2010 in review

The old year is soon to be dying, and it feels like a good sort of a time to reflect on the year that was for me and my family. This year has been a crowded one in many ways for us, and hasn't always been easy, fun or pleasant. But we - in particular, me - have also been the beneficiaries of great joys and important realisations that I hope will enable us to build a rich and rewarding 2011.

At the start of 2010 I said that I had 5 main goals for the year:

1. Get the girls back into swimming and increase their competence in the water
2. Have a holiday!
3. Lose weight & get fitter
4. Move forward with growing our own food / living a little more sustainably / eating less meat
5. Start planning for our proposed house move

We certainly kicked the first two of these to the kerb, with the girls swimming weekly at lessons and often in-between times (all three are progressing rapidly) and our holidays to Echuca (in March) and Wangaratta (in July).

We also made some progress with the 4th goal, with me now planning weekly menus that involve only one red meat meal per week and no more than two white meat meals (including fish).

There's plenty more to do, though. The only growing food that we've had abundant success with this year, aside from our herbs and ever-fruitful citrus trees, is tomatoes. I have three enormously productive plants trouping along outside, producing without surcease - two Roma vines and a cherry tomato vine. I haven't paid for a tomato since May, which is ace. Next year I want to parlay our tomato success into many other veg and fruit.

With the third goal, I am indeed fitter, yes, but I weigh just what I did in January, and I'm really very OK with that. One of the unexpected growth areas for me this year has been my discovery of, and interest in, the Health at Every Size (HAES) and Fat Acceptance movements. Several notable FA blogs have helped me to understand that my weight is not, in and of itself, a problem, and need not be pathologised or demonised. I am changing this focus in 2011 to be about improving my fitness, stamina and spinal health, rather than looking at how much I weigh or how fat I am.

The fifth goal has been more or less jettisoned for now, as we decided in September to try to extend our longevity in our house with the acquisition of the big kids' loft beds, which enable them to share their bedroom yet still have a desk space and built in storage of their own. These are already proving a marvellous investment. We will now start looking to move house as my eldest child nears the end of primary school (5 years from now).

Aside from January's goals, so, so much else has happened this year.

The lowlights were terrible ones. The loss of a dear friend to a brain tumour in late June, followed by the death of my grandma (my last surviving grandparent) 3 weeks later, then the loss of our beloved elderly dog Basil in October, cast a pall of sadness and loss over the winter and spring for us all. I am still mourning all of these lost personalities, and coming to terms with the fact that they will pass this way no more. My 5 year old, in particular, has also been very obviously affected by the deaths of Dee and Basil, and we have had a lot of work to do there in helping her process her sadness and anger.

We also spent a large part of the cold, bitter winter, and chilly spring, sick, which made this already emotionally difficult time that much harder.

I also struggled with work-life balance in 2010, finding working at home harder than I had ever found it before, and wrestling weekly with chronic time shortfalls and rising exhaustion levels. This was exacerbated by the fact that my 22-month-old is not a very consistent sleeper. Until September or so, she was routinely up twice every night, sometimes more. I am thankful to be able to say that she now wakes only once a night, and sometimes surprises me with a sleep-through, so we are seeing some improvement there. Patience is a virtue sometimes!

The highlights of 2011 are hard to identify, in some ways; so much of the year has been sweet and bitter all mixed up together. I'd probably nominate my 5 and 7 year olds' birthday parties in May and August respectively (we covered both science and magic this year, with the 5 year old having a fairy party and the 7 year old a science-themed party, complete with her rather special cake). Our family holidays in March (Echuca) and July (Wangaratta), and two weekends away in October (Anglesea and the Yarra Valley respectively) were also wonderful.

Completing NaNoWriMo in November was a huge highlight and great satisfaction for me. Reading beloved childhood classics to my big girls has been wonderful and so soul-enriching, and watching them enjoy and thrive at their gymnastics has been lovely.

The toddler's explosion of language has been amazing, and the emergence of her personality has been fascinating to see. And, on a more generalised level, watching my three girls grow and develop has been a constant joy.

As for big changes and decisions, 2010 has seen a few of those, too. One of them was digital - I decided to take my aged blog, Zucchinis in Bikinis, out of the public domain in June, prompted by a few uncomfortable cross-overs between the online and offline worlds I inhabit, and thus this blog was born as my open-access, play and childhood-based space.

Making the decision to resign from my job in November, and finishing up at Christmastime, was probably the biggest change of all, but it's one I feel very much at peace with, even though I agonised for months about it before I did it. Having been with my employer for almost a decade, it does feel strange to be no longer working there, but it also feels very right. This was the change we needed to make for the new year.

I have loads of ideas and plans and hopes for how things might go in 2011. I have things I want to do more, things I want to do less, and new things I want to try. Part of leaving my job for me, leap of faith as it is, is about focusing on what's important to me and my family, and trying to get some clarity around how I can work in the future (not to mention what I might work at). I have some serious thinking to do on these subjects in the new year.

Right now, I'm not thinking to make long-range predictions, though - I just want to enjoy a pause, in January, from routine and busyness and juggling, and marinade in relaxed, unhurried time with my family. February will see a renewal of structured activity for both the kids and I, but this golden month of summer is about being, not doing.

I wish you and yours a very happy 2011. May it be filled with all you wish for, and short on grief and sadness.

Present of the year award...

goes to Uncle J (my brother), who gave my 7 year old this very simple and very much adored air=pressure rocket launcher for Christmas.

Thankfully, as we were out at my aunt and uncle's spacious vineyard property in the Yarra Valley, there was plenty of room to test it out.

Everyone got into the act! For a toy built on such a simple principle (compressed air = explosive output), it is exceedingly fun thing to play with.

We made ourselves sweaty leaping madly on the thing and no other toy or game was even unpacked; between walking the vineyard, feeding and petting the horses, the grand lunch and sipping my aunt and uncle's latest vintage Shiraz on the verandah, there was no time for anything but launching rockets.

My parents both had a go, as did I, the 5 year old, the little girl, and my aunt and uncle. My husband, my brother and my 7 year old had a competition to see who could get it to fly the highest. The toddler discovered she could get it to fire by sitting down hard on the button, which highly amused her (and us).

A-1 present, that ;-)

So this is Christmas

For us, Christmas this year will be a happy one, spent with family and food and excited children. There will be presents, there will be turkey, there will be crackers and tinsel and carols on the stereo.

As we were coming home from a Christmas Eve carols service at church a couple of hours ago, my 7-year-old asked that we stop for a minute and think about those experiencing a different kind of Christmas, as the minister at church had suggested.

So we stopped, and I thought:

- about the family of my dear friend from my first mothers' group, who died in June of a malignant brain tumour. Her children, aged 7, 5 and 2, are facing their first Christmas without their Mum.

- about the people injured, killed, stranded, orphaned in the Christmas Island tragedy. I thought about the agonies that those parents must have faced to be be driven to take such desperate risks.

- about the victims of war everywhere in the world; the dispossessed, the brutalised, the murdered.

- about the countless women, some of them wearing the faces of my friends and my relations, who have suffered violence, degradation, humiliation and harassment at the hands of men. I know too many, too many, for whom Christmas is a season to be endured for its capacity to trigger awful memories or worse yet, repeated violence as alcohol loosens both tongues and inhibitions.

