Volcano Street Read Online Free PDF Page A

the top floor of a white, peeling house, high above the harbour. This would be their castle and Marlo would be its queen, with Skip the loyal page boy. From a balcony frosted with iron lace they would gaze down, dazzled, at deep blue waters, while the chug of boats, the honk, the knock, the slosh, the jingle of chains from the tethering docks made merry music. In the evenings they would dine in dark, smoky cafés, hidden in basements or down snaking alleys, where poets with beards and berets argued at surrounding tables, fights broke out over the favours of waitresses, and girls who looked like Joan Baez strummed guitars and sang. Skip, who had never been to Sydney, could see it so clearly. Striding back and forth, gesturing vigorously, she did her best to convey all this to Marlo. She didn’t succeed.
    ‘You’re twelve. I’m sixteen. The police would be on our trail in days.’
    ‘We’d wear disguises. Glasses. False beards.’
    ‘And money? What would we live on?’
    ‘Your stories, Marlo. You’re going to be a writer.’ Reverently, Skip picked up Olly Olivetti, peeled back the zippered case, jammed thetypewriter into her sister’s lap, and propelled her hands to the keys. ‘You’re already a writer.’
    ‘Silly stories! I ripped them all up.’
    ‘Not “Moon Escape”? Not “The Slaughterhouse Murders”? That’s the greatest story ever.’
    ‘It’s kids’ stuff. I wrote it when I was your age.’
    ‘You’d never destroy them. You couldn’t.’ Skip dived for her sister’s luggage. Wrenching the suitcase across the floor, she tugged at the straps that stopped it flying open.
    Marlo leaped towards her. ‘Go away!’
    They struggled for the suitcase and Marlo grabbed it. Skip kept up her pleading. ‘You’re frightened. Don’t be. We could run off tonight. You and me and Olly Olivetti, on our way round the world.’
    ‘You’re a child. You don’t understand.’
    ‘What’s to understand?’
    ‘I don’t want to hitch to Sydney. Or write silly stories. I want to go to school.’
    ‘What would Germaine do?’ This, Skip knew, was a desperate ploy, but she had to try it. ‘That’s the key, isn’t it? In any situation, ask yourself: What would Germaine do?’
    ‘How do you think Germaine got where she is? She passed exams. She went to university. Keep dreaming if you want to – keep dreaming until you end up thirty-three years old, living in a squalid little flat with a layabout criminal boyfriend and a couple of bastards you can’t afford.’
    ‘How can you talk about Karen Jane like that?’
    ‘She dreamed all her life, and that’s what dreams got her.’
    ‘And you’ve stopped dreaming, and what have you got? Puce Hardware at nine in the morning.’ As soon as she’d said them, Skip wished she could call back the words.
    ‘Don’t preach to me,’ Marlo said in a pained voice. ‘You made our mother go mad.’ Gently but decisively, she hustled Skip to the door.
    Skip slid to her knees in the passage as the door slammed behind her. Her breath came in gasps. Yes, she had made their mother go mad. Karen Jane was in the funny farm because Helen ‘Skip’ Wells was a stupid girl. From the kitchen still came the bellowing, the laughter. She leaned against Marlo’s door. There was no lock: if she tried, she could burst in again. But she held back. So much had happened: too much. And some things, Skip was beginning to see, could never be undone. She tapped faintly on the door and whispered, ‘Marlo? I’m sorry.’ There was nothing else to say.
    Only silence came from behind the door.
    How late was it now?
    Skip squatted on the decking outside the sleepout, staring into the dark yard. The night was cold and she shivered. She didn’t like the sleepout and didn’t want to sleep. The room was Barry Puce’s, a damp creosote-smelling timber rectangle, like a Swedish sauna gone cold. Tacked to the walls were posters of Paul Newman and Jackie Stewart; there was a shelf of sporting