Into That Forest - By Louis Nowra Page 0,53
record her singing on the phonograph. But he kept lying to her. Every weekend she’d ask Ernie where I were, what I were doing and when we’d see each other again. He told her that I were enjoying me own learning at a special school far away and that he were sending her phonograph songs to me. He also said that we would see each other soon. Soon! It were always soon! But it never happened.
After the incident with the limping girl, Miss Davis and Ernie tried to find different ways for Becky to mix with the other students and become more normal, I s’pose. Her English were really going great guns, but she were still awkward round other girls and they didn’t like the way she’d stare at them with what they said were a strange look. I know what they meant. People still say that ’bout me. When I go to the local store the shopkeeper, Mr Dixon, says I stare at him as if he were food. But it’s not that. It’s not even that I’m listening to his words. What I am doing is closely watching his body and his eyes to see what he’s thinking of doing next or what he’s actually thinking. It’s what me and Becky learned when we were with the tigers. It’s the body and eyes that tell what a person is thinking or going to do. That’s why I stare at people down the village or on the track when I run into them. I can tell when they’re interested in what I’m saying or when they’re curious or when they’re nervous. Mr Dixon said me gaze were putting off his customers so he gave me a pair of sunglasses to wear when I visit his shop. Even years after me and Becky were with Dave and Corinna, this ability or curse, name it what you will, were still there.
One day Miss Davis seen Becky with the gardener’s hound. It were a big dog and all the girls were scared of it but in Becky the dog recognised a kindred spirit and one where she were its master. The girls and Miss Davis were amazed at how the dog would roll over on its back and expose its belly to Becky. One day as she were nuzzling the dog Miss Davis asked Becky a question that had obviously been on her mind for some time. Who are you, Rebecca?
I am Becky, she replied. Why are you like this? asked the headmistress. Becky didn’t understand the question. Then Miss Davis said - and Becky told Ernie she found this a very difficult order to understand or even obey - You are not to go near this dog again. Those words stanged Becky. She said the dog were her friend. Miss Davis told Ernie that Becky must mix with the other girls, other people, rather than dogs - and there were a solution. She said that Becky must perform in the school play, which they did every year with the boys from a school down the road.
She were told to act in one of several little plays based on fairy stories. The teacher who were doing the plays got Becky to play Little Red Riding Hood. It were hard for her to work out how to pretend. She could easily remember the lines, Easy as pie, she said to Ernie when he asked her how she were handling it. The problem were that it were difficult for her to know exactly what were going on. One girl were pretending to be a grandma and a boy were pretending to be a wolf. This were truly hard for Becky to figure out. Plainly the boy were not a wolf. He didn’t even act like a real one. It were easy for Becky not to be afeared of him cos he were so not like a wolf or dog but what puzzled her were how the boy became a wolf and a grandma at the same time. And when Becky said, Oh Grandma, what big eyes you’ve got, she could not understand why she were saying it cos the boy had tiny eyes, nothing like a tiger’s eyes, for instance. Other things confused her. During rehearsal she had to pretend she had food in her basket but there were no food in it. The teacher kept on saying that she had to pretend. That didn’t work. It were only when she said it were