For Diane McCudden, who was the

inspiration for this book and the greatest

help in getting it right, and for Sarah,

who gave me the Wonngai stories.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Also by the Author

Copyright

About the Publisher

Chapter One

Of course it would have to be the day the truant-cop brought me home, that this unbelievable woman turned up who was going to change my life.

Me and Loretta’d decided to bunk off after lunch. We had a great time… up to the point we were caught. First thing I wanted to do was change out of my rotten uniform. I’d brought a crop-top and we went to a café. Loretta marched straight through to the toilet with her head in the air, as if we were their best customers, and I changed. I had to keep my school skirt on, but I rolled the waistband down as far as I dared and stuffed my blazer and shirt into my school bag. Loretta didn’t change. I guessed why. She gave my bare middle a pat and said, “Let’s go.”

So then we went and had our nails done – her sister’s a manicurist and she gave us two for the price of one when her manageress wasn’t looking. Loretta paid. She’s always got plenty of dosh. I had mine painted half white and half magenta, with squared-off points. Loretta had hers blue with silver stars stuck on each fingernail and moons on the thumbs. She bites hers so she couldn’t do much about the sticking-out part – cos mine were longer she was really jealous.

Then we went to the covered market. There’s a stall there that only sells lacy underwear. The woman who keeps the stall had nipped off to the loo and while she was gone Loretta nicked some pants and a matching bra. That was just for starters.

I didn’t nick anything. From this point in time, a year later, I’m glad I didn’t, but at the time – I have to tell the truth – it wasn’t because I was dead honest, it was because I bottled it. I didn’t know how she did it, she was so quick you couldn’t even see her hands move. For the undies, she suddenly said, “Oh, look!” She pointed at something, and I looked where she pointed, and by the time I looked back she was moving away and the bra and pants were already stuffed up her school shirt, under her arm. (That was why she hadn’t changed. You can’t stuff much up a crop-top.) I didn’t even know it till we got away from the stall and she showed me a tiny corner of the pants, yellowy-green and lacy. She was giggling like crazy. She showed them to me properly when we went back into the café. She got all her loot out of various hiding places, and laid it out on her knee under the table.

“Wicked,” I said. But then I saw the pants were a size sixteen. “What d’you nick those for? You won’t fit them.”

“I’m not fussy,” she said. “Turns me on, nicking things. I’ll give ’em to my mum.”

“Won’t she ask where you got them?”

“Not her. Why should she? Pennies from heaven. I mean pants.”

“Does she know you go on the rob?”

She shrugged. She’d got this round face, and while I’d been changing she’d been putting on lots of make-up. She pulled funny faces all the time, too, and now she crossed her eyes and wobbled her head. Loretta thought everything was one big joke, but when I asked if she wasn’t scared of getting caught she looked at me as if I was nuts, as if bad things could never happen to her.

Well, a bad thing happened to both of us that day, because we were just coming out of the café when the truant wagon draws up and a truant-cop gets out right in front of us.

“Afternoon, young ladies,” he says, all polite, but stern with it. “Shouldn’t you two be in school?”

I’m half up the nearest wall, straight off, don’t know what to say, but Loretta’s dead cool. She tosses her head and goes, “We had exams today and we finished early so we were allowed to go.”

“Exams at the beginning of November? I don’t think so!”

“They’re special ones for high achievers,” she says. “Extra.” Honest, she’s incredible.

“High achievers, eh?” he says. “Well, it’s always nice to meet clever girls. We’ll just make sure, shall we?” He looks at her blazer and straight off knows what school we’re from by the badge, gets out his mobile and just clicks one button. He must have all the local school numbers in its memory. Of course I know right off the game’s up, and so does Loretta, but while I’m stood there nearly wetting myself in panic she’s leaning against a shop front, looking at her new silver-star nails. You’d’ve never thought she had all that nicked gear in her school bag.

By the time he’d found out that his suspicions were right – our school’d just put in the new computer program for spotting bunkers – it was too late to take us back to school, so he bundled us into his van (Loretta actually demanded to see his ID!) and took us home. When she got out of the van first, she gave me one of her funny looks and at the last moment, do you know what she did, she dumped her school bag on my lap and said, “Can you take this to your place? I’ll come round and revise with you after I have my piano lesson.” Piano lesson my bum – she just didn’t want to risk being caught with the loot.

She nearly landed me in it as well, because the truant-cop soon spotted that I lived too far away for her to “come round” easily. He made some suspicious remark, gave me a funny look and then he looked at the school bag. I thought he was going to reach for it and I was terrified, but something distracted him and next thing I remember we were climbing the stone steps to Mum’s and my flat.

“You don’t have to come up with me,” I muttered, but he came anyway of course. He would. He hadn’t gone to Loretta’s door, only mine. Story of my life with Loretta. She did all the villainy and I was the one who copped it.

“I need to have a word with your mum,” he said.

Well, I wasn’t too worried because I thought she’d probably be at work. She often does the afternoon shift at Safeways. I got my key out, but before I could open the door it was flung open from inside and there she was. She looked as if someone had given her an E or something, her eyes were bulging and her voice was all shrill.

“You’ll never guess who’s here!” she said loudly. “Not in a million years!” She was making her eye signals. When Mum gets going with her eye signals you’d think she was going to have a fit.

Then she saw the truant-cop behind me and stopped dead.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“I’m the truant officer, madam,” he said. “We found your daughter outside the market when she should have been at school. I don’t know if this is the first time she’s truanted, but I’m sure you understand that if she does it too often you may be held responsible.”

Mum looked gobsmacked. She pulled me in through the door by the arm.

“She won’t do it again,” she said. “I’ll see to that.” But she said it very faintly, almost whispering. “Thank you.” And she closed the door on him.

“You don’t have to thank him, Mum,” I said. “Big buttin! We only took the afternoon off.”

She put her finger to her lips – shhhh. Then I remembered what she’d said, before.

“What did you mean about someone being here?”

“I don’t want you playing truant, Stace,” she said in that same whisper. “Did you know mothers can go to prison if they let their kids bunk off?”

“Not the first time, Mum, only if you never make me go to school. So who’s here?”

She was still whispering, her eyes rolling like some loony. “Someone I don’t want you to shame me in front of,” she said. “Your other nan.”

I gawped at her. “What you mean, other nan?” I said like an idiot.

“Your other grandma.”

My other grandma? Well, nobody has more than two. The nan I knew about was my mum’s mum, so this one must be—

But that was impossible.

Now Mum was squeezing my arm tight and kind of wheeling me up to the mirror that hangs in our little lobby where we hang our coats. She was eye-signalling more madly than ever. I tried to read the signals. I’m quite good at it – I should be, after fourteen years’ practice. It was something like, I hadn’t a clue she was coming… she’s in the living room… I nearly died… the place is such a tip… so are you… for God’s sake do something about it before you go in there!

No, I’m not pretending to be that good. Her hands were signalling, too. They were fussing about all over me. Trying to pull my top down to cover my middle. Unrolling my skirt and pulling it up (and down). Reaching into her handbag, fetching out a grotty little comb and thrusting it at me, talking in that loud voice all the time.

“Think of it, Stacey, all the way from Australia! Of course she wrote to warn us but she forgot to put enough stamps on it – it must still be on a boat somewhere! Never MIND, it’s just so great to see her, aren’t you excited that she’s come to see us, I am!” I know, I know – it’s terrible – but PLEASE remember your manners! signalled her eyes. They were now crossing and rolling so much I was afraid they’d fall out.

I scraped the comb over my hair, just to shut her up (I’d done my hair that morning with Just Out Of Bed: Keep That Messed-up Look All Day wax) and went into the living room. I admit I was curious. Who wouldn’t be? Because this was my dad’s mum. Why would she come to see us from Australia, when Dad never did from Greville Drive, two miles away? Didn’t she know he’d scarpered?

In the doorway, I stopped dead. A kind of vision was sitting there on our sofa.

