School Days for Ruby Read online

  Contents

  1 Empire Day

  2 Cracker Night

  3 At the Store

  4 Photos of Home

  5 Back at School

  6 Fighting

  7 Those Poor People

  8 Helping Cynthia

  9 At Lunch Time

  10 The Wests

  11 The Truth

  RUBY Quinlan didn’t feel a bit like herself today. This was partly because she was wearing a black woollen shawl, a white apron, and a long skirt she’d made out of two sugarbags. It was also because half an hour ago she had arrived at her little country school in Uncle James’s creaky old Ford, squashed into the back seat with her cousins May and Bee Cameron. Usually the three of them walked to school, and it felt strange to make the trip in just fifteen minutes, instead of an hour.

  The school wasn’t much like itself either. Since yesterday everybody had been preparing it for the Empire Day celebrations. Grades One to Three had picked up every scrap of rubbish. Grade Four had decorated the blackboard in the main classroom with drawings in coloured chalk showing the flags of all the countries under British rule. Grades Five and Six had carried chairs, brought up from the Institute in Mr Schultz’s truck, and put them in neat rows in the schoolyard.

  The Grade Seven boys had set up a low wooden stage in the girls’ playground area, and the Grade Seven girls had decorated it with flowers and ferns. Next to it stood the piano, which had been dragged out of the junior classroom, and the maypole with its red and white ribbons.

  Now the rows of chairs were jam-packed with parents and friends and children too young to go to school. In the sea of hats Ruby could see her Aunt Vera’s awful old orange cloche. Her own mother wouldn’t be seen dead in a hat like that! Mother loved fashionable clothes and pretty things. But times were hard, and money was so short at Kettle Farm that all the Camerons had to wear old clothes or hand-me-downs.

  Empire Day was a very special day, and this year it was even more special because it was being celebrated on the last day of first term. It would be followed by Cracker Night, to be held on the Mount Pleasant showgrounds, and after that the May holidays would begin. Ruby couldn’t wait.

  For the last few weeks the school’s head teacher, Mr Miller, had been teaching everybody about the history of Great Britain and the British Empire. He’d told them lots of stories about British heroes, men (there were hardly any women) who had died gloriously for England. Ruby’s favourite story, the one that made her want to cry, was about Scott of the Antarctic and Captain Oates. When Scott and his companions were starving to death in a tent, Oates had walked bravely out into a snowstorm, sacrificing his own life to give the others a chance of survival. It was hopeless, of course: in the end everybody had died.

  Ruby was proud to be Australian, but when she looked at the big world map on the back wall of the classroom, she was proud to be British, too.

  The map showed all the countries of the Empire in pink. There was England, of course, and Scotland and Wales and Ireland. Then there was all of Canada, and all of India, and quite a lot of Africa. Down in the bottom right-hand corner Ruby could see a pink Australia and a pink New Zealand, and there were lots of smaller pink places in between – places like Malaya and Ceylon and Hong Kong.

  Ruby knew that more than a quarter of the Earth’s surface was pink, and that was why people could say, without fibbing, that the sun never set on the British Empire.

  The main Empire Day event was the children’s fancy-dress parade. The costumes would be judged by Mrs Miller and the local Member of Parliament, who was the invited important guest. There were four prizes to be won: best senior girl and best senior boy, and best junior girl and best junior boy.

  Now Ruby stood next to Doris Spinks in the crowded school porch, waiting for the littlies’ teacher, Miss Head, to signal the start of the parade.

  Nearly everyone was in fancy dress. Quite a lot were dressed as people from the pink Empire countries, but some of the girls, including Doris, had come as Red Cross nurses from the Great War, and several boys wore the slouch army hats once worn by fathers or uncles who had fought overseas.

  All the children held the paper Union Jacks they’d made and coloured with crayons in class. They were trying to be quiet and sensible, but bursts of whispering and giggling kept breaking out.

  Looking around, Ruby saw big and little Red Indians in fringed costumes made from sugarbag, with lipstick war paint on their faces and chicken feathers in their hair. She saw New Zealand Maoris wearing decorated cardboard headbands, and Indians in turbans made from tea-towels, or saris made from sheets or curtains.

