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long, silent daylight hours without Kath, only the whispering trees for solace.
    On Monday, Laura made sandwiches and left them on the bench so that Bruce and Vik would have lunch. How young the other kids looked to her now. She felt arthritic, bent by events. Though she had fallen behind, her teacher told her that it was ‘absolutely understandable’ and ‘not a problem, under the circumstances’. Laura would ‘catch up’ and ‘should take things at her own pace’, Miss Gray said. The skin on the back of Laura’s hand was raw with kind strokes.
    Sitting next to her, Joseph had his hand up, again. They were flanked on either side by the other untouchables in Grades Three to Six. It didn’t seem fair that her friend was consigned to the back row with her by the unspoken agreement of the others. He had started further behind in his schoolwork than Laura, but it quickly became clear that Joseph was smart, smarter even than the best of Grade Six who sat right in front of the teacher. It wasn’t only school; Joseph knew all kinds of things that had no place in a classroom. Laura badly wanted to learn what he had to teach: how to cook meat in earth, where to find water, what plants made good meals if you got desperate out in the bush.
    â€˜How come you know this stuff?’ she asked every time he let slip some interesting piece of information about rainfall or catching snakes and eels.
    But Joseph just smiled and shrugged, as if to say, Doesn’t everyone ?
    Donald was good with livestock, especially horses. They had followed the work to stations, farms. They’d been up country, wherever that was. ‘Living rough,’ was how the ladies put it. ‘No place for a child! Even an …’
    But Joseph’s stories, when he told them, were filled with friends and family from all over the state: the people he’d met, the places he’d seen. Laura hung on every word, thinking how great that life sounded. He eventually told her that his mother, Lorraine, had lived in Kyree till she died in the back of the pub the summer before Kath disappeared. Donald had brought Joseph home to say goodbye. Shuddering, Laura remembered the police laughing about that death during the search for Kath. Though she couldn’t have explained it, she knew some people were worth more than others in town.
    Laura thought there might be other kids, brothers and sisters, but it was hard to tell who was who. Joseph’s attempts to explain his family tree made her family seem somehow malformed, containing too few people to be properly considered anything at all. She was grateful to him for never asking much about Kath, and returned the favour. Their bond knit, a ligament.
    â€˜What does x equal?’ Miss Gray looked out over the classroom, wide-eyed with encouragement. ‘Anyone?’ she asked brightly. ‘Laura?’
    Laura took the pencil from her mouth.
    â€˜The x , Laura? Any ideas?’
    Laura looked at the board. The numbers were meaningless, just a pattern of shapes. She shrugged, blushing. How would any of this help with heaving washing to the line? Would it make the fire light itself each morning?
    â€˜Dunno.’
    Miss Gray didn’t get angry, as Laura expected – even hoped – she might. Instead, the teacher smiled. It was a sad, patient, tender smile. Encouraging. Like there were things beyond Laura’s comprehension that one day, if she was lucky, she would eventually understand.
    Vik was waiting for her on the verge, chucking rocks, when the school bus dropped Laura off. They walked to the postbox together, the little girl chattering, starved for speech. Collecting the mail from the main intersection near the house had been Laura’s job since Bruce gave her the postbox key on her seventh birthday, going on about responsibility, delivery times and bills.
    â€˜It’s the only one,’ he had said finally, knotting the key on a string