- about the children who are not, as my children are, secure - children who are precariously balanced between starvation and survival; orphaned or abandoned; or loved and cherished but by parents who are unable by the accident of their place of birth to provide them with anything, even a safe place to lay their heads. What's Christmas in that context?

I thought of them, and I will still think of them, tomorrow when the shining faces of my happy, well-fed children greet me, when we open gifts and exchange embraces and sing together. And I will be thankful for the Christmas that I am privileged to have. I will not squander the simple joy that I am able to feel. I will not take it for granted, and I will not forget my obligation to act where action is in my power for those whose Christmas is one of broken hearts, not overflowing ones.

Merry Christmas to you all. May it be full of every bright blessing.

Christmastime in the city

Today my partner took a day off work, I turned my mobile phone off (it has been running hot with end-of-job freneticism, as I finish up my from-home work role on Friday), and we took our three girls into the city for a day of Christmas fun.

The ostensible purpose of our trip was to see the Myer Christmas Windows. If you are an Australian, you know all about the windows; if not, this is a tradition, dating from 1956, whereby one of the oldest retailers in the city creates a Christmas story themed display in their shopfront windows for over a month. This year the theme was the Nutcracker, and both my big girls were very keen to see it, being past ballerinas themselves and avid ballet fans. (Gymnastics has claimed their affections this year, and will be their sport again in 2011, but I would not be surprised to see one or both of them return to dance at some point in the future).


The day started off with a train trip into town. Everything about riding the train was exciting - buying and validating the tickets, boarding the train, watching out the windows, and (joy! joy!) travelling through the underground loop to get to the right station. My 22-month-old was beside herself with delight.

The queue for viewing the windows initially looked intimidating, but it actually moved fairly smoothly, thanks largely to two very polite but very determined security guards who prevented every attempt at queue-jumping (I was astonished at how many people tried it on - honestly, very rude behaviour). We spent our 25 minutes in the queue very pleasantly, listening to a guitar-playing busker, talking to the older kids, and rocking the toddler (happily asleep) in her pusher. Despite being another wet, cold December day (summer? what summer!), the mood of the crowd was mellow enough and we all enjoyed looking at the unusually northern-Christmas-like slate grey skies and blossoming umbrellas in the decorated mall.


The windows themselves were lovely:


and the kids really enjoyed them:


especially the fine detail in the ballroom scenes.

Leaving the windows with three slightly fatigued children, we decided on a stroll through the Royal and Block Arcades. If you are not from Melbourne and ever visit, I would so recommend a walking tour or even just a wander around Melbourne's lanes and arcades. They are the part of the city I miss the most now I don't work in the CBD, and the girls hugely enjoyed the beauty and surprises that they had to offer.


Gog and Magog were appropriately festively attired, too.



We ended up in Australia on Collins, a more modern shopping centre than the lovely arcades, for lunch, but even there, hanging baubles captured imaginations and created fun, and we managed to complete the very last of our Christmas shopping.



Then we took a tram down Collins Street to Southern Cross Railway Station, Melbourne's large architecturally-designed railway switching point between urban and rural rail lines. The girls loved the tram ride, if this were possible, even more than the train ride. I wasn't fast enough to photograph it, but the sight of their three heads together pressed against the glass made me smile.

Before we got on the train to head home, the girls ran off some steam on the patch of lawn out front of the Age building (the Age being Melbourne's local broadsheet newspaper).


By the time the train arrived back at our home station at 3:30, just over 6 hours after we'd left, we were a very tired, very cheerful, and very Christmasified family! Indeed, the big girls are out for a drive with their Dad right now checking out Christmas light displays, so I'm sure there is more Christmas excitement to come when they get home.

It must be said - it's the most wonderful time of the year ;-)

Christmas picture books

When I came to write this post about favourite Christmas stories, I found myself stymied by a couple of things. Firstly, there are such a lot of Christmas stories around, selecting a few seemed impossible, especially given how many my kids and I read each year. That was a problem in and of itself; how to select when the field is so wide?

Secondly, and perhaps even more importantly, it struck me that Christmas stories come in many different shades and hues. There's the nativity stories, with varying degrees of overt Christian sensibility. There's the "true meaning of Christmas" stories, with their generosity / family / love / sharing / giving themes. There's the Santa stories (the significant sub-genre of Rudolph stories fit in here too). There's the offbeat stories, that pick up festive moods or ideas without really being straight Christmas stories at all. What a field, and each kind of story has some strong contenders for favourites (and also, let it be said, some duds too).

So in the end, I have listed 5 Christmas stories that are very different from each other, but all have been enjoyed by my kids and all, I think, are very good of their kind. I don't think I'd even say they are our all-time top 5 (although the #1 on the list is probably our all-time #1). They are, however, a good selection covering a lot of Christmas ground.

I'd be interested to hear of any others people are attached to!

1. The Jolly Christmas Postman

Janet and Allen Ahlberg are geniuses in my opinion (and I will devote a later post to exactly why I think so) and this Christmas story is pure delight. The combination of beautifully detailed illustration, gentle and funny rhyming story, the use of fairytale and nursery rhyme characters, and the interactivity of the book is just magic. Each page features a letter or card for a different fairytale recipient, all inserted into envelopes on the backs of pages, and there is twice as much reading in the inserted bits as in the storyline itself. Highly recommended for 2.5 years and up (younger ones will enjoy the pictures but probably rip the letter / card inserts).

2. Twas the night before Christmas

Sometimes you just can't go past the classics, and this well-known Christmas poem, which was read to me every Christmas Eve as a child, remains dear to my seasonal heart.


My 5-year-old is the biggest fan of it from my three kids this year; she's enjoying it as much, I think, for the curious and (to her) archaic language as for the lovely illustrations.

3. The Fox's Tale

I could have picked lots of nativity stories, but this one is one our favourites. Written by Nick Butterworth, it tells the story of the nativity from the perspective of a fox who observes the shephereds and angels on the hillside, then follows them to the stable to see the infant Jesus. It is a pretty straight-up nativity story, couched in terms that toddlers can absorb easily.

4. The Polar Express

I think most people come across this Christmas phenomenon at some point, if only because of the movie it produced. (We haven't seen the movie as yet, but may do so this Christmas). It is a beautiful, lyrical story about the polar express, an imaginary train that takes children to the North Pole on Christmas Eve to see Santa on his way. It is magnificently illustrated and has a simple and charming message. My kids all love it.

5. Wombat Divine

As an Australian, finding stories about our Christmas (the hot, dusty, non-snowy kind, with non-reindeer type animals) isn't always easy.


Mem Fox, well-known Australian author, delivers a very sweet, accessible one in Wombat Divine, the tale of a bunch of Australian animals putting on a nativity play, and the dumpy, childlike, sweet as sugar wombat who struggles to find his place.

5 days old

(This is an old post from 2004 on my other blog, Zucchinis in Bikinis. It's seasonally relevant now and this is still my favourite Christmas poem, so I thought it might be worth revisiting).

My favourite Christmas poem isn't really a Christmas poem per se, although it does use Christmas themes and seems to me to encapsulate that nebulous and so-often-lampooned concept, "the spirit of Christmas".

