The Road to Gundagai
“She was at home, with Willy in the nursery next door, the scent of toasted crumpets and honey lingering from Nurse’s supper, shared with her charge and his older sister.No, she was in the hospital; no, in the bed in the small hot room at the aunts’. She could hear the footsteps as the poisoner grew closer. If she could open her eyes, she’d see their evil gloating, see the spoonful of white powder …She wrenched her eyes open and lay still. Madame snored on the floor below her, a high-pitched whi...stling sound. Someone else snored too, lower and louder.The elephant, sleeping on her hay.A light shone through the boiled-lolly windows. Ebenezer’s watchman’s lamp?No, it was starlight. A million tiny pinpricks of light. Suddenly the tiny caravan seemed roofed by the universe.Tomorrow she’d help wash an elephant, dressed somehow as a boy. Blue didn’t know how Mrs Olsen would manage to get trousers over her scars, but if her make-up magic could turn Fred into a harem dancer and a bearded lady, she’d be able to make Blue look like a boy.She reached for the medicine and took a swig, quietly, so as not to wake Madame.MoreLess
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