‘But it wasn’t
our
creek … it was like our creek, but different. And the trees were a bit different, too. I mean, there were the same sort of trees, but not the ones that are really there. And the hole wasn’t in the wall of the shed. It was just hanging there.’

‘A hole doesn’t just hang there,’ said Dad.

‘This one does,’ insisted Harry.

Mum frowned. ‘Are you sure you’re not making this up, Harry?’

‘Of course I’m sure. Come and look at it if you think I’m lying!’

‘I don’t think you’re lying,’ said Mum soothingly. ‘Just maybe mistaken …’ She glanced at Dad.

Dad put his fork down. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Let’s have a look at this hole.’

The garden smelt of freshly watered grass. The moon pushed its way effortlessly through the clouds, sending shadow dapples through the oak trees. It was hotter down on the flat below the garden. The grass shone dry and purple-gold in the moonlight.

Dad clicked off the torch. ‘Don’t need it,’ he said. ‘You could almost read a newspaper out here tonight.’

‘Well, at least it’ll make it easy to see this hole of yours,’ said Mum. ‘The moonlight will shine right through it.’

‘Mum I tried to tell you—it isn’t that sort of hole.’

Mum nodded.

The chookshed smelled stronger at night, Harry realised, the sort of smell that sawed down into your throat each time you breathed. The hens sat hunched and motionless, their dirty claws grasping the old bit of pipe Dad had nailed up as perches. They didn’t even blink when the door opened.

‘It’s just over there,’ said Harry. ‘No, don’t put the torch on, Dad. You’ll see it better in the dark.’

‘I don’t see anything,’ said Mum.

‘It was here this afternoon!’ Harry looked round the shed desperately. Maybe the hole had moved.

Dad clicked on the torch and shone it over the roof and walls. Spiders scuttled away, startled by the light. ‘No new holes that I can see,’ he said.

‘But it WAS here,’ insisted Harry. ‘It was this funny golden light and it just hung there. I’m not lying. I’m not.’

‘Of course you’re not lying,’ said Mum reassuringly. ‘It was probably just one of the old holes that you hadn’t noticed before.’

‘But it just HUNG there—’

‘Light can do funny things, son.’ Dad clicked the torch off again. ‘I remember an old shed—you know the one that used to be on Lagos’s place before they built the new hay shed. I went in there one day and there was this great beam of light, like one of those laser things you see on TV and it was just coming through this pinhole in the ceiling.’

‘But Dad. It wasn’t
like
that. It wasn’t coming from anywhere.’

‘I remember when I saw a polar bear on the freeway just outside Sydney,’ said Mum. She shut the door of the chookhouse behind her, and latched it. ‘Do you remember that time, dear? Look, I yelled to your father, there’s a polar bear in that Kombivan. But when he looked the van was gone, of course. I wondered for years about that polar bear, then one day I saw one again outside the supermarket in town … but then when I went up close to it it was a dog, one of those Pyrenean Mountain dog things you see at the Show, and that must have been what I saw on the freeway, but I could have sworn it was a polar bear, just sitting up there beside the driver cool as you please …’

It wasn’t LIKE that, thought Harry stubbornly as he tramped across the flat behind them. It wasn’t like that at all!

But there was no use trying to explain to Mum and Dad.

His room smelt of sweaty joggers and the summer jasmine twining up through the eaves outside the window. Harry couldn’t sleep.

The hole HAD been there. He hadn’t imagined it. He could still see the creek with its dappling of waterlilies, the sky that stretched forever, the thick-trunked trees. There were only a few as thick as that on the farm now. Most of them had been taken for fence posts or for timber last century.

Maybe the hole had moved. It hadn’t seemed to move while he looked at it, but maybe it had shifted. After all, it hadn’t been there yesterday afternoon. He’d been down at the shed for over an hour yesterday, just watching the chooks and wondering about boarding school—it always helped you think to look at chooks. He would have been sure to have seen it yesterday if it’d been there.