I'm not talking about gifts, although the exchange of gifts is, to me, more than a merely commercial exercise, it's a complex social exchange that can, at its best, represent deep affection and generosity. I'm not talking about Santa, reindeer, Christmas trees, decorations, Myer Christmas windows or hugely light-bedecked suburban houses, although all of those things are minor pleasures of the season to me (remnants of a happy childhood, I suspect). I'm not talking about Christmas carols, much as I do enjoy belting them out or crooning them as seasonal lullabies. I'm not talking about friends and family, although seeing them is a side benefit of our societal obligation to engage with relationships again at year's end. I'm not even talking about food, much as I loooove Christmas fare.

To me, Christmas is about birth, and beginnings, and renewal, and the wonder of newborn life. Religious elements aside, the story of the nativity has always moved me. The labouring mother, probably afraid, suffering, in a strange place. The no-doubt-anxious father, hovering around, maybe running off to get clean cloths as the birth approaches. The baby boy, born in blood and tears and happiness as all babies are, time without end. And then the explosion of joy at this beginning - angels in the sky, a beacon star, kneeling shepherds and later, grave Magi bringing royal gifts. Gold for a King, Frankincense for a Deity, and Myrhh for the dying at the end. A very deep foreshadowing for such a tiny life, and capturing that mixed sense of wonder and exultation and love and fear and bittersweetness that every parent feels - well, that I felt - when they look at their newborn child, and think "She'll grow. She'll change. She'll hurt." To me this is what Christmas is - the joy, the pain, the fear, the expectation, the utter humanity of birh - the everyday miracle.

That's why I like this poem, by Australian Francis Webb, even though it's only partly "about" Christmas, and partly about a birth of his own (his son's).

Five Days Old by Francis Webb (1961)

Christmas is in the air.
You are given into my hands
Out of quietest, loneliest lands.
My trembling is all my prayer.
To blown straw was given
All the fullness of Heaven.

The tiny, not the immense
Will teach our groping eyes
So the absorbed skies
Bleed stars of innocence
So cloud-voice in war and trouble
Is at last Christ in the stable.

Now wonderingly engrossed
In your fearless delicacies,
I am launched upon sacred seas,
Humbly and utterly lost
In the mystery of creation
Bells, bells of ocean.

For the snowflake and face of love
Windfall and word of truth,
Honour close to death.
O eternal truthfulness, Dove,
Tell me what I hold -
Myrhh? Frankincense? Gold?

If this is man, then the danger
And fear are as lights of the inn,
Faint and remote as sin
Out here by the manger
In the sleeping, weeping weather
We shall all kneel down together.

Gluten free gingerbread

I've had a few requests in the last few days for my gluten free gingerbread recipe, so here it is, for your allergy-friendly seasonal baking pleasure! I adapted this recipe via trial & error for g free from one in Stephanie Alexander’s book. The main thing to remember is that gluten free flour crumbles easily and doesn’t adhere together like wheat flour, so you have to accept a certain amount of re-rolling when you get to the cutting stage.

Ingredients (To make about 40 cookies)

170g softened unsalted butter or marg (butter tastes slightly better but marg gives a silkier texture)
180g dark brown sugar
½ cup golden syrup
2 egg yolks
480g plain gluten free flour (I use Organ All-Purpose)
2 teaspoons xanthum gum (sometimes I omit this and it still works but is crumblier in texture)
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon bicarb soda
4 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
½ teaspoon ground cloves
½ teaspoon ground allspice

Method

Cream butter or marg, sugar and golden syrup in an electric mixer or with hand-held beaters. Beat in the egg yolks. Sift all the dry ingredients together (or just mix them, it doesn’t make a huge amount of diff). Add dry ingredients to the egg / sugar mixture on low speed in the mixer or with electric beaters until it is coming off in wet clumps. With your hands, form the dough into a ball, wrap it in cling wrap and stick it in the fridge for at least an hour (half a day is better).

After chilling, take dough out of the fridge and let it warm up to not-solid, usually about 20-30 minutes on a summer day. Flour a board and roll out your dough, aiming for a thickness of around 5mm. Do not be discouraged if it all crumbles to pieces on the first roll-out – gf dough just needs a little more love, that’s all ;-) Regroup the dough and re-roll until you get a smooth sheet, which might be the first time or the second but is usually, in my experience, the third time.

Cut out your cookie shapes and put them on a cookie tray lined with baking paper. You can decorate them with candy baubles / sprinkles at this stage if desired. Bake in a 170C degree oven for 10-12 min.

Once they are cooled, you can use Royal Icing or those store-bought icing pens to draw edging on them if you want to. (We are in cookie-factory mode here at the moment so we don’t do this step – it’s just too time-consuming with three little kids “helping”!)

Hope it works out for you – it usually does for us!

We Play - Christmas things

This week we've been baking. Gingerbread and shortbread, gluten free and yummy, for our Christmas cookie boxes that we give as presents to teachers, workmates, family and friends.


Last Sunday we put up and decorated our tree. It was a wonderful day for all of us.


The little girls and I have been busy making lavender bags to give as drawer scents as part of the special gifts for special teachers that we're putting together. We're using lavender we collected and dried from our garden, and leftover pink sparkly mesh from my 5 year old's fairy party back in May.



And although I can't show you a photo of it, we've also been busy singing Christmas carols, attending Christmas club, holding mock Christmas concerts at home (where the big girls can practice their school / kinder concert routines, and the toddler can join in with great enthusiasm), watching Christmas Wiggles DVDs, and attending Christmas parties.

Blessings of the season to you all. I won't be playing in this meme now until after Christmas (ironically, because there is too much on!) but I wish each and every one of you a joyful and peaceful Christmastime and plenty of play to fill every heart.

We Play - Water in the Kitchen

My 21-month-old loves to play with water. For preference, she does it outside, in singlet and nappy, with dirt, mud, leaves and sand thrown in for good measure ;-)


When the weather is too inclement to allow for outdoor water play (a frequent occurrence in the past few months, with Melbourne suffering a long, cold, rainy winter and cold spring), I have taken to setting up a simple water station for her in the kitchen, on the slate floor. It's just a thick towel, two bowls filled 1/3 with lukewarm water, and a varied series of pouring tools - cups, jugs, toy teapots, measuring spoons, anything really that my Tupperware cupboard disgorges.

She really enjoys it, and her aim is getting better all the time - my days of removing saturated towels after 3 minutes are passing! She spends ages carefully transferring the water from one receptacle to another, often narrating what she's doing for me as I cook the dinner. It's a great way to incorporate some fine motor play and casual togetherness at what can otherwise be a rushed time in our day.

On achieving personal goals

(This is cross-posted, with some omissions, from a post on my private blog, Zucchinis in Bikinis. If you are also a reader over there, my apologies - the other post is an expanded version of this one, so you need not feel you have to read both!)

Yesterday, I hit the 50,000 word mark on my NaNoWriMo novel, Frankie Loveday: Girl Detective. While the story is not quite finished (I have a chapter and a half, about 7,000 words, left to write, I estimate), once I exceeded 50,000, I officially achieved the NaNo target and was able to validate my word count on the website. For which, I got to download this:


A website button is nice, and the purple WINNER! flag on one's NaNo homepage is nice, but obviously, that's not what I did it for (or, I imagine, anyone else either). I did NaNo because I wanted to practice my writing, and also I wanted stretch myself, to try something that I thought would be difficult for me and would require logistics, commitment and perseverance.