She had short curly hair, very blue-rinsed and just-been-done, and a two-piece suit with a short skirt and high-heeled shoes to match. Underneath her jacket she wore a fancy spotted blouse with ruffles and a bow at the neck. All of it was in shades of mauve and purple. And lots and lots of make-up. The eye make-up was purple, too. And she was smiling a big smile with bright white (false?) teeth.

“Blossom, come to Grandma!” she said in an Aussie accent that’d put Neighbours to shame, and reached for me.

Mum gave me a push from behind. I sort of fell forward into this stranger’s arms. She smelt as if she’d emptied a bottle of Eau de Pong over herself. That, and spearmint, from the gum she was chewing. The gum-chewing didn’t go with any other thing about her.

After she’d hugged and kissed me she pulled me down on the sofa beside her.

“You ravishing little angel!” she cried. “Aren’t you pretty, you little wavy blondie, you! With those blue eyes! You get those from me!” She batted her mascaraed eyelashes. She had blue eyes, just like my dad. “And I love your nails! If only mine were long, I’d have ’em done just like yours! Oh, why did I wait this long to meet you? You and me are just going to be the pals of the millennium!” She had one arm round my neck and she was holding my head on her shoulder. I thought my head would come off, but I managed to straighten up before it did.

“You two have just the cosiest little nest here!” the vision was saying, looking round our hovel. I saw her glancing at some of the photos. There were still ones of Dad and of him and Mum together on their wedding day, and of the three of us, all of which I’d have chucked in the bin the day he bombed off. In fact I did, but Mum fished them out, and she was crying so much I hadn’t the heart to chuck them again. “Little nest” was about right. With three of us in the living room, it felt like three cuckoos were squashed into a sparrow’s nest.

Mum looks a bit like a sparrow. I read that sparrows, which used to be the British birds we had the most of, are dying out for some reason, pollution maybe, and no wonder – you can hardly breathe where we live. Now Mum looked as if she might be the last of them. She has these round bright eyes, and she’s soft and small with little pecky movements. She wasn’t actually fluttering and twittering, but I knew she was, inside.

“D’you want a cup of tea, Mrs, er—” She stopped. Her face turned red. I heard myself say, a bit impatiently I admit, “Denton, Mum, it must be.” Of course this nan must have the same name as us, my dad’s name.

But she said, “Oh, call me Glendine, lovies, everyone does! We can’t have two Mrs Dentons, can we? Too confusing! Besides,” she added, “I don’t suppose you want to be reminded of a certain Mr Run-Rabbit-Run.”

I couldn’t believe it. Dad was this woman’s son. I kept staring at her, trying to connect her to Dad. Apart from the eyes, she didn’t look anything like him. And she was slagging him off. It was weird.

Grandma said, “Did I hear the word ‘tea’? Because I’d kill for some.” And she got up off the sofa. God, she was tall! That was like Dad. Her blue rinse nearly bumped the ceiling. Then she said, “But first I need a sweet pea.” I must’ve looked blank because she laughed. “Point me at the dunny, darling, I’m busting.” When I still looked blank, she said, “The la. The loo. The potty-house. The toilet!” I don’t know why I was so embarrassed. Everyone has to go. It was just that my other nan would never mention toilets or anything else she calls “vulgar”. When she has to go, she says, “I’m off to the excuse-me.”

It turned out the vision preferred the kitchen, where we normally eat, to the living room. But she looked all wrong in there. Like a tropical bush in a window box.

She sat perched on a high stool at the counter, with her legs crossed. She had nice legs for an old woman, I’ll say that, and she liked showing them off and all.

There was no problem about keeping the conversation going. She just couldn’t stop gassing. She said the long flight from Australia had nearly killed her.

“I simply have to stretch out, petals,” she said. “If I can’t stretch my poor old legs, they get cramp.” She stuck them straight out in front of her and nearly fell off the stool. “Ooops! No, but I’m serious. I was in agony! In the night when the crew turned the lights off and went behind their curtains, Glendine went on the prowl. I found a lovely little cave behind the last row of seats. So I went and got my rug and my tiny cushion and I just laid down—”

“You lay on the floor?” gasped Mum. She was staring at her as if she’d come out of a flying saucer.

“Why not? It was quite comfy, I got a lovely kip. But of course my feet stuck out, and in the morning, a steward tripped over them! Just about broke me bloody ankle. You’d think he’d apologise, but not a bit of it – he was livid. ‘Madam,’ he said, ‘lying on the floor of the aircraft is strictly against regulations, you will have to return to your seat!’ I sat up and gave him my biggest smile. I said, ‘Of course, pet, no worries.’ And I gave him my hand, to pull me up, very graciously, just like the Queen. I got back to my seat in nice time for brekky. And then, would you believe? They made a special announcement to the whole plane that it was forbidden to lay down on the floor! I think they had to make a new regulation, just for Glendine!”

Me and Mum laughed. I thought, I bet everywhere you go, they have to make up new regulations just for you. I didn’t know how right I was.

We were halfway through tea (she still hadn’t stopped talking) when I started thinking about where she was going to stay.

Surely not with us? We only have two bedrooms. I had another thought. Where was her luggage? Of course! It must be at her hotel. Phew.

After tea I excused myself and went to my room. When I opened the door, I got a mega shock. I saw where her luggage was, all right.

I counted the pieces. There were four and a half. They all matched – bright orange with yellow sunflowers all over them – and went from a small box-thing on a shoulder strap, to a trunk. You certainly couldn’t miss them coming around on the airport carousel. You couldn’t miss them in my room, either. In fact I could hardly get in for them.

I suddenly felt desperate. Not only was she planning to stay – she must be planning to stay for ever.

Just then Mum came in behind me. She shut the door. We were squeezed together behind the trunk. She said, in a very soft voice, “Yes. I’m sorry, Stace.”

I just stared at her. Then I whispered, “How did all this stuff get here?”

“She came from the airport in two taxis. The taxi-men carried it up. She tipped them a tenner each!”

“She must be rotten with dosh. Why doesn’t she go to a hotel?”

“She said she wants to be with us.”

“Can’t she see we’ve got no room?”

“I – I’m afraid I said you wouldn’t mind moving in with me.”

I couldn’t speak for a moment. For horror.

“But I’ll have to sleep in your bed!” I wailed.

“Shhh! We must be nice to her.”

I didn’t feel like shushing. “Why?”

“I don’t know really,” said Mum. “I just know we must.”

That was so like Mum. You probably think she was thinking that this person was rich and we ought to suck up to her, maybe, but that wasn’t it. Mum doesn’t know why anything. She just does things. It’s like she acts on instinct. I bet if someone had asked her why she was marrying my dad, she’d have said, in that same helpless voice, “I don’t know exactly. I just know I must.”

Come to that, I bet Nan did ask her. Nan stayed married to my grandad for forty-two years and she’d be married to him still if he hadn’t gone and died. She’d never have married a no-hoper like Dad. Fancy watching your kid do something that stupid and not be able to talk her out of it. That’s why I’d decided I was never going to get married. Even if I’d liked boys, which naturally, considering what a bunch of duck-brained wussy creeps they are, I did not, I wouldn’t let myself get tied up to someone who might run out on me and leave me penniless and probably up the duff. (Of course Mum’s too old to be up the duff. Which is one good thing at least.)

Anyhow, there it was. I kicked up a terrible fuss (but quietly – even I didn’t want the vision to hear) but in the end I had to move out of my room. I was so upset I was crying. We carried my clothes and the rest of my clobber into Mum’s room. She’s got the double bed from when Dad was around. At least she had a washbasin in the room. I thought, Good, cos I bet when “Glen-deen” – of all the stupid names – gets in the bathroom, she puts down roots. This was going to be a nightmare.

I started to sink down on the bed. Mum pulled me up before I touched. “No, you don’t. Back you go and talk to her. I’ll arrange your stuff.”

“Mum! I won’t know where anything is!”

“I’m going to give you half of all my space. Even my dressing-table top.”

“Big deal!”

“Yes, it is. Now go and talk to your grandmother.”

“What am I supposed to call her? I’m not calling her Nan, I’ve got a nan already!”

“Call her Grandma then.”

