Read Remembered By Heart: An Anthology of Indigenous Writing for Free Online

Whenever Mr Neville came everything had to be spit and polish — we’d have to really clean the place up, and sometimes we had to get into lines for when he arrived.
    The best thing about someone from the outside coming was we’d get to eat better food, something special, in casewhoever it was came into the dining room and had a look around. But this was only once in a blue moon. I remember hearing around the place that the Prince of Wales wanted to come up to the settlement but Mr Neville put him off. ‘No,’ he said. ‘You don’t want to go there. They’re cannibals.’ I don’t know if this is true — it’s just what I heard.
    One time when Mr Neville came we were all in the sewing room, and he was standing talking to the sewing mistress. They were talking about education and other things, and I heard him say, ‘Ohh, it’s all right, as long as they can write their name and count money … that’s all the education they need.’ Well, I think that tells you all he thought of us.
    When I think back to the time I spent at Mogumber, I think about how they always had me working, never left me free. Every morning I’d get up and go to breakfast, then I’d go straight over to the office. A boy named Edward and I used to work in the store weighing up the rations — like sugar, tea, flour — and handing it out to the camp people.
    When Nanna Leyland came to get her rations I’d always put a little extra in and hand it over myself. I gave her a tin of baking powder once, just a little tin. I stuck it in with the flour so you couldn’t see it. Sometimes I’d give her a little bit extra rice or salt or whatever, because that’s how we would work it. She’d have extra and then she’d cook something to bring into the dormitory and feed us at night.
    After I’d finished up in the store in the mornings I’d go straight down to the sewing room. Then at about fiveo’clock I’d be finished there, and I’d go up to the office to trim the lamps. I used to do the lamps for the girls’ dormitory — they had to be trimmed every night and put in each wing before tea.
    One night I finished trimming the lamps and I took them off to the dormitory. When I got there a girl was standing on the steps waiting for me. She was deliberately blocking my way, so I looked up at her and asked her to please get out of the road. She moved aside, but when I walked into the room she shoved me in the back. I didn’t take any notice of that, I just walked into the dormitory and took all the lamps to their different places. But as I was walking out she stood in the doorway.
    â€˜You’ve been talking about me,’ she said.
    â€˜You?’ I was surprised.
    â€˜Yeah me, and what have you got to say about it now?’
    â€˜Oh,’ I said, ‘tell me what I said about you then?’
    â€˜I know what you said about me.’
    â€˜Well then, you tell me.’
    But she wouldn’t tell me, so I told her to get out of the way, and she hit me. So I up and hit her back, I gave her the works. She was a bigger person than me, too, but I just lost my block.
    There was another girl sitting there and she said, ‘Come on break it up, you two.’ But I was angry and I wouldn’t stop.
    When I did let her go I said, ‘You tell me who told you I was talking about you?’
    â€˜Ruby Windy told me,’ she said.
    â€˜All right,’ I said, ‘I’ll go and bring Ruby back.’
    As I was walking down the steps to go and get Ruby I said to her, ‘Are you going to face Ruby?’
    â€˜No,’ she said.
    â€˜Why?’ I asked her, but I knew why. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘you’ve got to face her,’ and I walked off around the corner.
    When I found Ruby and told her she was furious. She came back with me to the dormitory, walked up the steps and said to this girl, ‘When