‘Peony and me are having a picnic,’ Ez says and points a cake-messy hand down the lawn to the blanket which is still laid out nice like I set it.
Mrs Pasquale looks down the lawn to the blanket, then back to Ez who’s acting like she goes outside every day.
Mrs Pasquale turns around to Ivy who’s standing at the back door. Ivy jumps and ducks back into the kitchen. Mrs Pasquale sighs.
Now I’m sure she’s gonna slap me, and pull me by my ear, and chuck me out that gate onto the street with the raggy people.
But she just says, ‘Peony and I are having a picnic,’ which is confusing, coz the last thing I want to do is have a picnic with Mrs Pasquale, who’s probably mad as a snake caught up in Foreman’s mower about the mess, but hiding it good.
She yells, ‘Ivy, bring towels and a kitchen chair!’
‘May I join your picnic?’ she asks Esmeralda, even though it’s really my picnic.
Esmeralda smiles. ‘Yes, you may,’ she says.
Ivy brings a chair down to the blanket and hands us both some towels. We wipe our faces and hands.
We sit cross-legged on the blanket opposite Mrs Pasquale perched on the kitchen chair.
‘Look at the colour of your feet!’ Mrs Pasquale says.
‘We’s wild!’ Esmeralda says.
Mrs Pasquale nods. ‘We are wild,’ she says, never mind there’s nothing wild about Mrs Pasquale in her perfect clothes. ‘Can you cut me a slice of cake, Peony?’ Mrs Pasquale says.
I cut a slice for her from the side Ez didn’t touch and then slice Ez a real piece from the bit she did touch. I finish my piece as Mrs Pasquale asks Ez questions about school and never once asks her how she got to be outside without panicking.
‘Did you go to school back home, Peony?’ Mrs Pasquale asks me.
‘Only radio school,’ I say. ‘Coz we’re too busy with the fruit. They’ll be missing me something bad. I’m a pest, with my sister Mags, we’re a real good team with our chooks, but I’m gonna be a bee real soon. Almost made it last time. And I help my friend Applejoy look after his little brother. His ma isn’t very strong. He’s already a bee, got a shiny yellow-and-black vest an’ everything.’ I wanna make Mrs Pasquale see how important it is for me to get back, but she holds up a hand.
‘My goodness you talk quickly,’ she says, like she hasn’t heard anything I said. Or maybe what I say isn’t important enough to listen to. ‘It’s so nice out here in the garden. Was it your idea to have a picnic?’
I nod.
Mrs Pasquale smiles. ‘It’s a good idea. We should do it more often.’ She stands up and hands me her empty plate. ‘I have work to do, but please stay out here as long as you’d like.’ She kisses Ez on the top of the head before she totters back up the lawn on her tall heels.
‘I thought she was gonna hit me, when she saw me with cake all over,’ I whisper to Ez.
‘Ha!’ Ez says. ‘Mum doesn’t hit anyone.’
‘Dad? Never. He just bosses us all around,’ Ez says and I wonder how it is that she’s never seen her dad hit Ma. Ez stands up. ‘Please come with me back to the house. I’m worried it’s going to get dark soon.’
I wave at the house where Ivy and Ma are watching from the window. ‘It’s right there. Brave Ez can run there quick as anything. Strong Ez can carry the blanket while I carry the plates and Ivy’s cake,’ I say, not trusting her with what’s left of this precious sweet thing.
I stand up and pick up the plates and slicer while Ez collects the blanket, rolls it up all messy, and we walk up to the house.
‘Flies!’ Ivy calls when we step into the kitchen. Then, ‘Your feet!’ Ez laughs so hard, she stumbles into me and I have to put the cake on the bench before I drop it.
I still have to go up and collect Ez’s washing even though I worked hard enough getting that picnic together.
‘That was so much fun!’ Ez says, standing in a towel next to a whole bathtub full of warm water. A bath so big it could fit me, Mags, AJ and little Mango all at once. Seems like a waste of all that warm water for just one girl. I’ve half a mind to leap in there and swim about like a fish. ‘Let’s do that every afternoon,’ she says.
‘It’s not warm every afternoon,’ I say. ‘And anyway, I can’t, coz my Gramp’s heart is breaking from me being here instead of with him. I have to get home.’
Esmeralda nods and pushes her smile straight. ‘I said I’d help you,’ she says. ‘What I think is, you have to get on one of the fruit trucks going from the coolstore to Goulburn Valley. I’ve checked out the maps and there’s a corner near my school where the trucks will turn off if they’re going to Goulburn Valley. You just have to get on one when it stops at the traffic lights.’
‘How will I do that?’ I ask.
‘I’ll cause a scene. I’m very good at causing a scene. When everyone is looking at me, you’ll slip onto the truck.’ Esmeralda shrugs and tilts her head to the side like she knows just how smart she is.
And she is smart! ‘You’s super-cherries, Ez!’ I say, and she laughs.
She scrapes together her wad of clothes off the floor and shoves them at me. ‘Here’s my washing. You better get that downstairs before anyone finds out you’re up here planning things.’