Writing 50,000 words in a calendar month when you have three small children, a part-time job that you are winding up (which always means more work, ironically, as I try to leave things neat for the next person who has to deal with it), and various seasonal imperatives is not a doddle by any means. I made a commitment to myself that I would not do NaNo at the expense of my children, my household or my workplace, and one of my greatest satisfactions in getting to the goal has been that I did it without once having to put a child off who needed something from me, without stealing a single minute from employment time, and without ending up in a state of disarray in this house. (Well, no disarray greater than the norm, I mean!) I met my obligations and delighted in my children first, and NaNo came second, and there was no doubt that that was how it had to be.

So what has it meant? It has meant that I've watched virtually no television in November - I sat down with my big girls and watched an episode of the newest River Cottage series on Thursday night and it was the first time I'd watched the little screen since Melbourne Cup Day. I've also read far less fiction than my norm, played no games whatsoever, tried no new recipes, visited very few blogs and no online forums or community spaces, and Tweeted (and blogged!) far more minimally than is my wont. Basically, I have devoted all my leisure time to crafting this story that I decided I would write, and I have kept to my decision, all month, despite being tired and under pressure.

And oh, but it has been a wonderful, creative and empowering experience for me. I feel great about the fact that I've done it - that I achieved the word count despite all the factors that said I shouldn't be able to - and that the story I've written is one that I think has some merit, is not utter rubbish. I don't kid myself that it's publishable, but I am proud of it all the same, and I feel that I didn't sell myself short in what I produced. Immersion in my little fictional world has been enormously enjoyable and energizing for me, and, combined with the thrills of the season and the late-coming warmth of spring, has made November my best month of the year by quite some margin.

So that would be my reply to the Salon article of a couple of weeks ago where the writer exhorted people not to do NaNo because "the world doesn't need more bad books." My answer would be that not everyone does NaNo in order to be published, or to inflict their literary outpourings on the world. Sometimes, as for me, people take on a challenge like NaNo in order to practice doing something creative, to get back in touch with a side of their personality that's been suppressed, and maybe to test themselves too, to force themselves out of a rut and perhaps forcibly effect a mood shift with it. It's cheaper than therapy, anyways ;-)

Overall - NaNo was a great experience for me. I savoured it, I accepted the difficult moments and got past them, and I am very pleased that I made it. Best of all, my 7-year-old is avidly reading my novel now (it was written for 9-11 year olds, but she punches out of her weight with fiction) and she is loving it, and says she's proud of me. That's the very nicest thing I could ever wish to hear.

Frankie Loveday, Part 9

(This post is Part 2 of of Chapter 6. To catch up on the story so far, look at:
Post 1 (Chapter 1, Part 1)
Post 2 (Chapter 1, Part 2)
Post 3 (Chapter 1, Part 3)
Post 4 (Chapter 3, Part 1)
Post 5 (Chapter 3, Part 2)
Post 6 (Chapter 4, Part 1)
Post 7 (Chapter 4, Part 2)
Post 8 (Chapter 6, Part 1)
NB: Chapter 2 and Chapter 5 have been omitted deliberately. Chapter 5 takes place in the art room at Frankie's school and contains additional revelations about both Penny Ganz's mother and the cheating scandal).

After washing my hands and putting the nappy in the outside bin, I went back into the kitchen, where Mum was washing out the cutlery drawer with a set look on her face. “Mum,” I said. “I can walk Phil to gym if you like. I’ll call Mrs Obloswki and we can meet up with her and Tina and Jess at the corner and walk with them.” This, it must be said, represented a generous offer on my part, if I do say so myself. It was a solid half-hour walk each way to the gym, and Phil would train for an hour, so I was committing two hours. (I was planning, however, to do my homework in the observation room at the gym, so it wouldn’t be entirely wasted).

Mum looked at me consideringly, then smiled. “That’s kind, Frankie, but I’ll take her in the car. I need to talk to her coach today about the state championships anyway. Besides, you need to tidy your room. Remember, Vicky and I are camping out with you for the next two nights. Auntie Dido will be here around 9 o’clock tonight.” She sighed.

“Oh yes,” I said gloomily. “Auntie Dido.” Sigh.

Auntie Dido was my Mum’s aunt, so technically my great-aunt, but let me tell you, there is nothing in the least bit great about her. She’s in her early seventies somewhere but acts much older in a lot of ways. She lives in Adelaide but comes to Melbourne five or six times a year to see her army of medical specialists, at which time she always expects to stay with us, and to occupy Mum and Dad’s lovely big room with its en suite and beautiful herb garden walled courtyard (where Mum sits to edit sometimes while Vicky plays endless games of tea party with her dollies). Auntie Dido has a range of health issues, both minor and major, and I suppose that’s part of what makes her so crabby all the time. It must suck to be sick. (Well, I remember. Having leukaemia at 7 was pretty sucky and all. But I am healthy now, thankfully).

Sick or not, Auntie Dido was a difficult guest. Nothing was ever good enough for her, and she sniped constantly at my Mum about the State of the House, the Behaviour of the Children, the Inadequacies of Doctors, the Dreadfulness of Melbourne, and anything else she could find to whine about. My Mum always dreaded her visits, although she tried to pretend she didn’t. It was easier if Dad was here when she came; he buffered Mum a bit, and drove Dido to her medical appointments (reluctantly, but he did it). Still, they used to argue about it. Dad thought Mum shouldn’t have to put up with Dido’s filthy rudeness. Mum thought Dad didn’t understand the obligation she felt. They were both right, which meant the argument never ended.

When Auntie Dido came to stay, Mum, Dad (if he was home) and Vicky vacated their room and moved to mine, which was the biggest of the other bedrooms and had a double bed and plenty of room for Vicky’s cot. If Dad was home, I slept in with Phil in her room, on a mattress on her floor. If he wasn’t, though, Mum and I just shared my bed. Thankfully, neither of us snores.

So this meant that I had some cleaning to do, and quick smart too. “OK,” I agreed. “I’ll move Vicky’s cot, too.”

“Thank you,” Mum said, and gave me a tired smile. “I think the living area is pretty OK and I’ve made a lasagne for dinner, all you need to do is put the oven on at 5 o’clock and put it in. When I get back with Phil at 5:30, I’ll make the salad and we can eat at 6.” With that, she hurried off to collect Phil and Vicky. Within three minutes, the car doors were slamming, and they were on their way.

Seb was doing homework in his room, so I had the main house to myself, a rare and enjoyable event. The kitchen, usually fairly orderly anyway (my Mum hates to cook in a messy kitchen), sparkled with the extra attention it always got pre-Auntie Dido. I put the kettle on and went into the living area, which looked great – everything neat and packed away (not its usual state, I have to say). I decided to give myself a breather before starting work on my room, and sank down into my red chair, opening my notebook.

Right, to review, I thought. First up, the Miranda case.

The things I knew about Miranda Ganz were:

- Her full name and her maiden name
- Her age (she’d now be 31)
- Her place of birth (Bulgaria)
- Her profession (modelling)
- The date and place of her marriage to Ivan Ganz
- That she didn’t speak much English
- That she liked, no, loved, children

This was more than I’d known yesterday, which was encouraging, but none of it got me much closer to finding out why she’d left. At this stage of the case, sometimes a bit of speculation can be useful. I opened a fresh page and wrote – What Happened To Miranda? Possibilities – and started a list.

