Marly and the Goat Read online

  Marly watched Yousra walk out of school and head down the street. Grandma turned to see what she was looking at. She pointed to Yousra and hissed to Marly in Cantonese, ‘Wah! You go to school with a black girl!’

  ‘Grandma, she’s not black,’ Marly said, also in Cantonese. ‘She’s from Egypt.’

  As they walked down the concrete footpath towards home, Marly said, ‘Grandma, you can put the umbrella away. It’s not going to rain.’

  ‘This isn’t for rain,’ said Grandma. ‘It’s to protect you from the sun, so your skin stays nice and white. You don’t want to turn horribly dark like your black friend!’

  ‘She’s not my friend,’ Marly said, feeling the anger come back as she remembered what Yousra had said to her at lunch. But then she thought again about what her grandma had just said. Marly had never really noticed the colour of Yousra’s skin, and she really didn’t care. Maybe there weren’t any darker skinned people in Vietnam, Marly thought.

  ‘Aiyoh!’ exclaimed her grandma. ‘What happened to your hair ribbons?’

  Marly had forgotten all about her hair. She fished the ribbons out of her pocket, feeling sheepish. ‘They were getting uncomfortable, Grandma,’ she said.

  ‘Hmmph,’ sighed her grandmother, holding the crumpled red strands. ‘You’re a girl who acts like a boy. Maybe your mother was too busy working to set you right, but from now on, I will make sure you look decent for school.’

  Oh no, thought Marly. Grandma is trying to control everything. Even my hair!

  Once they were home, Grandma made Marly sit at the dinner table, even though it wasn’t dinner yet, and gave her a hard-boiled egg with soy sauce. Marly had a feeling Grandma wasn’t going to let her play until she’d eaten it all up. So she ate it as fast as she could. It was delicious! Marly hadn’t even realised that she was hungry.

  Marly noticed Grandpa sitting on the sofa in the lounge. He seems more relaxed than Grandma, Marly thought with relief. She often found him sitting in front of the television. He liked animal documentaries but couldn’t understand anything the narrator said, so he made up his own commentaries, which were just descriptions of what was happening.

  ‘Wah, look at those lions following that deer,’ Grandpa said as Marly walked into the lounge and sat down next to him. ‘The deer now runs. He knows the lions are after him!’

  ‘Let’s see if there’s something else on,’ Marly said, getting up to change the channel.

  ‘There’s just rubbish on the other channels,’ said Grandpa. ‘But this, this is educational. Sit and watch it with your old grandpa.’

  Marly sighed and slumped back onto the sofa. She spied the radio on the mantelpiece and leapt up to turn it on. The Jackson 5 song ‘I Want You Back’ blared from its small speaker.

  Marly grinned and spun round, expecting Grandpa to tell her to turn it off. But instead, she saw that Grandpa was moving his head and shoulders. Grandpa was jiving along!

  Marly started dancing, too. She’d seen the video for the song heaps of times, replayed on Countdown, and she danced the moves just like the band’s lead singer, Michael.

  ‘Wah!’ Grandpa clapped. ‘What great dancing! Such energy! Such skill!’

  Marly jumped onto the sofa, still dancing. She knew that if her grandma or mum had been watching, they’d tell her to act like a proper young lady, to sit still on the couch and keep her limbs in place. But Grandpa didn’t seem to mind. He didn’t say very much, Marly realised, but all of his thoughts and feelings were shown on his face.

  ‘You know, I used to be quite a dancer myself,’ he said with a wink, and got up from the couch. ‘Come on, Marly, show me some more of your moves.’

  Marly sprang to the floor and showed Grandpa more Michael Jackson dance routines. She knew them all – she’d even almost mastered the moonwalk. Grandpa laughed and shuffled his shoulders around, and then moved his arms in the same way that Marly had done. Grandpa’s doing the robot!

  ‘Hee hee. Your old grandpa is nimble yet,’ he said, hopping from foot to foot. ‘Now, show me how you did that turning thing with your feet.’

  Just as Marly was showing Grandpa how to moonwalk, Grandma walked into the room.

  ‘What’s this ruckus?’ she snapped. ‘What are you up to, MyLinh?’