Maybe the hole moved really slowly. Maybe it was down by the creek now, or even over near the giant orange tree. If he crept out now he might find it …

Or maybe it really was a window to another world, and someone had shut the window. Though there hadn’t been anyone inside the hole when he’d looked through it…

Or maybe …

A mopoke called—more pork, more pork—down by the swimming hole. It was funny, thought Harry drowsily, how you never heard mopoke’s during the day. Maybe they thought their song would shrivel up in daylight. Or maybe sounds just travelled further at night.

Harry sat up. Night—of course! He’d been stupid. STUPID!

It had been daylight when he looked through the hole into the other world. Daylight here and daylight there. And now it was night here … so it could be night there as well … and there’d be no golden light glowing through the hole at night. There’d be only darkness, imperceptible in the darkness here.

Harry lay down again. Tomorrow first thing he’d go down to the chookhouse. No, not first thing—there wasn’t time before the bus to school. Straight after school then, when he had time to really look at the hole. It had to be there then, it had to!

The school bus snaked down the road to the valley. Harry called it the Spaghetti Road—from up on the tableland it looked just like a piece of spaghetti that someone had dropped on the floor.

‘Three whole days off school,’ Spike stretched in satisfaction. ‘Whoever invented pupil-free days should be given a medal. Coming swimming this afternoon?’

Harry shook his head. ‘I’ve got some jobs at home,’ he answered evasively.

‘Too bad.’ Spike stretched his toes out into the aisle. ‘Dad says it’s building up to a thunderstorm. The water might be too cold to swim tomorrow.’

‘It’s always cold.’

‘It gets colder after it’s rained though.’

‘Yeah. Pity,’ agreed Harry. He gazed out the window impatiently. Shorn paddocks of brown stubble, with scattered bales of hay still greenish-gold. Paddocks of tough, thin cocky’s bootstraps with the sheep looking enviously at the lusher grass next door; Dwyer’s place and Steinler’s …

The bus seemed to take forever.
Everyone
was on the bus today. The bus stopped at almost every letterbox. There was a box of lemons to drop off to Mrs Albertstein at Woolly Corner, and everyone had to peer out the windows at Melissa Forrest’s joey which her mum had brought down to the bus stop in its hessian sack. Couldn’t Mac drive faster?

‘Got much homework?’

Harry shook his head. Surely the bus usually went faster than this?

‘Sure you can’t come for just a quick swim?’ asked Spike again, as the bus pulled in to his and Angie’s stop. The swimming hole down at their place was bigger than the one up at Harry’s, though Harry’s had a smooth rock you could slide down and splash into the water.

Harry shook his head. ‘No. Thanks anyway.’

‘It’s not as much fun just swimming with Angie,’ Spike complained as he hauled himself out of his seat. ‘See you Tuesday. Hey, how about a swim Sunday then? Or Monday? We’ve got to go to Aunt Mag’s Saturday, it’s Uncle Finn’s birthday or something, but we could come up to your place Sunday if you like.’

‘Yeah, sure,’ agreed Harry. Anything to get him moving off the bus. ‘See you Sunday. See you Sunday, Angie.’

‘What’s on Sunday?’ demanded Angie, dragging her bag up the passageway from the back where she’d been making faces out the back window with the other girls.

‘We’re going up to Harry’s place for a swim in the afternoon …’

Harry watched them straggle off the bus. Mac turned the wheel again and pulled out into the dusty road. Only one more stop now …

The chooks looked at him with interest as he walked up the flat, hoping for wheat. Humans meant food. The scrap bucket in the morning: leftover porridge or baked potatoes or yesterday’s stale sandwiches. Or wheat or corn at night, a final treat before they were locked inside to keep them safe from foxes.

Arnold Shwarzenfeather gave a half blast crow—the sort that meant, Food alert! Food alert! Possible food coming! Get it together girls! (A full-throated crow meant, Warning! Warning! Pay attention now!)

‘Buzz off,’ said Harry. He stepped over Midnight Sky and Omelette and Mr J (they always crowded at your ankles so they wouldn’t miss a thing) and peered into the chookhouse.

No chooks in the boxes, except for Sunset, broody in the corner. Chooks mostly laid their eggs in the morning, except for Smokin’ Joe … yes, there was her egg, dark brown against the hay. Smokin’ Joe must have been in already this afternoon. Harry stepped through the door and peered between the perches.