  Eric Weber, one of the Grade Seven boys, had blackened his face with soot and come as an African. He wore a torn singlet painted with brown spots to look like leopard skin, a string of knucklebones around his neck, and a rabbit bone which he tried to hold under his nose with his top lip. Whenever it fell out, which was often, everybody giggled so much that Miss Head threatened to use the cane if they didn’t settle down.

  Iris Dunn, who sat behind Ruby and Doris in class, was wearing something white and furry around her face and carrying a fishing rod with a painted cardboard fish attached to it by a large hook.

  ‘I think she’s supposed to be an Eskimo,’ Doris whispered loudly in Ruby’s ear. ‘Did you ever see anything so stupid?’

  Doris was Ruby’s best friend at school, but Ruby often wished she wasn’t. Doris was always saying mean things about the other children, and sometimes she sneaked on them to Mr Miller. Ruby hadn’t had much choice, though: Doris had chosen her to be her best friend, and that was that. And Ruby needed a friend, because she felt like such an outsider at Eden Valley Primary School. The others were country kids, and she wasn’t. They called her ‘Townie’, and mostly they left her alone.

  Ruby would never forget her first day at the school. Somebody had hidden her good leather satchel, and it had been found later, ripped and scratched. Worse, her precious china dog had been in the satchel, and it had vanished. Ruby loved that dog because it had been given to her last Christmas by her family’s housekeeper, Mrs Traill. She was sure somebody had stolen it – but who? And why? It was a mystery.

  Now, pretending she hadn’t heard what Doris had said, Ruby turned to Iris. ‘I like your fish,’ she said. ‘It’s awfully good.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Iris said, smiling. ‘Your costume’s real nice, too.’

  ‘Quiet, please, Ruby and Iris!’ called Miss Head. ‘You great big girls should be setting an example to the little ones.’

  Ruby didn’t feel like a great big girl. She felt pent-up bubbly, like a bottle of lemonade just before somebody took out the stopper. She loved dressing up, and she’d had fun putting her Irish costume together. Great-Aunt Flora had lent her the mothball-smelling black shawl and Aunt Vera had lent her the white apron. Ruby had cut shamrocks from green crepe paper left over from last year’s Christmas decorations, and sewn them along the apron’s hem. It had taken her ages. This morning, as a final touch, she’d coloured her lips with Mother’s Tangee lipstick.

  Mother had offered the lipstick to May, too, but Uncle James had made a huge fuss about May wearing make-up. ‘Over my dead body!’ he’d said.

  Secretly Ruby had hoped that May would put on the lipstick anyway, but May didn’t want to make her father angry. Uncle James had never been quite the same after he’d returned from the war with only one arm. Mother said he was ‘damaged’, and that was partly why he was always so cross with Baxter, Ruby’s fox terrier. Ruby could never forget that her uncle had once threatened to shoot him.

  May and Bee were dressed up for Empire Day too. Bee, wearing a tartan skirt and a floppy red tam-o’-shanter cap, was a girl from Scotland. And May, who was the
tallest of the Grade Seven girls, had been chosen to be Britannia.

  As the spirit of Great Britain, Britannia was the most important person in the Empire Day celebrations, and Ruby couldn’t help envying May just a little.

  Britannia wore a long white dress and a red cloak. She sat on a throne decorated with streamers and held a trident and an oval shield painted with the Union Jack. She also had to recite a poem. This year it was ‘The Children’s Song’, by Rudyard Kipling.

  May was now standing next to Miss Head, separated from the rest of the group. She looked very grown-up with her springy hair mostly tucked under a gold-painted crown.

  Ruby was disappointed that her mother hadn’t come to watch the celebrations, but Mother hadn’t been well lately, and she was having another of her bad headaches. Dad wasn’t there either, because he was away somewhere looking for work. In fact Ruby had no idea where Dad was. She only knew that she missed him terribly.

  Thinking about that, she had the most marvellous idea. Dad can’t be here to see what my life is like now, she thought, but I can send him some photographs! What luck that he gave me a camera for my birthday last year! I expect they sell films at the general store. Perhaps they develop them as well. How much does it cost to develop a film?

