The Road to Gundagai by Jackie French

her nightdress. Aunt Lilac stood by the door. There was no pretence of smiles now.
    They don’t love me, thought Blue. They don’t even like me. They smile and say, ‘Dear Bluebell.’ But it isn’t real. It was what everyone wanted to hear, what I wanted to hear, the loving aunts who take in an orphaned niece. But it is less real than the grizzly bear at the circus.
    Why did they take me in? Because it was their duty? A duty to care for a sick niece? To pretend they cared?
    ‘Get into bed,’ said Aunt Lilac. Blue shuffled as quickly as her scarred legs would allow and lay down. Aunt Lilac nodded at the flask of milk on the bedside table. ‘Now drink your milk.’
    It was easier to do as she was told. It had been easier for months. She could manage to do it now too. Blue drank. Her stomach clenched. But she was able to hold down her gorge for the few seconds it took for the aunts to leave the room, shutting the door behind them. Blue heard the snick of the lock.
    ‘No! Don’t lock me in! Please!’ She hated how her voice trembled, but couldn’t help it.
    Nausea took over. She reached for the washbasin.
    She retched till nothing more would come, then rinsed her mouth out with water, over and over to get rid of the taste. She lay back and looked at the ceiling.
    She was trapped.
    Stop it, she told herself. There won’t be another fire. Aunt Lilac will unlock the door tomorrow. And I won’t let her shut me in again. I’ll write to Uncle Herbert from the spa. Someone will post the letter for me. I’ll ask him to take me away.
    There had to be somewhere else she could go. Anywhere, except this stuffy house and its liver custards and aunts who dragged her back from the circus, who locked her in her room like a naughty child.
    Trapped …
    She forced her mind away from that thought. Could the aunts really force her to live with them till she was twenty-one? She didn’t even know if they were her legal guardians. She had simply done what she was told, like a child, ever since the fire. No wonder they treated her like one.
    Uncle Herbert had mentioned a nursing home. A nursing home would be better than this. Patients in nursing homes might be allowed a night out at a circus …
    But it would be better to be well. I will get well, she told herself. She’d go to a nursing home and drink warm milk and … and whatever else it took.
    But she would get better. And she’d leave this house that smelled like a long-closed linen cupboard. After she had got well, Uncle Herbert might help her find somewhere else to live. Maybe there was some way of getting her money before she was twenty-five, if she really needed it. Uncle Herbert would know. It was the sort of thing men did know.
    But what if Uncle Herbert didn’t answer her letter? What if there were no post offices near the Temperance Spa to even send the letter? What if Aunt Lilac had just said they were going to a Temperance Spa, where people might hear her, but they were really taking her somewhere else?
    No. She was being hysterical, just because she was scared of a door that wouldn’t open, no matter how much you tugged at it, or how loud you screamed. The aunts had no reason to hide her away, except from those who’d stare at her. They’d just never thought to tell Uncle Herbert where they’d gone.
    And if Uncle Herbert didn’t come and rescue her, she’d manage somehow. How did women who had no husbands survive, and who couldn’t work? Invalid women took in sewing, except she was no good at sewing. Ironing then: she’d never ironed anything, but it couldn’t be too hard. Or washing. Would people bring their washing to a girl who was scarred and bald? She could buy a scarf to hide the scars on her neck. If her hair stopped falling out, she could have it shingled. It wouldn’t look so bad if it was cut short …
    She shut her eyes and tried to think of hair salons, and not of locked doors and fire.
    She woke when someone pulled her toe. She opened her eyes,