The zoo was kind of dumb really but it was better than doing nothing. Lily had been hanging around at Maria’s house since shortly after 8am that morning and they’d just been yelled at for making too much noise, again.
The girls helped themselves to some biscuits, chippies and a couple of bottles of coke. Lily packed their supplies in her knapsack. Maria carried the money her mother had given them.
They were stopped just inside the zoo gates by the man who takes souvenir photographs. He must have had half a dozen photos of Lily and Maria. He said they just needed to ask their parents to call and they would get a lovely photographic memory of the day but neither of them had ever convinced their parents to pay for one of his pictures.
They wandered around their favourite places. Lily liked the sun bears. They waited half an hour to see if the one who was pacing by the water would get in. He didn’t. Maria wanted to watch the chimpanzees’ tea party. It always made the girls laugh even though Lily remembered her mother saying it wasn’t natural and zoos were animal prisons with inmates that should be set free. Lily wondered where the lion was supposed to go but would happily have taken home a monkey or two.
After the tea party they went to see the farmyard. There were a couple of sheep, some chickens and three ponies; Duke, Star and Arrow. Sometimes, there’d be older kids from the pony club sweeping out the stalls. Lily thought about asking if she could help too but she was only ten and didn’t know how to ride. The pony club kids all looked older than her and they had the sort of clothes you saw on TV, with proper riding boots and hats. Maria said she knew how to ride and you didn’t need all that gear, it was just to look poncey. Lily wasn’t sure. She might ask next time.
The girls were leaning on the fence eating their biscuits when they heard one of the ponies being led along the path towards the enclosure.
“Come on Duke. Nearly there. Not far now boy,” the keeper was saying.
They turned to see a large, ruddy faced boy smiling from the saddle at his mother. His younger brothers were standing beside her, bickering.
“I’m next.”
“Muuum! He pinched me!”
“Be quiet, or neither of you will have a turn,” she snapped before her smile returned as she photographed her eldest son.
The three boys looked like over-stuffed sausages, pink flesh escaping at neck and wrists.
“Gee,” Maria said quietly to Lily, “imagine lugging him around.”
Lily stared at the boy, silently willing him to fall off. He was pulling on the reins, tugging Duke’s head upwards and digging his heels into the animal’s side. Lily watched as the pony passed, his breath making dragon puffs in the autumnal air. She felt him stare deeply into her eyes and was sure he was asking for her help.
“Maria?” Lily nudged her to get her attention, “We should set Duke free.”
Maria looked at the pony then at Lily and smiled broadly. The girls continued to lean on the fence and watched as the boy dismounted clumsily, and his brothers rushed forward, squabbling over who was to have the next ride.
“It’s not fair,” said Lily. “I bet Duke hates lugging kids around.”
“Yeah, especially them!” Maria picked up Lily’s knapsack, “Come on, let’s go see the lion.”
After unsuccessfully testing their telepathy on the sleeping lion, they attempted to get a gibbon to reach through the bars for a biscuit. He wasn’t interested so they fed the leftovers to a crowd of pigeons.
“I’ve got fifty cents,” Maria said on their way out of the zoo, “want to get some hot chips?”
They sat in the sun on the steps of the Ascot Cinema and ate. Lily looked at the posters advertising coming attractions; Sinbad the Sailor and Dirty Harry. “Karl wants to see that.”
“It’s an R.”
“Yeah, but he reckons they don’t check.”
The girls licked the salt from their fingers and started for home. They passed a church with a wedding party gathered in front. The photographer was gesturing for everyone to huddle together.
“Mum’s icing Vera’s cake today,” Maria said. “We can make stuff with the left over marzipan when she’s finished if you want?”
“Nah, maybe tomorrow? Save some and we can make marzipan ponies!”
“Cool. When can I come and see Inky’s kittens?” Maria asked when they got to her house.
“After school next week? Mum said to wait ‘cos they’re still really tiny.”
