John Marsden - Circle of fight

And if he had made a mistake about the person I was, if he’d been seeing someone else every time he looked at me, well, tough toadies for him.

‘Jeremy, the bell’s gonna go in a sec, and I don’t know what to say to you, but my relationship with Homer isn’t something for you to control, and if you think it is, then you don’t understand much about me or about relationships. I’m too upset to talk about this any more, but maybe you better ring me tonight or something.’

And off I went, my head feeling like a shaken-up bottle of Coke had just been opened in it. All I could think was, ‘I hope he doesn’t ring. I don’t think I can cope with any more of that today.’

Am I a lightning rod? Do I attract storms? Are there violent forces of nature zigzagging around the heavens looking for a way to get to earth and then they see me and they go, ‘Oh good, there’s Ellie, now’s our chance.’?

It was only a couple of weeks after we got back from Havelock, bruised and more battered than a piece of fish. I was in the kitchen, making a fruit salad; there was a call on the walkie-talkie from the soldiers down the road — we had the honour of patrols around the district all the time now — and they told me there was a lady from the Department of Something-or-other coming my way.

Now I didn’t think much about that. There were always government departments turning up for one thing or another. Checking the water, checking for GM crops, checking the road, checking our fire precautions and tractor emissions and the way we store our chemicals and whether our rifles and shotguns are in childproof safes… For a long time after the war everything was in chaos and we could do pretty much what we wanted — no, that’s not true, some things, like land redistribution, happened pretty fast — but in most ways it was a land without laws. Sometimes I rather liked it like that, because it meant that as soon as anything went wrong we could all say, ‘Why doesn’t the government do something about it? How come those people can get away with so much?’

But gradually the world began to get organised again and all the official stuff started to happen the way it used to, only worse, because with much less land to go around everyone was more crowded, so there were more regulations and a stronger sense of POS, ‘parent over shoulder’, of being watched and controlled and supervised. Bit by bit, detail by detail.

One part of my life had been completely ignored though, and I didn’t think about it much, didn’t let myself think about it, because I knew that things could get horribly complicated if a government department started snooping around it. So even though the name ‘Department of Social Responsibility’ didn’t mean anything specific to me, I did feel a strange tension in my stomach as I worked away on the fruit salad. I heard the car pull up outside and for a moment didn’t want to go see who it was or what she wanted. But I made myself put down the knife and go to the door.

She’d parked her Falcon next to my ute and was just straightening up from having a peep into the cab of the ute as I opened the kitchen door. She was about thirty, I’d guess, although I’m pretty hopeless at working out people’s ages. She had a face that — I don’t want to be rude, but I will be — was like a particular type of fish, except I don’t know the name of them. Round, with little eyes and a little mouth, and ears that were flat to the sides of her head. On top of that was a heap of blonde curls. She carried a blue folder and she walked towards the house as though she owned it and was about to take charge. I’m not saying all this with hindsight; this is exactly what I thought as I watched her approach. I took an instant dislike to her.

‘Ellie Linton, is it?’ she asked. She didn’t offer to shake hands. ‘Madeleine Randall. I’m from the Department of Social Responsibility. I notice the vehicle’s got its keys in the ignition?’

‘Er, yes, I suppose it has,’ I said, feeling completely off balance. It was as bad as the conversation with Jeremy already. I was totally astonished when she opened her folder and started writing in it, like she was recording the fact that the ute had its keys in it. I didn’t know whether to laugh or crack it with her big time.

She looked around, along the wall of the house. Marmie had done a poo quite a way further down. When Madeleine saw it she frowned and tossed her curls. ‘Dog faeces?’ she asked.

‘What is this?’ I said. ‘What’s it got to do with you whether the dog’s done a crap or not?’

She went a little red and looked at me coldly. ‘We understand that you have a child here who is not under the jurisdiction of his parents.’

‘Oh God,’ I thought. ‘They’ve caught up with us at last.’ It was the one fear that I hadn’t let myself think about. Occasionally I had a flicker of ‘I can’t believe no-one’s ever checked on Gavin’ in my brain, but it was rare.

I couldn’t think of what to say. It was hard to argue with her about Marmie’s bowel movements. I guess I was a little red myself as I stared back. ‘Let’s have a look inside the house,’ she said, starting for the back door.

I wanted to say, ‘What right do you have to march into my home without an invitation?’ but although I had no problem standing up to enemy soldiers, getting involved in gun battles, fighting a guerrilla war, I’d never met anyone as chilling as this lady. So I didn’t say anything, just followed her meekly inside.

At once I could see in painful detail just how unsatisfactory everything was. It was like I was suddenly seeing it through her eyes. And there was no doubt she saw every fault. She gave a running commentary as she walked around the kitchen, but she was writing all the time, and I don’t think she mentioned a lot of stuff that she wrote down. Half the time she was more or less talking to herself. ‘Microwave has food stains… chopping board looks too old to be hygienic…’ She looked into the corner of the pantry and came out muttering about the rat poison I had in a little bowl in there.

‘Gavin’s not stupid enough to help himself to Ratsak,’ I said. Neither was Marmie, although I thought I’d better not mention the possibility of Marmie ever being in the pantry.

She didn’t answer that, but when she went to the door of the fridge and said, ‘Let’s have a look in here,’ I thought I’d blow more than a fuse. Probably an entire transformer.

‘What’s this all about?’ I asked. ‘Have you really got the right to walk into people’s houses and start checking out their fridges?’

‘I’m from the Child Protection Unit,’ she said. ‘We have the right to go into any premises where we have reason to believe that a child is living in unsatisfactory circumstances.’

I was on fire inside and struggling not to breathe it out of my mouth. I knew already that if I erupted it would be bad for Gavin. Bad for me. I didn’t want to lose Gavin. I knew it would be unbearable for both of us. I was just glad he was over at Homer’s for the afternoon, but he was due back any time, and if he walked in and realised what this lady was on about, I hated to think what he might do and say.

On the other hand I didn’t know how much longer I could cope with this witch — and I’m not sure if w is the right way of starting that word — without going completely and utterly off my head. But maybe this was part of the test, to see if I was a calm, competent person. I suspected pretty strongly, though, that it didn’t matter much what I did. I was under-age, I had a guardian myself, and there was no way in the world I was going to be allowed to officially take charge of a kid. I could be Mother Teresa or Joan of Arc or the Virgin Mary herself and the Department of Social Responsibility would still knock me over the head with a dozen kilos of documentation and leave me unconscious while they took Gavin off to a foster home or an orphanage or something.