The next morning when the horizon turns back towards the sun, it’s hard to tell if the red light is even working it’s so weak.
When I tell Ma I don’t wanna go fishing, I wanna go help Marta with Gerra, she squints her eyes real hard and says, ‘Whassup, Missy? One day you would rather go fishing than spend a minute with Marta, the next you’re turning down fishing to hang out with her?’
‘Well, I jus’ figured out it ain’t so bad hanging out with Marta, after you made me do it,’ I say.
Ma shakes her head. ‘I don’t reckon you can get into trouble with Marta looking out for you, so it’s all good, as long as she wants you there.’
So then I have to do this thing where I have to go talk to Marta and come back and talk to Ma, and then go back to Marta. So I take two bowls of steaming fish soup with eggs up to Marta’s cottage. I dunno if they like their eggs runny or hard, but if they’re gonna have any choice, I gotta run fast before the eggs set. I’m concentrating so hard on keeping the bowls from slopping that I almost run into Gerra as Marta is helping her out to a chair in the sunshine. I stand back and wait till she’s settled in the chair, then hand her the soup, giving her my friendliest and most trustworthy grin. Then I fetch a stool and a blanket for her to rest her leg up on if it’s throbbing like your toe does sometimes if you stub it hard. That throbbing gets less if you put it up in the air.
A few weeks ago I had to hop all the way up from the beach coz I stubbed my toe and it hurt to put it down. I guess I’m lucky my burnt head is at the top of my body.
Marta says right away she’d be pleased for the help, and thanks for the soup, so then I run back down to eat my own breakfast with much runnier egg and tell Ma what Marta said in the exact words Marta used so she knows I ain’t lying to jus’ play games all day or something.
‘Get Marta to put some burn cream on your head while you’re there,’ Ma says.
‘What you doing?’ Jaguar whispers.
‘Taking care of Gerra so she don’t think we was the ones what killed her sister,’ I say.
‘That’s stupid,’ Jag says. ‘No one can prove something that din’t happen, and taking care of someone who can’t even speak to you is boring.’
‘Won’t hurt to make sure,’ I say.
‘But you’ll miss fishing, you know you love fishing, and how we gonna be the best fishing team on the inland sea if you’s always staying behind?’
I smile. ‘Give you a chance to catch a fish as big as mine. Don’t forget to catch a croc too!’
‘Ha! You din’t bring back no croc, though, did you?’
I give Jag a shove and wait with the littlies waving as the fishing boats head out, then make sure they start their chores with the letting out of chooks and collecting eggs and sweeping out Rusty Bus and such before I head over to Marta’s. I put Dizzy’s little daughter Margy in charge. Margy’s every bit as bossy as Dizzy if you give her a chance.