Lily continued up the hill to the flats where she lived with her parents and older brother, Karl. Behind the property was an overgrown bank covered with dense bush. Karl and his friends could often be found down there smoking stolen cigarettes after school. Sometimes though, he’d let Lily hang out with him. Karl would take his coloured pencils and draw pictures to go with the stories she made up. They talked about building a fort and not telling anyone, a secret place for only the two of them.
Lily walked through the back garden where her mother was still ripping out weeds. She’d been there all day, attempting to create order in the oxalis-ridden beds.
“Did you have a nice time?” she asked. “Karl’s upstairs with his friends.”
Lily sighed. Ever since Karl was brought home by the police for shoplifting, he wasn’t allowed downtown on the weekend. Instead, he took over their room, Meccano constructions spread across the floor.
She stopped by the laundry and peered in. Her cat had given birth two weeks ago. Lily had been woken in the night by mewing. Her mother was already downstairs and had gestured for her to enter quietly. There were two ginger kittens curled in the box beside Inky, a young tortoiseshell cat. There’ll be two or three more, her mother said. Lily had leaned against the door and watched while one black and two tabby kittens were born. When she reached towards them her mother had said not to touch them yet, they needed a few days to get settled first. Then she had bustled Lily back upstairs to bed.
Three of the kittens were hungrily feeding and two were sleeping on top of each other. Lily bent down and patted Inky. She could hear the boys’ laughter through the floorboards.
She went to the living room bookcase and picked up the battered copy of Black Beauty that had been her mother’s. She took the book, a cushion and a rug back to the laundry and settled herself in the corner.
“The first place that I can well remember…” Lily began to read.
She stayed there for the rest of the afternoon, reading aloud until Inky’s kittens slept and the cat curled on Lily’s lap. She heard her brother’s friends leave and her father come home. She didn’t move until her mother called them to the table for dinner.
That evening, Karl and Lily went up to bed early. The minute their door closed, their father’s sharp tone could be heard downstairs, puncturing the silence that had filled the room during dinner, as he cut across something their mother was trying to explain.
Lily lay on the floor and told Karl a story about a sad chestnut pony who was sick of being ridden by rough boys.
When the sound of raised voices reached her, Lily lay on her back staring at the posters decorating her side of the room. There was a polar bear resting on a sun-lit ice floe and a black stallion whose eyes stared straight at the camera and would follow her around the room. She dreamt she was riding the pony from the zoo. She galloped along paths through the town belt then stopped to rest on the crest of a hill, looking out across the city. Lily took two perfect, red apples from her knapsack, ate one and gave one to the pony.
On Monday the girls walked home together after school. Past the dairy where Maria had dared Lily to nick something. I bet you’re too chicken she had said on Lily’s first day, a year ago. And she was, but this was a new school, no more goody-two-shoes. She had stood by the lolly counter for ages trying to decide what to take, aware of the shopkeeper’s eyes on her, then she moved to the open freezer where the popsicles were. Finally, in desperation, she had left the shop and nabbed a potato from the vegetable stand out the front. Run, she mouthed at Maria. Two blocks down the road she had grabbed Maria and pulled her around a corner where they leant, panting against a garage door. What did you get? Maria had asked. Lily had opened her hand to reveal the single dirty potato and Maria sank to the footpath laughing. Lily had shrugged, she wasn’t brave, everyone said so. Her brother was the adventurer. He’d always been a handful, their parents would say, before praising Lily for her common sense. A year on and Maria would still crack herself up just by opening an empty palm and mouthing potato as they walked along the main street.
The girls continued on past the pet shop where Karl once bought a mouse for twenty-five cents. A week later one mouse had become nine, so he liberated them down the bank before their parents noticed the smell.
“I’m going to set him free,” Lily said.
“Who?”
“Duke. The pony. I’m going to.”
“Okay. Yeah,” Maria nodded. “Where will we keep him?”
“I reckon we can make a shelter for him down the bank.”
