CHAPTER 8

Dad came in to take me home about teatime. They had brought Caleb home but he was still very sick. I heard them talking at the kitchen door, but then Mr Driver took Dad outside so I don’t know what was said. When he came back in, Dad wasn’t with him, and Mr Driver asked if I’d like to stay with him for tea and I said thank you I wasn’t very hungry but could I stay anyway.

He didn’t make me put Sixpence down, and I knew if I went home, they would take her away from me. He let me stay in his chair in the kitchen with her and went about making mashed potatoes and chops in the griller of his stove. He wasn’t worried about a dead animal in his kitchen, and I guessed this was because he’d seen dead things and people in the war, so it didn’t make him flip out. He put the radio on quietly and didn’t make me talk to him.

After a while he sat next to me. He said Sixpence was a very pretty guinea pig, and he knew I would miss her. He said animals have a very strong sense about who cares about them, and he was sure she knew how much I loved her, and that would have made her happy at the end. He said when I was ready, he would put her back in the box, and we could bury her anywhere I liked in his garden, so I could come to visit her grave whenever I wanted to. He asked if I would like to make a bed in the box for her and I nodded. He said I could come in after school tomorrow and he would help me make a little cross for her grave. I said I didn’t think our church let us have crosses or angels on graves because that was considered idolatry, and he sort of snorted and said we’d work something out. He put a pile of old socks and rags and scissors and magazines and glue on the table and asked me to help myself when I was ready. After a while I put her on the table and started to cut up some nice old soft socks to make a bed for her.

I tucked her in and put a rag with some dots on it as a cover for her. I cut up nice pictures of flowers and sunny skies from The Women’s Weekly magazines and covered the top of the box. With a thick black packaging marker, I wrote ‘Sixpence, I love you’ on the top of the box in my best handwriting. I gave her a little kiss and closed the box. I tried not to cry again, but she looked so sad all tucked up that I thought I might never stop crying for the rest of my life.

Mr Driver came to have a look at my work and said he thought I had given her a very good send-off indeed. He said he doubted a guinea pig had ever had a better little bed to rest in, and he thought the decoration on the top was second to none. Even though it was getting dark outside, Mr Driver said we could still choose a spot for her and he would make her safe overnight in her new home in the garden. He took my hand and we walked around the garden. I pointed to a garden bed near the shed that had some flowers in it, and he nodded. We went back inside, and I lifted the lid and kissed her again, and then Mr Driver walked me home.

Dad met him at the door and gave me a hug and put his arm around me. We walked to Caleb’s room where Mum was sitting on the bed, and Ruthy was on the floor next to her, and I said, ‘Sorry for being mean to you, Caleb.’ Mum didn’t say anything to me and she didn’t look at me. I went to my bedroom and crawled into my bed. Dad asked if I wanted some tea but I wasn’t hungry. He said, ‘I’m so sorry, Dorcas,’ and tucked me in and kissed me on the forehead. To keep the quiet away, I made little yowly noises that no one else could hear until I went to sleep.

It must have been much later that I heard noises that woke me up. It felt like the darkest black bit of the night that you don’t get to see that often. I could see a crack of light under my doorway, and realised Mum and Dad were arguing. Ruthy was making little popping mouth noises so I knew she was asleep.

I got out of bed quietly so I didn’t wake her, and opened the door very gently. I stayed in our room but sat next to the crack in the door to hear what they were saying. I often did this. I had learned quite a few interesting things thanks to the crack in the door. It’s how I learned about Grandma being a bit crazy and having Dad to make her well. It’s how I heard about Daniel being sent to New South Wales, and that it was something to do with a girl at church, but I never found out which girl or what happened with her. It’s how I knew that Mum wished she’d never left her family in Scotland, and that if our church allowed divorce, she would have been off to find a decent life for herself ‘back home’. It’s where I found out that Dr Frayne had suggested some tablets for Mum but Dad had said all she needed was the power of prayer and it was a shame she was so like her mother who had never been able to get out of her own way. And Mum said how would he know because he had never met her family and never would if he didn’t insist he was paid properly by Henry Bednarski so they could afford to bring her mother out.

Dad said he was going over to the Johnsons in the morning to have it out with Athol Johnson. What kind of man kills a guinea pig and puts it in a box to frighten and punish a child? He thought he just might ring the police in the morning too. If he can do something like that, what else might he do? And he should have reported him for forcing Dorcas to look at that photo in any case.

Mum’s voice changed somehow. It went soft and coaxing. She said it was better to just let sleeping dogs lie, and the main thing was the guinea pig couldn’t make Caleb sick now, and nothing else mattered. Dad said it also mattered that I had had a nasty experience – two of them now – and what kind of mother didn’t want to protect her oldest girl? Mum said what if Athol Johnson just denied that he’d killed the rat? Dad said not to call it a rat and that Mr Driver would testify to what had happened and the police would believe him given his reputation and his war record.

Mum started to beg Dad to leave the matter alone. It would all blow over. I would get over the disappointment and life would go on. It would teach me not to go to the Johnsons’ when I’d been forbidden to go over there. Perhaps there would finally be some peace for a while.

Dad said, ‘Give the girl a break, Agnes, for goodness’ sake.’ Mum didn’t say anything but she went into Caleb’s room and I think she slept there with him.