  Crap, thought Marly angrily. Here comes Grandma to ruin all our fun! Before Marly could reply, Grandpa raised his arms, bent his knees, and made his mouth into an ‘o’ as he breathed out loudly. Marly stifled a giggle. Grandpa looked so funny.

  ‘I’m just showing Marly some Tai Chi and breathing exercises,’ he explained to Grandma. Then he turned to Marly, winked at her and said, ‘Now, you lift your right leg very slowly, and inhale . . .’

  Marly did her best to keep a straight face as she copied Grandpa.

  ‘Hmmph, good,’ said Grandma. ‘It may settle that girl down. Nothing else seems to have worked so far.’

  THE next day at school was just as rubbish as the first. Now that Marly and Yousra weren’t talking, Marly had no one to hang out with. It was like being the new girl all over again.

  Marly huffed as she sat down at the kitchen table after school. Grandma had everything out of the cupboards, and was busy lining them all with fresh Safeway advertisements. Before she put all the jars and tins back in the cupboards, she wiped each one with a cloth.

  Marly looked through the kitchen window and realised that the backyard was the wrong colour! She spotted Grandpa, holding a shovel.

  ‘Grandma!’ exclaimed Marly. ‘Grandpa’s ruined the backyard! He’s dug it all up!’

  The whole backyard was now just brown soil. There wasn’t a single blade of grass.

  ‘Your grandpa’s just preparing the garden for planting vegetables,’ Grandma said as she pulled a bowl of food from the microwave.

  ‘Vegetables?’ said Marly, losing interest as she looked at the bowl in front of her. Marly had been excited when she saw that Grandma had cooked shoestring fries. But something wasn’t quite right. She picked one up and tried it. It was soggy and tasteless.

  ‘You’re supposed to fry shoestring fries, Grandma, not microwave them,’ Marly said.

  ‘Pwah! What nonsense. They can be cooked any way I want. This country is too full of fried foods. You don’t want to get all puffy like those Australian kids on the corner.’

  Marly knew better than to argue with Grandma, so she ate her soggy fries and didn’t say another thing. But she wished that Grandma would return to boiling eggs.

  As she sat at the table and watched her grandparents, she realised that they were the most hardworking old people she had ever met. While Grandpa was busy turning their backyard into a farm, Grandma cleaned the house from top to toe.

  Marly finished her fries and found Grandma placing fruit on the mantelpiece, in front of the small Buddha shrine and incense pot she’d set up there when they arrived. She filled it with fresh fruit every day.

  Marly switched the TV on and reached for an apple, but Grandma slapped her hand away.

  ‘Aiyoh! What do you think you’re doing? You can’t eat that yet!’

  ‘Why not?’ asked Marly.

  ‘They are offerings to the Buddha,’ explained Grandma. ‘So that he will bless this house. You have to wait until the prayers are said, and for the incense to burn down. Then, the food will have been blessed.’

  Marly put the apple back. She wondered if it would taste different once it had been blessed. She watched the incense burn. It seemed to take forever. She couldn’t sit there any longer, and ran outside to see what Grandpa was doing before Grandma could stop her.

  ‘All that good grass, dug up and gone,’ muttered Marly’s dad. Marly was in her parents’ room, cutting out pictures of Glo-Worms and the Guess Who board game from the Target catalogue, and sticky-taping them into an exercise book. She hoped that her parents would get the hint and buy them for her, but all they bought now was baby stuff.

  Now that her grandparents lived with them, bedtime was the only time she got to spe
nd alone with her parents. They didn’t do anything special, but Marly just liked being close to them. She felt like she needed to make the most of it before the baby was born.

  Marly wished she could tell Yousra all this, but they were still mad at each other. At least, she assumed Yousra was still mad at her. Marly wasn’t sure how she felt about Yousra anymore. All she knew was that she was feeling incredibly lonely. Marly thought back to recess today, when Yousra had walked past without even looking at her. Marly had never felt so invisible.

  Marly listened to her parents argue about Grandpa digging up the backyard. All they talked about now was the baby or her grandparents. She felt like screaming, What about me?

  ‘What is he thinking?’ exclaimed her dad. ‘This is the middle of the suburbs, surrounded by factories! You can’t just plough the backyard.’

  ‘He grows things,’ said Marly’s mum. ‘You’ll be grateful when we don’t have to spend so much money on vegetables and fruit.’

