Fire Song by Libby Hathorn Page A

and how Mum had more or less made her promise that she’d do it tonight! Because of the money and also because Daddy was in danger if he didn’t get money real fast. And what was she to do, because Mum was in hospital and it was tonight? What would darling Freddy do? She wanted him to tell her, just tell her. What should she do?
    She couldn’t say a word about Mum and the house-burning plans. All she could do was picture him – probably in the hallway of that bitchbiddy’s lousy house – grown long and lean and tall and even more handsome, despite bones sticking out here and there and the trousers made of sugar bags.
    Someone coughed in the background and she knew it was Charlie, standing as close to his brother as he could.
    ‘How’s Charlie?’ she asked.
    There were whispers and then Charlie’s squeaky voice, ‘H’lo, Ingrid. Freddy and I talk about you. I go to school on a horse. Tell Pippa.’
    ‘That’s so good, Charlie. I can just see you on a horse. And I’ll tell her, don’t worry.’
    ‘Wish you could see me on the horse. Bye bye, Ingrid.’ Later she’d remember every word and the fact that he hadn’t asked about Mum, but now she just gripped the receiver hard as Freddy came back on the line.
    ‘Ingrid?’ His voice all thick like he was trying hard not to cry himself. And then she couldn’t help it. She burst out, despite the constable being so close to her, and the bitchbiddy probably right next to him. ‘Freddy, we need you. Pippa and I, we need you real bad. Right here. Now,’ she said, even though she knew that impossible miles separated them.
    ‘I know you do,’ he said. ‘Now listen here, Ingrid,’ sounding just a bit like Mum, ‘I can hear you as if you were in the next room. No, as if you and Charlie and me
were
in the same room, because we soon will be. You hear me, Funnyface? In the same room at your place.’
    ‘Stuff and nonsense that you go yapping about at such expense, you young fool – ‘That was the bitchbiddy, but her brother’s voice cut across her, firm and strong.
    ‘That’s what I want to tell you, and you tell Mum, too.’
    ‘I will, I promise, and I’ll –’
    ‘Two minutes, Miss Crowe.’ That was the constable’s voice cutting in now.
    ‘Goodbye – and kisses to dear little Char –’
    There was a click and he was gone. And she was sobbing so hard that Constable Brooks patted her arm sympatheticallyand took out his large white handkerchief for her. How could she tell him they were tears of relief, and that her brother had just told her something that no bitchbiddy and no policeman could possibly know? He’d given her a message in code, she was sure, about being in the same room as her. He was coming home right now. She knew from that awkward, snatched beautiful conversation that, come hell or high water, her big brother Freddy was coming home.

8
Mrs Harry Williams
    B lackie was inside the yard the moment Ingrid opened the gate, pulling her to the bowl of water Gracie had thoughtfully put down by their door for him. He lapped noisily as if he was glad to be back, but her hands were trembling as she took off his leash and stroked his head. He flopped on the sagging wooden verandah, exhausted from their wild run along the streets. He looked at her enquiringly, when she walked back to the gate.
    Ingrid dreaded coming home to the Williams’s place. For one thing, Gracie might want to play something – not Sevenies, because it was too dark for outside now, but probably
Snakes and Ladders
or
Chinese Checkers
or, worse still,
Happy Families,
and she didn’t feel in the mood for any of that. For another thing, Mrs Harry Williams would ask her all about the hospital and what her mum had said and the doctor or the nurse had said, and she didn’t want to talk about any of it just now.
    She looked longingly over the fence at
Emoh Ruo
and that gave her a sharp pang, even though she was drawn to going there again, so she could be alone. She wanted time to