John Marsden - While I live

‘Who?’

‘He was in a concentration camp in World War II and he volunteered to take the place of a guy who was about to be shot, because the other guy had a wife and kids.’

‘God is there anything you don’t know?’

He ignored that and ripped off another string of names, most of which I’d never heard of: ‘Ralph Nader. Gandhi. John Lennon. Paul Robeson. Marie Curie. Bob Brown. Lassie.’

‘Oh I don’t know, Jack the Ripper. Stop being so annoying.’

He laughed, and I did too.

I rang Mrs Yannos and got loads of sympathy but when I started asking about any relationship between Mr Sayle and Mr Rodd I got nowhere. She just went all vague again. So I took a bit of a risk and rang Mrs Sanderson. I was really working the phone that night. I guess it was my way of fighting back, a little bit at least.

Mrs Sanderson was new to Wirrawee but she already knew ten times more about the district than I did. We talked about rainfall, cattle prices, and government rules and regulations, which had all become compulsory topics around here. After a while I got onto the subject of Mr Rodd’s life and times, and just asked her straight out: ‘Is his brother-in-law Mr Sayle, the lawyer in town?’

‘Well, not exactly. No, there’s no real relationship there. Mr Sayle’s wife has a sister and she lived with Mr Rodd for a while. But that broke up pretty fast. I think it only lasted a couple of months.’

‘That seems to happen a lot to Mr Rodd.’

‘Yes, he’s not my favourite person.’

I was exhausted after talking to her. I don’t know why shopping, sitting in class and talking on the phone are all so tiring, but they are, especially shopping. Still, I wasn’t ready to give up yet. My last call was to Fi’s mum. I told her everything that had happened, including the bit about Mr Sayle being connected to Mr Rodd.

At the end she said what I expected: ‘It’s not looking good for you, Ellie.’

‘But there must be something I can do.’

‘Oh yes, you can lodge an appeal. But to be honest I’d be surprised if they agree to hear it. Appeal courts decide for themselves which cases they’ll hear. I mean, the courts are so clogged and you haven’t got any new evidence and I doubt if the magistrate’s made any errors in law.’

‘What about the connection between Sayle and Mr Rodd?’

‘That’s nothing by itself. His sister-in-law… And she and Mr Rodd aren’t even together anymore. You’d have to prove a conspiracy, and you won’t be able to do that. Look, I’m not sure of the law in this area, but I suspect that as your guardian he can probably sell the property to Mr Rodd at any halfway fair price. If he sells it at twenty cents a hectare obviously you can stop that. But as long as it’s in a reasonable range he’d probably get away with it.’

‘This is so wrong,’ I wailed. ‘It’s so unfair.’

‘Ellie, have you ever thought that maybe you’re being a bit paranoid? He may have no intention of cheating you. After all, your father obviously trusted him. You’re not going to like this, darling, but he may be right about the property. It may not be possible to keep it. He may just be acting in your best interests.’

Nothing in my heart or mind would let me accept this idea. I went to bed feeling that the only person on my side was Gavin, and I hadn’t even been able to tell him what happened in court yet. I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

I was so caught up in the whole thing, worrying myself into a coma, that I could have completely missed what was going on the very next day at the Youngs’ place.

‘Adderley’ was about six k’s from us. The Youngs had three kids: the twins, Shannon and Sam, and their younger brother Alastair, who was ten. All the kids were funny, which in itself was funny, because Mr and Mrs Young had as much sense of humour as a John Deere four wheel drive tractor. They seemed constantly baffled by their children. Mrs Young’s brother had owned the property next door but he’d been killed in the war, on the first day. The Youngs inherited it but it was taken off them again in the redistribution, so they basically ended up back where they started.

‘Adderley’ was a small place but it was on the river, so it had good soil. It was well fenced, with a famous old shearing shed that hadn’t been used for decades, and the biggest machinery shed I’ve ever seen. Mrs Young’s family had owned it since the fifteenth century or something like that.

You had the feeling that nothing ever changed on ‘Adderley’ which is why, the day after the court case, I should have noticed that something was different. But it took Gavin’s sharp eyes to pick it up. We were both on the school bus, sitting three seats apart. Homer and we were the only kids left on board. The first footy match between Wirrawee and Keating since the war was happening back in town, so a lot of people had stayed on for that. But Homer hated team sports and I had too much stuff to do back home.

I was three-quarters asleep and Homer, behind me, was completely asleep. Suddenly Gavin was standing next to me. He looked puzzled.

‘What’s wrong?’ I asked.

‘The Youngs’ house,’ he said, nodding backwards.

‘What about it?’

‘There’s a light upstairs. It keeps going on and off.’ He demonstrated with his hands.

‘It what?’

‘On and off. All the time.’

‘What do you…? But that’s weird.’

He stood back while I got up and went over to the other side of the bus, but of course the house was already out of sight.

I only had a moment to make a decision. I didn’t have a clue what might be going on. It was probably Alastair, mucking around, but we’d been warned so often to be on guard. There’d been lots of ads saying things like ‘Every bell is an alarm bell.’ ‘Be super alert.’ A light turning on and off was probably nothing. But ignoring it seemed like a bad idea.

I told Gavin to wake Homer, which I knew he’d enjoy, and I ran forward to stop the bus. Barry was driving. He was pretty easygoing and when I told him we wanted to get off he just shrugged and pulled over. I didn’t tell him why, because I was already feeling a bit stupid. I mean, what were we doing? Getting off in the middle of nowhere because the Youngs’ house had a problem with electricity? How were we meant to get home?

Homer was really grumpy, like a bear who’s just come out of hibernation. The bus galumphed away down the road. ‘What’s this all about?’ Homer asked.

‘Gavin said there’s a light upstairs at the Youngs’ place that keeps going on and off.’

‘So what?’ He hesitated, then relented a bit. ‘Oh well, I suppose we’d better check it out, seeing we’re here now.’

‘We’re getting like Nancy Drew or the Hardy Boys or something, solving mysteries.’

‘Well, it does sound a bit odd. The light, I mean.’

We walked quite quickly down the road. As we went Homer pulled out his mobile and dialled a number. To me he muttered, ‘I’m going to tell Liberation what we’re doing. We need to tell someone.’

‘Good idea.’

I couldn’t hear who answered, though I wished I could. Homer did all the talking anyway, then the other person said something, and that was the end of the conversation.

‘You could ring the Youngs,’ I suggested.

‘OK.’

I looked up their number in my little address book. We were already at their boundary.

Homer dialled and waited for a bit.

‘Just the answering machine,’ he said, cutting the call off.

‘What about ringing the cops?’

It seemed funny suggesting that. We’d never before been in a situation where ringing the cops was an option. Times had changed.

‘Yeah right, and tell them what? That they should get out here fast because Alastair Young has been playing with a light switch?’