~ 5 ~

Sight

Cassie’s sweaty hand slips around the plastic handle of her new school port. The school building rises above them, the sun splayed across the peeling paint on the weather boards. They walk underneath the building, its tall stumps like the opening of a cool cave. The older kids zip in and out from the heat to the cool in a chaotic game.

‘Can I go play?’

‘Not yet.’ Her mother leads her towards a long set of stairs beneath the building. She pulls the plaits from Cassie’s shoulders and runs her hand along the trail they make down her back. ‘Your father and your poppy went to school here too.’

‘Poppy as well?’

‘Yes, when the school was new.’

‘What about you? Did you go here too?’

‘No, I didn’t grow up here,’ her mother replies.

At the top of the stairs they turn onto a long veranda stretching the length of the building.

The school office opens onto the veranda. A skinny man in long shorts, long socks and a shirt and tie steps out. There isn’t much hair on his head, only a long floppy piece combed over the shiny skin.

‘Mrs Shultz, nice to see you. How are you? How is Peter, and old Mr Shultz? Still watching the weather? I heard there was a new addition to the family. A boy? What did you call him?’

‘Everyone is well, the baby is Alexander.’

‘Good name, good name, and this must be Peter’s girl? Grade one?’

‘Yes, this is Cassandra—Cassie.’

‘Mrs Bryant has the grade ones, twos and threes.’ He points to the far end of the veranda. ‘You can go and settle her in.’

They pass another classroom, a small room crammed with books, and finally Cassie’s classroom. In the doorway a blond boy, his arms wrapped tight around his mother’s neck, clings like a bush tick. Cassie decides he wouldn’t make a good friend. Not brave enough.

‘Ah, another girl at last.’ A woman in a tight brown dress with orange flowers puts out her cigarette and walks towards them. ‘Grade one, I hope.’

Where the dress wraps around the teacher’s stomach the flowers stretch out bigger and look wei