Into That Forest - By Louis Nowra Page 0,17

Becky looked up at the tree above us and climbed up it like a monkey. She made it look easy. When I asked what she were doing she said she had seen some fruit. She started throwing down berries the size of small apples. I tasted one. It were sour and I wondered if the fruit were poisonous but she said she had a tree like this one at home and it were safe to eat. She chucked down lots of fruit and then jumped down to join us. It was then that I were glad I had hands, cos it were easier to eat holding the fruit than for the tigers who only had their mouths. So I hand-fed them and you know what? Becky started to do it too. We could do things for them, and they could do things for us we couldn’t do.

Becky seemed more happy than I ever seen her since that dreadful day of the picnic. She were rocking back and forth, humming and eating the fruit. I asked her if she were happy and she said she were. I asked the tigers if they were happy. Becky called me stupid. They can’t talk, Hannah. I told her that might be true, but they could understand me. It were then that Becky suddenly stood up, an action that caused me to jump and the tigers to go alert as if something dangerous were round us. I asked her what were the matter? She didn’t say anything but were frantic as she searched round the base of the tree in the long grass, til she found what she were looking for and showed me. It were her mother’s cameo shining in the moonlight. I thought it were funny she was worried about losing it, but she said it belonged to her mother and it were the only thing of hers she had. That’s all I got, she moaned. I got nothing of me father’s and only this to remind me of me dead mother. I hated her misery talk so I climbed up the tree and threw some more fruit to the tigers. From the tree branch I were standing on I looked down and I seen Becky sitting on the grass staring at the cameo, like it belonged to a different life, to a part of her which were a long time ago and she were trying to remember. I dropped a fruit on her head. She yelled, Ouch! and looked up at me. Instead of being angry she were deeply sad. We will never go home, she said. It struck me to the core of me heart to hear her say that. Aye, she were right. We would never go home. I stood on the tree branch and looked out towards the moon-kissed mountains. One day we’ll get home, I said. She just shook her head.

Perhaps it were good that Becky thought that, cos she became closer and more loving to the tigers. She understood that it were the four of us against Nature and only by being close would we survive. She never criticised me being close to Dave and Corinna again. After a night hunting and gorging on prey, me and the tigers would go back and sleep. Becky liked to stay outside the den watching dawn come up and she’d talk to herself, singing rhymes, reciting the colours of the rainbow using a chant a teacher had given her (‘Richard of York Gave Battle in Vain’), arithmetic tables and fairytales her father had read to her. She didn’t want to forget. Me? I thought it were stupid to try and remember like Becky did. I didn’t see any use for it. Me English started to shrivel up, like an old dry skin a snake gets rid of. It just lies there in the grass rotting away and then vanishes with the wind. I took to talking in grunts, coughs and hoarse barks like the tigers. This annoyed Becky no end. But it were simple - the tigers understood me. Becky warned I were making a mistake. You will forget your language. You will forget your parents. You are becoming an animal, she’d say. Why argue with her? She were right on every level.

One autumn evening when the air were full of chill we went out hunting. There were less and less animals ’bout and the birds were flying north. It were weeks since we were full up to dolly’s wax.