Daughter of the Regiment (6 page)

‘I … er … forgot the container.’ Harry tried to position himself between Spike and the hole. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Us? We came to go swimming. Remember? We arranged it Friday on the bus. What are
you
doing here?’ demanded Spike.

‘Me? I live here.’ Harry tried to laugh.

‘No, duckbrain. Here in the chookshed. You practising to be a rooster or something? Cockadoodle dooo-oo! We looked everywhere for you. Didn’t you hear us yelling?’

‘I … er, no.’ He had been so absorbed in the world inside the hole, Harry realised, that he hadn’t heard anything else.

‘We asked up at the house. Your mum thought you were in the orchard, but you weren’t there. We looked in the shed, then Angie suggested you might be in the chookshed—’

‘It was a joke,’ put in Angie.

‘And you were!’ finished Spike.

Harry moved forward slowly. If he could stop them coming in any further they mightn’t see the hole. Spike and Angie backed out to give him room.

It was going to be okay. They hadn’t seen anything. They …

‘Hey, you forgot the eggs!’ Before he could stop her Angie had darted back into the chookhouse. ‘Wow, there are lots of them—your chooks must be laying really well. They … What’s that?’

‘What’s what?’ asked Harry nonchalantly. ‘Hey Angie …’ he tried to think of some way to lure her out of the chookhouse. ‘Er, Angie, come here for a minute …’

‘No, wait, there’s something odd over in the corner. Like something floating!’

‘Angie … no!’

But it was too late.

There was silence in the chookhouse, then Angie’s voice, very soft and puzzled. ‘This is what you were doing in here, wasn’t it? This is what you were looking at.’

‘I …’ Harry couldn’t find words to deny it.

‘What’s she talking about?’ demanded Spike.

‘It’s …’ Harry hesitated. It sounded crazy to say it was a hole in time. Besides, he didn’t want to tell them. Cissie was
his
discovery. Her world was his discovery. He didn’t want to share it or …

‘Spike, come and look at this.’ Angie’s voice was full of wonder.

Spike cast Harry a final look, then ducked inside the chookhouse.

Harry followed. There was no help for it now. He’d have to explain.

It was cooler inside the chookhouse than you’d think, although the sun was overhead. The sprawling passionfruit vine growing over the shed sheltered it. Even so, each breath was thick with heat and chook.

Harry leant against one wall, Spike against the other. Angie still crouched by the time hole, one eye on it, the other on her brother and Harry. She didn’t look like she was ever going to leave the hole, thought Harry resentfully. As though she’d claimed it now.

‘Why do you think it’s a hole in time?’ Spike demanded.

‘It just makes sense,’ said Harry. ‘Look at Cissie’s clothes.’

‘Cissie? Her name’s Cissie?’ demanded Angie, still intent on the world on the other side.

‘Cecilia, I think. Cissie must be a nickname. I told you, I only saw her for the first time on Thursday. I don’t know all that much about her. But look at her clothes. They look just like the ones people wear on TV when they’re supposed to be in the last century. And the creek too—I bet that’s what it used to look like before the goldminers came.’

‘But you can’t have a hole in
time
,’ argued Spike.

‘What else could it be? I mean, maybe time just sort of rubs away—like your jeans wear out round the knees. Maybe if one part of time is used too much—’

‘That doesn’t make sense.’

‘Why not? Why can’t time wear thin, too? So there’s a hole, just a little hole and we can see through it.’

‘But how come we can hear her but she can’t hear us?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe because we haven’t happened in her time yet, so we don’t exist.’

‘Oh, that’s great. Really great. Crazy,’ said Spike.

‘I don’t think it’s so crazy,’ said Angie, her eye still to the hole. ‘Poor kid. I think it’s so sad. I wish there was something we could do to help her. Imagine having both your parents die and in a strange place.’

‘It’s not strange,’ protested Spike. ‘She’s
here
, remember, only a long time ago.’

‘Well, it’d be strange to her,’ argued Angie.

‘What’s happening now?’ demanded Harry. ‘Buzz off Mr J,’ as the rooster tried to push past Harry to the drum that held the laying pellets.

Mr J was a Spangled Hamburg bantam, only half the size of Arnold Schwarzenfeather, except for his tail feathers which always looked twice as large. Midnight Sky, Omelette and Wild Thing mostly followed Mr J, though sometimes they answered Arnie’s call, just as the other chooks occasionally followed Mr J.

