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them in the middle with bows. If my ‘ f ’ s are the best—better than Lizzie’s and Colleen’s, better than Roy Kearney’s and Chicken McCready’s—I will get an elephant stamp. I will take my book home to show Mum. Dunc and Dad might see.
    Miss Taylor says: ‘Beautiful work, Sylvie.’
    Miss Taylor is as beautiful as the ‘f’s she writes on the blackboard. She has creamy white skin and glossy brown hair like the pageboy in the story about the king’s court. Her voice is soft but firm and even the big boys in Grade Two know not to be naughty.
    When I show my ‘f’s to Mum, she says, ‘I could have been a teacher. Margaret Taylor’s not that bright.’
    â€˜So why didn’t you?’ says Dunc. He grabs my book and looks at my ‘f’s but he’s humming and doing hip swivels, not looking properly.
    â€˜Because,’ says Mum, lighting a ciggie, ‘I didn’t have a grandmother offering to send me to boarding school. I had a mother with bad nerves. I had to leave school as soon as I could and I was lucky to get a job as a telephonist, that’s why.’
    â€˜I’m going to Muswell High,’ says Dunc, dropping my book on the table, ‘same as Pardie.’
    â€˜We’ll see about that.’
    â€˜Good ‘f’s,’ says Dunc, sliding towards the door on his socks.
    He spoke! I’m not dead!
    Later, when Grannie Meehan comes to visit, she brings us meat from Bindilla. I show her my ‘f’s and she says: ‘I had the best copperplate of anyone in my class.’
    Aunt Cele’s photos are on the table in a brown envelope, with no airbrushing. Grannie holds them close to her nose because she’s left her glasses at home.
    â€˜How’s Dunc? Still top of his class?’
    Mum says he is. She unpacks Grannie’s meat; it is a dead sheep. Grannie doesn’t visit very often because she can’t drive a car or truck and has to wait for Uncle Ticker to bring her into Burley Point. Uncle Ticker doesn’t come inside with Grannie because a long time ago he had an argument with Dad and they don’t speak. Before their argument, Dad and Mum lived at Bindilla and Dad used to ride his horse into the pub. The horse could find its own way home to Bindilla with Dad drunk on its back, the whole twelve miles, crossing Stickynet Bridge and following the path around the lake to the bottom paddocks, never once getting lost or tossing Dad off.
    Grannie squints at Dad’s photo. ‘He could’ve done law, he had the brains. All he wanted to do was ride horses. How’d he end up fishing, that’s what I want to know? And blessed with that voice. I wanted him trained, I told you that, didn’t I?’ Mum nods and slides bits of dead sheep onto a plate. ‘Wouldn’t listen. Might as well’ve saved my breath.’ She takes the next photo from me. ‘Boys need a father to whip them into shape, simple as that.’
    Mum sucks in her top lip and turns to the sink. Grannie studies the photo of Dunc and me. ‘Maybe Dunc’ll be the one. I’ll pay to put him through law, you know that.’ Then she looks back at Dad’s photo. ‘Well, let’s hope he makes a go of fishing. Horseracing’s for kings. And fools. And he’s long past singing for his supper.’
    Mum takes ages washing her hands. Grannie puts three spoons of sugar in her tea and stirs up a flurry.
    â€˜I suppose you’ve heard about Cele? She’s left Jack and she’s squatting in the sand hills out near Stickynet in that old shack of Spog Ward’s? Have you seen her?’
    Mum shakes her head.
    Grannie says: ‘After all I did for her. You can’t keep running, that’s what I told her when she called into Bindilla the last time she was here with that dodgy photographer. And you know what she said?’
    Mum doesn’t know.
    â€˜She said: