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‘Please. I like that. Maybe I will Danilo. Danny boy. Maybe I won't.'

Helen went to her bag. Her mobile was missing. She picked up the landline. It was dead.

‘Go into the lounge room and turn on the heater gas,' Blyte ordered Daniel.

Helen turned the stove gas on, as she'd been ordered, then looked to the knife rack. One of the knives was missing, the one he held near Frances's throat.

She heard him talking to Daniel, ‘Now pull out that rubber pipe. Pull harder.'

Gas hissed like a dying sigh.

Frances called, ‘Daddy!'

Helen ran into the hall nearly colliding with Daniel as he came from the lounge.

Frances and Blyte were gone.

Helen yelled, ‘I'm coming Frances. I'm coming.' She looked at the kitchen knife in her hand then to Daniel, but he was running out the front door.

Past Little Bloss's bedroom to the boy's room. Empty? Maybe not. Later. To the Royal Chamber. Little Bloss squirms.

‘Frances. Stop that now.' She stops. Good girl. He pushes her to the other side of the bed.

Plans for this bed. Amis lifts Helen's nightgown from on top of the bed. He feels the material, slippery like an excited woman. He brings Teddy's lighter out. Click. Whoosh.

‘Do you like fire?'

She won't answer, but she's already fixated with the way the nightgown drips molten flames onto the bedspread.

‘I do,' says Amis. ‘Fire is pretty.' He drops the burning gown before the flames reach his hands.

Pushes her to the wall and opens the walk-in. Lots of pretty dresses. That African thing with the colours. Amis back to feed them to the fire. Helen is in the doorway, panting again. Angry. Good.

‘Hope you got fire cover, little lady.'

It pisses her off when he gets referential like the Joker in
Batman.
Her eyes go distant, her lips tight, just for an instant. Ha.

He pushes the girl back to stop her running to her mother and feeds the dresses to the fire. It's a sluggish flame. Needs to catch the varnish and glue of the bed. Around twenty-seven seconds according to a video. ‘The modern home is so full of chemicals and plastics that the ignition point is quite low, the fuel load very high.'

The fire alarm in the hall starts a shrill beeping squawk. The smoke has raced along the ceiling searching for air vents.

Helen hovers. She's wearing shorts, showing lots of smooth tanned leg. There's a bandage high on her inner thigh.

‘How's your leg?'

The lights go out. Everything. Amis can see though by the blue-green glow of nylon burning. Daniel with another plan. The Eveready Bunny tat-tatting his little drum.

The fire alarm keeps squawling. Batteries, see.

‘Mummy, I'm frightened.' Finally.

‘We can't stop the fire now. Let her go.' Finally, they are scared. Helen's hair is flat. It's lost its usual bounce and lustre.

‘Can't do that, Helen. I need her.' He waves the carving knife in the air so it catches the firelight. The smoke is getting acrid. Thick black stuff. He pushes the girl in front of him. Gestures for Helen to back up.

Amis needs the boy too. Calls up the hall, ‘Daniel, I've still got Frances. No jumping out.'

They shuffle along to the boy's room. It is dark. He'd like the boy too. With the boy and the girl, he can ask Daniel to kill himself and watch Helen watch.

‘Sharon is talking to the police, Helen.' Reproach.

He pushes the girl into the boy's room. He lights a kite suspended from the ceiling. It becomes yellow light like a flare. Lots of paper and books. He lights a drawing on the wall and it races up to a noticeboard, licking the ceiling. More paper on the boy's desk. His window is open, the wind puffing curtains. He might have gotten out but he's allowed lots of good oxygen to feed the fire. A curtain catches. A green snake writhes up, to turn orange at the ceiling where it escapes into the airconditioning vent.

‘Light to work by.'

‘Samuel!' Helen, afraid.

Another fire alarm starts beeping on the stairs. Out of synch. One squawks and the other beeps. The house is alarmed. The house feels the fire flooding through its ceilings, taking short cuts to the wood and paint.

Amis calls, ‘Sam, dude. Fire, fire.' It is big and yellow on the desk.

The puppy yaps. A teeny bark from the cupboard. Good dog.

She bites his hand. The girl bites sharp and he lets go. Amis turns with his knife to stab her. He could get her leg. But Helen steps towards him. He has to look at her. She's got a knife too. Small. The girl scrambles.