I went slowly back into the kitchen. Grandma (ugh! Who says “Grandma”?) was washing the tea things at the sink. I took over – she was a guest after all.

She took off Dad’s stripy apron. “Did my wild Australian boy leave this?” she said, dangling it. “I bet that’s all he did leave! I never saw the domestic side of him, I must say! When did he nick off, the little mongrel?”

I was shocked rigid. She was his mum, after all. Mums are supposed to be on their kids’ side. “Two years ago,” I mumbled.

That shook her.

“Two years… And I never knew! Any excuses?”

“No. Him and Mum had a last row. He slammed out and that was it.”

“You don’t know where he is?”

“Yeah, we do. Living with his girlfriend in Greville Drive.”

“Where’s Greville Drive?”

“Ten minutes’ bus ride from here.”

“So how come he sent me a postcard from Thailand?”

I nearly dropped a mug. Thailand? My mouth went all dry.

Grandma went on, “It just about made me throw up from shame.”

I said, “Please – uh – Grandma – Glendine, don’t tell Mum. Greville Drive was bad enough.”

“I bet!” she said. “When I saw that postcard I thought, sounds like he’s living it up. That’s when I decided to pack up and come over and see how you fellas were getting on.” Well, we’re not, I thought. We’re in the crap. We’ve got no money, Mum’s working her socks off at the checkout and everything’s horrible. What can you do about it?

Then I remembered those ten-quid tips. And the posh luggage. And the way she dressed. I couldn’t help it – I thought, She’s really rich. I wondered why Dad never mentioned that. He never had any readies. Whenever he had a job, we didn’t see much money from it. Most of it went on booze. And dope, if you ask me. We didn’t know that for sure, and he always flat denied it, but there’s a difference between the way people get when they’re pissed and when they’re stoned.

“How do you think he managed to go to Thailand?” Grandma was asking.

After a bit, I said, “I think his girlfriend had some money.”

My mum had called her a little slapper, among other things I won’t repeat. But Greville Drive is quite posh. Compared to our road, anyway. It was houses, not flats. She most likely put up the cash. She was probably in Phoo-kuk or whatever the place is called with him right this minute, lying on a beach wearing three triangles of lace tied on with string, under a bunch of palm trees. Thinking of this made me want to throw up. Not from shame, though. From rage. Whatever problems I have with my mum, she doesn’t deserve to be treated like that.

Chapter Two

Grandma Glendine settled in with us.

I hated her being there, but not because of her so much. It was because I had to share Mum’s room. And Mum not only smokes – she snores.

“Mum! Roll over!” I’d shout when her snores were driving me wild. The most infuriating thing was that Mum simply refused to believe that she snored.

“It’s lies, I don’t! Dad would’ve told me.”

“Probably too stoned to notice.” I shouldn’t have said that. She just turned her back and her shoulders started to shake. I knew she was still crazy for him.

Somehow Gran – I’d decided to call her just Gran – arranged her things in my room. She used all that luggage as extra furniture. The trunk turned into a table. Gran wrote loads of postcards on it, all touristy pictures of London, beefeaters at the Tower, guards at Buckingham Palace, that kind of thing. Even some of Princess Diana. She said a funny thing about her, that I should have taken more notice of at the time, but I didn’t.

“I remember exactly where I was when I heard she’d died. I was skinning a kangaroo.”

I don’t know why I didn’t pick up on that. I just thought it was a joke or something. I sometimes think I’m not very bright.

The other suitcases were piled up and she stood things on them. She’d brought lots of interesting things with her.

There were postcards of pictures all painted in dots. I couldn’t make them out until she explained them. They were painted by Australian natives and were all in code. A fire was a bunch of red dots, for instance, and white dotted lines were trips their ancestors made in something called the Dreamtime, across the outback. That’s the middle of Australia where it’s all desert. And there were special kinds of dots for animals or their footprints, or curvy coloured lines for snake tracks. The animals were wonderful weird kinds. I loved those postcards and Gran gave me some to stick up on my side of Mum’s dressing-table mirror.

Then there were some wooden animals with burn marks on them. Big lizardy things called goannas, and snakes (I wouldn’t even touch those. God how I hated snakes, not that I’d ever seen a live one). She had miniature wooden things like long bowls and something called a throwing stick, for spears, she said. She gave me a boomerang, only where would I have space to try throwing it? She showed me a picture of a didgeridoo, a musical instrument, which is a long, thick pipe. It gets hollowed out by termites, and it’s so heavy you have to rest the far end, the end away from your mouth, on the ground. She told me women aren’t allowed to play it because it’s symbolic, you can guess what of!

She showed off her clothes. They were sort of naff in a way, but rich-naff, not like Mum’s shell suit that I told her not to buy at the Oxfam shop (but of course she did). It’s a sort of metal-pink. I die every time she goes out in it.

Gran took us out. Not on week nights, she was very hot on me getting to bed early so I wouldn’t be tired at school, but on Fridays and Saturdays. She took us for meals out, and not at the local dumps, either, except once we took her to one of the African cafés for the experience. I took her around the market a couple of times, she said she loved it, which was quite something, because it can be fun in the summer, but it’s pretty dismal in the rain. Mainly though, she wanted to treat us. Once we went to a Holiday Inn right up West and had a really swish meal with proper waiters. That was the night she took us to see the show at the Hippodrome. It was amazing. I’d never seen a live act before. She took us to loads of good movies too. We took taxis and minicabs everywhere, she wouldn’t ride the buses or trains.

She talked. How she talked! And she wanted me to talk, too. When I came home from school she asked me to tell her my whole day. I was used to slumping in front of the telly after school to chill out. Now I had to articulate. She soon spotted I hated school. She never mentioned the truant-cop, but I think she’d heard, or maybe Mum had ratted on me.

“It’s really bad not to like school, sweetie,” she said. (By now I’d lost count of all her pet names for me.) “You have to get your priorities right. School’s a top priority at your age.”

“It’s so boring.”

“It’s up to teachers to make learning fun.”

“Tell that to ours,” I said.

“Kids have to make an effort too,” she said. She fixed me with her eyes. She wasn’t reproaching me exactly, more sort of measuring me. “Isn’t there any lesson you like?”

I didn’t answer at once. I didn’t want to tell her I quite liked English, for some reason. I fancied myself as an anti-school rebel, like Loretta. But she kept her eyes fixed on me, so in the end I muttered that computer studies weren’t bad.

Gran brightened up. “Oh, good that you like computers! I’m surprised you don’t have one at home.”

I gave Mum a look. I’d begged, just about on my knees, for a home computer. I’d told her, like one million times, that my teacher said that was one reason why I wasn’t keeping up, cos I didn’t have a PC. I was pretty well the only one in my class that didn’t. (Well, that was what I told Mum anyway.)

“Now don’t start, Stace, you don’t need a computer!” Mum snapped at me. “It’s up to the school to make you keep up, without telling me I ought to spend hundreds of pounds we haven’t got.”

“Of course she needs one,” said Gran. “A good one, with a colour printer and a scanner and all the bits. Christmas is coming, isn’t that right, cherry pie?” and she winked at me.

“Glendine! Don’t even think about it, please!” said Mum. “I couldn’t accept it.”

“Rubbish! Why not?”

“Because… I don’t know why not. I just feel I couldn’t.” Typical Mum. Gran just smiled her big white smile. (Her teeth weren’t false. I knew because Nan’s were and I could tell the difference, close to.) I felt my heart sort of bob up and down. I knew I’d get a computer for Christmas and there wasn’t a thing Mum could do about it.

I had it all worked out by the beginning of December. Where I’d set it up would be in the living room. I’d surf the net and send e-mails and join chat rooms and play computer games. I might even use it for a bit of schoolwork.

But then in the end I didn’t get a computer at all. Because Gran got a better idea.

She told me it was a secret.

“Not a word to Mum yet! I’m going to kidnap you.”

“Go on, Gran. You’re just having me on, right?”

“I’m serious. I couldn’t be more serious if I tried.”

I couldn’t take it in at first. It was too amazing. She wanted to take me to Australia for the Christmas holiday!