  Marly wondered what kinds of things Grandpa had planted, although she was annoyed that he had ruined her and Jackie’s play space. No way would they be allowed to play there now that it was just a block of mud.

  Marly fell back onto the bed in a huff. She looked at her parents. They didn’t even notice.

  The next day was Saturday, and Aunty Tam had brought Rosie and Jackie to the house while she worked in the garage, sewing with Marly’s mum. Marly, Rosie and Jackie were watching cartoons, as the backyard was so muddy. Marly and Jackie were annoyed, but Rosie didn’t seem to mind staying inside all day.

  Grandma placed a bowl of her microwaved shoestring fries on the floor in front of the sofa.

  ‘A special snack,’ she said. ‘Eat up and enjoy.’

  Marly watched Jackie and Rosie as they took in the soggy fries. From the looks on their faces, Marly could tell they felt the same way about this ‘treat’ as she did.

  Marly sat back as the Road Runner cartoon came on. It was one of her favourites, but something wasn’t right. The Road Runner was making a clucking sound instead of his usual ‘Beep beep’. But then Marly realised the clucking sound was coming from outside.

  Marly followed Jackie out the front door as her dad, Uncle Beng and Grandpa walked towards the house from the car. They’d been to the market, and her dad and Uncle Beng had their hands full of plastic shopping bags. But Grandpa was carrying something else – a squirming, clucking, live chicken!

  ‘This is a useful animal,’ Grandpa told them. ‘It helps prepare the soil for planting. It pecks at the worms, and its poos are fertiliser.’

  ‘What will you name it?’ Marly asked, and followed Grandpa around the back of the house.

  ‘I hear you’re good with names,’ Grandpa said.

  Marly first thought of Cluck, but she knew that Grandpa struggled with some English words, and so she suggested Chooky instead.

  ‘Choo Key,’ said Grandpa slowly. ‘I like it. What does it mean?’

  ‘Chicken.’

  ‘I wanted to get a rooster, too,’ Grandpa laughed loudly. ‘But your dad wouldn’t let me. Perhaps I’ll surprise him next time we go to the market, hee hee.’

  ‘No, Father,’ Marly’s dad called out from the kitchen. ‘A rooster will crow at all hours. We don’t want the neighbours getting annoyed.’

  Too late for that, Marly thought, thinking about the lady across the street.

  THREE weeks had passed since Grandpa had brought home Chooky, and Marly loved feeding the chicken after school. For a change, Marly’s mum had picked her up today. Marly was secretly pleased about this, although Mum now walked even slower than Grandma – her baby bump was getting bigger and bigger.

  They reached home and Marly skipped down the front lawn, right over a pile of poo.

  ‘Grrr!’ She remembered the last time this had happened. She’d walked through it and had to clean it off her shoes. ‘Mum, the neighbours’ dogs have pooed on our lawn again!’

  ‘Oh, that’s not dog poo,’ her mother said. ‘Go see what your grandpa got.’

  Marly dashed around the house to the backyard. Grandpa was there, sawing wood.

  ‘What are you doing, Grandpa?’

  ‘Building a pen for her.’ Grandpa pointed towards a face, peeping out from behind the garage. It was a goat! Marly couldn’t believe it. Her mum and dad had always told her no to any pets, but Grandpa now had two.

  The goat’s body was a light yellow colour. Its legs and head were white. It had floppy ears, and, when you looked at it from the side, it looked like it was smiling.

  Marly had never been close to a goat before, and was surprised at how cute it was.

  ‘Can I pat her?’ asked Marly.

  Grandpa nodded. ‘Go ahead, she won’t bite. Goats are quite gentle animals.’

  The goat’s hair was bristlier than Marly expected, but she liked how it nuzzled up to her shoulder.

  ‘The goat is nature’s greatest composter,’ explained Grandpa. ‘Humans have kept goats since olden times. It tills the soil and makes it fertile. Its poos enrich the land. And it provides milk.’

  Marly had never heard of anyone milking a goat before. It sounded gross.

  ‘What will you name her, Grandpa?’ Marly asked, betting on Grandpa not having thought of this. She was already starting to think of names when Grandpa said, ‘Agnes.’

  Marly was surprised. She hadn’t expected Grandpa to have a name already, and if he did have one she thought it would be Chinese.

