Birrung the Secret Friend Read Online Free PDF Page A

crushed shells, so it was easy to see the way in the starlight without a candle. Even the privy here didn’t stink. Sally had told me to put down wood ash whenever I used it, to stop the flies and smells.
    I finished my business and stepped outside again. The breeze from the harbour was cool. A bird hooted back in the bush. At least I hoped it was a bird, and not an Indian ghost. Clothes flapped on the line. One of them was Elsie’s old dress. Now that it was clean I could see it was pink.
    How had Elsie come by a pink dress? She had to have come on the convict ships. There weren’t any white people in the whole land till we’d come here, and there had been no ships since. Convicts and their children only had the clothes we were given on the ships, all white or grey and checked jackets to begin with, but stained and mud coloured now.
    Was Elsie the daughter of a soldier? I shook my head in the darkness. I’d thought about this before, trying to solve the mystery of where she’d come from. If Elsie was a soldier’s or convict’s daughter, I’d have seen her about the colony. There were so few of us you saw everyone sooner or later. And even if her ma and pa had died, the soldiers looked after their friends’ families too.
    So why hadn’t I ever seen Elsie? And if she was a convict’s brat, like me, how had she got a pink dress? Us convicts had been given good clothes aboard ship — I’d even had two shirts till someone nicked my otherone. But none of them were pink. Colours were for rich people, or at least richer than most of us here — gentlemen’s daughters or wives like Mrs Johnson.
    I sat on a patch of grass by the back door. There was a lot to think about. How long could Elsie and I stay here? I’d work hard for a safe bed and food for the two of us. But I was ten and small. And I ate a lot. Mr Johnson would be better off with a big convict man than me to dig his garden.
    But the black girl lived here, like she was their daughter. The Johnsons didn’t seem to have children of their own. Maybe . . . maybe they’d adopt me and Elsie . . .
    No. Ladies and gentlemen like the Johnsons don’t go around adopting boys like me, even if they let servants eat at the table with them. But Elsie?
    Elsie wasn’t pretty like Abaroo, even now she was all cleaned up. She was as thin as a stick with the wood shaved off, and her face all pointy from hunger. But she used her knife and fork like a lady.
    The back door opened. In the dark I could see a white face and a white petticoat. Elsie.
    â€˜Hoy,’ I said. ‘You ain’t running off, are you?’
    I was never sure how much Elsie understood, but she understood that. She pointed down to the privy.
    â€˜Well, good. This is a right good bunk we’ve got here. Need to make the most of it.’
    I heard Elsie’s feet go down to the privy. The privy door shut, then opened again. Then plunk , she sat beside me.
    She leaned against me. It was just habit, because we had curled up together for warmth before, though tonight was hot.
    â€˜You all right?’
    She didn’t answer. Elsie never answered. She didn’t even nod. But I could see her face in the moonlight and it didn’t look frightened. Elsie was sitting out in the open and not even trembling.
    Another face appeared at the door and looked out. A dark one. Abaroo wore a white petticoat too. Her bare feet were soft on the grass as she walked over and sat next to us.
    I felt a bit lost, with her being so dark, so pretty and so strange. At last I said, ‘It was you, weren’t it? You threw the stone at that convict to stop him catching me. You followed me. You brought Mr Johnson to get us.’
    â€˜Yes. I find you.’ Her voice sounded like Mrs Johnson’s, like a lady’s. I supposed she’d copied Mrs Johnson’s way of speaking. But her voice was husky, and sort of singing. Ithought of