I was, like, ecstatic. The more she told me about Australia, the more I wanted to see it. She made it sound so exciting. She had a wonderful book with coloured photos in. Everything looked so different from boring old England.

It seemed like the sun shone all the time, there was tons of swimming and sports, and lots of wildlife. I’m really into wildlife, on the telly, that is. There’s not much of it in south London – unless you count birds. And I saw an urban fox once. But foxes and pigeons don’t stack up against dingoes and koalas and wallabies and wombats and duck-billed platypuses. That’s aside from kangaroos, which have been my favourite animal since I had a Kanga and Roo toy when I was little. The snakes put me off a bit, but I tried not to think about them. Or the crocodiles. We’ve got no dangerous animals at all in Britain, unless you count the Loch Ness Monster and the Beast of Bodmin Moor, which nobody really believes in. About our most dangerous thing apart from Rottweilers is mosquitoes. (OK, adders. But in London? Get real.)

But what I wanted to see most was the outback, because I’d seen videos of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and Crocodile Dundee. But it was because of Gran’s things, too, what she called her Aboriginal artefacts. I wanted to meet some of those people.

“There are big mobs of Wonngais where I come from,” she said carelessly. “I’ll introduce you.”

I was just so scared Mum wouldn’t let me go.

“Don’t you worry about that! You leave your mum to me.”

But before she could tackle Mum, something really radical happened.

When I think back to it now, I remember what a good day we’d had, the day before. First off, we’d had a row, because I’d been to Loretta’s, supposedly just for a sleepover, and of course we weren’t supposed to go anywhere, but we did. We sneaked out to a party and danced and, yes, we did drink a few alcopops, actually more than a few, but it wouldn’t have mattered – I mean we didn’t get legless or anything, we were just enjoying ourselves. But by the lousiest luck on earth, the son of a friend of Mum’s was there (the others were mostly older than us) and he must’ve ratted on me. When I got home the next morning, which was Saturday and Mum’s day off from the checkout, Mum was waiting for me. She was practically jumping up and down. It was just lucky for me Gran was there or I would’ve really copped it. Even as it was, Mum dragged me off to our room and had a hissy-fit and I had one back, but even the hissing was kind of muffled because we knew Gran was listening.

When I can’t yell back at Mum it all sort of turns inwards – I felt all screwed up inside and I just lay on the bed crying and feeling like it was the end of the world. Of course Loretta wasn’t going to cop it, was she. Just me. And Mum’d grounded me for two weeks, just when there were Christmas parties and other things coming up.

Then I heard Gran’s and Mum’s voices and I tried to listen, but all I could tell was that Gran was trying to calm Mum down. After a bit, Mum crept back into our room and sat down on the bed and said, in that little-girl way she has, “Gran’s on your side. She says it was only a bit of fun and I’m too hard on you. She says I should do more things with you and then you wouldn’t want to get away from me all the time and be rebellious.” (Can you imagine? She is so transparent. But it’s sort of sweet in a way, she just can’t play the heavy-mother game for long, it isn’t in her nature.) I sniffed and blew my nose and said, “Like what things?” I mean, what could she possibly have in mind that was interesting? But your parents can surprise you, just sometimes.

“How would you like to get your bellybutton pierced?”

I sat up on the bed and stared at her, eyes boggling.

“What?”

She said it again, and then she said something even more unexpected.

“I’ve always wanted a bellybutton ring. We could do it together.”

Well, of course, that did it. Mother and daughter bellybutton rings. I ask you. Who could hold out against that? Because I knew as sure as eggs is eggs (as Nan says) that having any part of her pierced was the last thing on earth Mum had ever dreamt of, I mean otherwise she wouldn’t still be wearing clip-on earrings and always losing them.

So off we went that same day and had our bellybuttons pierced together at that place on the high street. She went absolutely white as a ghost when it was her turn and I suddenly felt I loved her. You know when you sort of love someone all the time, in the background, with rows and sulks and stuff going on in the foreground, you forget to really feel it, and then unexpectedly you do feel it and it nearly knocks you down. I gave her a big hug and said, “You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to, Mum,” but she said she did want to and in she went to the torture chamber, brave as a lion, and had it done. And now we both had a sort of secret together because she said she’d never show hers, it would just be for me to know about. (She went all quiet for a bit after she said it, and I knew she was thinking “Except Dad if he ever comes back.” But I was pretty sure he never would, and she knew that, so she didn’t say it aloud. She hates me telling her to get real.)

Afterwards she took me out for a pizza and it was a good laugh. We talked, mainly about our sore bellybuttons it’s true, but a bit about other things, and I told her all about the party and I heard myself promise never to go to one again where there was alcohol, until she told me I could. (To be honest, it was a bit scary, practically everyone there was older than us and there were some dodgy types among the boys – I mean apart from that rotten sneak. One of them touched my tummy. I didn’t tell Mum that of course.)

In the afternoon we met Gran and she took us to a movie, her choice. She wanted us to see an Australian film called Rabbit-Proof Fence. It was really wonderful, all about two Aborigine sisters, young kids, who run away from this horrible school and walk hundreds of miles through a desert to get home. It was really sad, especially at the end when you saw these women who were the real girls, grown old. We all cried, even Gran, who’d seen it before.

So that was our good day.

Then it happened.

I heard the phone ringing in the middle of the night, and felt Mum get out of our bed. Then I went back to sleep. In the morning, she was gone. Gone! Just like that! I couldn’t believe it, but I had to after I found the note on my side of the dressing table.

“Stacey, I’m sorry, I have to go. Dad’s in trouble. Gran’ll look after you. I’ll be back soon, I hope. Love, Mum.”

She’d taken some of her things. I rushed into my bedroom that was Gran’s now. I didn’t even knock. I woke her up and showed her the note. I was in a state, all shocked and crying.

Gran sat up in bed. She had a shiny, bare night-face. She read the note. “Oh the precious little idiot,” she said. “Wouldn’t I like to give her curry!”

“Curry!”

“That’s Australian for a hot telling-off.” Then she hugged me tight. “Don’t you cry, sweet-face. Grandma Glendine’s here. She’ll take care of you.”

I pulled away. “But where’s she gone? She couldn’t go to Thailand, she hasn’t got a passport!”

“Let’s try Greville Drive, it’s closer.”

“You mean Dad’s come back?”

“I wouldn’t wonder, if he’s phoned her to say he’s in trouble.”

It was Sunday, luckily. Gran told me to go and put the kettle on while she got dressed. She had her tea and then she called a minicab and we drove round to Greville Drive. I knew it was number six because Mum went there once just to look at the place. She’d have gone more times if I hadn’t stopped her. It was like she was addicted, just to seeing where he lived… sick! With Gran, I stayed in the cab. I didn’t want to see Dad, just Mum. I wanted to see her so badly, it was like there wasn’t anything else that mattered. I was sort of sniffing-crying, trying to hold it back. Gran marched up the path and rang the bell. She soon came marching back.

“No good. It’s some new people. He hasn’t been back there. They could be anywhere. I can’t believe your mum. What a prize little nitwit. After the way he treated her, he only has to crook his little finger and she goes running back! And to God knows what sort of a mess.” She slammed the car door and told the driver to take us home. It was like sitting in a minicab next to a volcano. I could almost see the steam coming out of her blue rinse.

* * *

So me and Gran turned into flatmates.

She cooked sometimes, but she liked it better when I did. She sat in the kitchen on a high stool, chewed her gum, and watched me. I tried out some of the stuff I’d seen on the TV cooking programmes. Mum’d never let me, she said I used too many pots and then left her to wash them up. (She had a point. I hate washing up. I’d almost rather have a dishwasher than a computer.) Gran thought I was brilliant. Every time I put in a couple of grinds of pepper or beat up some eggs, she acted as if I was Jamie Oliver. This was nice, but I was missing Mum like crazy. I got more and more upset that she didn’t phone. Love is really weird. When she was there, she drove me mad. Now I’d lie in our bed wishing she was snoring beside me, or puffing on a fag, though I always used to shout at her that she’d set the bed on fire.