“That’d be cool fun.” Maria smiled, “Hey, we can ride him too. This’ll be so neat!”
“We could go to my Granddad’s tomorrow and get some building stuff. Can you come?”
“Sure.” Maria grinned, “Maybe Karl can help us, with carrying the wood?”
“Alright.” Lily knew Maria liked him, and they’d need some help anyway.
“We’ll have to make a proper home for Duke, ok?”
“Yeah and it’ll be our own place.” Maria reached into her bag. “Oh, I forgot to give you this.” She handed Lily a slightly squished marzipan horse.
Lily and Karl’s grandfather lived in a one bedroom flat a short walk from their house. He never asked how school was going, or how Lily’s Mum and Dad were getting on since the move to town. He was just glad that they could visit more often now. Their mother said he was a collector, the last of a by-gone breed. He was always stashing bits of wood, wire and roofing iron just in case. If someone was throwing it out, Granddad would take it home. Most of it was junk, Lily’s father said. But Lily and Karl didn’t notice the mess and weren’t embarrassed when he made conversation with strangers or asked the biscuit factory man if he could take home the broken ones. They happily dunked the biscuit pieces into condensed milk straight out of the can and watched daytime television while he tinkered away on some project.
He continued searching for the copper wire he needed. “So, they finally taught you some woodwork at school, eh Karl?”
“Yeah, a bit.”
Karl and his friend Ben, who had come along to help out, were at the new intermediate school and had recently made wooden pencil cases.
“You helping with this hut too, Lily?”
“Yeah, it was my idea. It’s going to be our hideout, like you had, Granddad.” Lily had made them all promise to keep the pony part of the scheme a secret. “Do you have any wood we can use?”
“Sure I do. Righto, pass me a pencil and I’ll do you a plan.”
He wrote some measurements on a scrap of paper and, while the four of them shared his Meals on Wheels dessert, he sorted out what they would need. It took three trips to get everything home and tucked away behind the shed.
They worked on the shelter every day after school and over the following weekend. Maria was late on Saturday because she had a dress fitting. Lily had been cross but it wasn’t Maria’s fault; it took ages and she had to wait while they decided what sort of veil her sister was having. The wedding was making her mum and dad grouchier than usual and now Lily was sulking cos they were about to run out of wood.
“You shouldn’t have wasted that big piece making a stupid gun,” Lily said.
“It’s ok, we’ll go to Granddad’s.” Karl winked at Maria. “See if we can get some biscuits as well as wood.”
Maria and Lily nailed an old blanket over the doorway then stood inside the shelter, testing it for size. The southerly wind found its way in, cutting through their jumpers and making their noses run.
“Do you think Duke will miss the other ponies?” Lily wondered aloud.
“Nah, this is cool. He’ll like it here, away from all those dumb zoo kids and we can give him carrots and apples and those sugar cubes your granddad has.” said Maria. “We’ll hang out with him all the time.”
She reached into her bag and pulled out a packet of Pall Mall menthol. “Found them in Vera’s room, want one?”
The girls eyed each other and the packet until Lily reached out and grabbed a cigarette.
“Have you got a light?”
“Yeah!” Maria tried to cup the match the way her father did. “You have to suck or it won’t work.”
Lily spluttered and the cigarette glowed red in the dim light of the hut. The girls passed it back and forth between them, holding it the way they’d seen Tatum O’Neil do in Paper Moon. They puffed, blowing out more air than they inhaled, careful not to breathe too deeply and start another choking fit. The filter was soon damp and their mouths tasted of fire and peppermint. Lily thought she might be sick.
“We should put it out before Karl gets back, eh?”
“Yeah.” They stood outside the hut, breathing the cold air deeply.
“Can you help tomorrow?’ Lily asked. “We should go to the zoo and see Duke too.”
“Nah, I’ve got to go to church then we are all having lunch with Vera’s fiancé,” Maria rolled her eyes.
“What about next week?”