First up, sadly but inevitably, was DEATH. If Miranda had died soon after she left Ivan and Penny, that would explain why she never came back or got in touch. There were a few problems with that explanation, though. If her death had been a “normal” one, it should have been registered, and Ivan notified. If he knew she was dead, why wouldn’t he have told Penny that? The other possibility was a nasty one – that she had been killed, and her death concealed. Ivan wouldn’t have notified the police to look for her if she had already left him, because he wouldn’t know she was missing.

A chill went through me as another thought struck me: Assuming she did leave. I quickly shelved this one, though. I don’t underestimate myself, but even I boggled at the notion of trying to find out if Ivan had killed his wife then lied about what happened to her for 11 years. Besides, from the little Penny had said, it seemed that maybe there was more evidence to be found that would show that Miranda had left under her own steam.

Second option on my list, therefore, was AMNESIA / MENTAL DISTURBANCE / POSS. COMMITTAL? FALSE NAME? If Miranda had suffered some kind of severe mental problem, maybe one that meant she couldn’t identify herself, it was possible that she simply didn’t know or wasn’t able to contact Ivan and Penny. One thing that fitted well about this option was that it explained neatly why a woman who loved children so devotedly could leave her own baby behind. If she was not herself, that was the answer to that.

Third option was harder to define, but I wrote it as PRESSING / COMPELLING REASON, POSS. PROTECTIVE IN NATURE. By this, I was talking about Miranda leaving because she felt that to stay would endanger her family in some way, or else because she had a strong pull factor to protect someone else. This was a bit far-fetched in some ways, but, remember, Miranda wasn’t Australian-born, which meant there might be factors at work in her past that no-one knew about.

Fourth option, which I was coming to consider unlikely given what Mrs Genovese had said, was simply NOT WANTING DOMESTIC LIFE / LACK OF ATTACHMENT. It happens, sadly; total long-term silence is pretty rare, but sometimes, a parent just bails on the family. It didn’t seem all that likely that Miranda had done this, but you never can tell.

I reviewed my list, frowning. None of the options I’d listed felt like a stand-out at this stage. What I needed to do next, I decided, was some talking. Ideally I needed to find more people who had known Miranda; I made a note, CHECK NEIGHBOURS BACK STREETS and HEALTH NURSE? (I knew that our local Maternal & Child Health Nurse, the professionals who do the well-baby checks on kids in Melbourne, had been in her job 15 years, so in theory that meant she’d met Miranda at Penny’s check-ups). I also noted, although this was obviously harder, that I should CHECK PPL M WORKED WITH – mind you, I wasn’t sure how I was going to get an entree to the modelling world, but I’d think of something. Probably a first step, now I thought about it, would be to find out which agency Miranda had worked for. I wrote AGENCY? MRS G – ASK on my list.

Murdered Sleep

So here's the thing. It creeps up on you
accumulates, so
you're not even aware of when you cross the line from just tired into dangerously exhausted
from a state where a few good nights (if you should ever get them)
will see you right, to
a state of living underwater
moving through time and space like a dream made of molasses
thick and heavy and pellucid
colours brighter, noises harsher
than they should be
every last nerve attuned to the necessity for wakefulness
every last cell forgetting how to sleep
how to relinquish consciousness to the dark
because the dragging-back-from-the-deep is too painful
too hard to do
over and over and over and

the dog is barking again. it's 3am
he's disturbed by the shadows of half-seen cats in the gibbous moonlight
it's almost a given, at this season. he
is unsettled by the weather, the movement of snakes and possums and night-time things
shushing him a nightly task. before
he wakes the toddler, oh
but she's woken. it's too late
her second nursing of the night begins
rocking on the green leather chair in her quiet room
humming without tune as she feeds, her
face calm, her eyes closed.

a return to bed, with a 5-year-old for company
a bad dream deposited her there just on the midnight hour
where she sighs and snuggles and kicks
and spreads herself across the bed, star-shaped, like
some importunate plant.

a return to bed, yes. but sleep is harder. it is hot
none of the other creatures of this household are peacefully sleeping, all
are tossing, turning, half-crying out
and so you lie. awaiting the next need, lying wakeful
body buzzing with adrenalin and fatigue, and
willing sleep to come
comeoncomeoncomeon

and you're reminded of one of your children's books
about a toy elephant who cannot get to sleep
and like Harry, you wonder
what if sleep never comes at all?

and when it does, it's shallow
dream-ridden, twitchy, easily rousable
no peacefulness in this bed

and then it's dawn, and the toddler wakes
and the day is afoot
again.

We Play - Fairytale Park

The highlight of this week's play was the first of our Christmas events - a visit to the Fairytale Park in Anakie for my sister-in-law's company Christmas picnic.

We had never been to the Fairytale Park before, although I had long heard good things about it. Set on a steep granite outcrop in the middle of farming fields in rural Victoria, close to Geelong, the Fairytale Park is a very pleasant series of animatronic displays representing various (mostly Brothers Grimm / Germanic) fairy stories.


Animatronics can be done well or badly, of course - the Ned Kelly Museum that we visited in July would be a good example of "badly", to my mind - but someone has put a lot of thought into the design and layout of this park,and the circuit moves you along very nicely from one story to the next. The girls were all fascinated, peering in at the beautiful little tableaux and retelling the stories to each other as we walked.




Their favourites? The magic cave (featuring Aladdin, Ali Baba and a snake charmer), the Gingerbread house, Sleeping Beauty's castle at the summit of the rock, and the Three Little Pigs house.


Visiting the fairytale park has sparked a ravenous renewed interest in fairytales, which we've been reading, and they've been playing, ever since.

Frankie Loveday, Part 8

(This post is the start of Chapter 6. To catch up on the story so far, look at:
Post 1 (Chapter 1, Part 1)
Post 2 (Chapter 1, Part 2)
Post 3 (Chapter 1, Part 3)
Post 4 (Chapter 3, Part 1)
Post 5 (Chapter 3, Part 2)
Post 6 (Chapter 4, Part 1)
Post 7 (Chapter 4, Part 2)
NB: Chapter 2 and Chapter 5 have been omitted deliberately. Chapter 5 takes place in the art room at Frankie's school and contains additional revelations about both Penny Ganz's mother and the cheating scandal).

It was clear from the moment we walked in the door that this was going to be a Jonah day at our house. You know about Jonah days? From Anne of Green Gables, which are among my Mum and Phil’s favourite books of all time? Jonah days are days when just every little thing is wrong, nothing and no-one behaves, and it feels like the universe is against you.

Of course, my mood was already sour from the events of the day, and Seb, who’d had another asthma attack later on in the afternoon, was riding the wave of six puffs of Ventolin, which always made him jumpy and irritable. Phil was distracted, as she always is on Tuesdays, worrying that she’d be late to gymnastics training. (She never is; my Mum drives the logistics of Phil’s gym schedule with grim determination). Seb and I had been bickering most of the way home, which, unlike usual, hadn’t petered out to peace by the time we got home, but rather was ramping up to a full-blown spat. I was in the act of pulling a dreadful face at him as we came in through the kitchen door, to be met by the sound of Vicky in full toddler flight.

