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but we never saw too many families hanging about. Mum called it the Manson Family Hotel but I don’t understand that. No one really felt like walking into the dingy dusk of the front bar to see how Dad was getting on. It was too depressing. And smelly.
    He did not come back to pick up the tank, so we used it as a cubby house and a tunnel and a musical instrument that made a loud clanging noise like a copper bell when you whacked it with a broom handle. I broke the broom handle. That was one more thing also.
    After the hot water tank blew up, Mum went to bed and stayed there for six days. I had to pour Corn Flakes out for me and Bianca for our dinner. Mum didn’t eat much but then after a while she came good and cooked up a storm, even if she did stay in her pyjamas. Mashed potato and lemon delicious pudding with our own lemons. Things began to feel a bit better. It all had to do with money, she said, that’s all. I offered her my pocket money although I was saving for a booster pack of Yu-Gi-Oh! cards, but she said she couldn’t accept it. Whew.
    I thought if I could find a treasure, then Mum would be happy and we could buy a pink slip and all that other stuff she wanted. I went out into the backyard and dug a hole underneath the clothesline to look for gold. I didn’t find any, even though I wished so hard and it wasn’t even for me, but for Mum. I wanted to yell out Eureka! and throw my hat in the air. But first I would have to find my hat. I dug and I dug. The hole was deep enough to jump into and crouch beneath the surface of the earth. The ground so dry it was like baby powder. There were no worms, and no gold. All that happened was that Mum got cranky because she nearly fell into the hole when she was hanging out the washing.
    Then the electricity was cut off, so it didn’t matter if we had a hot water system or not. To wash us, she would use cold water and a flannel so rough it felt like sandpaper. Flannel is a funny word, like a girl’s name. Living in candlelight was an adventure, for a while. Mum dragged us to the Social Security office and encouraged us to run around and muck up so they would serve her sooner and get rid of us. It didn’t work. Everyone there looked miserable and we had to wait ages.
    We left with nothing—Diddley squat—Mum called it, although I think it was probably too much to expect them to hand over a new hot water service. We couldn’t have carried it anyway, judging by the size of the old one in our front yard. On the way home, pushing the stroller with Bianca in it up the big hill, Mum started crying again. I wished so hard she would stop. I helped push the stroller. She cried as we passed all the shops, as we crossed the crossing and especially as we passed the Family Hotel and the used car lot next door. I couldn’t see any bullet holes. As we were passing the bad smells coming out of the door, hoping no one would call out, I spotted something. Something shiny, just sitting there on the footpath near a No Parking Any Time sign. I let go of Mum’s hand and picked it up. Mum continued on with the stroller, blubbering tears and snot. I caught up.
    â€˜Mum, what’s this?’ I held out my hand.
    Her blubbering stopped. Slowly her hand closed over mine and she turned her head and kept walking, dragging me after her. Bianca was asleep in the stroller.
    At home, we examined it like scientists. It was a gold ingot, Mum said. I got out my Super Sleuth magnifying glass and after we saw our giant fingerprints, we saw it had 2.5 oz stamped on the bottom of the little golden cube. We stared at it. No one asked where it came from or how it got there on the footpath, or whose it was. We just stared at it. For a few months, Mum was really happy.

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    So I took Bianca and Jayden to the city by train. It was an adventure for them to sit up looking out the windows, or playing hide-and-seek between the back-to-back seats. They examined every