“She’ll be back, dolly-face, and most likely with a flea in her ear,” Gran said. “Serve her right. Women shouldn’t be doormats. But we’ll have to give her loads of TLC.” (That’s Tender Loving Care, in case you don’t know.)

At last Mum phoned. She’d been gone three days and fifteen hours.

“Mum!” I screamed down the phone. “Where are you? Are you coming home?”

“No, Stace, I can’t. I’m just ringing to see that you’re all right.”

“Well I’m not! How could I be, without you?”

“You’re actually missing me?” she said, in a really surprised voice.

“Of course I am!” I yelled.

“Why? What do you miss?”

I felt furious and at the same time, lousy. She was as good as saying I’d never appreciated her, never let her know I loved her. “Everything,” I said. “Even your snoring. Please come home.”

There was a long silence and then she said, in a muffled sort of voice, “Stace, listen. Don’t tell Glendine this – she is still there?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, good. Well, don’t tell her, but Dad’s… he’s sort of on the run.”

“Mum! What’s he done?”

“I can’t tell you. But he’s hiding out and I have to stand by him and help him. He’s got no one else.”

“What about the slapper?”

“She’s gone.”

“Did you – did you know they went to Thailand?”

“Yes. That was where he… got into trouble. Where she got him into trouble. He managed to pinch his ticket back from her before she left him, and fly home, but the police there put the ones here on to him. Now, don’t think badly of him, Stace—”

“Oh, no, I wouldn’t do that!” I said, really sarky. I was feeling sick and scared. What could he have done? It had to be something to do with drugs. I’d heard plenty about men luring women into carrying drugs for them, but never the other way round. I hated to feel Dad was weak, that she’d used him.

“It wasn’t his fault,” Mum almost shouted, in a very strong voice. “It was her, that’s who it was, and then when she’d landed him in it, she ran out on him when he needed her most, the rotten little tramp. I knew she was no good, those tarted-up middle-class ones with their snooty voices are the worst! Stacey, I just want to ask you, can you manage for a bit longer till I sort things out for Dad? I wouldn’t ask, but this is a real emergency.”

All my helpless, angry thoughts suddenly came together to form one word. One answer.

Australia. On the other side of the world. An escape from everything: this lousy little flat; school; the miserable weather we were having, all muggy or else dark and pissing down with rain all the time; Christmas on our own with no money; Dad in a mess, Mum stuck with him… No. None of it was my fault. I didn’t have to put up with it or face it. I could get away from all of it. Australia!

I knew I should tell her. I knew it. But I thought she’d say I couldn’t go.

“I’ll be all right, Mum,” I said. And I even heard myself add, “Give Dad my love.” But I didn’t mean it. Not really. I was ready to clobber him for taking Mum away from me.

I didn’t tell Gran about the call.

That same day, she asked, sort of carelessly, “When does school break up?”

“On the seventeenth.”

“Oh, right.”

When I came home from school on the last day of term, I found the flat in, like, chaos. I thought at first we’d been done over. Then I looked closer and saw the suitcases. Her sunflower ones, open. One of them was full of summer clothes. Not her size. Mine.

I picked up a green and purple bikini and dropped it again. “Gran! What’s going on?” I shouted.

She popped out of her (my) room. She sort of sang, “Glen-dine’s been shop-ping!”

“I can see! What’s it all for?”

“It’s all for you, cookie. I hope you like it. I’d have taken you to help choose, but we’re leaving tomorrow, there was no time.”

“Leaving? Where are we going?” But I knew. And suddenly it was real. She was kidnapping me, just as she’d promised!

“We’re flying to Perth, love,” she said. “Not Perth, Scotland. Perth, Australia.”

“What? But we can’t! Don’t I need a passport?”

“You’ve got one, ducky!” she said, triumphant. She held up a new red passport. I took it from her and looked at it. There was a picture of me that we’d had taken in a booth one day when I was out with her, she’d said she wanted it for a souvenir.

It struck me a lot later that she must’ve been planning this for a long time. She’d have needed Mum’s signature on the form, so she must’ve forged it. But I never thought of any of it. Not at the time. I was too upset about Mum and Dad, and now there was something really exciting going to happen to make up for it.

Chapter Three

I had my doubts – give me that much. That night while Gran was having one of her endless baths – she’d imported a big bottle of bubble bath, which I could hear her frothing up with her hands till it must’ve looked like she was lying in a huge milkshake – I phoned Nan and told her I was going to Australia with my other grandmother.

Nan was already in a state about Mum bombing off. She’d been round a few times to see I was all right. She didn’t like Glendine, I could tell. She always turned her head away, as if Gran was too bright for her eyes. Now Nan said, in her pursed-up-lips voice, “I don’t think it’s right, her carrying you off like that without so much as a by-your-leave.”

“How can we ask Mum, when she’s gone off?”

“She’ll be back. Then what’s she going to say?”

“I’m leaving her a note. And you can explain. Besides, I’ll be back before school starts. Nan, I want to go!”

Nan fussed and carried on. She didn’t want me to go, but I remembered Mum’d said she was jealous of Gran, because of her throwing her dosh around and giving us treats. In the end I just said, “Well I’m going. I’ll send you a postcard with a kangaroo on it, bye.” That was that, because I put down the phone. Yeah, rude. But if you don’t bring Nan’s phone calls to an end she can witter on at you for hours.

What bothered me much more, after I’d hung up, was that I hadn’t told her I’d heard from Mum. I just left her to worry. But wouldn’t she have worried even more if I’d told her about Dad being in trouble with the law?

I’d never flown before. It was a long flight but I didn’t care. I loved it. I wasn’t even impatient, because Gran told me her self-hypnosis technique for long flights.

“You settle down and put your seat belt on, and you think, ‘Nothing to do but sit here and read magazines and watch movies and eat and drink and sleep and look forward to Australia!’” I did that and it worked. I suppose I’m naturally lazy, like my teacher says (what she actually said was, I was seriously talented at laziness), because doing nothing for thirteen and a half hours didn’t bother me a bit.

I wanted to see if Gran would sleep on the floor again, but she didn’t. She got very uncomfortable though. She sighed and groaned and wriggled and said her legs were killing her. I felt really sorry for her with her long legs all cramped up, or out in the aisle where people kept kicking them, but not so much when she fell asleep sprawled all over me.

We landed in Singapore and had a wonderful Chinese meal in the airport. I wanted to go into the town (we had to wait three hours) but Gran said, “We’re not allowed, and anyway you wouldn’t like it. It’s the opposite of London, it’s the cleanest city on earth, and if you drop so much as a sweet wrapper they put you in jail and flog you.” Then we flew on to Perth.

I was already in my new clothes. Gran had different taste for me than for her. She’d bought me really cool gear. I was surprised about one thing – it was all casual stuff. She’d said we were going to stay at a hotel, and I supposed that meant dressing up (it didn’t, as it turned out), so what did I need two pairs of combat pants and three pairs of army-looking shorts for? Not to mention all those sleeveless tops.

When we got to Perth I liked it straight away. It was lovely and clean, even without jail and flogging. You could taste the air. The sea was blue and the weather was hot – there were loads of parks and flowers, and gumtrees like in the movies about Australia, that had smooth trunks all patchy green and white, and leaves that smelt like rubbing oil. Some beautiful coloured parrot-things were flying in them.

We checked into a fantastic hotel. I’d never seen anything like it. It was so grand. I had my own room and beautiful bathroom. Gran had the room next door. We unpacked a bit and then had lunch in a big dining room with a buffet. The food! It was unbelievable. Everything you could ever think of to eat, all laid out on silver dishes. Things like baby lobsters. Oysters. Chicken. Duck. Pink roast beef. A zillion salads and hot dishes, and mountains of fruit and cheeses, half of which I’d never seen in my life. There were about ten different kinds of fish. The desserts were like a dream, coloured jellies and flans and creamy cakes and fruit salads like a mass of jewels, and lots more. You helped yourself. You could choose anything you liked, as much as you liked, and come back for more. I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. I think if we’d stayed there for long I would have died, from overeating.

