‘You bake cookies?’
‘Oh, yeah. Mum and I love baking. Her name’s Zara. We’ve got a proper oven and everything.’
‘What’s your mum like?’ I ask.
He thinks for a moment, and I notice all the worms and snails on the footpath and the way Richard skirts around them and Taylor just marches on up ahead, as though they’re not there.
‘She doesn’t like leaving home that much,’ he says eventually. ‘Her English isn’t that great. She reads a lot. She makes jewellery and sells it online – I drop it to the post office for her. She’s really good.’
‘What about your dad?’
‘He died before we came to Australia.’ Richard’s walking slows down a bit. He clears his throat. ‘Have you ever bought jewellery online? Mum’s got an online store – she’s got the best reviews. People just love what she makes.’
***
I decide that I’m going to help Richard and his mum. They must still be grieving. I’ve read five books on grief, so I’m well-equipped. I’m prepared. I touch my letter and wonder about my biological mother. She feels like a stranger. My real mum is the one who raised me, the one who cooks meals at the local nursing home. The one who’s managed to keep the four of us together.
Except she’s not my real mum. We don’t have the same hair or eyes, or even really like doing the same things. There is nothing physical that is binding us, and with the letter pressed into my pocket or down my bra, this suddenly seems to matter.
I have to tell Mum about the letter. But what’s there to tell if I haven’t even opened it yet? If I can’t tell her what’s in it? Or what I’ve decided to do?
I think about this through the talks we have in class on safe sex, safe drinking and more self-care, and it’s like all of the pep talks from next year have been crammed into this one week, the last before our final year of school. I think about what comes after and shiver. It seems impossible. I can’t imagine a life without classes with my friends.
I fiddle with the corner of the envelope until it becomes soft and damp. I can feel Clem watching me. I can always tell when he does, even if I haven’t seen him. My stomach tightens and I know.
‘Knowing is always better than not knowing,’ he says, as we shove our way towards our lockers.
‘Is it?’ I murmur, but I don’t think that Clem can hear me.
***
The rain eases a little and I swing by the River Pub on my way back to Fairyland. I don’t see Dad, but that doesn’t mean he’s not there. He’s got a bit of a sixth sense about that type of thing. As I walk through Fairyland, I notice all the fairies – statues and stickers on the sides of caravans and propped on the domed tops of lilting metal chimes. Most of them are chipped and faded and it sort of unsettles me, all of them baking and bleached in the Sutherbend sun.
As I’m walking into the park, an older woman comes out onto the pavings at the front of her cabin and waves at me.
‘Lot twelve,’ she says. ‘Come on in. I’ve just put the kettle on.’
It’s thirty degrees and humid, and the idea of drinking something hot makes me break out into a sweat. I smile and walk up to her verandah.
‘You’re tall!’ she says.
‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘I’m tall.’
‘Nice to see a tall girl owning her height. You’re Stella, right? Judy and Charlie’s kid?’
‘One of them,’ I say. I’m not sure how exactly I’m owning my height, but I suppose it might be my inner golden goddess shining through.
‘I’m Trisha.’
‘Nice place,’ I say, although it’s filled with dark furniture and stacked boxes and makes me feel even more claustrophobic than our cabin does.
‘Oh, it’s not mine. I’m just staying here. With a mate. Reg.’
I can see the unmade double bed in the room behind her.
‘Are you and Reg a couple?’ I ask. If Mum could hear me, she’d shake her head and call me rude and obnoxious and a terrible stickybeak, but sometimes I just can’t help it.
‘No. Not really.’ She hands me a can of lemonade from the fridge. ‘Too hot for tea, eh? I’m just staying here for a while. We have an agreement.’
‘An agreement,’ I echo.
‘Not for everyone, but it keeps a roof over my head.’ She smiles. ‘Anyway. You’re probably too young to hear anything about that. You go to school at Sutherbend?’
‘Yeah,’ I say, not entirely sure I understand.
‘You enjoy it?’
‘Parts of it.’
She sits back in her chair. ‘Isn’t that always the way?’
I drink my lemonade and Trisha tells me about the job she’d once had at a university and how much she loves reading and how much she misses having books.
‘Well, you could get a job at a bookshop,’ I say.
‘No one will hire me. Not now.’
‘So? You could . . . volunteer at a library.’
‘Volunteer at a library?’
‘You know. To be around books. And once you’ve done that for a while, you could get a job.’
Trisha smiles at me and she’s beautiful, even though she’s really old. ‘You’re sweet, darl,’ she says. ‘You’re very sweet.’
‘You can borrow my books if you want. Mum made me give most of them away, but I kept my special ones. They’re self-help books. I like that sort of thing.’
‘You don’t say?’
Once I’ve finished my drink, I stand up. ‘Anyway, I’d better go. It was lovely to meet you and I’ll let you know if I think of any libraries that might be good for volunteering. Thanks for the drink.’
‘No worries,’ she says. ‘Take care, darl.’
I walk slowly to our cabin, peering at all the other ones along the way. It starts to drizzle again. Each cabin is home to someone like Trisha, Richard and Zara. Someone who’d had lots of challenges and who hadn’t read enough self-help books to help them get through. I’m sure I can help the people at Fairyland while I stay here. Maybe I can help them get back on their feet. I smile to myself as I dodge a small child riding an old bike and unzip the door of our annex.
Taylor looks up. ‘What’s that?’
‘What’s what?’
‘That letter you’ve been carrying around.’
‘It’s nothing. School report. I’m scared I failed maths.’
‘Oh. Yeah. You’re pretty terrible at maths.’
The annex door flaps open and Dad steps in.
‘You’re home early,’ he says, looking at the floor so that I’m not sure who he’s talking to.
‘Where have you been?’ I ask, something in my voice making him wince.
‘I was helping one of the ladies with a leaking window,’ he says, and I see his toolbox, wet with rain, outside the door. I relax a little.
‘Wet out there,’ he says. His toolbox was the only thing he kept from his shed.
‘Yeah,’ Taylor mutters without looking up.
***
Fairyland is noisier than home. People are always calling out and moving things and revving their cars. We’re closer to other people here than we’d been at our house. Their voices are louder. But we just turn the volume up, same as we did at home. It’s Taylor’s favourite television show, High Life. She’s so thrilled that she’s forgotten to be mad about having to watch it from our new living room in Fairyland.