  While Ruby was wondering where she might get the money to carry out this plan, Miss Head clapped her hands for the parade to begin.

  The children were led out by May, attended by two little Grade One girls holding up her long red cloak.

  Everyone marched around the schoolyard waving their flags while Miss Cutting, the church organist, played ‘The Grand Old Duke of  York’ on the piano. Afterwards they all lined up in grades, standing to attention – heads held high, feet together, arms by their sides.

  Miss Cutting played ‘Rule, Britannia’ with a lot of trills and flourishes, and May stepped up onto the stage and sat on her throne.

  ‘May Cameron is that proud of herself,’ whispered Doris, who was standing next to Ruby. ‘Butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. And why didn’t she do something about her hair? It looks terrible. There’s pomades you can get for that type of hair.’

  Ruby wondered for the hundredth time why Doris could never say anything nice about anyone.

  ‘I think May looks pretty,’ she whispered back. She’d have said more, but Miss Head was looking at her with a warning sort of face. So instead she tried not to fidget while the Member of Parliament took a very long time to tell everybody what an honour it was for Australia to belong to the British Empire. Australia was like a child learning to grow up, he said, but she would always be loyal to the beloved mother country, England.

  Finally May stood up. Holding her shield in one hand and her trident in the other, she recited ‘The Children’s Song’. Her voice was calm and steady, rising just a little at the last verse:

  Land of our birth, our faith, our pride,

  For whose dear sake our fathers died;

  Oh, Motherland, we pledge to thee

  Head, heart and hand through the years to be!

  Everybody clapped, and a man in the audience yelled, ‘Hooray!’ A baby began to cry.

  The flag was raised and saluted, everybody sang ‘God Save the King’, and then Mr Miller announced that the entertainment would begin, followed by refreshments. Ruby was already looking forward to the refreshments – she’d seen the trestle table loaded with cakes and scones baked by the school mothers. And as a special treat every child would be given an apple and a bag of lollies to take home. But first, the Member of Parliament was going to present the prizes to the winners of the costume competition.

  The junior prizes went to a brother and sister dressed as tiny Grenadier Guards in red-dyed pyjama jackets and busbies made of black felt.

  Ruby hoped Iris would win the prize for the senior girls – that would show Doris! But after the applause for the junior prizes had died down, she was surprised to hear her own name called.

  Her face burning, Ruby climbed on to the stage. The Member of Parliament gave her an envelope with First Prize, Senior Girls written on it in typewriting, and shook her hand.

  As she left the stage, Ruby almost collided with Eric Weber, who had just been announced as the winner of the senior boys’ prize.

  ‘Hey, good on you, Townie,’ he said.

  ‘Thanks,’ Ruby said. ‘Well done to you, too.’ Then, because she was still feeling so bubbly, she added, ‘And my name’s Ruby, by the way.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ said Eric. ‘Good on you, Ruby.’

  When she was standing in her line again, Ruby opened the envelope. Inside it was a crisp new pound note.

  ‘Oh my hat,’ she said, under her breath.

  Tinkly music sounded from the piano as the Grade Four and Five girls began their maypole dance, but Ruby hardly noticed. She had a pound to spend – twenty whole shillings! And she knew exactly what she wanted to do with it.

  LATER that afternoon, when they were all back at Kettle Farm, Ruby found her mother in the dining room. She was writing a letter, but when Ruby sat down beside her at the table she pushed it beneath her blotter. Ruby was sure it was a letter to Dad. Why was Mother being so mysterious about it?

  ‘You’ll come to Cracker Night tonight, won’t you?’ Ruby asked her. ‘Please, Mother. It’ll be so exciting.’

  Mother shook her head, though, and Ruby felt disappointed all over again. When they lived in Adelaide, Mother had always gone to her school functions! ‘But you’ve been resting all day,’ she argued. ‘Your headache must be gone by now.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Ruby, I simply don’t feel up to it. All those people. . . I’ll stay behind with Uncle James.’

  ‘Isn’t Uncle James going either?’ Ruby asked. ‘Why ever not?’

