Angel Creek

Sally Rippin was born in Darwin, but grew up mainly in South-East Asia. Her novel
Chenxi and
the Foreigner
was inspired by her time as a student in China. Now Sally lives in Melbourne, near the Merri Creek, where she writes and illustrates for children of all ages. Sally has over forty books published, many of them award-winning. She and her family spend a lot of time down by the creek, but have yet to spot an angel. She feels sure it is only a matter of time.

sallyrippin.com

ANGEL
CREEK

SALLY RIPPIN

The paper in this book is manufactured only from wood grown in sustainable regrowth forests.

The Text Publishing Company
Swann House
22 William Street
Melbourne Victoria 3000
Australia
textpublishing.com.au

Copyright © Sally Rippin 2011

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright above, no part of this publication shall be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.

First published by The Text Publishing Company, 2011

Cover by WH Chong
Page design by Susan Miller
Typeset in Bembo 12.5/17.5 pt by J & M Typesetting
Printed and bound in Australia by Griffin Press

National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:
Author:          Rippin, Sally.
Title:              Angel creek / Sally Rippin.
Edition:          1st ed.
ISBN:             9781921758058 (pbk.)
Target Audience: For primary school age.
Dewey Number: A823.3

In memory of

Mikaël Rohan
the third musketeer
10.7.1996 – 16.11.2010

Contents

1
     
the apricot tree

2
     
something in the water

3
     
a place to hide

4
     
nonna

5
     
christmas

6
     
a silver heart

7
     
the bullies

8
     
trapped

9
     
keeping secrets

10
    
the broken wing

11
    
the storm

12
    
finders keepers

13
    
that boy again

14
    
small comforts

15
    
the hospital

16
    
the bad thing returns

17
    
the dark, the light

18
    
the power of wishes

19
    
a white feather

1

the apricot tree

There were only two things Jelly liked about the house on Rosemary Street: the creek that ran behind her back fence and the apricot tree.

Perched in the tree's wide branches, high above the garden, Jelly could see the whole world and nobody could see her. Since they had moved house, this had become Jelly's secret place. Here nobody bothered her except for the birds.

She gazed up through the shivering leaves. Pale stars glittered in the darkening sky and a huge yellow moon hung on the horizon. It was Christmas Eve. It should have been a perfect night. But Jelly was in the wrong garden in the wrong neighbourhood—perhaps even in the wrong family. Below, her parents were laughing with their new neighbours like they were having the best time in the world. Like they didn't care one bit that they'd dragged Jelly ten suburbs away from all of her friends. Even though she spoke to them almost every day, the calls only made Jelly feel worse. Tonight everyone was meeting up. Everyone except Jelly, stuck in this tree on the other side of the city. She might as well have been on the other side of the world.

She picked at a piece of bark and glared at their new house, a falling-down old weatherboard with blistered paint and sprouting gutters. Behind her, Nonna's granny flat squatted gloomily among the ragged rose bushes. Even the fairy lights her mum had strung all around the garden couldn't brighten Jelly's mood. She stretched and sighed. If she peered out over the back fence she could see the place where everything dropped away into blackness. There, in the dark, flowed the Merri Creek. From her place in the tree, she liked to imagine she could smell the cold, muddy dampness, hear the gulping of the water over the stones and the crick of the summer frogs— imagine she was someplace else.

‘Hey!'

Jelly's dreaming was interrupted by a voice calling from below. She peered through the apricot leaves and saw her cousins, Gino and Pik, staring up at her. Pik was chewing on his fingers as usual, his sooty black hair sticking up everywhere. Gino's legs stuck out of his shorts like chopsticks. Every summer he shot up like a bean sprout, and now he was taller than Jelly, though he was a year younger.

‘Hey,' he called again. ‘Aren't you supposed to be looking after us?'

Jelly frowned. She swung down through the branches, landing in front of the boys with a soft thud.

‘You're nearly as old as me, Gino. You can look after yourself.'

Gino glared at her. ‘Mum and Dad said you're in charge. And besides, I don't want to get stuck with Pik and Sophia on my own.'

Jelly didn't want to get stuck looking after Gino's baby sister either. ‘I hate these stupid Christmas parties,' she said, lobbing an apricot into the vegetable patch.

‘Me too.' Gino kicked at the dirt.

‘Me too!' said Pik.

Jelly glanced over at the back fence and drew closer to the boys. ‘We could go down to the creek,' she whispered. ‘That is, if you dare?'

‘Cool,' said Gino, grinning.

‘Cool,' said Pik, but his voice came out as a squeak.

‘You sure, Pikky? It'll be dark down there,' said Jelly.

‘I'm not scared.'

‘There might be monsters,' Gino teased.

Pik glanced up at Jelly.

‘Nah, only birds and frogs down at the creek, Pikster. Come on, we'll climb over the fence behind Nonna's flat. She's in the kitchen. No one will see us there.'

Jelly slipped away from the fairy lights into the gathering shadows at the end of the garden.

They crept through Nonna's vegetable patch, ducking between the tomato plants lined up like rows of watchful soldiers. When they reached the fence Jelly pulled Gino and Pik into the small dark space behind the granny flat.

‘A kid drowned in this creek two years back,' she warned them. ‘Our neighbour Maureen told us. He was playing in the drains and the water just came rushing down.' She paused for added drama. ‘They never found him again.'

‘Cool,' Gino said in a low voice.

‘Cool,' said Pik, sticking his fingers back into his mouth.

Jelly grinned. ‘Sure you don't want to go back to the house, Pikky?'

Pik shook his head.

‘Come on then,' she said, and swung herself up and over the fence in one swift movement. The boys followed.