“Should be ok. Got some wedding stuff, another dress fitting.” Maria half grimaced but Lily knew she was excited about being a bridesmaid.
The girls sat silently, watching the clouds scud across the sky, the damp seeping through their jeans.
The next morning Lily was woken by a paw stretching out and prodding her cheek. She kept her eyes closed and, lifting the top cover, reached out for Inky, firmly stroking her back, encouraging her to snuggle back down.
On the other side of room, Karl was still asleep, the blankets pulled over his head. Ziggy Stardust watching from one wall and Dirty Harry from the other. Cold morning air made Lily pull the blankets more tightly around her but Inky wouldn’t settle. A plaintive mew was followed by another pat on the cheek and Lily knew she’d have to get up. It was three weeks since the kittens were born and Inky was always hungry. Lily’s mother said they were sucking Inky dry and it was Lily’s job to remember to give her more breakfast and not to make her wait. She reached under the bed for her slippers, grabbed her dressing gown and went quietly down to the kitchen.
Inky ran ahead. Three of her kittens were mewing at the bottom of the stairs, not big enough to climb up after her. She picked the black one up in her mouth and carried him back to the nesting box in the laundry, the other two tumbling in their rush to keep up. Lily brought in a dish of food and tried to keep the kittens out of the way so Inky could eat. She lifted them into the box where the two little tabbies were sleeping but they quickly escaped, crawling over each other to their mother, the biggest two tugging on her tail. Inky turned and swiftly nipped at their ears.
“Come on, let’s eat in the other room.”
Lily picked up Inky and the bowl then closed the door so the kittens were kept inside. Tomorrow she’d see if Maria could come over after school. They’d been so busy with the shelter she hadn’t even shown her the kittens.
“I’m sorry I’ve neglected you,” Lily said as she carried Inky and breakfast for both of them into the living room. They were sitting together in front of the bar heater sharing some toast when Lily’s mother popped her head around the door.
“You’re up early. I want you to try the frock on before you go rushing off anywhere, ok?”
Lily’s mother was making her a dress to wear to Maria’s sister’s wedding. It was lemon coloured with ruffles on the skirt that would swish when she walked. They’d gone shopping for the material four weeks ago; the morning after her mother threw the hearth brush at her father. Lily had been leaning against her father’s chair, stroking Inky’s belly, feeling the kittens squirming inside her, when her mother suddenly threw the brush, narrowly missing the cat. Lily couldn’t remember what they’d been arguing about but she could still feel the sting of heavy wood against her ankle bone then being carried to her room and falling asleep while their shouted words drifted upstairs. The next day her mother said she’d make Lily a dress to wear to the wedding and she had insisted that there be new shoes to match.
Lily was standing on a chair while her mother checked the hem when her father walked in. “What do you think, Dad?” she asked.
“Hmmm, alright. Can’t see why your black shoes wouldn’t have worked though.”
“Well,” her mother smiled brightly. “I’ll just finish off and you’re all set for next weekend.”
Lily stepped out of the dress and pulled her jeans and jumper back on. She left her parents to their silence. Inky was back with her kittens, lying on her side with three of them feeding. Lily picked up the little black one and he sneezed. She patted him for a while then bent down to look at the others.
“Inky, you need to wash their faces,” she said and took a hanky from her pocket to wipe their weepy eyes.
Upstairs Karl was reading a comic in bed.
“Want to help me with the hut?” she asked.
“Nah, it’s too cold. It’s just about finished anyway.”
“We could paint a sign for the door.”
“Nah, I’m busy.”
She flopped down on the bed and stared at the ceiling. Maria was doing wedding stuff and she didn’t feel like calling anyone else. She’d go to the park. You could get a good view into the zoo from there.
It was a crisp morning and as she walked, she passed a few families on their way to the zoo, small children pulling their parents towards the gates. Lily sat at the top of the high slide, looking over the fence to where the sheep and ponies were kept. She saw Arrow, chewing the grass in his paddock and the keeper brushing Duke’s mane. She’d have to get a brush and a blanket, in case he got cold in the shelter at night.