‘Go and peck somewhere else,’ ordered Harry. ‘There’s plenty of beetles outside.’

The rooster strutted off, stretching his spotty neck indignantly. ‘What’s she doing now?’ repeated Harry. He wanted to look too, but there was only room for one, and Angie seemed to have commandeered the hole.

‘She’s just sitting there.’

‘But what does she look like? Happy? Sad?’

‘She looks like … oh, like she’s remembering or something. As though she’s there, but somewhere else as well.’

‘She had a picnic with her parents there,’ said Harry awkwardly. ‘That was the first time I saw her. They looked really happy. Maybe she’s remembering that.’

‘Maybe,’ said Angie. ‘Oh, I wish I could speak to her. Send her messages or something to say we’re thinking about her. Or a present … something she wouldn’t have … like … like ribbons or a book or a fluffy toy dog maybe.’

‘How about a video game?’ suggested Spike.

‘Dope,’ said Angie. ‘She wouldn’t know what to do with it. And you can’t have a video game floating about last century. It’d be a, what do you call it? An anachronism. Harry, have you tried poking something through?’

‘Only my fingers,’ said Harry. ‘But you couldn’t see them on the other side. They just disappeared. It’s like I said—we don’t exist yet for her.’

‘Poke a stick through,’ suggested Spike. ‘No, here, how about a feather?’

Angie took it uncertainly. ‘She might be scared if she sees a feather floating out of nowhere.’

‘She’ll just think it fell off a bird,’ said Spike. ‘Go on, try it.’

Angie slipped the feather through the hole. It disappeared, then reappeared a second later, out the other side of the hole. It fell onto a recent dropping on the floor.

‘See, I said it wouldn’t work,’ said Harry. ‘Hey, can I have a look now?’

‘Sure,’ offered Angie.

Harry took her place under the perch. Sunset gave a muffled squawk at the disturbance and settled even more firmly on her eggs.

Harry peered through the hole. It was just as Angie had described. Cissie was just sitting there on the rock, her arms around her legs. She must have taken her boots off. They sat neatly beside her and a pile of something that might have been long socks or thick stockings as well.

‘I don’t think she’s remembering,’ he said slowly. ‘I think she’s just watching.’

‘Watching what?’ demanded Spike.

‘I don’t know. Nothing. Lots of things,’ he hesitated. ‘I mean, haven’t you ever sat down by the creek and just sort of watched things.’

Spike shrugged. ‘I suppose,’ he admitted. ‘Hey, wouldn’t it be great if something really exciting happened? I mean like bushrangers attacked the garrison and they had this great gun battle, or the convicts revolted maybe. Have they got any convicts up at the garrison? Or pirates—they could sail up the river, then follow the creek up to bury their chests of loot and we could see where they put it—’

‘Not with Cissie there!’ protested Angie. ‘She might get hurt!’

‘Yeah, but …’ Spike shrugged. ‘I mean it’s a great idea, looking back into the past and everything. But it’s not like anything really interesting’s happening. It’s just a kid just sitting there. I mean, if the hole went back to Sydney last century there’d be all sorts of things—convicts and sailors and fights in pubs and—’

‘I …’ Harry hesitated. He didn’t have the words to explain to Spike how he felt.

Angie glared at her brother. ‘You don’t have to stay if you’re bored,’ she informed him.

‘I’m not bored,’ argued Spike. ‘I’m just … give it up will you, Angie! I don’t suppose everyone else wants a swim … okay, okay, I was just asking.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Hey, Angie, if we head back now, we can still see whatsitsname on TV.’

‘But I don’t want to …’ began Angie.

‘Come on!’ urged Spike. ‘Nothing more’s happening here anyway.’

Angie stared at Harry.

He nodded, half eager to see them go. ‘The garrison’s ages away. It’d be hours before Sergeant Wilkes could get back.’

Angie gazed back at the hole. ‘Is … is it okay if we come back tomorrow? So we can find out if they let her stay?’

Harry glanced back through the hole, then back at Angie.

Part of him wanted to refuse. Cissie was his discovery. It was his hole into the past. But on the other hand it’d make it much easier to keep a watch and find out what happened if there were more of them to take turns. And it’d be mean to say no.

‘You won’t tell anyone?’ he asked.

Spike blinked. ‘I suppose not,’ he said. ‘Not if you don’t want us to. Why not?’

