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school the next day there was a little note on my desk.
    Dear Chrissie, it said, When I was a boy, growing up, we didn’t know it was dangerous to smoke. You are quite right, though, now we do know the dangers associated with smoking, it is wrong to continue to do so. I shall try to give up this Christmas holidays. I think Christmas is a good time to try because I am home more and my wife doesn’t like me smoking in the house because I make the curtains stink. Thank you for your concern
Yours sincerely,
William Chapman.
    I folded the note up neatly and put it straight in my school bag before anyone, especially Dee, could see it. As soon as I got home, I put it safely under the flowered paper in my undies drawer. I knew I would keep it for the rest of my life.

Nan and Badger

    I rang Nan because no one else seemed about to do it. Dad said it wasn’t up to him, it had to be Mum’s decision, and Mum refused point blank.
    â€˜The last thing I need is her fussing around.’
    So every Friday night we rang Nan but we didn’t tell her. We talked in false cheery voices about everything except the thing we were all thinking about.
    â€˜So, do you like living in the city?’ Nan always asked.
    â€˜Not much,’ I always replied, ‘but it’s okay.’
    â€˜I don’t understand why you all moved. I thought you were happy at Nurralloo?’
    â€˜I don’t know,’ I always had to say. Mum stood right next to me when we rang Nan, so close I could almost hear her heart beating. I knew she was ready to grab the phone from me if I said a single wrong thing.
    â€˜You make me tell lies,’ I said to Mum, ‘you make me say things that aren’t even true.’
    â€˜I can’t cope with her on top of everything,’ Mum said slowly, the way she did these days when she was angry. ‘I have enough to do without looking after my mother as well.’
    â€˜You wouldn’t have to look after her,’ I said, ‘she’d help. She’d want to help. You just hate her.’
    â€˜I don’t hate my mother,’ Mum said, ‘you’re just too young to understand.’
    â€˜I hate you,’ I said and for a moment I almost believed myself.
    Mum sighed and stroked my hair, ‘I know,’ she said, ‘I know.’
    I rang Nan one Saturday afternoon when Mum was working at the bistro and Dad was asleep. I sat in the hallway and picked at the scabs on my legs, while I told her the whole story in a queer, little, flat voice I hardly recognised as belonging to me.
    â€˜Good God,’ she said, ‘why on earth didn’t your mother tell me?’
    I shrugged, but of course she couldn’t see me. I couldn’t really say anymore. It was as though everything I had said had used up all my voice. ‘You poor little girl,’ Nan said, ‘you poor little girl.’
    It felt like the first time anyone had stopped and looked at me and I started to cry, but silently, the tears leaking through my fingers as I listened to Nan sigh half a dozen loving noises at me and tell me that she was coming up on the fastest plane she could catch, and then I sniffed loudly to let her know I was still alive and hung up.
    I knew what I had done was wrong and I didn’t care. Nan was all our family. Dad’s parents died before I was even born, killed instantly in some horror highway smash, and my other grandfather, Nan’s husband, died when Mum was a teenager. His heart gave out. It seemed to me that we were doomed to die young.
    â€˜She can’t stay here,’ Mum said, ‘I can’t have her here. It’s impossible.’
    â€˜She’ll have to stay somewhere,’ Dad said, pouring a cup of lemongrass tea. As he poured it, the air was suddenly sharp with the smell and for a heart-stopping moment I missed Nurralloo, where we’d grown our own lemongrass just beside the back door.
    â€˜She can stay in my room,’ I