The Haystack by Jack Lasenby

Author:Jack Lasenby [Lasenby, Jack]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780730446088
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-One

Sharp Shoulder Blades Sticking Out Like Knives, Dancing Like Redskins on the Warpath, and Digging a New Dunny.

DAD REACHED OVER and gave me half of his last sausage.

“Are you sure?”

“There’s a couple left over.” Dad licked his lips. “I can always eat them after you’ve gone to bed.”

“I thought they were for lunch tomorrow…”

The tiger smiled and licked his lips again.

“Promise you won’t get up in the middle of the night and eat them? Why are you putting your hands behind your back? Dad, you crossed your fingers. You’ve got to hold both hands out where I can see. Now promise.”

Dad tried to change the subject. “How are your new shoes? Not too tight?”

I shook my head. “Promise.”

“I promise.”

“That’s all right then. When will my feet stop growing, Dad?”

“They should have stopped by now, but it looks as if they’re going to keep growing bigger and bigger.” He looked worried. “We’ll have to get bigger and bigger shoes made. At least people won’t be able to push you over.

“You’re teasing because I made you promise not to eat the sausages.”

“Your feet will stop in a few years, when the rest of you stops growing—except for your hair.”

“Our feet stop, but our hair keeps growing,” I told Milly. “Just as well for you.”

Having tea late means you’ve just put away the dishes, swept up the crumbs, folded the tablecloth, cleaned your teeth, put on your pyjamas, and it’s time you were in bed.

“Can Milly go down to the dunny with me?”

“Be careful with the candle down there.”

“Can I leave the back door open? Come on, Milly.”

I lit the candle before taking the lid off the dunny seat and called “ ‘We be of one blood, thee and I’” down the dark hole.

“Milly!” She must have run back into the house.

Mr Bryce’s calendar hung inside the dunny door, a picture of roses. Cut-up pages of the Herald hung from a nail for dunny paper. The walls had yellowing pictures out of the Weekly News pasted all over them: the 1928 All Blacks; Kingsford Smith and the Southern Cross; some skinny kids at a health camp—sharp shoulder blades sticking out of their backs like knives; and winged scows sailing in the Auckland Regatta.

I always liked an advertisement of a woman climbing into a canoe. She was holding a Japanese parasol and wearing silk stockings. “Bond’s Sylk-Arto Hose” it said. “Of course you will be purchasing Silk Hosiery as part of your holiday season equipment.”

I recited the rest in a loud voice: “‘But you want to be sure the Silk Hosiery you select—’” I knew the words by heart, but held the candle close to see them better, and my hair swung forward. I remembered Dad singeing the chook, the smell of burnt pin-feathers, the hairs on the back of his hand frizzling, and jerked my head back.

The flame jumped from the candle and whooshed up the bits of dunny paper on their nail. Whoosh!—up the old dry pictures out of the Auckland

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