Henry’s Daughter by Joy Dettman Page A

she’s not game. She never gets a whole banana at home.
    It’s really weird about Alan and school, though; like, it’s totally weird. Hemight be a bawling, bed-wetting two year old at home, but he knows everything at school – even when Captain Cook landed. Lori knows too much about many things, and not enough about Captain Cook, who she has to do an assignment on for homework, and because she can’t get away from Alan, he does most of it, even draws a picture of a sailing boat for her. He’s like a pup on a leash, but a useful anda nice enough pup. You can understand his writing too. She gets to almost like having him dogging her footsteps, maybe gets to even like him a bit, which is pretty easy to do with pups, because they make it plain obvious that they just love you.
    There’s no more wandering around the river by herself, though, no more scaring the tourists by herself, and no more free thinking time either. If shegoes to the river, Alan follows her, but it’s good having someone to swim with. She teaches him about the current, and how you never try to swim upstream, and how you never swim out to the middle if the speedboats are out. They’d cut you in half as quick as look at you. She shows him how, if you want to swim across the river, you have to start way upstream, and let the current help you across. Hecould already swim but now he’s an excellent river swimmer, which is different to being an excellent swimming pool swimmer.
    So the weeks keep on going and the solicitor’s letters stop coming as regularly and Alan stops bed-wetting, which is around the time Lori discovers he is truly as mad as a rabbit because he actually loves his schoolteacher. No one, but no one, even likes schoolteachers.And he doesn’t just know about Captain Cook and that sort of stuff. He can spell! And he’s truly excellent at maths; also, he knows things like where Turkey is on the map. His head must have been crammed full of school stuff by old Alice.
    Anyway, Mavis finally comes out of her mad bad mood; she’s back to feeding Matty regularly and Matty is glad to be getting fed so he’s smiling and not quiteas ugly as he was, or quite as fat, though he still hasn’t got any hair. She’s back to cuddling Timmy at night and watching the quiz shows. It’s a huge relief. Everyone is laughing again and so happy, and Martin isn’t talking about leaving home.
    Alan has been in Willama for two months when Greg borrows Basic Instinct from the video shop. When Henry gets finished with the washing and the moppingand goes to bed to read, and when everyone under Greg has been sent to bed, Lori shows Alan how to creep out, how to stand with Vinnie behind the curtain in the passage and watch the video without being seen by Mavis.
    He doesn’t know what those actors are supposed to be doing against the wall, though; he’s like a newborn baby about sex so Lori has to tell him heaps. Like where Matty came from,even, and how he got inside Mavis in the first place – how all the kids got inside her.
    â€˜Eddy and I didn’t,’ Alan says.
    â€˜You did so.’
    â€˜We did not.’
    â€˜You did so.’
    It’s a bit like having a friend to talk to and argue with, having Alan at home. She hasn’t had a friend since about first grade, and she knows she shouldn’t do it, due to Henry said so, and Martin, who said he’d murder her if sheever told one single person about it. But in books, best friends tell all their secrets, and anyhow, Alan is more than a best friend, he’s a brother, so one Saturday afternoon she tells him Henry’s BIG secret, because what use is a secret if you can’t tell it to people?
    â€˜Well, you’re not allowed to tell anyone. Ever. Spit your death and hope to die. And you’re not allowed to tell Henry or Martinthat I told you, and you’re not allowed to tell the little ones – or anyone at