An hour later she wandered home. She was opening the door when she heard her father’s voice.
“What’ll you tell the kids?”
“They’re sick, there’s nothing we can do,” her mother was saying. “It’s the kindest thing and I can do it quickly and painlessly.”
“Do what?” Lily asked.
Her parents turned, their expressions hidden in the darkness of the hallway.
“Lily,” her mother stepped towards her, “the kittens are sick. They’ll just go to sleep. They –“
“But…they were fine, I was with them this morning,” she stammered.
“No Lily,” her father put his hand on her shoulder.
She stepped back. “I can look after them, we can get some medicine and they’ll get better.”
“It doesn’t work like that Lily. We have to do this.”
She stood in the doorway staring at her parents; her father’s eyebrows pulling together and her mother biting her lower lip.
“Lily,” her father said as she turned away from them.
“Let her go. She’ll be back in a bit.”
Lily ran to Maria’s house. Maybe she’d be home from the dress fitting by now. Lily pushed open the back door.
“Hello?”
No one answered so she went upstairs to Maria’s room. Lily was lying on the bed staring blankly at a Bay City Rollers poster and wondering what she was going to do when she heard raised voices.
“Shut up you little snot.”
“Fatso!” Maria said.
“Shut up!” her sister yelled. “I’m not fat. Mum, you can’t see, can you?”
A slap.
“Maria, go to your room!”
There were tears from the front room then a door slammed and the voices were muffled. Feet thumping up the stairs and Maria burst into the room.
Lily was standing by the bed. “Are you alright?” she asked.
“What are you doing here?” Maria wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.
“I…Mum says the kittens are sick but...”
“So?”
“I want to paint a sign on the shelter for Duke and I came to see if you could come and help me.” Lily was crying now and Maria was staring at her.
“Stop being a cry baby! What’s the point of painting a sign?”
“For Duke. I went to the park this morning and I could see him. We need to get a brush and a blanket because it might get cold at night but I think I can find an old one and -”
“We’re not really going to get Duke out.” Maria started to laugh. “It was just a dumb idea. Don’t be so stupid!”
The girls looked at each other. Someone, maybe both of them, yelled ‘I hate you’. The words snapped in the air between them.
Lily ran downstairs and out of the house. She didn’t slow down until she was halfway up the bank. She heard Karl laughing and smelled cigarette smoke. She stopped to catch her breath and looked at the lopsided hut. There were gaps between the boards where wind and rain would easily enter. Lily walked on, wiping her eyes on her jumper. In the back garden she climbed into the branches of the macrocarpa tree. She sat there until Karl and Ben walked past on their way into the house. She jumped down and strode back to the hut.
Inside she looked at the shelter they’d made. There were bent nails in the dirt. A hammer and a saw lying beside a couple of Playboy magazines and an empty chippie packet. Lily bent to pick up the tools and found some cigarette butts and a packet of matches. She ripped the pages from the magazine and pushed dry scraps of wood into the centre of the hut. Three matches later the pile was ablaze. Lily added more pages from the magazine until the flames were burning steadily. She fed the fire with wood scraps. When the heat made her sweat she picked up her grandfather’s tools and walked away from the hut.
The moment Lily opened the back door, she could hear her parents’ voices; cheerful chatter as if nothing had happened. Lily looked into the laundry. It was empty, no kittens, the bedding removed. Inky must have heard her come in because when Lily turned around she was there, mewing and sniffing in the doorway.
“I’m sorry Inky.”
Lily sat on the lino, leaning against the door. She reached out and pulled the cat to her, trying to make her settle but Inky struggled free and continued searching. The cat circled around the room, into the hallway and back again, trying to find her stolen kittens. Lily remained where she was. She heard the six-thirty television news come on, her mother call out that dinner would be ready soon, and a siren coming closer.