21

By the time Peter’s home, Anne and Emmett have left for work without noticing he’s missing. He slips in the back door using his foot to stop the flywire door smacking shut just in case Emmett’s around. You never know.

Rob, pulling his socks on while he sits on top of the radiator, is waking up slowly aided by the stupefying orange heat that will soon have him shifting. He knew his brother had gone fishing but didn’t say anything, couldn’t see the point. Why would you volunteer any information in this house?

Louisa is eating a bowl of cereal when Pete comes in. He sees she’s got the blue bowl she likes, she carries on if the others get it first. And she’s doing that weird thing where she concentrates on not spilling milk. The trick is keeping her head still.

Pete is convinced he has the weirdest sister in the world. The other sister sits beside her having a nibble at her vegemite toast and Frank helpfully eats anything Jessie can’t manage. She smiles at Pete and he ruffles her silky hair as he passes.

‘Where ya bin?’ Louisa asks scraping milk up her chin with the spoon and looking straight ahead. ‘Gelli Pier,’ he says, voice low and husky from his night in the open. He gets the sharp knife out of the drawer.

Louisa goes back to the newspaper spread out in front of her like a map of the world. She doesn’t keep going with questions. She’s got to get ready for school, there’s a history test today and she’s planning to get the best mark. She earnestly wishes she’d spent more time on European kings. But Emmett got home from the pub earlier than he should have last night and she turned her light off so he wouldn’t know she was awake.

She lay in her bed as still as a branch waiting for which way the sounds of night would go. Would something upset him? Or would he just get stuck into his cold tea sitting on a plate on the pot. Scoff it down standing there like a wolf who stole into the wrong house?

It took about ten minutes to know and things were quiet enough last night but the cost was in European kings. Pity there’s such a bloody lot of them, she thought, seems like every second European was a damned king.

In the yawning mouth of the gully trap, Peter cleans his fish under the tap, enjoying the business of turning them into food. When the others are gone, he delicately fries the small fillets in a bit of butter in the old frying pan, the one Emmett reckons is well-seasoned whatever that means, and then with a sprinkle of salt, has them for his breakfast.

He knows he won’t be going to school today. He also knows he’ll have to be careful with this wagging it business. Not too much. He sits himself down in Emmett’s chair at the head of the table. After he’s eaten his little feed of fish, he pushes his plate back from where he’s been sitting and starts working out what he’ll need for his next trip to the pier.