While I Live by John Marsden

could keep both of them amused for hours. ‘He’s such a kid still,’ I thought, looking down at him.
    He marched out of the courtyard, Marmie following eagerly. Instead of throwing the stick he carried it across his shoulder. Without a glance to left or right he went on down into the gully. The first yellow flowers of the broom infestation were already starting to show through. Gavin tossed the stick aside. Marmie reared back in excitement then pounced on it. But to her disappointment, and even though she paraded it right in front of him, Gavin ignored her.
    ‘What is he doing?’ I wondered.
    He went to the fenceline, rolled up his sleeves, and to my utter astonishment pulled out a broom plant, then another and another and another.
    I nearly fell over and rolled all the way to the bottom of the escarpment. Instead I watched with my mouth open as he pulled out plant after plant. He worked steadily and methodically. It was the perfect time to pull out broom, before it flowered and set its seeds, but also because the ground was soft. Pulling it out was the best treatment. Chemicals were expensive and toxic. Slashing caused it to come back the next year with three or four stalks that were much harder to pull, but in some places slashing was the only option. I couldn’t get a slasher into this gully, though.
    The thing about broom is that it spreads so quickly and takes over so much good pasture. Dad had always been trying to persuade Gavin and me to join his anti-broom campaign, but without much success, because it’s pretty boring work.
    ‘Oh, Dad,’ I whispered in my head, ‘come back and I’ll pull out broom forever. I’ll be your broom princess.’
    I’d never really been his princess of anything, but I’d been his mate, his offsider, his advisor, his daughter.
    After twenty minutes I couldn’t stand it any longer. I walked down the hill. Gavin was so absorbed that he didn’t see me coming but Marmie suddenly noticed me and came cavorting over to say hello. Empty-mouthed. She’d given up on the stick.
    Gavin straightened up then. I’d noticed before how aware he was of any change in the environment. Although he had his back to Marmie he seemed to sense that she was reacting to something.
    He took a glance at me and went back to work. That didn’t surprise me. He’d hardly spoken to me the night before. He was furious that I’d given in to Mr Sayle.
    ‘What are you doing?’ I asked him. That was a waste of time as he had his back to me again.
    I shrugged and found my own line of broom parallel to his and started pulling those out. After a while I almost forgot he was there. I got into a rhythm, the way you do. I reduced the boredom by counting the number of plants. I reached my first hundred in four or five minutes.
    I was halfway to my second when suddenly I was attacked. A wild little whirling dervish was whipping me with a long broom plant. I backed off, defending myself with my hands, trying to grab the plant and pull it away.
    ‘Gavin, what is this all about?’
    ‘You’re stupid,’ he yelled. ‘You’re pathetic.’ His eyes were full of tears.
    I screamed back. ‘What do you think? That I want to sell the place? You know I love it here. It’s my home. I thought we’d always be here. I feel as bad as you do. Worse.’
    ‘No you don’t! You’re not even fighting! You don’t care! You’re pathetic!’
    He started ripping broom out of the ground, not caring whether he was getting the roots or not, sobbing as he did it. Suddenly he stopped and turned on me again. ‘You’re a coward! You don’t have guts!’
    ‘It’s not a matter of guts! It’s common sense. It’s money. What would you know about it?’
    ‘Dad wouldn’t give in.’
    I started to answer, then realised with a shock that he was talking about my father. Occasionally he had called him ‘Dad’, but it always seemed like an accident. It took me a moment to recover, then all I could say was, ‘He would when things were