Standing Strong by Fiona McCallum

next week, won’t you?’
    It was the right time to leave. A few people were starting to yawn. And Damien was beginning to think he might be pushing it with all the bladders and bowels – of his charges, not the residents.
    He lavished praise and thanks on the big dogs as he settled them on the back of the ute, and then Jemima, and finally Squish, before heading home. He stopped at the butcher for some bones as treats for Bob and Cara and Squish. He’d see if Jemima would like to share one of his peaches.
    He was on a high as he drove out of town. It felt so good to do something for someone else, just because. ‘Did you see how their eyes lit up, Squish? They loved us. Well, you, Bob and Cara, the kittens, and Jemima. I was just the hanger-on. But that’s okay. Mission accomplished.’
    While he’d sat having a cuppa with Mrs Timms and keeping an eye on everything, she’d mentioned that there might be a grant she could apply for to pay him to come and visit with his animals. God, he’d do it for nothing, but if he could be paid, that would be awesome. She’d said there were government grants and funding for all sorts of things if only you knew where to look and were prepared to deal with the paperwork. She’d even offered to lend him a hand with that side of things, since she’d done heaps of them and been quite successful over the years. Apparently there was quite an art to successfully applying for funding.
    Mrs Timms had also suggested that perhaps kindergarten and primary school kids might like a visit and that it would be good for teaching them about responsible pet ownership. He’d definitely look into that too.
    Since it was all going so well with Mrs Timms, Damien had almost got bold enough to ask if the hostel might be interested in a kitten or two as permanent residents, but she’d got in first. She thought they might like two and they could see which ones seemed to fit in best. Damien hoped that if all the kittens proved themselves over the coming weeks, she might decide two weren’t enough to go around and keep them all.

Chapter Eleven
    Jacqueline had finished her lunch and gone through a stack of private emails and was getting ready for her first afternoon session when she remembered the letter Louise had delivered to her earlier. She should read it and she had a couple of minutes before Mrs Smith’s appointment – if the woman showed; she made it to around two out of three scheduled visits, and never really seemed to realise she had missed one. She’d just turn up the next week as if nothing was amiss and carry on where she’d left off last time. Blissfully unaware, Jacqueline often thought. Mrs Smith was a patient who treated her more as someone to pass some time with. Jacqueline had a few of them. She didn’t mind. Whatever helped. They were pensioners: if they wanted a free chat session on the government via Medicare, then who was she to argue? And, anyway, any interaction was good for a potentialy lonely person’s emotional and mental wellbeing, and that was what she was there for. And Jacqueline was learning a lot about the ways of the town and its attitudes from these clients. So she figured it was a win-win.
    She retrieved the letter from her handbag. The simple ‘If undeliverable, return to GPO Box 5899, Adelaide, SA, 5001’ in the top left-hand corner wasn’t familiar, and shed no light on the contents. No doubt an invitation to a conference, or something else she couldn’t be bothered attending. She slid a nail under the seal to open it and drew the crisp sheet of paper out, unfolded it, and laid it out flat on her desk in front of her. There at the top of the letter was the letterhead of the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency. As she read, she felt the blood drain from her head and the pit of her stomach turn molten.
    Dear Ms Havelock,
    Re: Notification of breach of Australian