Gran ate oysters till I lost count. I tried one. Yuck! It was like solid snot. She laughed when I said that. She was laughing a lot. Then, just as I was eating my third pudding, something went clunk in my head and I nearly fell asleep right into the whipped cream. Gran saw my eyes closing.

“You’re jet-lagged,” she said. “Come on, sweetness. Bed for you.”

In my room I dropped on to the big double bed. I felt Gran pulling my shoes off. That was all I knew. When I woke up it was dark. I lay awake looking out of the window at the stars. They were so big and clear! After a bit, I fell back to sleep. I felt so happy. England and school were just nowhere. As for Mum and Dad… I pushed them out of my mind. I didn’t want anything to get in the way of having a wonderful time.

Next day everything was a bit crazy. We had breakfast at lunch time, then went for a drive in a cab round the city to see the rich people’s big houses. Then we had a swim in the wonderful blue sea. The beach was great. There were a lot of really fit tanned boys and some of them looked at me in my new bikini, but then they looked at Gran and kept away. But I felt really shy and embarrassed and wished I had a more cover-up cossie. Having a figure is only nice when you’re showing it off to other girls – that’s what I thought, I didn’t like those boys eyeing me up and down.

We went out for dinner to a posh restaurant. It was in a tower that revolved while you ate – you could look at the lights coming on, and the stars shining on the river. They served cooked kangaroo, which Gran ate, but I wouldn’t – I thought it was awful, like eating a horse or a dog. I had steak. I suppose that’s just as bad, really. I fell asleep in the middle. I was really dopey. Gran said it was OK, she was like it herself. She said everyone gets jet lag and that I’d be better in a day or two.

She was right. The next day I felt great. She said tomorrow we were going travelling and I was going to see the outback, like I’d wanted. Of course I thought it would be some kind of day trip. I was so excited. I was loving every minute. I thought Gran was the greatest. She kept hugging and kissing me. She always had, but now I hugged her back. I felt I really loved her, I was just so grateful.

That evening Gran told me she had things to do in the morning, and that I was to pack and meet her in the lobby. “I’m ordering room service to bring you a lovely brekky in your room, then just come on down at ten. Don’t you try to stagger down with your bags, precious,” she said. “I’ll send a bellboy. See ya!” I thought she had a funny smile, as if she had a surprise for me. Boy, did she.

When I came out of the lift next morning, I looked all round this vast lobby, but I couldn’t see her. There was a tall man in a big-brimmed leather hat standing at the reception desk. My eyes went right past, still looking for Gran. Suddenly the tall man turned round. I got a real shock.

It wasn’t a man, it was her! But even facing, I hardly recognised her. She’d changed her clothes. Her clothes? She’d changed everything. She was wearing combat trousers, a khaki shirt, and cowboy boots. She looked completely different. Even her blue hair was covered with the leather hat. She looked like Crocodile Dundee.

I came up to her slowly. “Gran, is it you? What have you done to yourself?”

She laughed, a big boomy laugh. “Well, sugar-puff, we’re off to the bush! You don’t expect me to doll myself up in town clothes for that, do you? Didn’t I tell you there are two of me, a town person and a bushie? This is your bush Glendine!”

While we’d been in Perth we’d driven around in taxis. Now we went outside and waiting at the front of the hotel was one of those truck-things with an open back. Her luggage was piled in that, with a whole lot of other stuff. I thought I saw a sort of iron bed! The bellboy came along with my luggage and put it in with the rest, and helped Gran pull a piece of canvas over everything and tie it down. Gran said, “How d’you like my ute?”

“Ute?”

“Utility. That’s what we call ‘em.”

“Did you say it’s yours?”

“Sure. I’ve had it in a garage while I’ve been in London. They brought it to me this morning and I’ve been off to do a bit of shopping.”

I looked at it. It was about the last kind of vehicle I’d’ve expected her to drive. To begin with I was surprised the doorman let her stand it outside the hotel, it was so rusty and old. It looked as if it might drop to pieces any minute and have to be dragged away.

There was a big metal bar in front.

“That’s a roo bar,” said Gran.

“Rhubarb?”

“No! Roo bar! It’s so if you hit a roo – kangaroo – he doesn’t damage the car. Hitting a roo can cause an awful dent to your ute.”

I said, “Oh, please, don’t hit one, Gran!”

She laughed and said, “They’d better keep out of my way then.”

I soon saw what she meant.

We climbed up into the cabin. The seat covers were so worn the stuffing was coming out. It was a mess inside – big bottles of water everywhere and dangly things in the windows, and rubbish on the floor. I said, “What would they think of this in Singapore?”

Gran let out a kind of whoop of laughter. “They’d beat me to death!” She sounded happier than I’d ever heard her.

Then she just took off.

I’ve never seen anyone drive so fast. Even going through the town, I had to hang on tight. I was breath-stopped and it was only through good luck we weren’t cop-stopped. When we got out on the country roads she zoomed along like someone lit her fuse.

“Gran, slow down!” I yelled.

“No fear, lovie! We’ve got a long way to go!”

Luckily after a bit we got on to a road with almost no traffic. I say “luckily” – it wasn’t really, because then she went faster than ever.

At first there was forest on each side that seemed to go on for ever, but after that was even more for ever with what looked like sheep and wheat farms. It was endless, endless driving. I got sort of hypnotised by the long, dead straight road. Passing another vehicle was an event. There were a few enormous, humungous trucks with two or three containers attached. Gran called them road trains. But there wasn’t much else on the road at all.

Then it changed. On either side were low banks of bright red earth, and trees and bushes, sort of greyish-green, not like English ones. It just went on and on, mile after mile the same. I said to Gran, “Is this it – the bush?”

“Well, you know what they say! The bush is always 50 k on from wherever you are! But I’d call this the beginning of it.”

I said, “I thought it would be more, like, desert.”

“This is a sort of desert. It’s very dry. But it’s full of life. Snakes, goannas, emus… This is roo country. That reminds me, I should slow down now.” And she did. “I have to watch out for them because they’ve got no road sense. They just bound right out on to the road.”

I saw a lot of birds fly up from a lump on the roadside. “Oh, look!” I said, pointing. “Is that a dead one?”

“Yeah. He’s just roadkill now, poor old thing. And that was a wedge-tailed eagle, eating him,” she said, pointing to a huge bird that was flapping away. An eagle! It gave me a kind of shiver of excitement to see a real eagle.

I kept looking for live roos but I didn’t see one. I was glad. I didn’t want one to jump out in front of us and get hit. I saw more dead ones, though, and there were waves of stink in the air.

On and on we drove. At times I thought I might be getting bored, but there was always something new to see. The trees were sort of wonderful. I’d never seen anything like them at home. Gran said, “Pretty well everything here is different from everything anywhere else. It’s because Australia was cut off from the rest of the world, millions of years ago, and different kinds of plants and animals evolved. That’s what makes this such an exciting, wonderful place. Aren’t you glad I brought you?”

Well, I was. At least, I had been, till now. Now we were driving alone through the bush in this clapped-out rusty tin can, which I kind of thought might break down, and Gran had changed. I began to feel just a little bit uneasy. It was pretty obvious we weren’t going back to the hotel that night. Maybe not at all.

After about five hours, when I was stiff and starving, we stopped in a little town. It was so different from Perth! Perth is like any big city (only a lot nicer, certainly than London). This was like something out of an old Western movie, except for all the utes parked along the street instead of horses. The buildings had those funny wooden fronts, and the men walking around looked kind of like cowboys, in a way. Gran parked outside a bar and we went in. I was sure someone would say I was too young, but nobody took any notice. There was hardly anyone in this bar place, and it was dark and dreary. As soon as I walked into it, I wanted to leave, but I needed a pee like mad and by the time I got back Gran’d ordered hamburgers and some Cokes. I counted the cans. Five. I looked around to see if anyone else had joined us.

“Who are all the Cokes for, Gran?”

“One for you, four for me. Or, if you’re really thirsty, two for you and then I’ll have to order another for me.”

I’d never seen anyone drink like she did. She just poured it down as if she didn’t have to swallow. At the end of each can she’d smack her lips and pick up the next.

