Road-rage drivers, it must be said, were not on Maddie’s family’s list of Favourite People, either. Nor were Volunteers with Good Intentions, as they were to find out that Saturday afternoon. Volunteer Sharon Morris sat primly on the edge of the proffered chair. She smoothed her skirt for the third time and looked around. The sea of expectant faces did not help her nerves. Despite her two-day course on ‘Effective Communication’, she launched into the questionnaire that would determine what could be done to help without so much as a Howdy-Do, eager to be gone from what was reputedly Sydney’s most violent neighbourhood. That that dubious honour was actually held by another suburb made no difference to Public Perception. Wasn’t life complicated enough without challenging almost comforting labels?
“So they’re your half-brother and half-sister then?” Sharon Morris asked Maddie, as she ticked boxes and scribbled notes in the margin. It brought to Maddie’s mind a magician’s box: as if her siblings had been sawn in two. The question made Maddie’s mum bristle with anger – hadn’t halves, quarters, eighths and other frightening fractions divided families for generations with Society’s obsession with blood and its subsequent dilution? Blood was blood was blood. And no amount of counting or note-taking would make Maddie, Troy and Cassy feel any less like brother or sister. What infuriated her even more was that nobody ever asked any of the really important questions like, “How are you?” and genuinely cared about the answer they gave. Instead it was all Business. Professional. And subsequently cold.
Uncle Joe was also in a grumpy mood. Sharon Morris had mistaken him for that old geezer, what’s-his-face, down the road. The smelly one with the gimpy leg and missing teeth. Was the woman blind? They looked nothing alike, and Joe was at least ten years younger.
Running around pretending to be an aeroplane (or a very noisy bird) was four-year-old Troy, and (forever) trailing after was little sister, Cassy, a year younger. Neither of them knew they were half of anything as they ducked in and out of furniture, legs and pot plants, with Khalilah chasing them and making scary noises. Suddenly, Khalilah changed tack. She huffed and puffed to a stop, acting as if she was too tired. She collapsed on the couch in defeat, all the while keeping an eye out for the creeping figures, which tiptoed from behind. “Gotcha!” she yelled, pouncing as the pair squealed in fear and delight. The teenager tucked each child under an arm like sacks of potatoes. Their shaking and squirming produced a shiny, plastic packet from Troy’s pocket. Khalilah put them both down to pick the sweets up from the floor. “Mmmm! Jelly babies. My favourite!” she said with a big wink. “I’m hungry, too.”
Maddie’s little brother snatched at the bag. “They’re not jelly babies. They just look like it. Anyhow …” he added, in case Khalilah got any ideas, “they’ve got bacon in them.”
Maddie’s mum took in a shocked breath, but Khalilah just roared with laughter. “I don’t like sharing my jelly babies either,” she confided to him. With a suspicious glance backwards, Troy ran off, hand-in-hand with his little sister – but not before slipping a fat, red sweet, half-melted and squashed, into Khalilah’s hand.
Miss Morris took note of Khalilah who, although she bore no resemblance to the rest of the family, could well be a relative. She clicked her pen decisively. In her job it did not pay to ‘assume’. “And this is …?” Sharon enquired with a vague wave in Khalilah’s direction.
“Cousin,” wheezed Uncle Joe promptly, ignoring Khalilah’s surprise. Sharon Morris bent her head to tick yet another box.
When Sharon Morris took her leave to continue her survey elsewhere, Uncle Joe waved his arms like a baby bird attempting to fly. The saggy pockets of his biceps flapped like washing drying on the line. “Hurry. Hurry. Help me up,” he urged.
“Where you going, then?” Maddie asked, flummoxed.
“I’m off,” he said pointing to the house across the road. “I’ll show that young Missy how alike we all look. Mess up those tidy numbers of hers,” he grumbled.
Khalilah took his arm and helped the elderly man to the door. “I’ll help, shall I?” she said with a cheeky grin, grabbing a cap to hide her plait. “Who shall we be this time?”