‘Should be a full moon tonight,’ Sister Cornelius replied, gazing up at the sky like she was looking for some kind of sign.
‘Thanks, Sister,’ I said. Sooner than I’d expected, but when you get an opportunity, you just have to grab it. I had to tell Pete and Charlie – there was no time to lose.
They were in the kitchen finishing wiping up duty. Mrs Lucas was standing at the stove with her back to us, stirring a big pot. I grabbed a tea towel and started helping so as not to look suspicious. ‘This is it – the first full moon in spring,’ I whispered. ‘Are you going to come Racing the Moon with me tonight?’
‘Count me in,’ said Pete.
‘Me too,’ said Charlie. Anyone else comin’?’
‘Just the three of us – it’s better that way,’ I said. ‘And don’t tell anyone, especially Lance. If we want to do it properly, we’ll have to be ready to leave straight after lamps out. We’ll need paper and matches in case we want to light a fire.’
‘An’ some extra paper to stuff down our clothes to keep warm, said Pete. ‘I’ve done it lots o’ times – works really well.’
‘Won’t we make too much noise with paper stuffed down our clothes?’ Charlie asked.
‘I’m talkin’ ’bout up on the mountain. It gets cold up there ya know,’ Pete replied.
‘What if we get caught before we even get to the mountain?’ Charlie asked, sounding worried.
‘We’ll get the cane, say some rosaries, do a few extra chores, and then we’ll go Racing the Moon next month,’ I replied. ‘Don’t worry Charlie, if all goes to plan we’ll be back before the sun comes up. No-one will even know we were gone. If Lance could do it, we can too.’ I was getting excited just talking about it.
‘Stop talkin’ an’ wipe up!’ Mrs Lucas called out, watching us like a hawk as she stirred the pot.
I could see a box of matches on the floor next to the fireplace. ‘Something smells good!’ I said, wandering over to Mrs Lucas and giving her a cheesy smile before looking in the pot.
‘I’m boilin’ up some chicken carcasses to make soup for dinner tonight.’
‘Yum!’ I replied, looking at the bony remains of half a dozen chooks boiling away inside the big pot, trying not to think about poor Cleopatra. ‘I can’t wait to try it,’ I lied, casually kicking the box of matches towards Pete. He dropped his tea towel on top of the matches then picked them both up at the same time, putting the matches in his pocket. We wiped up the last of the cutlery and then hung the wet tea towels out on the clothes-line to dry.
There were only two newspapers left in Henry’s shed, so Pete and I snuck into the classroom and, while Charlie stood guard, we ripped out as many blank pages from the back of exercise books as we could in less than a minute. The rest of the boys were setting off to do their morning chores. We ran to our cabin and threw the paper under our beds, and then took a short cut through the orchard, arriving just in time to grab some hoes and start digging in the veggie garden before Sister Cornelius noticed we were late. Four teams were working there that morning – the other four teams were in the paddocks with Henry and Sister Ambrose for stock duty.
After tilling the soil and making furrows, we planted rows and rows of seeds: beans, carrots, beetroot, parsnip, turnips, peas, spinach and pumpkin. We also had to fix the wire around the veggie garden to keep the rabbits out, before we could head off for lunch under the flame trees.
We had our usual lunch of bread, butter and jam, as well as oranges, freshly picked from the orchard. After saying prayers and singing hymns, the four teams who had been working in the veggie garden swapped with those on stock duty, so we made our way to the paddocks with Sister Ambrose.
Henry was already in the sheep paddock, waiting for us. He’s a real farmer who knows everything there is to know about running a farm. ‘We need to crutch the sheep to keep ’em dry, less likely to get fly strike. When we’ve finished crutchin’, we hafta trim their hooves. What we don’t get done this afternoon, we’ll finish off tomorra.’
The morning group had crutched and trimmed the hooves of half the flock and we had to do the other half, so we herded the thirty two sheep into a pen. Henry grabbed a sheep, holding it firmly between his legs.
‘Ya hafta hold ’em firmly but not too tight. It might take two o’ ya to hold ’em down until ya get used to it. I’m not shearin’ all the wool off – just crutchin’ ’er. Watch how I clip the wool from ’round the backside … top o’ the legs … an’ all ’round the tail. Done! Now for the hooves.’ Henry put the shears down and picked up some clippers. ‘First, dig out any dirt between the toes then trim the nail ’round the toe an’ heel, but not too much that ya make ’em bleed. Trim the nail nice an’ flat, but if ya need to smooth it off, ya can use a file.’ Henry finished trimming the other hooves and then pushed the sheep on her way.
Each team had eight sheep, so we took it in turns to crutch our sheep and trim their hooves while Henry and Sister Ambrose watched and gave advice. Two of my teammates had to hold my sheep still, which was no easy task, while I started crutching her. I sheared slowly, being careful not to clip anything that I shouldn’t. Trimming her hooves was just as hard, and I was scared that I was going to trim too much off and make her bleed. My team ran out of time and didn’t get to trim all of our sheep’s hooves. That privilege had to wait another day.
We were five minutes late for milking duty. As I sat on the stool and squeezed my cow’s teats, all I could think about was running up that mountain and getting close enough to touch that moon. It was lucky it wasn’t shower day because we wouldn’t have had time – it was already starting to get dark.
The chicken soup that Mrs Lucas made for dinner had more veggies in it than chicken but tasted great. There were six loaves of freshly baked bread, which didn’t take thirty-two boys very long to demolish. I managed to sneak a slice into my pocket when no-one was watching. Charlie and Pete did the same. There were no Bible stories and hymns around the campfire that night – it was too late. By the time we’d finished washing and wiping up, it was time for bed.