Later that night, the phone rang. It echoed eerily through our cold dark house until Gran picked it up. I scrambled out of bed and crept into the hallway.
‘I know. It’s terribly sad, Malcolm dear,’ Gran was saying. ‘Yes, I know, poor little thing. Yes, I understand. Okay, yes, I see, well . . .’
I peeked into the kitchen. Gran had the phone to her ear and was staring out the darkened window. Her face was pinched and pale. ‘Oh, really? That soon?’ she said. ‘What about the strawberry season? Okay, well, yes, I see . . .’ She rubbed her forehead and leant her shoulder against the window. I wanted to run in and hug her, but I didn’t. Instead I crept back to bed and curled up into a ball. If only Lizzie hadn’t died. If only Mum and Dad were here. Why had they all gone and left Gran and me behind?
Uncle Malcolm showed up the following afternoon. He parked his fancy sports car in our drive and pulled out a laptop case before marching up to the house in his pointy black shoes. I practically choked on the smell of his sickly men’s perfume as he passed me. But he didn’t even give me a sideways glance. Instead, he stepped over the crates on the verandah, like he’d get an infection if he touched one. His shiny bald head jutting out of his black suit reminded me of a turtle with its head poking out from its shell. Only turtles didn’t have fat ugly necks with bright purple ties knotted against them.
When Gran opened the front door, Uncle Malcolm looked around and sniffed. Animals made his eyes itchy and his nose run, and if he touched one, he would break out in an angry red rash. I wished he would. Maybe then he’d go back to the city and leave us alone.
‘You’ll have to move the junk out of the yard,’ he said as soon as he kissed Gran hello. Gran’s lips thinned. I waited for her to tell him to stop talking smart. But her shoulders slumped and she kept her eyes down.
‘Rosie love,’ whispered Gran. ‘You go on outside. Your Uncle Malcolm and I have some sorting out to do.’
I stomped around doing my chores that afternoon. I banged the door to the chicken pen, sending the chooks squawking and flapping. I clanged the buckets together on my way to feed Sally. I stirred Mickey’s mash so hard I gave myself a blister. How could Gran do this? Didn’t she know I wouldn’t survive in the city?
As soon as my chores were done, I ran down the street to Carol’s.
‘Gran’s doing it,’ I puffed when Carol let me in. ‘She’s selling the farm. She’s really selling the farm.’
‘She is?’ Carol’s thin eyebrows folded inwards so fast they nearly crashed together. ‘What’s happened?’
My lips trembled and tears began to slide down my cheeks. ‘It’s Lizzie,’ I managed to say. ‘She died yesterday.’
Carol had been holding a basket of washing, but now she dropped it and wrapped her arms around me. ‘Oh no,’ she said. She pressed my wet face into her chest and stroked my hair. She smelt nice, not nice like lavender, like Mum, but nice like baby formula and breakfast cereal. She held me there for a long time and when she let me go, her T-shirt was damp with my tears. ‘I’m so sorry. Lizzie was a very special dog. You’ll miss her.’
I nodded. My voice wouldn’t work.
‘Tell you what, you can help me feed my new puggle. That’ll cheer you up.’
She led me through to the kitchen and cleared a chair for me to sit down. I blew my nose and dried my tears while she bustled around making a bottle of formula. This wasn’t a regular bottle – it was made from a small syringe with a long narrow teat on the end. When it was ready, she opened the little blue esky on the kitchen bench and pulled out the tiniest grey creature I’d ever seen. When she passed him to me, he lay curled up in a ball in the palm of my hand with his pink claws sticking out. His long pointy nose sniffed the air.
‘What is he?’ I whispered.
‘He’s a baby echidna,’ said Carol, passing me the bottle. ‘He’s about a month and a half old. You just squeeze drops of milk onto your hand and he’ll suck it up from there. ’
For a moment I forgot about Lizzie. I forgot about Gran and Uncle Malcolm. I was too busy feeding the puggle. He snuffled at his milk like a tiny elephant. When he finished, he started hiccupping so violently I was scared I would drop him, so I passed him to Carol.
‘We have to move to the city,’ I said. ‘I won’t be able to see you or Smooch or . . .’ I swallowed the lump rising in my throat.
Carol shook her head sadly as she rubbed the puggle’s belly with her fingers. ‘That’s too bad. It’s going to be tough. But there is a positive side. Did you know they sell chocolate pizza in the city?’
‘I don’t like pizza.’
‘Okay, no pizza. There are movies. All kids like movies. And ice skating and . . .’
I frowned. ‘I don’t want to go ice skating.’
‘Hey, give yourself a break. You’ll love it. You’ll be too busy to worry about me and my babies. And Smooch will be just fine without you.’
‘No! No, he won’t! He won’t be fine! Smooch needs me. I’m the one who looks after him. I’m the one who—’
The puggle in Carol’s hand started at my loud voice and almost tumbled to the floor. Carol cupped her hands to stop him from falling. ‘Okay, okay, calm down. When do you go? Is it soon?’
‘Well, the farm’s not sold yet,’ I mumbled. ‘I mean, anything could happen . . .’
An ugly yellow FOR SALE sign appeared at our gate the very next week. Big red letters plastered across it screamed, ‘Exciting New Development Opportunity!’ Exciting? It wasn’t the least bit exciting. I wanted to puke every time I saw the sign. Surveyors wearing fluoro jackets and business men in black tromped all over our farm, with maps and measuring tapes and no concerns for Gran or Sally or Mickey or me. They were only interested in one thing: the land. Our street turned into a carpark with all the people coming and going, and I expected Gran to tell me to pack my bags any day. But she didn’t. People came and people went. For weeks. Heads nodded. Mobiles rang. When no SOLD sign appeared, hope trickled into my heart.
The pickers arrived in May to pick the red juicy strawberries. The first of the last juicy red strawberries. I limped through second term, my books open but my mind a million miles away. Maybe we wouldn’t sell? Maybe no-one had the money? Perhaps now Gran would tell Uncle Malcolm to get lost? She knew I could never live in the city. Especially not with a nagging, shouting uncle who was allergic to everything.
Term three came and went and, as the weather warmed up, the strawberries started to dwindle. But despite all my hopes, the interest in our farm did not. Gran said we’d had some very promising offers, but so far none of them had followed through. I refused to listen when she tried to tell me the details. I preferred to imagine it wasn’t going to happen at all.
One day in the first week of term four, our teacher, Mrs Glover, began talking in her important-piece-of-information voice. Mrs Glover had been teaching at my school for 1,000 years and everyone knew she was the toughest teacher around.
‘Everyone clear? A one-minute PowerPoint presentation. You have six weeks, so you’ll need to get organised.’ She squeezed through the middle row of desks, pushing rulers and pencil cases out of her way. ‘This is the main assessment piece for the term, so I expect you to give it your best. Absolutely no extensions.’
A one-minute presentation? I’d been so busy worrying about the farm that I missed what it should be about. I searched the whiteboard for clues.
Due: week seven. A persuasive presentation on an endangered native animal. Include what they eat, where they live and tell us why we should save them.
Mrs Glover’s writing was so neat it looked like one of the fonts in Microsoft Word.
I copied down the instructions, trying not to panic. Public speaking always made me sick. But public speaking in front of Kellee and Tahlia would be a death sentence.