“NNNNOOOO! Don’ wanna cwean bum, Mummy! No yukky orf!” she screamed as she darted under my legs, half-tripping me and causing me to fall heavily into Seb, who turned around and immediately clouted me on the arm. “Vicky tripped me, you little toad!” I yelled at the top of my lungs (a very loud place, you’ll recall) and I lunged for him, all the frustration of my highly frustrating day boiling over. Phil, usually so quiet, suddenly screeched, “VICK-EE! My BAG!” and took off after the now-giggling toddler, who, I noticed, had Phil’s gym bag clutched in her sticky hands and was emptying its contents onto the kitchen floor gleefully.

All in all, it must have looked like a scene from the Three Stooges in there, with people tripping over each other, Seb putting his foot in the garbage bag that Mum had tied up ready to be taken out, Vicky up-ending a cup of apple juice into the cutlery drawer, and Phil’s gym paraphernalia spread from one end of the long, narrow room to the other. And as for the noise? Well. Four Lovedays in full flight is something to hear. (If you don’t value your hearing, that is).

The swing door to the big living area shot open and Mum stood in it, with a face like thunder. “WILL you all BE QUIET, RIGHT THIS MINUTE!” she bellowed. My Mum doesn’t like to yell, but sometimes she does; it’s only human, after all. I will say this, when she yells, she’s louder than any of us, so it at least has the effect of cutting through.

Phil stopped her screeching at once and went up to my Mum with tears in her eyes. “Vicky has ruined my gym stuff," she wailed, throwing herself at Mum. “Look, my leotards are both covered in ... something ...” Seb and I, who had quietened down but were still devotedly pushing at each other, were sufficiently diverted to stop and look at the leotard in Phil’s hand, which was dripping something brown, gooey and sticky onto the floor.

“Chocolate sauce?” I guessed, although I couldn’t smell the sweet scent of chocolate in the air.

“No, it’s Worcestershire,” said Seb, sniffing. He has a good nose for odours. “That’s in the high cupboard. How on earth did she even get it down?” He looked at Vicky, standing up on her chubby legs on her toddler steps at the sink, with respect. She blew a raspberry at him and went off into gales of laughter.

Mum sighed deeply. I could see her counting slowly to 10 in her head. When she spoke, her voice was pretty terse, but she was in control of herself.

“I’m sorry about your leotards, Phil. I’ll wash them tonight and I’m sure the sauce will come off, but you’ll have to wear leggings and a t-shirt to training today.” Phil, who likes everything to be Just So, opened her mouth to protest, but Mum cut her off with a look and said sharply, “There really isn’t any point arguing with me, Phillida. We have to leave in 20 minutes unless you want to be late, so hurry up and change.” Uh-oh, we’re full-naming, I thought. Bet Mum’s had a pig of a day.

I grabbed Vicky off her steps and carried her to her change mat, ignoring her wriggles and screams. The thing about being tall, broad and strong is that I’m a match even for a determined toddler. And I knew how to change a nappy. Didn’t like it, and to be honest rarely did it, but I knew how to do it, and I figured Mum was owed a free one about now.

I plopped Vicky down on the change mat in Mum’s bedroom, holding her in place with my arm as she began her usual contortions to get free. “I no wanna!” she shrieked. “Fenky! Let Vicky goooooo!” Then she kicked me, hard, in the stomach.

I yelled. “VICKY, WOULD YOU STOP IT AND HOLD STILL AND DO NOT KICK ME!”

Surprised into silence, Vicky lay as still and quiet as a baby doll while I got rid of the full nappy (toddler poop. loooovely) and put on a fresh one. As I was bagging up the dirty nappy, she got up and wandered around the room. I noticed, as Vicky stroked it, that the fancy quilt was back on Mum and Dad’s bed, which was neatly made, and that the room had an underlying smell of lavender. (Of course, right at that moment, it mostly smelled of poop, but I’m talking about background aroma.)

I mentally hit myself on the forehead. Of course. Auntie Dido!

Frankie Loveday, Part 7

(This post is the balance of Chapter 4. To catch up on the story so far, look at:
Post 1 (Chapter 1, Part 1)
Post 2 (Chapter 1, Part 2)
Post 3 (Chapter 1, Part 3)
Post 4 (Chapter 3, Part 1)
Post 5 (Chapter 3, Part 2)
Post 6 (Chapter 4, Part 1)
NB: Chapter 2 has been omitted deliberately, as will Chapter 5 be).

And immediately gave a squawk as I realised that the notes I was looking out related to Penny Ganz’s cases, Penny, whom I was supposed to find first thing at recess.

“Uh, guys, I have to go do something,” I said, aware how weird it sounded. “So can we do this later, at lunch, maybe get some of the other kids from our class too? Right, thanks, bye then,” and I shot off, Seb following in my wake as I strode around to the breezeway where the cool kids often hung out in various-sized gaggles.

Penny wasn’t hard to spot, being the centre of a cluster of nice young ladies who were exchanging news while buffing their nails. She was chatting to a girl named Marlo Conroy, who raised her eyebrow so high at the sight of me charging up to them that I thought it was about to disappear into her hairline. Here we go, I thought, plunging ahead regardless.

“Hi Penny,” I said, ignoring Marlo and her other cronies and looking straight at the girl I’d come to see. “Listen, can we have a chat?” I did not say, but obviously she knew I meant, About that thing that we talked about last night, you know?

Marlo laughed, one of the nastiest sounds I’ve ever heard, a laughter with not one tiny bit of humour in it, all pure malice.

“Oh my,” she said, her voice dripping. “Frankie wants to be BFFs with Penny now! Isn’t it just incredible how people don’t get it!” Her little gang tittered. Penny looked uncomfortable, but didn’t say anything.

Marlo went on, addressing me now. “Frankie, look. I know you think you are something special, with the Detective thing and all, but really, you are just another fat ugly kid who doesn’t know her place. Someone like Penny would never want to talk to someone like you!” The disgust in her voice was so strong that I, normally pretty immune to this kind of thing, actually took a step backwards. Oh yeah. Kids can be cruel.

Penny stepped towards me. She turned back to Marlo and said mildly, “I need to talk to Frankie a moment. She’s looking into something for me.”

Marlo’s face was a picture, but she just said, “Oh. Right. I guess.” Then she turned back to the group, shutting out my existence as effectively as if she’d slammed a door in my face.

Penny sighed. “Let’s go over here,” she said, gliding towards the picnic tables. I stomped after her. (Slender, graceful girls like Penny “glide”. Me? I clatter, I stride, I stomp.)

We sat down on the picnic table benches. Penny frowned slightly, watching her friends, and said. “I didn’t think we’d do this at school. You know. I thought we could get together at your place, or even mine, rather than...”

I suddenly realised how angry I was. “Yeah, uhuh,” I said, my voice flat. “About that? There were things that I needed to know pretty quickly so I could get going on your Thing. I was going to catch you at the start of recess but as it turned out, my class was held back so we could be accused of cheating on a maths test. So, yeah, you know, Penny, sorry about embarrassing you in front of your friends and all, but please, don’t worry about it. This particular fat, ugly detective who isn’t good enough to shine your shoes won’t be wasting any more time on your case. Good luck with it,” I concluded, as I stood up to leave. “I’d suggest you start with any family friends you’re still in touch with from your mum’s time. I hope you find out what you need to know,” I added, more gently, as the stricken look on Penny’s face softened me a little.

