SIX

It was always a late one when the Crofts came over, so we were all tired the next day. While we waited for the Pommie to get us some tucker, no one said much. We all looked a bit like creased-up bits of paper, which someone had chucked away and then tried to straighten out again. The Pommie hadn’t a clue where anything was, or what to make for us.

She’d asked what we all wanted for brekkie—that was her first mistake. Mum usually made something and we all just ate it. If you didn’t like it, it was tough—you went hungry. But seeing as she’d asked, Dad laughed and said if the Timber Creek café was taking orders, he’d have a bacon sandwich. Mum asked for a poached egg on brown toast. I wanted rice bubbles and milk, followed by a bacon sandwich. The fellas said they wanted bacon and eggs with fried bread. Bobbie reckoned she’d just have toast with Vegemite, and that left Emily. Emily was in the kitchen helping. As we all waited longer and longer for some food to arrive on the table, we got quieter and quieter. Mum started checking her watch every other second—I guess she was worried about being late for work. Dad got real fidgety. He was like a bear with a sore head until he’d had a cup of coffee.

We knew something had gone wrong when the first lot of toast got burned and the smell wafted through from the kitchen. Dad raised his eyebrows and looked at Mum, who whispered, “Do you think I should go in and help?” Dad shook his head and said the Pommie would never learn if we did everything for her.

I could hear Emily telling the Pommie where things were kept in the kitchen. We don’t use that pan for eggs, Liz. Mum always uses the other one. Why are you doing the toast in the grill? Mum always uses the toaster . . . It’s over there, on the side. Why are you holding the tea towel against your face—don’t you like the smell of bacon? Liz, can I have two slices of toast? When I stay at Aunty Ve’s she cuts it into three pieces, with everybody jam on two of them and Vegemite on the middle one, so it’s stripy . . . I wondered if the Pommie would know what everybody jam was—it’s what the Blackfellas call apricot jam because everybody likes it. As I was thinking that, I reckoned I could smell burning again, so I got up and went to the kitchen door, just to see what was going on. Mum told me to sit back at the table, but I just wanted a quick look. And I’m glad I did.

I couldn’t see the Pommie anywhere, but Emily was there. The bacon seemed to be smoking in the frying pan. Emily lifted it off the hob and put it down on Mum’s plastic tea tray—the one Grandma bought her. She was too dumb to think that the hot pan would melt the plastic. So, then there was this sickly smell of burning plastic in the air, as well as a smoky smell. The toast under the grill was burning again, and before I could say anything about the tea tray, Emily put the tea towel down on the hob where the bacon had been, while she got the oven glove to pull out the grill and rescue the toast. When she turned away to put the toast onto the tray with the bacon, she saw it had melted. Just as I tried to warn her about the tea towel catching fire on the hob, the tea urn began to boil over. No one had thought to tell the Pommie not to fill it right to the top. Boiling water cascaded down the sides and across the floor, nearly scalding Emily’s feet. I managed to push her out of the way and at the same time I shouted for Mum to come and help us. Mum just made it into the kitchen as flames from the tea towel suddenly licked at the ceiling and the water from the urn short-circuited the electric so the lights went off.

The dumb Pommie came back out of the pantry carrying a couple of jars of jam—she was saying something about not being able to find everybody jam, so would plum or apricot do? Her voice kind of trailed off to nothing as she noticed Mum’s kitchen was about to start the biggest bushfire the Territory had ever seen. Luckily Dad was there. He reached over with his long arms and switched the hob off, then grabbed a pair of tongs and threw what was left of the tea towel into the metal sink where Bobbie was waiting to turn on the tap and put out the fire. Elliot had flicked the switch to turn off the urn. We all stood and stared through the smoke at what was left of Mum’s kitchen. The Pommie’s face had gone bright red and she was coughing because of the smoke. Eventually she said, “I was looking for everybody jam”—like that would explain everything.

I hoped the disaster at brekkie meant Mum would fire the Pommie. We didn’t need a useless Pommie on the station, especially one who nearly burned the place down. I mean, no one else who’d worked for us had ever done anything as dumb as setting fire to the house before. But Mum decided to give her another chance. Seeing as the Pommie was new, and didn’t know much about life on a cattle station, Mum said Sissy would be in charge. She said Sissy could have the day off school to show Liz the ropes. That belly of hers was getting so big, she couldn’t do any work anyway. I guess barking orders at the Pommie was as useful as she was going to get.