until I see the old lady in the pink raincoat who I hadnât seen before but is only three feet away in one of those transparent plastic rain hats while she waits for her bus, and as we move off and I pull my tongue back in, her mouth opens and I canât hear her because of the glass between us but I can read her lips easily and sheâs looking just so shocked and saying âWe-ll!â and gazing after the bus as we pull away and Iâm sure sheâs taking note of the bus company and will write to them as soon as she gets home and the company will pass it on to Mr Jackson and theyâll all know who it was, all the lady has to say in her letter is the black girl with the ugly face in the last bus in Bathurst, and I realize then Iâm no better than Billy Whitecross, and that just makes me maunder even more.
We detour to Cowra to see the Japanese Gardens and the old prisoner-of-war camp while Dimbo goes off to get petrol and discharge the waste tank of the bus.
âI donât know whatâs wrong with these kids,â he says to Miss Temple.
âTheyâre merely excited.â
âIs that what you call it?â
And Miss Templeâs right, it is a bit like that, theyâre like dogs, especially puppies, sniffing out a new place and wanting to pee all round the edges of it if itâs going to be their home for the next week or so, though even before we get to Cowra, theyâve got bored with racing round, and are sitting in their seats and playing music and quietly punching one another, and some of them have eaten their entire supply of sweets and chocolate for the whole trip and are searching through the pockets of the seats in front of them for the sick bags.
And the Japanese Gardens are interesting and that, and they could be peaceful the way theyâre laid out with bamboo groves and rocks and water features and raked gravel and stone garden beds and everything, and you could imagine people coming here and meditating or just walking on the gravel paths and maybe remembering the dead, but not eighty-five kids who have just spent two and a half hours on a bus and just want to bash the wooden pole against the giant bell at the entrance to let everyone in New South Wales know theyâve arrived and then race around the paths and shriek and hide in the bamboo and reeds and jump out at the Japanese tourist parties and pretend to mow them down with machine guns, or stretch their faces into hideous masks with their thumbs in the corners of their mouths and their fingers pulling at the corners of their eyes and yelling, â Banzai!â and Ah so ,â while the Japanese can only look back at them, and hold their handbags against their stomachs and smile.
And all this, and not knowing what to do about it, and seeing Miss Temple standing off on a tiny curved bridge under a willow tree and gazing into Mr Jasmyneâs glasses, only makes me more scratchy and unhappy than ever, and I go off then to find Toni and when I do I feel worse and even more alone, because I see her on the path by a flower bank and sheâs fooling about and playing up to Mr Prescott, as usual, only this time she has her arm through his and is pretending to walk in a stately way like sheâs a duchess or something out on a Sunday stroll. And all the kids walking with them just laugh and whistle and wave back as she passes giving them this royal wave, and everybodyâs enjoying themselves in the sun, and it is a holiday, and I donât want to spoil it just because Iâm feeling ugly and unhappy, so I donât even catch up with them after all but take the next turn in the path and go and sit in one of the summer houses and watch the ducks on a tiny pond until Dimbo comes back with his empty bus.
The first night we sleep in a caravan park at Cobar and weâre way out in the real bush now, and the bus company has these neat little two-person tents that you can put up â even the
We detour to Cowra to see the Japanese Gardens and the old prisoner-of-war camp while Dimbo goes off to get petrol and discharge the waste tank of the bus.
âI donât know whatâs wrong with these kids,â he says to Miss Temple.
âTheyâre merely excited.â
âIs that what you call it?â
And Miss Templeâs right, it is a bit like that, theyâre like dogs, especially puppies, sniffing out a new place and wanting to pee all round the edges of it if itâs going to be their home for the next week or so, though even before we get to Cowra, theyâve got bored with racing round, and are sitting in their seats and playing music and quietly punching one another, and some of them have eaten their entire supply of sweets and chocolate for the whole trip and are searching through the pockets of the seats in front of them for the sick bags.
And the Japanese Gardens are interesting and that, and they could be peaceful the way theyâre laid out with bamboo groves and rocks and water features and raked gravel and stone garden beds and everything, and you could imagine people coming here and meditating or just walking on the gravel paths and maybe remembering the dead, but not eighty-five kids who have just spent two and a half hours on a bus and just want to bash the wooden pole against the giant bell at the entrance to let everyone in New South Wales know theyâve arrived and then race around the paths and shriek and hide in the bamboo and reeds and jump out at the Japanese tourist parties and pretend to mow them down with machine guns, or stretch their faces into hideous masks with their thumbs in the corners of their mouths and their fingers pulling at the corners of their eyes and yelling, â Banzai!â and Ah so ,â while the Japanese can only look back at them, and hold their handbags against their stomachs and smile.
And all this, and not knowing what to do about it, and seeing Miss Temple standing off on a tiny curved bridge under a willow tree and gazing into Mr Jasmyneâs glasses, only makes me more scratchy and unhappy than ever, and I go off then to find Toni and when I do I feel worse and even more alone, because I see her on the path by a flower bank and sheâs fooling about and playing up to Mr Prescott, as usual, only this time she has her arm through his and is pretending to walk in a stately way like sheâs a duchess or something out on a Sunday stroll. And all the kids walking with them just laugh and whistle and wave back as she passes giving them this royal wave, and everybodyâs enjoying themselves in the sun, and it is a holiday, and I donât want to spoil it just because Iâm feeling ugly and unhappy, so I donât even catch up with them after all but take the next turn in the path and go and sit in one of the summer houses and watch the ducks on a tiny pond until Dimbo comes back with his empty bus.
The first night we sleep in a caravan park at Cobar and weâre way out in the real bush now, and the bus company has these neat little two-person tents that you can put up â even the
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