‘We just left it all there,’ Tilly said. ‘In the flat. We didn’t have time to give it to someone to look after.’
‘Why not?’
‘Mum wanted to leave right away. She didn’t want Darren knowing where we’d gone.’
‘Who’s Darren?’
‘Mum’s boyfriend.’ She whacked the ball hard. ‘I bet he took the trophies and pretended they were his. I bet he’s never won anything in his life.’
I lay back down, closing my eyes. I didn’t like thinking about Tilly’s secret other life; what she did before she got here. I liked to think she’d been planted here especially. That there was nothing from before.
The week before Christmas Mum went over to the yellow house and invited Helena and Tilly over for Christmas lunch. Mum was nervous, putting her hair up and then down, over and over again. They hadn’t been here for dinner since the first time, but sometimes Helena and Mum waved hello from across the fence, and whenever Dad washed his truck in the yard he dragged the hose closer to spray the gumnuts and bird poo from the Commodore’s roof. But it wasn’t how Mum said it would be. We never went out to the Chinese for tea, never went on holidays together.
When Helena and Tilly arrived, Mum set out a plate of crackers and cabana and cubes of yellow cheese. We had presents, and right before we ate we pulled bonbons and put our paper crowns on our heads. It was too sticky for hot food, and I tried not to move too much so the vinyl chair didn’t peel away the skin on the back of my thighs. Mum cooked a roast chicken, the meat sweating as well.
All through lunch Wally kept sneaking sips of Dad’s beer, going to the fridge and putting his head under the cask nozzle and filling up his mouth without anyone noticing or caring. By the time Helena and Tilly went home Wally probably had drunk as much as Dad.
‘Well, that was nice,’ Mum said as she gathered streamers from the party poppers. They dangled from the light bulb like colourful worms.
And it was nice. No one had got mad at anyone. Wally didn’t say anything stupid. It was like a normal family Christmas that you see on TV, where everyone is happy and everyone gets along.
After lunch I wanted to go to the dam but Wally was too loopy to get himself organised. I’d tell him to go put his togs on but he kept going to the fridge and sneaking more sips. I’d given up, was collecting the streamers from the kitchen, when Wally grabbed me around my middle, tried to pull me to the ground. Wally hadn’t made me wrestle him in months.
‘Leave me alone,’ I said, wriggling out of his grip. ‘It’s too hot.’
Wally was wearing socks and slipped on the lino, landing on the floor. He grabbed my leg, yanked it hard.
‘Get off,’ I said.
I grabbed a scruff of his hair and pulled him along the floor. I’d been trying to hurt him but he started giggling, so I kept dragging him around the kitchen. I forgot that I was annoyed at him, giggling as well. His shirt rose up and I could hear his skin sticking and squeaking against the floor. Every time he giggled like that he smacked the back of his head against the lino, which made him laugh harder even though it must have rattled his brain.
Ian came over later in the afternoon. I was in such a good mood I didn’t even care that he was trying to barge in on our Christmas. As Wally and I played snap on the steps Ian came up the driveway and gave Cassie a six-pack of beer. They drank it on the verandah, even though it would have been warm by the time Cassie unwrapped it.
‘Does your old man know I’m here?’ Ian asked. The red tip of the cigarette poking from his mouth looked like a planet against the navy sky.
‘It’s fine,’ Cassie said. ‘He’s not going to do anything.’
‘How’d you know?’ I said.
‘Shut up, Cub,’ Cassie said. He turned back to Ian. ‘I told him you were coming over. He didn’t even look up from the TV. And, anyway, this is my house too. I can have whoever I want over. I’m not a kid.’
When it got dark Helena came out of the yellow house. Even from a distance you could tell she was dressed up in something that sparkled, heels making her wobble more than normal. She drove off down the highway, and a few minutes later Tilly appeared at the bottom of the steps.
‘This is for you,’ she said, handing Cassie a tiny present she’d tucked in her palm. Cassie picked the sticky tape off and the scrap of snowman wrapping paper fell into his lap. He held the present up to the light. It was a bracelet made of black and green wooden beads, threaded onto a piece of elastic.
‘Cool,’ Cassie said. ‘Thanks, Tilly.’
‘I made it myself,’ Tilly said.
‘Why didn’t you give it to him before?’ asked Wally.
‘I don’t know,’ Tilly said. ‘I forgot.’
‘Yeah, right,’ Wally said, trying to swipe the beer from Ian’s hand. Ian raised it into the air with a smirk twisting his mouth, as though Wally was a dog he was teasing. ‘I bet you just didn’t want your mum to see you got Cassie a special present.’
‘It’s to say thank you,’ said Tilly. ‘For picking me up from school.’
‘Where’s my present then?’ Ian said, tapping his smoke into an empty beer can on the table, and raising his can further away from Wally’s fingers. Tilly looked up at the gold can hovering in the air so she didn’t have to look into anyone’s face. Her neck was prickled pink.
‘Where’d your mum go?’ Cassie said to Tilly.
Tilly shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’
‘She have a boyfriend?’ Ian asked.
‘Why do you want to know?’ Tilly replied
‘It’s not me who wants to know,’ Ian said.
Later that night, Wally, Tilly and me decided to play spotlight in the yard. The torch batteries were flat so I searched the junk drawers in the kitchen for a new set. While I looked, Wally opened the fridge and took out the roast chicken that was nearly picked clean from lunch. He put it on the bench and began ripping stringy strips from the bones, pushing them into his mouth. Only the gross bits were left.
‘Let’s see if the boys want to play,’ Tilly said. ‘It’ll be better with more people.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘They won’t want to.’ Just because we were having an alright time together didn’t mean I wanted to play with Ian. I didn’t understand why Tilly liked him all of a sudden. Even Wally had started getting used to him.
‘Yeah, they will,’ said Tilly. ‘I bet you I can convince them.’
‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Do what you like.’
Wally took the torch out of my hands and walked onto the verandah. Ian and Cassie were sitting in the dark and the air was grey with smoke. Wally flicked on the torch and shone it into Cassie’s eye.
‘Come and play with us,’ Tilly said.
‘Nah,’ Cassie said, raising his arms to shield himself from the light.
‘It’ll be better with more people,’ Tilly said, grabbing Cassie’s arm and yanking it. ‘Please.’
‘Get that out of my eye, would you,’ Cassie said to Wally, who flicked the torch on and off, then shone it at Ian, who didn’t even flinch.
‘Come on,’ Ian said, standing up and taking the torch from Wally. He turned to Cassie and shone the beam in his face again. ‘Where’s your Christmas spirit?’
‘Fine,’ Cassie said. Tilly let go of his arm and he drained the last of his beer. ‘Just for a bit, though.’
‘Do you know how to play?’ Tilly said to Ian.
‘Of course I know how to play,’ Ian said, pelting his beer can into the yard. ‘Do I look like an idiot?’
Tilly was It first. She put her hands over her eyes at the bottom of the steps and counted out loud to fifty. There were no car sounds from the highway and her voice echoed in the air, wobbled like a calf. We decided the boundary would be our yard and the yellow house yard as well. No crossing into the paddock, no going beyond the fence. When it was Wally’s turn I raced next door and hid in the crawl space under the yellow house stairs. I crouched in the dirt, pressed my face to the slats and looked out at the yard.