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is pretty sketchy, but I remember the way she used to stand, tall and willowy on the deck, gazing up at the bush, smoking with her long black cigarette-holder, her dark
hair flying in the warm wind. She seemed to float through the house in her pale, chiffon dresses. Wherever she went she left the same faint smell of cinnamon. She was nothing like your typical
burban mum. She never did tuckshop or reading group and I never once saw her in the kitchen. Apart from her parties, she never had any female company around. She must’ve been lonely with Mr
Bailey often away, or depressed, or maybe, like me, she wished she were someplace more exciting. Perhaps she was just plain old nuts. Whatever, Hollie and I were only six years old the day we found
her.

    Danny is waiting for us by the tennis courts. ‘You’re late,’ he grumbles, holding his watch up to Hollie’s face. ‘You’re always late.’
But we run fast and make it to the bus, just in time. Hollie and I are puffing. Danny dumps us at the front and heads down the back to his grade-four mates. Tomorrow it’s Ekka Holiday and
it’s noisy like a Friday. The bus swings out onto Moggill Road. Hollie leans into me, squashing me against the glass.
    ‘My mummy’s a famous actress,’ she whispers in my ear. ‘She’s being Titania, Queen of the Fairies.’
    ‘No, she’s not,’ I say, because my mum doesn’t do anything special like acting in plays or dressing up or throwing fancy parties. My mum just works in an office and cooks
dinner and yells at Dad and worries about me having clean hands.
    ‘Is too,’ says Hollie.
    ‘Is not,’ I say.
    We keep this up until the bus drops us at the bottom of the hill. Hollie strides ahead in a huff because I don’t believe her mummy’s as famous as Judy Garland or Audrey Heartburn.
Danny talks to me, though. As we trudge up the steep hill, he tells me how his mum is taking him to the Ekka and he’s going on all the scary rides in Sideshow Alley and he’s going to
get the Transformers bag and the Violet Crumble bag and stuff himself on hot dogs and fairy floss and strawberry-farm ice-cream. And I’m getting really jealous because Mum won’t take me
because she says I’ll get sick from all the germs even though I’ve begged her a squillion times to take me just once to see what it’s like.
    ‘Mummy’s home!’ Hollie yells back at us.
    Mrs Bailey’s big, white car is parked on the drive with its windows so black you can’t see inside. Danny uses his special key to unlock the front door and we all clatter inside and
up the marble stairs.
    ‘Mummy!’ Hollie sings out.
    ‘Mum!’ says Danny.
    There’s a whiff of homemade biscuits in the air but the house is silent. Hollie and I go into the kitchen where there’s a huge plate of chocolate-chip cookies on the counter top.
    ‘There’re still warm,’ says Hollie, gobbling one down.
    ‘But your mummy never cooks biscuits,’ I say.
    ‘She must’ve gone for a walk,’ says Danny, flicking on the telly. Monkey Magic is just starting. I sit down beside him, my mouth full of biscuit, waiting for the bit when the
giant egg cracks and out pops Monkey.
    ‘I’ll check upstairs,’ says Hollie. ‘She might be having a nap.’ She trips up the staircase, singing the school anthem we’d learnt in music class that day.
‘
Daily we go to our school on the hill. Ready to try hard and work with a will.
’ Overhead, her footsteps pad, dull and muffled along the hall. The monkey intro finishes and the
princess on her donkey and the pig-snout man are wandering through the wilderness. Danny turns to me, his finger pushing up the tip of his nose, and snorts. I laugh, and reach for another
cookie.
    Hollie screams. She is screaming. One big, long scream that doesn’t stop. Danny tears off the couch and I follow, flying up the stairs. Hollie’s scream is coming from Mrs
Bailey’s bedroom at the end of the hall. The door is open. Everything slows right down. The