none of us had bothered to tell Ryan that Gavin was deaf. So all his calm patient words of advice were wasted.
In the end we decided to divide and conquer. We were getting nowhere arguing with them, our group against theirs. So we made a secret agreement to split them up. Homer scored Gavin. Fi got Natalie, Lee got Jack, and I ended up with Casey.
I don’t know what tactics the others used. At first I was pretty unscrupulous with Casey. I promised her anything and everything. The war would end in a couple of weeks, I’d come and get her from New Zealand, I’d bring her back here, she could stay on our farm ... I felt my heart sink lower with each promise, wondering what would happen if I couldn’t keep them, which seemed more likely than not. I pictured Casey’s tragic face as she sat in front of a hostel in Wellington waiting year after year for me to turn up ...
I guess I’d read too many V.C. Andrews novels. But I was seriously worried about the future for Casey and her friends. I didn’t know how well they’d be looked after in New Zealand, with so many refugees there and everyone frantically busy. And after the war, there’d be a whole new set of problems. How on earth I’d get back in touch with her, and what I’d do then, if she hadn’t found her parents, I hated to think.
Making it worse was the little voice inside me saying, ‘You only want her here for your sake, because you’ll miss her so much. You know the best thing for Casey is to go to New Zealand, even if she doesn’t know it.’
The whole time I was talking Casey sat there with the most miserable expression. It was all very well for me to imagine her looking tragic while she was in New Zealand: she was doing a pretty good job right now. I sat gazing back, wondering what on earth I could do. A strange memory came into my mind. It was of me at the age of seven wanting to know where Mum was. I knew something funny was going on, because when I got home from school Dad was in the kitchen looking at recipe books, trying to work out what we could have for tea. He was acting really oddly, and when I asked where Mum was he said she’d gone away for a bit of a rest. He stuck to that story till she came home a week later. And when I asked her, she said she’d needed some time off. I guess they’d had a fight, but what really annoyed me was that they didn’t tell me the truth. I might have been only seven, but I knew something complicated was happening, more complicated than having time off, or going away for a rest. And I felt that whatever it was I could understand it, I could deal with it. What I couldn’t deal with was being treated like a stupid kid who had to be fed a lot of lies and doubletalk.
I think if you grow up in the bush you can deal with the truth. After all, you see it all around you, all the time. I stopped believing in Santa when I was still pretty young. I couldn’t believe in a guy who gave you something for nothing. You never get that when you’re dealing with Mother Nature. So I took a deep breath and told Casey the truth.
‘Case, I love you so much that it’s like you’re my own sister. If it was up to me, maybe I would just stay with you somewhere safe until the war’s over, one way or another. But the thing is , we all belong to something bigger than ourselves. We belong to our families, our friends, our country, our religion ... oh, help, I think I put those in the wrong order. Anyway, I don’t think it matters what the order is. The main thing is that life isn’t as simple as me saying “I want it, I’ll have it”. While my parents, and your parents, and your brother and sister, and even your guinea-pigs, are prisoners, while this country’s still in the hands of our enemies, we can’t put ourselves first. We can’t even put ourselves second. About three thousandth’d be more like it. That’s why you have to go back to New Zealand. I couldn’t fight this war properly, do what I have to do, if I was
In the end we decided to divide and conquer. We were getting nowhere arguing with them, our group against theirs. So we made a secret agreement to split them up. Homer scored Gavin. Fi got Natalie, Lee got Jack, and I ended up with Casey.
I don’t know what tactics the others used. At first I was pretty unscrupulous with Casey. I promised her anything and everything. The war would end in a couple of weeks, I’d come and get her from New Zealand, I’d bring her back here, she could stay on our farm ... I felt my heart sink lower with each promise, wondering what would happen if I couldn’t keep them, which seemed more likely than not. I pictured Casey’s tragic face as she sat in front of a hostel in Wellington waiting year after year for me to turn up ...
I guess I’d read too many V.C. Andrews novels. But I was seriously worried about the future for Casey and her friends. I didn’t know how well they’d be looked after in New Zealand, with so many refugees there and everyone frantically busy. And after the war, there’d be a whole new set of problems. How on earth I’d get back in touch with her, and what I’d do then, if she hadn’t found her parents, I hated to think.
Making it worse was the little voice inside me saying, ‘You only want her here for your sake, because you’ll miss her so much. You know the best thing for Casey is to go to New Zealand, even if she doesn’t know it.’
The whole time I was talking Casey sat there with the most miserable expression. It was all very well for me to imagine her looking tragic while she was in New Zealand: she was doing a pretty good job right now. I sat gazing back, wondering what on earth I could do. A strange memory came into my mind. It was of me at the age of seven wanting to know where Mum was. I knew something funny was going on, because when I got home from school Dad was in the kitchen looking at recipe books, trying to work out what we could have for tea. He was acting really oddly, and when I asked where Mum was he said she’d gone away for a bit of a rest. He stuck to that story till she came home a week later. And when I asked her, she said she’d needed some time off. I guess they’d had a fight, but what really annoyed me was that they didn’t tell me the truth. I might have been only seven, but I knew something complicated was happening, more complicated than having time off, or going away for a rest. And I felt that whatever it was I could understand it, I could deal with it. What I couldn’t deal with was being treated like a stupid kid who had to be fed a lot of lies and doubletalk.
I think if you grow up in the bush you can deal with the truth. After all, you see it all around you, all the time. I stopped believing in Santa when I was still pretty young. I couldn’t believe in a guy who gave you something for nothing. You never get that when you’re dealing with Mother Nature. So I took a deep breath and told Casey the truth.
‘Case, I love you so much that it’s like you’re my own sister. If it was up to me, maybe I would just stay with you somewhere safe until the war’s over, one way or another. But the thing is , we all belong to something bigger than ourselves. We belong to our families, our friends, our country, our religion ... oh, help, I think I put those in the wrong order. Anyway, I don’t think it matters what the order is. The main thing is that life isn’t as simple as me saying “I want it, I’ll have it”. While my parents, and your parents, and your brother and sister, and even your guinea-pigs, are prisoners, while this country’s still in the hands of our enemies, we can’t put ourselves first. We can’t even put ourselves second. About three thousandth’d be more like it. That’s why you have to go back to New Zealand. I couldn’t fight this war properly, do what I have to do, if I was
Similar Books
