Jack's Island by Norman Jorgensen

beside the gate, six small seashells had been placed in a circle round a shiny new .303 cartridge. For a moment I wondered where Banjo had souvenired the bullet from but then didn’t think any more about it.
    The front door stood open.
    â€˜Crikey, what happened to you?’ I asked in surprise.
    Banjo looked up from where he sat at the kitchen table and peered at me with one eye. His other was swollen over, red and purple and painful looking.
    â€˜Mr Palmer came round last night to discuss me going to Perth Mod,’ he said.
    â€˜What, and he did that?’
    â€˜No, John Steinbeck did it.’
    â€˜What?’ I asked again. ‘Who’s he?’
    â€˜When Palmer came round my dad did his block. He started chucking stuff round the house. Practically threw Palmer out the front door. Then he started calling me names. He called me a traitor to my class. He said I was disgrace. A traitor and ... and a lackey to the bosses and I’d be exploiting my own people next. I’ve never seen him go so wild.’
    That was saying something. Banjo’s dad had a famous temper.
    â€˜He hit me in the face with this book, The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck. Palmer lent it to me, to help with my English. He thought I’d like it. He says Steinbeck’s a great new writer. I didn’t duck quickly enough but. Caught me right in the gob.’
    I sort of laughed, not meaning to. ‘ Grapes of Wrath? Wrath? What, like angry? How do grapes get angry?’
    â€˜I’m surprised you didn’t hear the racket from your house,’ he said, ignoring my pathetic joke.
    â€˜Oh, we did hear something. Thought it was just the Johnsons again,’ I replied.
    And then a single tear ran down Banjo’s cheek and, slowly, he started to cry, quietly at first but then with great sobs he couldn’t hold back. And that was the only time I ever saw Banjo cry, ever. Not when Dafty died, not from the pain of the black eye, not for having an awful life after his mother left him, but because he suddenly saw his future, a rotten future without any choices, lugging cement bags. He’d glimpsed a wonderful chance of not ending up like our dads and it had been snatched away from him.
    Not that there was anything wrong with our dads. Most of them were honest blokes and strong and as hard as barbed wire, but so scarred by the Depression they were terrified of not having a job, any job, even if it slowly killed them. A job was more important than anything. If it wasn’t hauling cement, then it’d be carting hay bales or cutting timber or shearing in the outback, hard physical work until the day you died—too young, sick, tired and worn out.
    I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t hug Banjo. Blokes didn’t do that. Instead I put my hand on his shoulder awkwardly and handed him my hanky. It was clean. Mum gave me a clean one every day.
    â€˜You going to school then?’ I asked after a while.
    â€˜I suppose,’ he sniffed, wiping his face. ‘You’d better not tell anyone about me bawling. If you do I’ll beat you to smithereens.’
    I laughed. ‘I’d like to see you try.’

Uncle Alf’s Letter
    â€˜Mum?’
    She looked up from the kitchen chair. In her hand was a small grey postcard. My uncle Alf, Mum’s brother, had been captured on Crete and was now in a prisoner of war camp, Stalag Luft VIIIB, in Germany somewhere. Sometimes the post would bring a message written months before in blunt pencil on the back of a German air force postcard. They always said the same sort of thing.
Dear Nell and Family, I am well and hope U R well as well 2. The Red X have been and brought us parcels. I rec’d a much needed balaclava as it is v.cold here. It has been snowing 4 weeks. The food is eatable but not enough as I’d like. Buster White from W. Leederville is in the next hut. He sends his regards to you all. Love Alf
    Whenever one of these