“What I couldn’t do to a beer!” she said. “But don’t you worry, sweet-pants. I’m just rehydrating myself. I wouldn’t drink and drive.” I didn’t say anything. I knew my dad sometimes had, even though he’d never been stopped. Mum used to totally panic… Of course, that was when we had an old banger. Needless to say, he took it with him when he left us.

We set off again. I asked where we were going. You’ll think it’s about time I thought to ask that, but up till then I’d just been kind of going with the flow. I’d got out of the habit of asking questions.

She shouted above the motor, “Can’t you guess? We’re going to my station.”

I gawped at her. I was thinking railway or tube stations, like, Peckham Rye (ours), or Hammersmith (Nan’s) or Waterloo. “You’ve got a station?”

“Course I have! I told you about it.”

She hadn’t. She had not. She’d never mentioned a station. I’d have remembered.

I’d have asked her to tell me more, but the motor was roaring and I felt too exhausted. The country was more like desert now. There weren’t so many trees, just these low bushes and big tufts of tall grey grass. There wasn’t much to look at, and it was getting hotter and hotter. And dustier. I kept washing the dust out of my throat with one of the big water bottles. At last I fell asleep.

Gran woke me up. It was dark. We must’ve been driving all day.

“Right, Stacey-bell, out you get and help me make a fire.”

I slid out of the cabin and almost fell over a pair of wellies. “Put those on,” said Gran. “And take this torch. There’s lots of wood around. But be sure you kick it before you pick it up.”

“Why?”

“Why d’you think?”

I had no idea why anyone would kick wood. But as I was taking my sandals off to put on the rubber boots, a terrible idea came into my head.

“Gran! Are there snakes around here?”

“There might be. But just remember, the snake that bites you is the one you don’t see, so keep a lookout.”

Oh my God. I nearly fainted. I already said how I hate snakes. I’ve always had a thing about them. I don’t know why because, like I said before, I’d never seen one. They just give me the creeps.

I shot back into the cabin of the ute and sat there shivering with my legs tucked up, imagining loads of snakes coming slithering right up the step and on to the ute floor. Gran came round to my side. “Get out, Stacey,” she said. I think that was the first time she’d called me by my name and not some nickname. And it was the first time I’d heard her use an ordering tone to me. When I still didn’t move, she said, “Don’t be such a pom.”

“What’s a pom?” I asked. My teeth were chattering. Honest to God, they were.

“An English person is a pom. Poms have a bad name with us Aussies for being whingers. I’m not having a whingeing pom for a granddaughter. Now get these boots on your feet and get me some wood or there’ll be no food.”

“I don’t want any. I want to go back to sleep.”

“We’ll make up the beds when we’ve eaten.”

“What beds? I’m not sleeping anywhere near the ground!”

“You’re sleeping in the back of the ute. Nothing can get at you there. Come on, now, hurry up, I’m starving.” When I still didn’t move, she said, “We must make a fire to keep the dingoes away.”

I knew dingoes were wild dogs. Dingoes are fierce. I’ve read about it. They eat babies.

I thought of those movies about African safaris or American cowboys where the campfire keeps wolves and other dangerous animals from coming near. I was so scared, thinking of wild dogs creeping up on us, I almost forgot about snakes. But Gran was just standing there, sort of tapping her foot. I couldn’t just sit there scrunched up all night. I was a bit hungry, come to think of it. And except for the torch, it was pitch dark. A fire would be good. I slowly unscrunched and stuck my feet out. Gran very briskly pushed the wellies on, then pulled me out and put the torch into my hand.

“Go,” she said, turning away.

I shone the torch around and right away I saw some dead wood lying quite close by. I kicked it hard, twice. Nothing popped out. It was a real effort to make myself bend down and snatch up a branch with my finger and thumb. Then I had to walk over to where Gran was digging a sort of pit with a big flat shovel. I shone the torch in front of my boots all the way.

“Here’s a piece,” I said, dangling it.

She stopped and squinted at it as if it was so small she couldn’t see it. “Oh, that’s amazing,” she said. “Do you think you could possibly find me another one just like it? Then we can rub them together and make sparks.”

I dropped the piece and shone my way back to the pile I’d taken it from. I kicked it again. Bit by bit I carried or dragged all the wood from it to where Gran was. She’d pulled up some of the dry grass tufts and before long she’d got a fire going. (Using matches of course. I should’ve known she was having me on.)

The wood was dry and it really burnt a treat. It was weird how much better I felt as soon as it blazed up. She kept me at it till we had a good woodpile – I had to go further than just right next to the ute to get enough. I kept kicking the wood but there were no snakes and after a bit I got so I wasn’t scared to death. I still felt pretty brave though, going off into the dark like that by myself. Once I went about three whole metres from the fire.

By the time Gran was satisfied we had enough wood, there were some hot embers. She scooped them up with the shovel and put them in the pit she’d dug. Then she said, “Now be a love and bring me the Esky.”

I wasn’t really speaking to her at this point, and I felt silly, asking “What’s this” and “What’s that” all the time, so I went to the back of the ute. I’d no idea what an Esky was, but I soon guessed, because what do you put food in if it’s going to be shone on by the sun all day? One of those cold-box things, right? And sure enough there was one. It was dead heavy. I couldn’t get it over the side of the ute so then I noticed there was a kind of catch on the ends of the ute-back. When I slid them, the back fell down with a crash. After that I could drag the Esky off and lug it back to the fire.

Gran opened it and inside were six packages wrapped in foil, along with some milk and tins of Coke. She laid the packets on top of the red embers, then she shovelled more embers on top. The whole thing glowed like an electric stove-plate. She covered the red place with earth and then she got out a thermos and we had some coffee. It was still warm, and sweet. I never drink coffee at home but I drank a big tin mugful.

“That’s your pannikin,” she said. “I’m giving you that. You can even put it on the fire if you want to heat it up.” But I just drank it as it was. The pannikin was pretty, sort of mottled red, and I didn’t want the bottom to get burnt, if it was my present. I reckoned I’d earned it, being brave about the snakes and that, and collecting lots of wood.

Then Gran said, “What’s that blood on your arm?” Later I wished I’d said, “Oh, nothing, it’s just where a dingo bit me,” but I just muttered it was a scratch from a sharp bit of wood. She looked at the cut and said, “Well, a whingeing pom would’ve whinged about that, so good on you.” She squeezed it and said, “Good, there’s no splinters left in there.” Then she got out a jar and started smearing something on the cut.

“What are you putting on it?”

“Honey.”

“Honey!”

“Sure. Didn’t you know honey’s an antibiotic?”

“Why do I need an antibiotic?”

“Because that’s mulga wood and if you get it stuck in your flesh, it’s poisonous.”

My mouth fell open – again. Poisonous wood? Was there anything safe in this place?

The food took quite a while to cook in the embers. At last a really good smell started to come out of the ground. By the time Gran dug the food out I was like dying of hunger. She’d got two plastic chairs off the ute, and a little folding table, two plastic plates, and knives and forks. And some butter and salt. Gran dusted the ashes off the foil and opened the packets. Inside were big chicken legs, baked potatoes, and cobs of sweet corn. We didn’t bother about the knives and forks in the end, we just ate with our fingers by firelight. It tasted well delicious. I drank Coke and she drank beer. Then she stood up and stretched and said, “Right. Bed.”

She made me close the Esky and pack all the stuff away in a box. I thought I’d better burn the chicken bones in case they brought the dingoes. The fire was dying down. Nearly all my wood was gone. I said, “Who’s going to keep the fire going?”

She said, “Well it’s no use looking at Glendine. She’s going to make big Zs.”

I said, “But if we don’t, the dingoes’ll come!”

She said, “You’re an easy mark, Stacey. There’s no dingoes around here. Now help me with my bed.”

I didn’t say anything. I helped her lift a rusty old iron bed with fold-back legs and a mattress off the back of the ute, and she set it up. It wasn’t far off the ground… There was another mattress left on the floor of the ute for me. Then she untied two bundles.