Amis could still get them. Step up stabbing into Helen's belly, deep and then down on the little one's back. But he has the boy.

He grabs the cupboard handle again. ‘Sam, join the party!'

He opens the door. A big blur. Pain in his nose, eyes watering.
Daniel stepped out of the cupboard as soon as he'd punched Blyte. The man stood stunned but not clear against the yellow and orange fire burning on the other side of the room. Daniel bent to grab Sam's cricket bat.

Blyte stabbed him, in the side.

It was sharp brief pain like ice. He turned back to see Helen step in and swing down into Blyte's back.

Daniel yelled, ‘Sam, get out.'

Helen plucked her arm back and he saw she had a knife. Blyte began to turn towards her.

Daniel brought the cricket bat down on his collarbone. He heard it crack, but Blyte still stood. Black smoke filled the top of the bedroom pushing down towards them.

Sam was out from under the bed. Blyte had seen him.

Helen stepped to Blyte again stabbing him in the side.

Daniel yelled, ‘Helen, get the kids out.'

‘Nemo!' yelled Sam, trying to push past Blyte, but the man reached out towards Sam's arm.

Daniel swung up with the cricket bat connecting with Blyte's jaw and he finally went down.

Samuel fell on top of him and then crawled to the cupboard where he found the puppy. Frances stood aghast by the door. Fire alarms were screeching all through the house. Something exploded wetly in the master bedroom. Glass things were cracking.

‘Helen, let's go!'

Daniel pushed Sam out and he grabbed up Frances and ran for the stairs. The main bedroom had caught in the roof and embers were already falling in the upstairs hall. Greenish flames were running along the edges of the carpet. Black smoke nudged aside the grey. Daniel had turned off the gas as well as the power, but the house was flaring and whooshing and feeding on itself. It growled.

He ran with Frances, Samuel running with the puppy. Sam opened the front door, bringing a sore gasp of cool air. Then they felt the heat surge behind them, the fire suddenly hotter with the new oxygen source. People were on the lawn, more neighbours coming. Someone had a garden hose but didn't seem to know where to point it.

Daniel took big gulps of clean air.

Sam said, ‘Mum! Where's Mum?'

Daniel looked behind. Helen wasn't there.

He got her on one of her kicks. Grabbed her leg and pinned it to his stomach. Ha ha.

Smoke not bad on the floor. Cool. She gags. He'd pull her down. His right arm aches. No power. Pull her down and not let go and they can drown in the fire. Spit the blood out to breathe. He feels a blow. His face numb now. She'd got him with something.

He wriggles his fingers. She isn't there. Another hit. Ha. Doesn't hurt. Like the boarding school. Ha ha, don't hurt. He'll have to hurt Sharon. But not too much. Bring her back. To order. Whack. Trent knows. Rebuild the family. Dull thuds somewhere. Maybe he will die. No. Just rest.

She had the cricket bat and she pounded down on Blyte's body making blood. She needed him gone. She needed to be sure. She was coughing, choking up a salivary lava, but she wouldn't stop until she had made certain that he would not come near her children again. She raised the cricket bat, but couldn't bring it down.

Daniel had the bat. He tossed it onto Samuel's burning bed, bright yellow-white through the thick smoke. He took her hand and pulled at her, as though they were heading out towards a dance floor.

Her clothes were smouldering. In the hall, the flames were running all the way up the walls to the ceiling and flaring out like orange island flowers. Daniel led her gently, her legs wobbly. Her hair smoked. The fire alarm over the stairs gurgled into silence and she looked up to see it melted white amidst orange. There were little dots of blue flame in the lounge and some green on a picture frame. The heat was burning her eyebrows. It was somehow watery. He pulled her down the stairs. It was like they were on a boat, going to the ball. He pushed her out into the cold air that tore into her lungs and made her double up and cough until she vomited.

She fell amongst people on the cool damp grass. Frances and Samuel found her. She lay on the glass looking back at their house. She was
in a lifeboat, the ship on fire. The Christmas tree caught and whooshed white in the window, popping each little glass pane, cascading sparks. Helen giggled. They'd done it. They had the best Christmas display in the street.

