hair.
“Mum said you're not allowed to talk like that,” said Danielle.
“I'll talk how I like,” said Nanna.
“Suit yourself,” said Beth.
“Don't be smart,” said Nanna, and then she started talking in biblical phrases.
“I know thy pride and the naughtiness of thine hearts.”
“O-K,” said Beth, pronouncing it slowly and widening her eyes at Danielle.
“You are all from the basket of bad figs. So bad, so evil, they cannot be eaten.”
Danielle started laughing.
“Out, out,” said Nanna, and she would send us out into the backyard.
Usually we sat beneath the rain tree and if it was in bloom let the nectar rain on us and plucked the sicklysweet pom-pom flowers and held them like powder puffs to our noses. Or if it wasn't we picked the yellow rattlepods and opened them carefully and examined the small brown seeds sleeping in their little beds.
And sometimes Beth stood up and cleared a patch of earth with her bare foot and did pirouettes one after another until she was dizzy. Or sometimes handstands. Or sometimes cartwheels. Nanna would open the kitchen window and yell at her to stop it before she broke her neck. Beth would roll her eyes when Nanna had shut the window again.
Sometimes we'd step over the blurred edge of the yard into the desert, just one foot, the way some people test the temperature of the sea.
Angela was impatient with
The Book of Clues.
She thought all the answers should come at once. She carried the book with her on weekends when we walked along the dry creek bed through the sunbaked suburbs. She carried it in the back elastic of her shorts. She twirled the pencil in her fingers. All she had written inside was:
still singing at the lake.
everything glowing.
beth meets miranda.
She had crossed out hair combs in the list of things in the box as a clue to anything.
On the cover she had drawn a girl in a love-heart dress. She had long yellow hair rolling over her scrawny shoulders. Her eyes had eyelashes straight as toothpicks.
“Who's that supposed to be?” I asked. “No one,” she said. “It's just a picture.” “It's pretty dumb,” I said. “It better not be Beth.” “Don't get your knickers in a knot.” I was still breaking things. Small things: Danielle's bluebird necklace, the handle off Aunty Cheryl's special teacup that she used when she came to visit us, Kylie's left-behind wristwatch. I hadn't stopped since the day when I broke Barbie Ken's legs.
I thought if I could get hold of
The Book of Clues
it could accidentally go missing. But Angela guarded it carefully. I thought she was stupid for thinking she would ever find my voice, that it was all a simple puzzle that could be solved. But I didn't say anything. If I told her it was way more difficult than that, then she would ask me to explain. And I couldn't, not properly; not Beth locked up in her room like Rapunzel, the running and falling with scissors, cicadas screaming and a storm, the lake breathing slowly against the shore.
Angela thought if we could find where I lost my singing voice it would be given back but I knew that wasn't true. I knew I was never going to sing again. We walked up the slope of Memorial Park to theswing, to the place where Beth first met Miranda. The swing was empty. There was only the groaning of road trains on the highway. A cloud of red dust had blown into town and settled over everything. It sat at the bottom of the sky. It covered the swing seat and the splinter-filled seesaw.
There were hawks twisting in the sky.
I wanted to see a letter-winged kite. The letter-winged kite's Latin name is
Elanus scriptus
and it is my third-favorite bird. It has a body white as snow and black wings. When its wings are closed it looks just like the black-shouldered kite but when it soars it has two
M
s written beneath like black lightning strikes. Once when I did a talk on the letter-winged kite Mrs. Bridges-Lamb asked if the class had any questions and Massimo Gentili put up his
“Mum said you're not allowed to talk like that,” said Danielle.
“I'll talk how I like,” said Nanna.
“Suit yourself,” said Beth.
“Don't be smart,” said Nanna, and then she started talking in biblical phrases.
“I know thy pride and the naughtiness of thine hearts.”
“O-K,” said Beth, pronouncing it slowly and widening her eyes at Danielle.
“You are all from the basket of bad figs. So bad, so evil, they cannot be eaten.”
Danielle started laughing.
“Out, out,” said Nanna, and she would send us out into the backyard.
Usually we sat beneath the rain tree and if it was in bloom let the nectar rain on us and plucked the sicklysweet pom-pom flowers and held them like powder puffs to our noses. Or if it wasn't we picked the yellow rattlepods and opened them carefully and examined the small brown seeds sleeping in their little beds.
And sometimes Beth stood up and cleared a patch of earth with her bare foot and did pirouettes one after another until she was dizzy. Or sometimes handstands. Or sometimes cartwheels. Nanna would open the kitchen window and yell at her to stop it before she broke her neck. Beth would roll her eyes when Nanna had shut the window again.
Sometimes we'd step over the blurred edge of the yard into the desert, just one foot, the way some people test the temperature of the sea.
Angela was impatient with
The Book of Clues.
She thought all the answers should come at once. She carried the book with her on weekends when we walked along the dry creek bed through the sunbaked suburbs. She carried it in the back elastic of her shorts. She twirled the pencil in her fingers. All she had written inside was:
still singing at the lake.
everything glowing.
beth meets miranda.
She had crossed out hair combs in the list of things in the box as a clue to anything.
On the cover she had drawn a girl in a love-heart dress. She had long yellow hair rolling over her scrawny shoulders. Her eyes had eyelashes straight as toothpicks.
“Who's that supposed to be?” I asked. “No one,” she said. “It's just a picture.” “It's pretty dumb,” I said. “It better not be Beth.” “Don't get your knickers in a knot.” I was still breaking things. Small things: Danielle's bluebird necklace, the handle off Aunty Cheryl's special teacup that she used when she came to visit us, Kylie's left-behind wristwatch. I hadn't stopped since the day when I broke Barbie Ken's legs.
I thought if I could get hold of
The Book of Clues
it could accidentally go missing. But Angela guarded it carefully. I thought she was stupid for thinking she would ever find my voice, that it was all a simple puzzle that could be solved. But I didn't say anything. If I told her it was way more difficult than that, then she would ask me to explain. And I couldn't, not properly; not Beth locked up in her room like Rapunzel, the running and falling with scissors, cicadas screaming and a storm, the lake breathing slowly against the shore.
Angela thought if we could find where I lost my singing voice it would be given back but I knew that wasn't true. I knew I was never going to sing again. We walked up the slope of Memorial Park to theswing, to the place where Beth first met Miranda. The swing was empty. There was only the groaning of road trains on the highway. A cloud of red dust had blown into town and settled over everything. It sat at the bottom of the sky. It covered the swing seat and the splinter-filled seesaw.
There were hawks twisting in the sky.
I wanted to see a letter-winged kite. The letter-winged kite's Latin name is
Elanus scriptus
and it is my third-favorite bird. It has a body white as snow and black wings. When its wings are closed it looks just like the black-shouldered kite but when it soars it has two
M
s written beneath like black lightning strikes. Once when I did a talk on the letter-winged kite Mrs. Bridges-Lamb asked if the class had any questions and Massimo Gentili put up his
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