Penny reached out a hand towards me, but then let it drop as she registered the look on my face, which was not all that friendly. “Frankie, I can’t,” she said, her voice taut. “If I could find out for myself, don’t you think I would have? If I knew how to ask, what to ask, where to look? I would have. This matters to me!” she burst out with a sudden flash of anger. “This is my mother I’m looking for here, answers about who I am! And you’re going to walk away because Marlo called you a few names! I can’t believe you’d be so ...”

“Childish? Immature? Sensitive? Thin-skinned?” I suggested helpfully, standing my ground, but not walking away. Not yet. “The thing is, you see, Penny, or maybe you don’t see, is that I have to spend every single day dealing with ‘a few names’, a ‘bit of harmless teasing’, a quick shove here, a trip over there. I have a thicker skin than someone like you could ever imagine. No-one ever says that kind of crap to you. You haven’t the first idea what it’s like to be picked on because of how you look. And you never will.” I was getting angry again now, and it showed.

“So, look, yeah, if what you’re getting at is that what Marlo said wasn’t anything new to me, abso-fluting-lutely. She’s not even up there with the worst I get; quite boring and predictable, really.” I paused and looked directly at Penny.
“But here’s the thing, Penny – you hired me. You hired me. To do a job that you want doing, and you came to my house and sat in my office and made nice to me because it suited your purpose, which, OK, fine, I didn’t see our little juice-drinking session last night as any kind of offer of eternal friendship, but I think I should be able to expect you to not disown all connection with me if I should happen to have the nerve to speak to you at school!”

Penny looked taken aback. It was obvious to me that she had literally never thought about what life was like on the other side. I sometimes think that to the popular kids, we outliers are like shadows flitting around, not people at all.
“I didn’t disown you,” she demurred, but her heart wasn’t in it. She paused. “But I should have said something to Marlo.”

“DAMN RIGHT you should have,” I bit back curtly. Oh no, I wasn’t letting this go. Not yet. “You should EVERY time, Penny. When you don’t say anything, you are agreeing with it.”

“No...” she protested, but it was clear I was making headway. “No, I don’t agree with it. Kids can’t really help how they look. Or how they are. If your parents feed you badly, obviously you’ll end up fat. That’s obvious. My stepmum says if you want to know why a kid is fat, you just need to look at the mother’s attitude to food.” She repeated this with a conscious air of satisfaction, like it was eternal truth.

Except, of course, for the fact that it isn’t.

“Right,” I said. “Explain my family then, Penny. You’ve met my brother and sister, Seb and Phil? Would you describe them as fat, at all?”

Penny half-laughed. “No,” she said. “Poor Seb looks like a breeze could blow him away.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “And my parents, you remember them? My Mum, who’s ye typical average sized, and my Dad, who’s really thin? My Mum, who cooks for us all the time, and who knows about food and nutrition and whatnot?”

Penny was, to her credit, starting to look a bit embarrassed by this point. “I get it, Frankie,” she said. “You’re not fat because of your parents or what they serve you.” She looked at me curiously, then said. “Why are you, then? Don’t answer if you don’t want to,” she added hastily.

I let the silence hang between us for a minute. “It’s complicated,” I said. “I was pretty sick for a year when I was 7, and on some medicine that made me gain weight, and the doctors think, changed my metabolism. Then after that my grandma died, and I was sad for a long time. Eating helped me feel better.” I looked at her. I wasn’t angry anymore, just tired.

“The point is, does it matter why I’m fat? Are you only going to stick up for people when they’re teased because they’re fat, or ugly, or strange, if the reason is one you’re OK with?”
Penny sighed. “No,” she conceded. “It’s not my business, anyway, is it?”

I sat down again. “No,” I agreed. “But finding out about your Mum is your business, and I’ll still do it if you still want me to. I’m going to be working this grade 5 cheating case at the same time,” I told her, to be fair about it, “but I can do both. I’ve handled more than one thing at a time before.”

Penny sat down too. “Thank you,” she said. “What do you want to know?”
I pulled out my notebook. “My Mum told me last night that your mum’s name was Miranda. I was wondering if you know her full name, and even better, her maiden name?”

Penny replied readily. “Oh yes. Miranda Rose Ganz. Her maiden name was Woszewski. I got that from the marriage certificate,” she added. “I found it last night, After I went home I was feeling a bit ... so I thought I’d poke through the old photo box, see if I could find any photos of her. It was tucked inside an old photo album. I’m not sure Dad or Mum – my stepmum, that is – knew it was there.”

“That’s great news,” I told her, “because we would have had zero chance of getting the certificate from registry. Marriage certificates are closed for 60 years to public access.”

“Yeah?” said Penny, interested. “That I did not know ... Well, I wrote down all the other stuff on it. I thought you might ask.” She pulled out a scrap of notepaper and passed it to me.

I read it. Marriage between Ivan Rutger Ganz, aged 28, born Williamstown, Victoria, and Miranda Rose Woszewski, 20, born Sofia, Bulgaria. The marriage took place at the Registry Office in Melbourne, on 23 August 1997.

A little bit of mental maths told me that Penny, who had a February birthday, was born just six months after her parents’ wedding, but that was no great shocker – more than half the kids at our school had parents who’d never got married at all. Still, it was a point to note. I noted it.

“You said you found this in a photo album. Does that mean you have photos of your Mum them?” I asked. A good photo was high on my list of items for this search.

“No,” said Penny regretfully. “Every now and then I look through the albums again, hoping maybe I missed something last time. But there aren’t any unlabelled photos at all, and most of them are of people my Dad still knows, and me too.”

I thought about this. It seemed odd, but I could only assume that Penny’s Dad had destroyed or removed the photos out of sadness, or maybe anger. It was a real shame, in more ways than one, but I moved on.

“Right, next – was your Dad and Mum living in the same house you’re in now when you were born?”

Penny nodded. “Oh yes, definitely. Dad bought the house as a new build when he was 21 with money he inherited from his mother. He’s never lived anywhere else since.”
That was promising, so I followed up with, “I know the odds of this are small, but I don’t suppose any of your neighbours have been there 11 or 12 years?”

Penny thought. “Definitely not any of the people in our court – there’s only 12 houses and I know who’s in all of them, and no-one has been there longer than my Mum – I mean, stepmum – and that’s 9 years. I’m not so sure about the streets around about and behind ours, though,” she conceded. “It’s possible”.

I wrote in my notebook. “Listen, Penny,” I said, “for the sake of common sense, let’s just use ‘Miranda’ when you’re talking about your birth mum, then you won’t have to keep correcting yourself when you’re talking about Yvonne – your mum, I mean. OK?”

Penny nodded again. “That makes sense, Frankie.”

“One last question, then I can let you go,” I said. “My Mum said your Dad used to say that Miranda was a fashion model before she married him. Do you know anything about her career, or has your Dad ever said anything to you about it?”

Penny looked sad. “Nothing, ever,” she said. “You’ve just told me something new about her already. I was never told she was a model.”

