Into That Forest - By Louis Nowra Page 0,37

to spin. Becky realised her father wanted her to sing what she were singing at the piano, so she hummed her song into the funnel. Her father tapped me on the back and I realised he wanted me to join in. Becky and me did this for ’bout a minute and then we were told to stop. It all seemed peculiar to me and to Becky, who looked to me as if to say: Do you understand any of this? I had to shake me head.

We were told to sit on chairs but Becky copied me by just flopping down on the floor near the table to wait for another silly request from these two ginks. I were thirsty and thinking about water when Ernie clapped, wanting us to pay attention to him. He turned the handle of the machine. I heard a voice that were singing like Becky. I looked at her but her mouth were hanging open in surprise and wonder. Then I recognised me own voice coming from inside the machine. How had our voices got into that machine? We both ran to the table to find the answer. Becky’s father held us back from touching the funnel. Becky grew really anxious and were shaking her head saying, No, no, no! I were trying to reach out and find me voice inside that infernal contraption. Our voices had been stolen! Someone had stolen me! I stared at the needle on the turning cylinder and realised our singing were in there. I wanted to smash it. It were spooky. It were magic. Ernie pushed me back when I reached out to smash the cylinder that had stolen our voices. I gave him the biggest threat yawn ever, as did Becky who seen what I were trying to do and she agreed with me. We were both in a panic wanting our voices to escape from that cylinder prison. She broke free and ran out the room. Ernie was protecting the machine so I were able to run out the room too.

I were hightailing it down the corridor after Becky and then we both skedaddled outside onto the verandah. I continued to run when I noticed that Becky were no longer beside me. I looked back and seen her standing on the edge of the verandah with that frown of hers. Her father and Ernie stopped chasing us and walked up behind her, standing side by side with her as the three of them looked at me. Mr Carsons stepped down off the verandah and called me by me name. Then he pointed to Becky, as if to say, She is staying, why don’t you? I looked round and seen the forest and mountains in the distance. Becky! I called out, wanting her to come with me but she were staying put like her feet were nailed to the verandah floorboards. What could I do? I didn’t want to run away by meself. Becky were me closest person in the whole world.

I joined her on the verandah and she rubbed her face against mine and the world were fine then. It must have been something about me panic that made Mr Carsons realise he had to do something for me, cos a little while later the four of us were in the buggy riding out of the front gate, the horse jittery maybe cos it sensed we two girls smelt different from other humans.

We rode for several hours down dirt tracks and then along the river bank for some miles. The two men were worried ’bout us escaping, so we were tied together and Ernie held the ropes while Becky’s father drove. It were wonderful to be so inside the bush. It felt like home: the trees, the smells of animals and shit, the flowers and the gums.

Then something happened inside me: I began to recognise, like a dream that becomes real, the countryside we were travelling through. Me heart went racing and I sweated. I realised Mr Carsons were taking me to me real home, me parents’ home. I tried to stand in the buggy I were so excited, but Ernie pulled me down. Memories of me mother and father swirled round me mind. I only had Becky’s word that me mother were drowned and as for me father she hadn’t seen him dead, so I was filled to the brim with the belief that they were still alive and I would see them again.

And there it were!