“Here’s your swag,” she said. A swag turned out to be a sleeping bag. She had a pillow for me, too. She made up her own bed with another swag. I said, “I need to go to the loo.” I know I sounded sulky. I couldn’t believe it about the dingoes, that she’d do that just to make me get out and help.

She picked up the shovel and the torch. “Go ahead,” she said. “Over there, by those trees. Keep downwind, ha ha.”

I stared at the shovel, thinking what it meant. I had to dig a hole, and— No. It was too gross. Though how else? We were a million miles from anywhere. It looked to me like even the trees were about a hundred miles away from the little circle of firelight where the ute was. Where Gran was.

“Was it true about the snakes?” I said.

“Lovie, would I lie to you? Of course there are snakes in the outback. Just keep shining the torch and stay where the ground’s open. Oh, here’s some dunny paper. Be sure to bury it, too. Now go on and do what you have to do.”

Grandpa used to say, “Needs must, when the devil drives.” So I did it. I managed somehow. But the walk there into the darkness was the worst thing I’d ever done, even worse than when our diving teacher made us dive into the school pool over her arm the first time.

I was beginning to change my mind about Gran being the greatest. That’s putting it nicely.

Chapter Four

When I ran back to the ute, she was lying on her swag on her bed fast asleep. She hadn’t even undressed. I noticed she’d left her boots on one of the plastic chairs. I rinsed my hands and face with water from the bottle, swilled out my mouth, set the other chair against the back of the ute and climbed up. I didn’t know whether to undress or what, but my night things were all in my case, so I just dropped my boots over the side and lay down on my swag just as I was. There was a bit of a breeze which made it not so hot. I wished the back of the ute wasn’t down, I’d’ve felt safer with it up. I struggled with it a bit in the dark but I couldn’t lift it. If I’d let myself, I could’ve easily imagined dingoes sniffing me, or… But I fell asleep straight away.

In the night I woke up. It was light that woke me. It’d been completely dark but now there was a pale light all over everything. I lifted myself on my elbows to look and there was the moon, or half of it, just a bit above the horizon but already lighting up the bush and us and everything. There were spooky tree-shapes all around the clearing where we were. I noticed the silence. Total. No birds or anything. It’s never, ever that quiet in London.

I lay back down and looked at the sky. Stars! You couldn’t just say there were stars, like it was something ordinary. I’d never seen anything like those stars in my life. Billions – and that’s no exaggeration. The more you looked at the bright ones, the more tiny little faint ones you could see in between. There didn’t seem to be an inch of sky without any. Right overhead there was a thicker path of them. It stretched from one side to the other, like someone had splashed some milk. Suddenly I realised that must be the Milky Way. I’d heard of it but I’d somehow never thought it was real – I thought it was, like, something in Star Trek.

There was something so scary about that bigness. I couldn’t look at it for long. I had to shut my eyes and pretend it wasn’t there because I just felt sick to my stomach from all that emptiness with me tiny and helpless underneath it. I filled my own darkness behind my eyelids with Mum’s bedroom and Mum’s bed with Mum snoring beside me.

Then some real snores started. Gran’s. That was some comfort. After a bit I dozed off, but I had terrible, scary dreams. The Milky Way turned into a big white snake, coming out of the sky to get me.

In the morning, bright sunlight and bacon smells woke me.

Gran was tending the fire. There was a blackened old kettle on one bit of it and a blackened old frying pan on the rest. She’d made up a new woodpile. I looked at my watch. It was five thirty. There were plenty of birds about now. They were going mad in fact.

“Hello, Gran,” I said, kind of dopily. It seemed funny we were still here and that I wasn’t scared any more.

“Hi there, Stace, how are you going? Sleep well?”

“Sort of.”

“Want your coffee in bed? Billy’s boiling.”

I didn’t even think “Who’s Billy?” I could see that “Billy” was the kettle, and I remembered some song when I was a little kid about “he sang as he watched and waited till his billy boiled”, and how I used to think it was his willy that was boiling. I giggled and hiked myself up, leaning my back against the cabin. I just sat there all peaceful, looking around again. There was nothing scary about the bush by daylight, it looked beautiful. The colours were red, for the ground, and a sort of greyey-green for the grass tufts (I found out later it’s called spinifex), and brown for the tree trunks. Not all the mulgas were dead, some had leaves on them. And the sky was a gorgeous dark blue. Would you believe the sun was hot already? Gran handed me up my pannikin full of fresh hot coffee.

“Get a swig of that into you and then jump down for breakfast. It’ll be ready in a minute.”

I wanted to get down right away. I felt suddenly all hot and uncomfortable and I needed to go. I put the pannikin on the roof of the cabin and started to scramble over the side of the ute. Suddenly Gran said, “Hey! Have those boots been on the ground all night? Wait right there.” She came and picked them up and shook them, open end down. Something dropped out of one of them.

“Oh, look! You see? I practically saved your life!” she said, all cheerful.

“Why? What is it?”

Whatever it was was scuttling away. It looked like a black prawn with claws and a tail.

“Scorpion,” said Gran. “Good it didn’t bite you, that would’ve been the sign of an early spring all right!”

“Kill it, Gran, stamp on it!” I shrieked.

“No! Why kill it? It’s only doing its thing.”

I watched it darting to and fro on the flat red earth – looking for somewhere to hide, probably.

“Oh, catch it, Gran! I don’t want it running around near us!”

Gran laughed and clapped her pannikin upside down on top of the scorpion. I thought of it getting a coffee-bath and straight off felt sorry for it.

I didn’t want to climb down after that, but she made me. I wished there was a pathway up above the ground so I wouldn’t have to touch anything dangerous. I went off to the trees again. It seemed just as gross as it had the night before – worse cos it was daylight. I thought I’d never get used to going in the open.

The bacon and eggs were good. Gran must’ve done a load of shopping.

She said, “Today we’ll be at the station. You’re just going to love it, I bet.”

She got me to roll the swags up tight and tie them, and help load everything. Just as she was climbing into the cabin, I thought of something.

“What about your pannikin?”

“Oh! Thanks for reminding me.” She started to climb out. “You better sit tight, Stace, or the scorpion might get you!”

“Can we bring him?” I heard myself asking.

“Oh, so it’s a him now, is it?” She gave me a funny look. “You must be starving for a pet! Have you never had one?”

I shook my head.

“Right, you can bring it along if you can put it in this.” She gave me a glass jar. “Let’s see how you manage. Need I say, don’t touch it?”

Now I had to catch it, I got scared again. I didn’t know why I’d said I wanted it. I circled its pannikin prison two or three times. Finally Gran took pity on me.

“Here, I’ll show you.”

She came over with a piece of cardboard. It looked very thin, like any self-respecting poisonous insect could sting right through it. “Slide it under the mug. Careful… Don’t lift the mug too much… That’s it, you’ve got him! Hand underneath, press the mug down tight. Now, bend the card into a little funnel – he can’t get up at you – slide him into the jar… right on, you’ve done it!” And she snatched the jar off the ground and screwed a lid on. I was sweating, literally.

“Can he breathe in there?”

“Every now and then you can unscrew the lid a bit. Good girl, now we’ve got an extra passenger.” She gave me kind of a pleased look.

“What?”

“I was just thinking. If you’re so keen on creatures that you want a pet scorpion, you are just going to love the station. It’s stiff with ‘em.”

“Scorpions?”

“Among other things.”

As we drove I held my scorpion on my knee. I know it sounds crazy, but when I saw him scuttling about inside, I thought it was nice to have a little live thing of my own, even if it would bite me if I touched it. Sting, I mean.

The driving was even longer and rougher that day. We saw some emus. That was fantastic. There was like a family of them, two big ones and three little ones. They kind of tiptoed across the road, a long way in front of us. I let out a shriek and Gran stopped the ute and we watched them till they disappeared. I felt all breathless. They were so huge, for birds!

“I wish I could see them close to.”

“You will,” Gran said. “I’ve got two tame ones at home. They lay the most beautiful eggs in the world. A gorgeous greeny-blue colour. The Aborigines carve them like cameos. I’ve got one at home, I’ll show you.”

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