  ‘How did you come up with Agnes?’ asked Marly.

  ‘It means ‘goat’ in French. Or something. I think . . .’ Grandpa seemed unsure, but Marly thought Agnes suited their new goat perfectly.

  ‘I bet you never thought that your old grandpa knew French, hah!’ Grandpa said.

  Agnes had eaten all the leaves behind the garage, and she seemed to be looking for more.

  ‘Let’s take her round the front, Marly,’ Grandpa said. The front yard still had grass growing, and so they locked the gate and let Agnes munch her way around. ‘Ha! Your dad will never need to mow the lawn again!’

  Just then, a car drove slowly past. It looked like two different cars stuck together in the middle – the front half was blue, but the back half was rusty brown. One of the side mirrors was sticky-taped in place. Marly saw the bald driver wind down the window and shake his fist angrily at Marly and Grandpa.

  ‘Go back to where youse came from!’ he yelled. ‘Youse are turning this neighbourhood into a pigsty!’

  Marly realised the man must have been speaking about Agnes, but Agnes was a goat, not a pig! She didn’t understand what was wrong with having a goat.

  ‘What did we do wrong?’ Grandpa asked. ‘Why is that man so angry with us?’

  Marly shrugged. ‘I don’t know, Grandpa,’ she said. But Marly had a bad feeling that it was about something more than Agnes being in the front yard. There was just something different about her grandparents. All the other grandparents wore cardigans and carried walking canes, and the only sort of gardening they did was to plant flowers or move their gnomes. None of them wore triangular straw hats, worked the land like a farm and kept unusual pets.

  Marly loved her grandparents. She’d thought they were fascinating since the moment she met them and found out they’d never had cheese before. But she also found them embarrassing. She wished they’d try a bit harder to fit in.

  MARLY ran into the backyard to find Agnes as soon as she got home from school. On her way through the house, she pinched an apple from Grandma’s shrine to give to Agnes as a treat. She wrapped her arms around the goat’s furry neck and told her all about her day.

  Marly felt relaxed when she was with Agnes. She knew it was weird, but she told the goat everything. It was almost like she had a best friend again. And for the first time in a long time, she looked forward to coming home each day from school.

  Today had been a bad day. Marly had kept running into Yousra, but was never able to talk to her. At recess, Marly had wanted to apolo
gise for their stupid argument, but she found Yousra playing hopscotch with Kimberly. She had just stood and watched them, feeling embarrassed, but then Yousra had pulled out an elastic and started teaching Kimberly tricks that Marly had taught her.

  ‘It’s as if she was doing it on purpose, just to irk me off,’ Marly told Agnes.

  As she thought back over her day, Marly felt terrible. She missed Yousra and regretted their argument, but she didn’t know how to fix it.

  ‘What would you do, Agnes?’ Marly asked the goat. But Agnes just kept munching on her apple and nuzzled Marly’s neck.

  The next day at school was even worse. Marly ran out of class when it finally ended. She looked for Grandma at the gate, but instead found Grandpa, and he’d brought Agnes! Marly saw that Grandpa was wearing his dark blue suit that looked like pyjamas, and his triangular straw hat. He had made Agnes a leash from Marly’s old skipping rope.

  The other kids and parents were all staring at Grandpa. Great, thought Marly. Something else for them to make fun of.

  ‘Oh, cool, a goat. Can I pat it?’ asked Kane, walking past Marly and over to Agnes.

  ‘Umm, sure. Go ahead,’ Marly said, surprised. ‘She doesn’t bite.’

  Once Kane stroked Agnes, all the other kids wanted to, too. Marly was pleased that they all seemed fascinated by her new pet.

  ‘What are you going to do with it? Butcher it and eat it?’ Kimberly shouted, and then laughed in a mean way.

  ‘I don’t think they eat goats,’ said Kane. ‘But my aunt Nolene says they eat cats and dogs.’

  Well your aunt Nolene’s an idiot, thought Marly. She wished that Yousra was around to put these kids in their place. ‘Come on, Grandpa. Let’s go,’ she said.

  As they walked along Marly’s street, an orange car slowed right down, and moved along with them. Loud music shook the car. The passenger-side window was wound down, and Marly saw the car was full of teenage boys. They all had different coloured hair, done up into spikes.