  To Ruby’s surprise Aunt Vera looked embarrassed. ‘The fireworks remind him of the war,’ she said, quietly, because Uncle James was in the kitchen and he might hear. ‘When the crackers go off they sound like gunshots, and that’s . . . distressing for him. We can’t ever know exactly what he went through because he won’t tell us, but he was in the Battle of the Somme, in France.’

  ‘Oh,’ Ruby said. People always said how terrible the war had been, but even so it was strange to think of grim-faced Uncle James being scared of anything. ‘Baxter doesn’t like fireworks,’ she told her aunt. ‘He hates the noise too. Last year on Guy Fawkes’ night he ran into the bathroom and he wouldn’t come out, poor darling. He was shivering all over.’

  ‘Well,’ Aunt Vera said, smiling, ‘that should make Uncle James feel a bit more kindly towards Baxter, shouldn’t it? They have something in common.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ said Ruby. But she was sure Uncle James would never feel kindly towards Baxter. He always called him ‘that dog’, and he yelled if Baxter put even one paw inside the house. It wasn’t fair, because it wasn’t Baxter’s fault that he wasn’t a proper country dog and he didn’t know how to herd sheep.

  Her mother was a bigger worry than Baxter, though. Not long ago Aunt Flora had told Ruby that Mother wasn’t coping. ‘Keep an eye on her,’ Aunt Flora had said; and Ruby did try to keep an eye on her. But Mother didn’t seem to care about anything now. Imagine not wanting to come to Cracker Night!

  Before they came to live in the country, Mother was always telling Ruby that she should make more of an effort – more of an effort with her schoolwork, more of an effort to keep her room tidy. Now, Ruby thought, feeling rather annoyed, it’s Mother who just isn’t trying.

  There was another huge squash in the Ford that evening as Aunt Vera drove them all in to Mount Pleasant. Aunt Flora, wearing a black silk dress with jet beads, sat in the front seat, and everyone else had to squeeze into the back, with Bee sitting on her big brother Walter’s knee.

  The showgrounds were decorated with red, white and blue bunting, and people were already streaming through the gates. In a cleared space a big pile of dead branches had been set alight, and flames were shooting into the evening sky. Men just inside the showgr
ound entrance were selling sparklers and penny bungers, rockets and fountains and flowerpots, Catherine wheels and Roman candles. Aunt Vera spent five shillings on two boxes of sparklers, which she gave to May.

  ‘I put a little aside from the egg money,’ she said, when May looked worried about how much it had cost. ‘And it is Empire Day, after all.’

  Ruby was very glad that she wasn’t scared of fireworks. As soon as the popping and banging started, she felt as sparkly and jumpy as a firework herself. It was so exciting – how could anybody stand still? Jumping jacks went off with a loud rat-a-tat-tat. Rockets swished into the air, exploding with brilliant bursts of coloured sparks. There was a smell of gunpowder, and the sky was bright with stars.

  None of May’s best friends from Eden Valley had come to Cracker Night, so May joined Ruby playing chasey in the dark with Bee and some of the other Grade Fours. May didn’t usually race around, and for the first time Ruby could believe that her cousin was actually her own age, and not someone who was almost grown up.

  May screamed just as loudly as Ruby did when a whizzing Catherine wheel whizzed right off its post and started a small grass fire, and they both laughed till they cried when Eric Weber exploded a double bunger under the bank manager’s collapsible picnic chair, which collapsed.

  ‘That’ll teach him not to give my dad a loan,’ Eric said, with a grin.

  When the fireworks were all used up, Ruby and May sat cross-legged in front of the bonfire, which was now a mass of glowing red coals. Potatoes had been put in the hot ashes to bake, and had to be dragged out with long sticks or toasting forks. There was a powdering of gritty ash on the skin, and Ruby burned her mouth with the first bite, but the potato was one of the best things she’d ever eaten. As well as potatoes, there were sausages, handed around sizzling on big metal trays. Ruby had three, burnt crispy black, wrapped in bread and soaked in tomato sauce.

  All the children were given hot chocolate to drink in thick white china cups, and the adults helped themselves to tea.