I patted her hand, tucked my notebook away, and stood up, just as the bell for the end of recess rang. “Give me three days to get started,” I said. “Let’s meet at my office after school on Friday, and I’ll fill you in on what, if anything, I’ve found.”

“OK if we make it 5:30pm?” asked Penny, moving off to her classroom. “I have ballet after school on Friday.”

“Sure, that’s cool,” I agreed, and waved as she left. She smiled at me, a smile of great sweetness and thanks.

She really is nice.

At least, she will be, one day, if she thinks it all through.

We Play - Helicopters, Trains and Automobiles

This week has featured a great deal of interest in transportation from all of my girls. My eldest's school was visited by a helicopter about 10 days ago, and all the kids got to have a look inside, which sparked my 7-year-old's interest in all things that fly. "In defiance of gravity, Mummy!" as she gravely announced to me ;-) A self-directed project has resulted, with Miss 7 producing a booklet on "Helicopters and Other Non-Plane Flying Things" (which, alas, I am not allowed to photograph, although she is fine with me mentioning it).



This has coincided with the almost-2-year-old's discovery of, and instant passionate love affair with, our small electric Thomas the Tank Engine train set. All my girls have enjoyed the Thomas set, and have enjoyed building on the experience by using blocks, plastic animals and toy cars to create towns around the tracks. It's been fun watching the older girls, who are 5 and 7, play quite sophisticated stories with the trains as the centre, while Miss Toddler loves nothing more than to sit amongst Thomas and Percy as they race around the tracks.


Perhaps in an not unrelated development, the toddler has also found a new favourite book - The ABC Book of Cars, Trains, Boats and Planes. Her most favourite of all? "COPP-TA, MUMMY!"

They have all been loving their transport this week, while Mummy has been buried in NaNoWriMo, Christmas preparations, and work, but not too busy to zoom a few cars around on the floor every now and then!

Frankie Loveday, Part 6

(This is the beginning of Chapter 4, so follows on directly from the previous entry).

Like a class of robots, we got up and started filing out the door, too shocked to even talk to each other. The silence was deafening. I got to my locker on autopilot and pulled out my lunchbox, extracting a blueberry muffin and an apple.

“Good to see you’re watching that waistline, Frank,” said Troy, but I could tell it was just out of habit; his heart wasn’t in it, so I didn’t even bother to reply. I just swung out of the door, looking for Jen and Egg, and, naturally, completely forgetting that I needed to find Penny.

Jen and Egg were waiting on the broad wooden seat built around the tall eucalypt by the fence. Egg was eating a huge slice of bacon frittata and talking nonstop, small bits of food flying out of the corners of his mouth as he did so. One, I saw, had landed on his collar, which made him look like a bird with a very bad stomach-ache had pooped on him. Egg is the world’s messiest eater; actually, he might be the world’s messiest human.

Jen wasn’t eating anything edible, but she was clearly very worried because she had worked a corner of one of her long blonde braids free and was chewing on it, listening to Egg’s stream of chatter but never taking her eyes off the doorway. As soon as she saw me, she shot to her feet and called, “FRANK-EE...” As if I was going to miss them!

Jamming my apple into my mouth, I hustled over to them, flopping down on the seat beside Egg.
“So, you worked it out, then,” I said, crunching the apple morosely.

Jen ejected the wet hair from her mouth and said, “Frankie, what in hell in going on?” By which it was clear exactly how thrown Jen was by all this. Jen does not swear. At all, ever, even mild words like crap and hell that most of us let fly pretty casually. Her family’s pretty strict on it, and Jen, also, is a word nerd of truly epic proportions; she considers it lazy language, and can always think of a far more inventive way to say something fails to please her than my usual, “Oh crap!”

I took the final bite from my apple and pitched it effortlessly into the bin behind me. I am a very good shot with projectiles of any kind; just ask my brother Seb, he’ll tell you.

“Jen, you heard it,” I said. “According to Mr O, our class produced 18 identical test papers, and 5 different ones. The presumption is obvious, that at least some of not all of the 18 identical ones resulted from cheating.” I paused, flicking my gaze around the yard, noticing similar huddles of grade 5 students dotting the various seats, play equipment and trees. Of course, the news was already on the move beyond our own grade, too; in fact, I thought, it won’t be long until...

“Frankie!” My brother Seb stood in front of me, face flushed, out of breath. His black-framed glasses, too big for his thin face, slid down his nose and he pushed them back irritably. He needs a haircut again, I noticed irrelevantly, as a lock of thick red hair fell into his eyes. (Seb’s fantastic ability to grow hair at the rate other people digest food was legendary in our family. My Dad often said he must wash it in Maxicrop or something).

“Seb, take your Ventolin,” I advised, hearing the slight wheeze in his voice. “Nothing to be gained by having a big asthma attack, is there?”
Seb glared at me but did what I said, pulling his puffer from his pocket and delivering two quick doses. “Now,” he said, arms folded, “is it true? Has your whole class been accused of cheating? Including you?”

“Well, that’s half right,” noted Egg drily. “Not bad odds for the rumour mill.”
“What?” Seb snarled. My little brother is a stresshead, and he and talkative, socially inept Egg do not get along at the best of times. (This wasn’t the best of times).
Jen intervened. “Most of the class has been accused of cheating on the inter-school maths test, Seb. 18 of the test papers were identical. Five of us were singled out as having different papers and so weren’t accused of cheating.”

Seb looked at me. “So, you haven’t been, then?”
I sighed. “No, that’s the half-right part, I’m afraid,” I told him. “Jen and Egg are OK, but my paper was one of the 18 duplicates. I’m in it up to my neck.”

Seb narrowed his eyes. “Well, obviously it’s BS,” he said flatly. “What’re you gonna do about it?”

Unexpectedly, I was moved. Until that very instant, it hasn’t occurred to me there was anything to be done, or more particularly, anything to be done by me. This was, now that I thought about it, pretty silly. I mean, I started from the position of knowing – KNOWING – that I hadn’t cheated, and that therefore, there must be some kind of scam involved. Plus, I am a detective. I detect things. Uncovering the whys and hows of a cheating scandal should be right up my alley. And to think it had taken a stubborn 9 year old with instinctive faith in me, whose hair was about to invade his glasses (again), to remind me of these two facts.

I took a big bite of my blueberry muffin, and chewed it thoughtfully. “Something, for sure,” I said. “Probably starting with working out how the switcheroo – if that’s how it was done – happened.”

Seb nodded. Egg and Jen looked interested too. Jen said, “A first step would be to look at the papers.”

“If you can,” said Seb. “They might not let you.”

Egg laughed, decorating Seb with frittata crumbs, which made Seb look as mad as thunder. “MIGHT not?” he said. “Come on. Those papers are with the department now, and given what’s happened, you are never going to get them back. Ever.”
“Probably true,” I conceded calmly. “However, that’s not the end of the game, people. Not by a long shot.”

“I think,” said Jen slowly, “that Mr O might help you. I’m not sure he believed in it as a result. I mean, that so many cheated.”

I thought she was probably right about that. “Well, I will talk to him,” I said, “stay back at lunch dismissal. In the meantime, let’s pool our memories of the test itself. See if anything strikes us as odd in the way we sat it, how the papers were collected, or anything.” I pulled out my case notebook, which always travelled with me, and opened it.