The author wishes to acknowledge the following sources: ‘A Young Girl's Confession' from Marcel Proust,
Pleasures and Regrets,
1896;
Sunsest Blvd,
written by Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder and D.M. Marshman Jr, 1950; the online quotes in ‘For the Birds' epigraph have been morphed from
www.onestopclick.com/tag/56/business-connectivity/United
Kingdom and
gettingafreewebsite.com/the-g1-blueprint
; Wayne Swan in
www.bncc.com.au/2012/newsletter/wayneswan2012
; opening image in ‘Small Claims' comes from ‘Old Drive-in Theatre in McCamey, Texas' by Clinton Steeds, Flickr Yahoo (
www.flickr.com/photos/cwsteeds/4974191705/lightbox
).

Ross Hutchens and I have worked on many stories together since back in the day, including ‘Small Claims', ‘For the Birds' and ‘Random Malice'. Story conferencing can occur in front of a basketball hoop.

Sue Taylor and I have worked on many television shows and feature ideas together including ‘For the Birds', ‘The Ring-In' and ‘Double or Nothing'. Story conferencing can occur in restaurants serving very bad food in a variety of countries.

It does not take many glasses of wine to unlock screenwriters' scurrilous stories about the producers with whom they've worked. On the other hand ... without Ross and Sue, I don't believe these stories would have been written. Their interest, encouragement and criticism have been absolutely essential. Their friendship is dear. Any faults of course with the finished stories lie entirely with – the director.

Georgia Richter has toiled once again with great wisdom, sensitivity and patience. I do hope I have not broken her in the process as she is too important to WA writers. Thanks to the rest of the team at Fremantle Press, especially Claire Miller, Clive Newman and Naama Amram.

Michelle Johnston has read all of this. She has read the worst first drafts and read them in the worst circumstance – under my unwavering critical gaze monitoring any reaction with seismic sensitivity. For your unflagging valour, thank you, babe.

The stories that make up this collection have had a variety of inputs. There has been encouragement, criticism and suggestion from producers, government agencies and broadcasters. Money has changed hands and lights have been turned to green. A lot of care and work and belief has been invested.

‘Small Claims'
(nee ‘Just Desserts'): Ross Hutchens and I received script development funding from the Australian Film Commission for a number of drafts. I also received valuable feedback from SBS as part of a production funding initiative and further development assistance from ScreenWest with a valuable script edit from Victor Gentile. I'd also like to thank Rebecca Anderton for some timely advice. This project had a public reading at what is now PICA. I'd like to thank the actors who worked with me along the way, especially Paula and Marcus.

‘Random Malice':
Ross and I received script development funding from the Western Australian Film Council and ScreenWest over a number of drafts. Ken Kelso script edited a draft.

‘The Ring-In'
(nee ‘Random Variations'): ScreenWest invested in a number of drafts of this project. Sue Taylor first worked with me on this story, with script editing by Ian David. It was later picked up by Ian Booth and I worked with Carlo Burelli as prospective director and another script edit by Ken Kelso. Cheers, Ken.

‘Double or Nothing'
(nee ‘Crossed Lines' and ‘The Scottish Play'): won a script-pitching contest and was picked up by Sue Taylor and Ross Tinney and developed with Sandy Ross at Scottish Television. I was working with Sue at the time on the television series
Minty.
I'd also like to thank Murray Oliver for his script feedback and Steve McCall for his crucial ‘canny' notes on Scottish pronunciation and spelling for the prose story.

‘For the Birds':
I'm not sure anything official ever happened with this, but I worked on it with Ross and Sue. I have some notes from Margaret Kelly at ScreenWest but I can't find a contract or any record of money changing hands. I wrote a number of drafts and do remember some lunches but come to think of it, I paid for my own food. Those bastards!

I would like to acknowledge the essential investments made by ScreenWest in the development of these stories. The Western Australian Film Council and ScreenWest have nurtured many projects and screen practitioners through Western Australia and continue to do so.

I would also like to acknowledge and thank Lotterywest for their superb and continuing contribution to the arts in Western Australia.

I'd further like to thank the script assessors at AFC, WAFC and ScreenWest for their feedback and service to writers, in particular Margaret Kelly and Victor Gentile, and to the WA chapter of the Australian Writers' Guild. Cheers Alan. I'd also like to thank Gwenda Marsh for teaching me to write for television and for making so much of it absolutely magical.