‘Because Cissie’s private,’ flared Angie. ‘We don’t want lots of people gawking at her. Things are bad enough for her without people peering at her through a hole.’

‘Sure, sure,’ said Spike hurriedly. ‘Don’t get in a flap about it. I was only asking. Hey, yuk, I’ve got chook dust all up my nose. See you tomorrow,’ he said to Harry.

‘See you,’ said Harry. He watched them wander back across the flat. The chooks glanced at them, just in case they carried something good to eat, then turned back to their scratching—Rubinstein under the oak trees, and Midday Snail ripping up Mum’s petunias again. Mum’d be mad if she saw her.

‘Shoo,’ he said half-heartedly to Midday Snail. Midday Snail ignored him. Harry clapped his hands at her. She strutted off without looking back.

Harry walked slowly over to the main shed. There was no point staying at the hole. Cissie might be there for hours, and Mum’d be calling him for dinner. He didn’t want her to get suspicious if he always came out of the chookshed when she called.

It was odd the way time changed through the hole. It went at the same speed as the modern world while you were looking through it, but then years could pass when you were away. As though just watching fixed it, somehow. But you couldn’t watch it all the time.

The chooks peered at him from their stations about the flat, wondering if he was going to get their wheat.

‘Oh, all right,’ said Harry.

Harry always gave them their wheat before dinner. Would Mum remember to do it if he went to school next year? he wondered. The chooks would miss their snack.

Arnie Shwarzenfeather gave a short crow at the sound of the lid of the wheat barrel being opened, and O’Neil jumped down from her perch on the truck.

O’Neil was old—eight, maybe, or nine. She was the first chook Harry had ever had of his own. He’d named her after the captain of the football team up in town.

O’Neil didn’t lay many eggs anymore—maybe half a dozen eggs in early summer, maybe none at all—and most of the time she seemed to be asleep. But she was a nice chook and the tamest of the lot.

‘Here you are, O’Neil,’ said Harry. He scattered a handful of wheat just for her before throwing the rest out into the pine needles for the other chooks to scratch around and argue over. They never seemed to notice O’Neil’s secret feed of wheat. Or maybe Arnie and Mr J knew all the time, and kept the other chooks away.

The chooks bobbled and scratched like they were run by clockwork: peck and lift and peck and lift … chooks were peaceful things, thought Harry. No matter how much fuss there was you always felt calmer when you’d been down with the chooks.

He wondered if Cissie had chooks back at the camp. Did soldiers have hens? Not now, of course—he couldn’t imagine an army barracks with chooks. But back then …? There’d be no way to get eggs if they didn’t have chooks.

How often did the supply boat that Cissie had mentioned come? It must bring flour and meat and tea and coffee. Did they have coffee back then? Probably not. Or cola either. Imagine a world without a can of cola … what did they drink then?

Angie might know. She was interested in history and stuff like that.

Angie understood. Spike would keep the secret—he wasn’t the sort to go around telling if you asked him not to. But Angie really understood.

The hens had finished the wheat, both the real stuff and the imaginary grains they thought they could see among the pine needles. A couple of them began scratching again, looking for cicada and moth larvae. O’Neil had gone to bed, huddled on the lowest perch next to the far wall. Once she’d been on the top perch, but as she’d aged she’d been pushed down to the second then the third and now the last.

Did chooks mind losing the top position, wondered Harry. They must, or there wouldn’t be all the squawking about who got what position last thing at night.

‘Harry! Dinner!’

Harry left the chooks to their scratching. He’d come down and lock them in after dinner, when it was getting dark and they were all inside.

What would Cissie have for dinner, he wondered. Fish maybe (did they have chips back then?), or roast kangaroo …

Did people eat tomato sauce in the olden days? Would she eat dinner with all the soldiers? Or did the officers and men eat separately and she ate with one or the other?

What did she do after dinner? Read by candlelight? Play cards? Or did the soldiers go to bed as soon as it got dark, and get up early in the morning.

For a moment he wondered if he should look through the hole after dinner. But it would be dark in the hole by then. Cissie would be back at the garrison. There’d be nothing to be seen at all.

‘Harry!’

‘In here!’ Harry peered out of the main shed. It was Angie. She wore jeans and an old T-shirt that Spike had outgrown and her riding boots. She was alone.

‘Where’s Spike?’