Spinning Around by Catherine Jinks

seemed quite satisfied with life, singing along to the Wiggles with cheerful concentration. As for me, I was so beguiled by the cosy family atmosphere that I began to unwind a bit. The knot in my stomach started to unravel. I shoved on a pair of sunglasses, wound down the window and enjoyed that indefinable atmosphere that Sydney always lays on, when the weekend weather’s fine—a kind of laid-back carnival atmosphere, it is— until Emily suddenly threw up. Emily always throws up. She pukes at the drop of a hat: when she’s overtired, when she’s overexcited, when she eats too much, when she eats too little, when she eats grapes or doughnuts or avocado, when she’s been swimming, when she gets her shots, when she’s got a cough or a cold, when it’s been too long since breakfast . . . all the time. She has a very strong ‘gag reflex’. That’s what the doctors told me, after she’d been through a battery of tests because I’d started to worry, and was beginning to wonder if maybe she had something really wrong with her. I mean, when she hadn’t outgrown this rampant spewing by the age of two, I started to get concerned. Though it turned out just to be Emily. Emily’s stomach. She’d get carsick on her tricycle, given the chance.
    That’s why we have plastic sick bags and old towels strategically placed around the back seat of the car. She’s old enough now to anticipate trouble, though not necessarily to aim as well as we’d like her to. Poor darling, you could hardly expect it. So I had to change her skirt and her socks, and dispose of the sick bag, and wash her face, and give her a drink, and as a result we were late getting to Tamarama, what with the beach traffic and everything.
    Not that it mattered much, because lunch wasn’t served until half past two. This meant that I had to make a pest of myself cutting up apple and slicing cheese and buttering biscuits for Emily, or she would have thrown up again. (Too many corn chips on an empty stomach does it to her every time.) I hate that. I hate looking like a neurotic mum, asking if there’s anything besides Coke or mineral water or lemon squash or tomato juice or soya milk or green cordial—some Ribena, perhaps? It’s not even as if Emily has a respectable allergy , for God’s sake. Just a stomach like a live volcano.
    And Kerry, I could tell, hated having me clutter up her kitchen benchtops with jars of Vegemite and strawberry fruit straps and Jonah’s special little tubs of (butterless) popcorn and chopped-up dried apple (he’s terribly picky about his food) while she was trying to mix salad dressing. She mixes her own salad dressing. She even has her own yoghurt maker. But don’t get me started on Kerry.
    It’s a shame, because I always want to go to the Irwins’. They live in the most fantastic house, exactly eight minutes’ walk from the beach. They have a cat, a dog, and a pool. They also have two children, one five and one seven—so in addition to everything else, they have an unlimited supply of scooters, Barbie dolls, wooden puzzles, Lego bricks, Madeline DVDs, computer games, and everything else you need for a leisurely, stress-free lunch on the patio. Plus the two kids are great— especially Zoe. She looks after Jonah as if she were born to it. Reads to him and everything.
    The upshot of all this is that we can never get over there fast enough. Whenever I think of that glassy box cantilevered over that tumbling slope, I think of airy blue vistas and strawberry daiquiris and sandy bathrooms and children’s laughter and rockpools and barbecued octopus. And then I arrive, and it all starts to go sour in my head.
    I’ve known Paul since university. He is, and always has been, the funniest guy in the world—so sharp, and at the same time so good-natured. A sweetheart, in other words. Maybe a little nervy and high-strung, but