A Small Free Kiss in the Dark (20 page)
Billy took Old Thomas’s cigarette from inside his coat. He struck a match and the tiny flame flickered and died. I smelt the smoke and saw it drift away. After he finished his cigarette, Billy tapped on the window that separated us from the driver and I felt the truck slow down. The cabin door opened and Billy passed Max down to the soldier, then he crawled back on his hands and knees to me.
‘Skip!’ I heard him whisper, and smelt the sour smell of cigarettes on his breath. I knew he wanted me to get in the front with him and Max, but I kept my eyes shut. ‘Wake up, Skip.’ Billy shook my arm. I opened my eyes a crack and looked at him. ‘We’ve given them the slip,’ he said. ‘They’ll never find us now. Come on, come inside the cabin, it’s warmer there.’
I shook my head, so Billy took Sixpence with him and left me there.
Before the truck drove off again the light came on in the cabin and I heard Billy talking. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but I guessed he was telling the soldier which way to go.
I combed the knots out of Tia’s hair with my fingers, and told her I’d keep my promise to take care of Sixpence, and I cried. Then I lay down and thought about the slap-up meal and the wishbone, and I wished I’d tried harder and pulled stronger, because I would have made the right wish.
I don’t know how long it was before I felt the truck slow down and turn off the highway. The wheels crunched over gravel. I looked through the window in the back of the cabin and out through the front windscreen. The soldier turned the truck’s lights on and I saw a small white bridge. He slowed the truck down even more until I thought we were going to stop. We rolled forward and the planks of the bridge groaned as we drove slowly across. Then the headlights shone on a sign that said Moonlight Flat. The soldier flicked the lights off again and the truck crawled slowly up the road until we reached the top of a small hill. A sign said Pennyweight Flat Children’s Cemetery.
A pennyweight is a measure of gold. If you had a piece of gold that weighed one pennyweight it would be about the size of a small fingernail. This means that a pennyweight of gold is a tiny treasure. It doesn’t matter how big or how small a treasure is, it’s still a treasure.
At the Pennyweight Flat Children’s Cemetery the ground is full of treasure. Miners came there to find gold in eighteen hundred and fifty-one. But over the next six years, two hundred people got buried at the cemetery. A lot of them were the miners’ babies and children, and some of them were the mums and dads. This is true; I read it on the sign I saw when I got out of the truck.
I climbed out first, and then Billy got out with Sixpence, and the soldier lifted Max down onto the stony ground. Next he lifted Tia out and carried her through the small silver gate. We followed him, in single file, between the mossy rocks that the miners had arranged around their most precious treasures. Max and me spread the red coat on the ground and the soldier laid Tia down beneath the stars. We opened a bottle of water and washed away her blood, and when we were done we sat back and let the moon shine itself all over her, and we saw that Tia was full of light. Billy said that when we die the darkness leaves us.
‘We’re pure and perfect then,’ he said, ‘the way we are when we’re born.’
Max and me spread our blankets on the ground and we laid ourselves down beside Tia. We held her hands and looked up at the millions of stars. The night was hushed and holy and we stayed with Tia until morning came, and we were not afraid.
By sunrise the soldier had scraped a hole in the ground for Tia. Billy unwrapped his Hohner. He curled his fingers around it and closed his eyes and played the blessing song. When it was over we lay Tia in the ground, among the fingernails of gold.
After we’d said goodbye to Tia we went back to the truck and climbed into the front with the soldier. Billy looked at the book of maps and pointed out which way we should go.
The wheels hummed lullabies on the liquorice road and Max and Sixpence were soon asleep. Sixpence had learnt to suck her thumb, her cheeks had cooled and the rattle in her chest had almost gone. I rested my chin on her fairy-floss hair and closed my eyes.
This time my head was empty of dreams. When I woke again, a long time later, the truck had stopped by the side of the road. I looked out and saw a dirt track winding through the tall and bending grass. At the end was an old white house.
‘Max,’ I said, ‘wake up, Max!’
Max put his fingers under his glasses and rubbed his eyes, and then he looked out the window. ‘See, I told you!’ he said.
Billy opened the door and elbowed me in the ribs. ‘Out you get.’
I climbed down and parted the grass with my hands, searching for a small white post. When I found it, I checked the letters and numbers I’d written on my hand. I had to be sure. The others watched me from the truck and I yelled out, ‘Chuck us Dad’s coat, Billy!’
He tossed the coat through the window and I opened the gate and let the soldier drive through. Sixpence waved her starfish hands and smiled her toothless smile and I thought about the promise I’d made to Tia. I rode the rusty gate back to its leaning post and watched the truck for a while, bumping slowly towards the house in the distance. I put my hands up to the sky and looked with both my eyes at the same time. I saw the way the light fell and where the shadows lay. Then I chased the truck along the dusty track through Gulliver’s Meadows and my heart was a dancing red kite.
One day I’ll give the silver necklace to Sixpence and I’ll tell her about Tia. I’ll tell her how beautiful she was and how brave. And I’ll tell her the most important thing of all: that her mother loved her better than her life.
About the author
Glenda Millard has written picture books, short stories and novels for children and young adults. She began thinking about the main character for this book after noticing a newspaper headline ‘Urban Tribes’, and she wondered what life would be like for a young homeless boy, living with people thrown together in circumstances beyond their control.
Glenda is fascinated by the way chance plays its part in our lives. She says: ‘Nearly forty years after I left school, I discovered that one of my high school teachers had restored a carousel. Having always loved carousels, I was intrigued and spent a wonderful day with my ex-teacher, learning about the very labour-intensive process of restoring carousels. Subsequently, I went to Geelong and rode on that carousel. Later, on a wet, grey day in June, I went to St Kilda and rode the carousel at Luna Park. I wrote a story about a carousel horse, which will soon be published as a picture book. And when I started writing
A Small Free Kiss in the Dark
, the memory of my carousel ride on that misty day in June came back to me and seemed a perfect setting for my novel. By situating much of the story in a fun park, I hoped to juxtapose the location with the events that took place there. While the backdrop for this story is war, my intention was to capture the indomitable nature of hope, even in dire situations.’
Glenda Millard lives in the Goldfields region of Central Victoria. Her book
The Naming of Tishkin Silk
was an Honour Book in the 2004 CBC Book of the Year Awards and was shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards.
Layla Queen of Hearts
was a winner in the 2007 Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards and was shortlisted in the 2007 CBC awards. Her picture book,
Kaito’s Cloth
, was also shortlisted in the 2007 Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards.