John Marsden - While I live

I explained how we needed evidence that he was a good manager, with sound financial sense. He immediately got insulted at the idea that anyone would think he wasn’t. I had to keep calming him down. But eventually he said, ‘OK, I get the bank manager. He tell everyone I am no fool with money.’

‘That’d be a great idea. And I’ll try to get my bank manager, to say the loan I took out was a smart move.’

He pointed his pen at me. ‘You know what? You get Mr Jerry Parsons and he say you bought cattle good at the sale. What you pay for those cattle?’

I told him.

‘Ah!’ he said. ‘Already you up a hundred dollars a head.’

‘You think so?’

‘Sure! Where you been? You not looking at prices? Prices are crazy. Them cattle, you up a hundred bucks easy.’

Even so, it wasn’t until we were standing outside the Courthouse waiting to be called that Mrs Yannos dropped her bombshell.

‘I don’t know why Mr Rodd want your place,’ she said. ‘What he want more land for? He got enough.’

‘Mr Rodd? What are you talking about?’

She looked at me doubtfully.

‘You know Mr Rodd!’

‘Yes of course I do. He’s a pig.’

Mr Rodd lived down the road. Somehow he’d kept virtually all his land after the war. There were ugly rumours going around about how he’d managed that, but I’m not going to repeat them here, the reason being that my dad had got really mad when I tried to tell him about them.

Mrs Yannos was still looking at me in puzzlement.

I frowned back at her. But you have to be patient when you want to find out stuff from Mrs Yannos.

‘Are you saying Mr Rodd wants to buy my place?’

She pressed her lips together and shook her head. ‘I know what I know,’ she said. ‘But maybe I wrong about this.’

‘Well, maybe you’re right.’

She raised her eyebrows and shrugged her shoulders.

‘He’d be a very difficult neighbour,’ I said, trying to tempt her into talking.

‘Is not for me to say who you should sell to, Ellie, if God forbid you sell at all.’

‘I don’t want to sell to Mr Rodd.’

‘Yes, and what I say is, why his brother-in-law tell you what to do? Is not right I think.’

‘His brother-in-law?’ I was getting more and more confused.

‘Well, you know Mr Sayle is brother-in-law to Mr Rodd.’

‘Mrs Yannos! Who have you been talking to?’

But I’d scared her off again. ‘Just what people say,’ she said.

A moment later my case was called. I walked in with my mind spinning. Already things were tough enough. Both the bank managers and Jerry Parsons had been unavailable. I’d asked them for written statements, and got them from Mr Yannos’s manager, and from Jerry, but my bank manager, although she’d promised to have it ready, had gone to Stratton for the day and her assistant couldn’t find any trace of it in her office.

Mr Sayle stood up and said pretty much the same things he’d said last time. I handed up the statements from Mr Yannos’s bank and the letter from Jerry saying my cattle had gone up in value, but the magistrate only glanced at them. She seemed to be in a bad mood. ‘Great,’ I thought. ‘My future gets decided by a judge with PMT.’

I told her again how much I wanted Mr and Mrs Yannos to look after me, how I didn’t know Mr Sayle, and I added that I thought it was good to have three different points of view instead of just one. I knew I couldn’t say anything about Mr Rodd because I’d only just heard about it, and I didn’t know whether it was true. I wasn’t sure if there was anything wrong with him being Mr Sayle’s brother-in-law anyway.

When I’d finished, the magistrate wrote a lot of stuff. She seemed to take forever. I knew Mr Yannos would approve. Finally she looked down at me.

‘Ellie, I know this is difficult for you to understand, but at your age you don’t require the amount of parenting a young child would need. The main function of a guardian for you is to look after your financial interests. It seems to me that Mr and Mrs Yannos, who are obviously very good friends and good neighbours, will be there for you no matter what order I make today. But I’m not convinced they have the financial sophistication to look after your parents’ estate. Therefore I am going to assign Mr Sayle as your guardian. Obviously your parents felt comfortable with his judgement, to make him trustee of their estate, so I’m sure they would approve of his having the legal care of you as well. And in the fullness of time you will appreciate that this is in your best interests.’

I didn’t hear the rest of it, just sat there gaping at her. How could she? How dare she! How dare Mr Sayle! What kind of stupid morons made up these laws anyway?

My eyes stinging with rage I followed Mr and Mrs Yannos outside. Mr Sayle came up, looking as smug as a bull who’s fetched top price at a stud sale. ‘Well, there you are,’ he said. ‘I have to say it’s a very sensible decision, Ellie. As she said, you’ll soon realise that it’s the best solution. Now why don’t you give Mrs Samuels a ring and arrange an appointment and we can have another look at your affairs?’

I couldn’t even answer him, and after an embarrassed silence he went off again, saying, ‘Oh well, I can see you’re a bit upset, but you’ll soon be over it.’

I was meant to go back to school but I couldn’t face it. I said goodbye to Mr and Mrs Yannos, who were looking bewildered and upset, and I got a cafe latte at Juicy’s, in Barker Street. I was meant to be saving money but I didn’t care at that stage.

The cafe was half full of soldiers. That was another thing we were slowly getting used to, soldiers everywhere. Conscription had started a month ago. Only limited at this stage. There would have been more but the Army couldn’t cope with hundreds and thousands of new recruits yet. By the time we left school there was a fair chance they’d be ready to take us, although because of our family circumstances both Lee and I would get exemption. Special consideration again. If we wanted it.

To my surprise I saw Bronte hurrying along the street. I called to her and she came over straight away.

‘What are you doing here?’ I asked.

‘Hi,’ she said. ‘God, so many soldiers.’

‘Yeah. It’s giving me the creeps.’

‘Hey, careful.’

‘Sorry,’ I said automatically. Then I wondered why I had to be sorry. ‘What, are you connected with the Army or something?’

‘My parents are both in the Army.’

‘Really?’ I realised how little I knew about her. ‘What do they do?’

‘God, how would I know? What does anyone in the Army do? I don’t think it’s anything very exciting though. They seem to spend their time with piles of folders and reports. And they both look pretty bored when I go onto the base to see them.’

‘You don’t live on the base?’

‘No, it’s all so new out there, and there aren’t many houses. But eventually we’ll move, if we’re in Wirrawee long enough.’

‘So what rank are your parents?’ It was a relief to have something else to think about.

‘They’re both majors. I call them Major Major.’

I must have looked a bit blank because she added: ‘It’s a joke from a book. Catch 22. It was about the American Army in World War II, and there was a character in it called Major Major, because that was both his rank and his surname.’

‘I get it. Like Doctor Doctor. You want a coffee?’

She looked at her watch. ‘Sure.’

‘So what are you doing out of school?’ I asked again, when I’d finally fought off half the Army and come back with a black coffee and a latte.

‘Oh, I just had to go to the doctor. Nothing much.’ She brushed her hair from her forehead. ‘I get dermatitis and I was picking up a new prescription. I keep hoping for the miracle cream to turn up and cure it but I think I’m stuck with it. I get rashes and stuff all the time. Then I scratch them and make it worse.’