The hole was in the corner, just where it had been the day before.

Harry stared at it. Of course he’d known it would be there, he’d been sure it would be there—but it was still amazing that it really
was
there. It glowed as strongly as before.

Harry glanced behind him. No sign of Mum or Dad. Should he yell for them to come down and see it, in case it disappeared again? Or should he have a closer look at it first? Just to make sure it really was as weird as it had been the day before, that the other world really was inside it.

Harry bent under the perches. He craned his head up and put his eyes to the hole.

The other world was still there. It looked just the same, except today the sky was cloudy—pale grey cloud stretched tight as Speedos across the sky. The creek shone grey as well. He could almost hear it whisper between the rocks … was it the creek through the hole or his creek outside? He could hear trees brush their leaves against the wind.

Hey, what was that? It sounded like laughter. Was it coming from the hole? Maybe someone was laughing up at the house, or in the garden. Or was it Stan laughing up in the big shed?

Harry crawled back under the perches and stuck his head outside. The chooks clucked curiously; a currawong yelled in the tree above. The house, the sheds, the grassy flat, the garden were quiet.

Harry crawled back inside. The laughter was definitely coming from the hole. It was louder now, as though whatever made the sound was coming closer, closer, closer …

Harry put his eye back to the hole.

The creek still rippled in the other world. The clouds still stretched featureless across the sky. Harry blinked.

There was a girl among the trees on the other side of the creek. She wore a long skirt and her blouse was long-sleeved although the day looked warm, and a funny-looking hat so it was hard to see her face. The girl laughed again, and spun around, around and around and around …

‘Hello? Hello? Can you hear me?’ Harry felt stupid calling through a hole … but if he could hear her, maybe she could hear him?

The girl’s skirts swirled faster.

‘Can you hear me?’ Harry yelled louder.

Suddenly the girl collapsed in a giggling heap among the trees.

‘Cissie!’ It was a man’s voice. It sounded like he was laughing as well, though Harry couldn’t see him. ‘I
said
you’d make yourself giddy if you whirled like that!’

The girl lay back on the grass. She was much younger than he was, Harry realised, about five perhaps, or six. Her hair hung in two plaits down both shoulders. It was blonde hair, tied with blue ribbons at the ends. ‘The sky is going round and round and round!’ she called.

‘That’s because you were going round and round.’ It was a woman’s voice now, warm and amused. ‘Come on, sillyhead. If you don’t come now we’ll have eaten all the cake.’

The girl sat up. What had the man called her? wondered Harry. Cissie, that was it.

‘Cake! Is there cake?’ she cried. ‘What sort of cake, Mama?’

‘Currant cake.’ It was the man’s voice now. ‘Your mama used the last of the currants too, and there won’t be any more till the supply ship comes, and who knows when that will be.’

The girl—Cissie—leapt to her feet. Her first step was unsteady. She blinked then oriented herself. She ran in the direction of the voices.

Blast! Harry tried to crane his head around to see her. But no matter which way he turned he could only see straight ahead in the hole and not to either side.

‘Can I have that piece?’

‘Greedy reedy. You’ll have the piece you’re given, miss.’

‘Yes Papa.’ But the voice was hopeful, not repentant.

The woman laughed. ‘Give her the big slice, John.’

Cissie laughed again and suddenly she was back in view, leaping up onto the largest rock, hardly hampered by her skirts. She sat down on the rock’s flat top, arranging her skirts around her, and began to eat. Her shoes were funny, thought Harry. Sort of boots and all buttoned up to the ankle.

‘Papa?’

‘Yes, Cissie?’

‘Why is the sky blue?’

Harry almost laughed. It was just the sort of question a little kid like that might ask.

‘I don’t know, my dear. Maybe you should ask Captain Piper. He knows the answer to everything.’

The woman laughed. ‘John! Don’t you encourage her to ask the Captain a question like that. She probably will now!’

‘He won’t mind,’ said the man’s voice.

‘She’s being thoroughly spoilt, that’s what she is.’ But the woman’s voice was indulgent. ‘The only child here. Everyone treats her like a pet kitten. Sergeant Wilkes carving her that doll and the o’possum skin Lieutenant Burrows brought back for her and …’