My Place by Sally Morgan Page B

anything, you go back to sleep!’
    â€˜Come on, Nan, I saw you tapping on that tree, what were you doing?’
    She jabbed her stick in the sand, turned to me and said, ‘You can’t be trusted any more, Sally. I can’t walk round my own backyard without one of you kids spying on me.’
    â€˜You know I wasn’t spying. I just happened to see what you were doing, that’s all. Now, are you going to tell me or not?’
    She could see I wasn’t going to give up without a fight, so she said quickly, ‘All right, I was just checking on them to make sure they were all right, that’s all. Now, no more questions, I got work to do!’
    â€˜Okay,’ I sighed as I burrowed my head down into my towel once again.
    I hadn’t comprehended her answer at all. What on earth did she mean, making sure they were all right? I puzzled over her words for a few seconds and then dismissed them. There was so much about Nan I didn’t understand.

Getting ahead
    Mum was offered a job as a cleaner at our school at the beginning of the year I started Grade Six. The hours were perfect, because they fitted in with the two other part-time jobs she was doing. But she didn’t accept the job straightaway. First, she got us all together and asked if we would mind her taking it.
    â€˜What on earth are you talking about, Mum?’ I said.
    â€˜Well, I don’t want to take the job if you children would mind. I thought you might worry about what your friends would think.’
    Without hesitation I replied, ‘We wouldn’t mind, Mum, we’d really like it because we’d see more of you.’
    Mum smiled at me. She knew how naive I was, that I didn’t realise being a school cleaner carried with it very little status.
    We helped after school, wiping down the boards, emptying the bins and sweeping the floors. I enjoyed the boards the most, mainly because it gave me access to the chalk. Before wiping them down, I would scrawl rude comments about school across the whole length of the board. It gave me a great sense of power.
    With more money coming in, Mum took to indulging us whenever she could. This indulgence took the form of unlimited lollies and fruit, rather than new clothes, toys or books. She’d managed to take us all to the Royal Show the year before, and this year she told us that, because of her new job, we would really do it in style.
    Like the year before, our first port of call at the show was ouruncle’s stall. He ran one of the amusement centres in sideshow alley, and we thought it was such a magical place. While we looked at the machines, Mum chattered on to Uncle, discussing one triviality after another. Even when Uncle excused himself on the pretext of fixing one of his money-grabbing machines, Mum followed, mentioning the weather or some person they both knew but whom she hadn’t seen for years. Eventually, Uncle fished out five ten bob notes and told us all to run along. Mum could be boring when it suited her.
    We bought show bags crammed with Smarties, Cherry Ripes, Samboy potato chips and Violet Crumble bars, we weren’t interested in the educational ones. Mum insisted on buying Nan a Mills and Ware suitcase filled with biscuits. Nan loved it. She ate all the biscuits and then used the suitcase to store things in.
    One of our show bags had a large packet of marshmallows in it and Mum came up with the super idea of toasting them over the fire. Just like the Famous Five. We were all terribly excited about this, we loved anything new.
    While Mum stoked up the fire, we all gathered sticks from the garden. I cleaned down my stick as best I could and then hurriedly shoved a marshmallow on the end and placed it close to the coals. It immediately smoked and went black. Everyone laughed. Jill insisted on having a turn then, but the same thing happened. Finally, Mum squeezed between us, her stick adorned with blobs of pink and white, one marshmallow for