The next morning I decided to see if there was anything in Dad’s shed I could take to Mr Driver to help build a memorial for Sixpence. I wasn’t really meant to go into the shed without permission, but I had an idea when I woke up that I might try to make a little house to sit on her grave if I wasn’t allowed to have a cross or an angel. I pulled the chord to switch on the light and started to poke around to see what I could find. There wasn’t much that would be of any use, and I was just about to leave when I saw something pushed behind Dad’s workbench near the far corner. I pulled at it and out came a small cage. I had seen that cage before. It belonged to Mrs Johnson and she used it when she had to take one of the animals to the vet. I pulled it right out and looked at it. It had some straw bedding in it, a little water tank made from a plastic bottle tied to the bars and a small dish of food. I didn’t understand why it was in our shed. I took it in to the kitchen.

Dad was making his toast.

‘Dad, why is this cage in your shed?’ I asked.

Dad looked up, surprised. ‘What were you doing in the shed, Dorcas?’ I could see he was about to crossen up, but then he looked at me and changed his face. ‘I don’t know, Dorcas. I’ve never seen it before. Where exactly was it?’

‘It was pushed down the back where you couldn’t see it easily. Is this what Mr Johnson brought Sixpence home in? But why did he put her in a box if he had this cage? And why did he hide the cage in our shed?’ I asked.

‘I don’t know, Dorcas. I don’t know. But I think I’ll ask him.’ Dad walked out the door looking very determined. I thought about going with him, but I knew he would just send me home. If Mr J deliberately killed Sixpence, I would be happy if Dad told the police and if they put him in jail. We are meant to forgive other people and turn the other cheek, but I would quite like him to go away, even if it meant Mrs Johnson and the girls had to live on their own and only visit him in prison on his birthday, which I was pretty sure they would let them do even if he was a guinea-pig killer.

Ruthy was ready to go to school, but I wanted to find out what happened when Dad came home. Mum and Caleb were asleep in Caleb’s room, so I told Ruthy just to go to school and I’d go by myself later. Ruthy came up to me at the kitchen table and gave me a little hug.

‘I’m really sorry about Sixpence, Dorcas. I really am. It’s horrible. You were mean to Caleb yesterday but you didn’t deserve that to happen. Mum thinks you made him have an asthma attack, but I’m sure you didn’t. His teacher said it is the spring allergy season and that lots of kids are getting asthma and hay fever, and I’m sure that’s what it is because he always gets sick just before the union exams in September. Where is Sixpence now?’ she asked.

‘She’s buried in Mr Driver’s garden behind the shed. After school he’s going to help me build a memorial to put on her grave. I can show you after if you like. Or you could help. You’re good at making things.’

‘I will be glad to help, Dorcas. I’ll think about ideas at school today and we can walk home and decide what to make. We’ll make something really beautiful for her.’ She hugged me again. ‘I’m going to make some special Sixpence pages in my journal in her honour, and you can write in them too if you want. There’s a girl in my class who is a very good drawer. I’m going to ask her to go to the library with me to look for photos of guinea pigs and then I’ll ask her to draw Sixpence for us. We can cut the drawing out and put it in the journal. And I am going to write to Daniel and tell him about it because he would have loved Sixpence too and I know he will be very sad for you.’

I mumbled thanks and she headed out the door.

I sat on the outside top step and waited for Dad. I let my legs swing back and forward and crash into the cement, and even though it hurt a bit I couldn’t stop. I had scratched my head in the night and had to hide my pillow slip in the laundry so Mum wouldn’t notice, and my head hurt a bit in one place, but somehow the leg hurting and the head hurting felt right.

Dad walked past me and he was in a fury.

‘Dad. What did he say, Dad?’ I asked.

‘Go to school, Dorcas. Just go to school.’

‘But, Dad, what did he say? Did he admit he smothered her in a box? Dad?’

‘Dorcas. Don’t make me cross. Go to school. We’ll talk about it when you get home tonight. Not now.’ He slammed the back door after him.

I put my ear to the door and I heard him call out for Mum. She came out of Caleb’s room, shooshing him because Caleb was still asleep. They went into the lounge room. I decided to crouch down and go around the front to listen. As well as listening at the crack in the bedroom door, sometimes you learned things by crouching down by the lounge room windows in the spring when Mum opened them a bit for fresh air.

‘He says he left her in the cage on our back doorstep, Agnes,’ said Dad.

‘Well, he would, wouldn’t he?’ she said.

‘Why would he hide the cage in the garage if he had put the thing in a box on the step? It doesn’t make sense. He says what happened was nothing to do with him. He says if I just think about it, two and two will make four, Agnes.’

‘What on earth are you taking about?’ said Mum. ‘That dreadful man clearly killed the rat to upset Dorcas and you’re believing his story?’

‘Stop calling her pet a rat!’ yelled Dad. He didn’t yell at Mum that often. His voice was usually the one trying to make her voice less loud and screechy. I was glad he stood up for Sixpence and didn’t want her to be called a rat.

‘If I ever find out what happened, Agnes …’ said Dad.

‘What? What! You’ll what exactly?’ cried my mum. ‘You’ll pray about it? You’ll tell your dreadful sister-in-law? You’ll work a few more hours for Henry? What exactly will you do, Harry?’

Then I didn’t hear any more talking, and a few minutes later Dad got in the car and drove off. I sat quietly until I was sure Mum wouldn’t see me and then snuck off to school.

I didn’t understand what was happening, but I decided I would tell Maynard at lunchtime to see what he thought.