Creative Writing - Sample Stories

Talisman

    Dad kept saying he was busy keeping the wolves from the door. So I didn’t really need to worry, I suppose. But I did. I kept watch. I was the youngest and that’s what the youngest does – he keeps watch. On everything that happens around the house and around the farm. Everything from a bird hanging out of one of the cats’ mouths to Mum sneaking outside to the toilet in the nude. Nothing gets past the youngest.
    Every night before I was sent to bed, when Mum wasn’t watching because she was stirring the Milo for me and Mick and Brian, I made a run for the lounge room. I snuck in, went to the venetian blinds and, stopping and holding my breath before I did, I bent them down, just a tiny bit, and I only looked through them long enough to see if we were safe again tonight, that there was nothing or nobody at the door or even coming towards it.
    For ages we were safe. Nothing out there except the line of pine trees next to the dirt road that stretched all the way from our front grass to the gate. I suppose I did my nightly check because, if Dad’s job was to keep wolves from the door, why was he out in the paddocks every day taking care of cows and fences, riding around on a fat-wheeled motorbike, his old red and black Murchville short sleeved footy jumper on over his flannelette shirt? I didn’t ever see him heading off into the gum trees at the far end of the back paddock, where wolves would for sure be hiding out.
    Sometimes Dad’s motorbike started in the middle of the night and it would wake me up as he tore off into the paddocks to help a cow give birth.
    'What am I, a fucken midwife?' he said one morning at the breakfast table, his jumper smudged with blood.
    'Keep your language down!' Mum glared at him while he winked at me.
    I was the only kid at breakfast cos Mick and Brian had already gone to catch the high school bus that took off half an hour before mine.
    'Your old man look like a nurse, Stevie?'
    I grinned but Mum still looked stern so I kept my eyes on my bowl of Rice Bubbles.
    'I’d look alright in a dress ya reckon?'
    Dad pinched Mum’s bum and as he did she gave him a half grin and whacked his hand away.
    'Piss off, Doug.'
    'Keep your language down!'
    I looked up and now they were kissing.

    

    Where are you Stevie? Mum would yell and I’d let the venetian blinds flick back into place and run back to the kitchen. I’d gulp down my Milo and then snuggle myself in bed, reading my Brother’s Grimm story book under the blankets in the light from my plastic torch, waiting for my real brothers to come to bed. I loved Brother’s Grimm stories, but I loved my brothers’ stories just as much. They talked about a world called high school where girls put their tongues in your mouth like in some act at the Bendigo Show and kids smoked cigarettes behind the shelter shed. It was a crazy place. I’d be going there in a few years. I wanted to go, but I didn’t want to go. I just listened, pretending to be asleep, but not turning in my blankets at all.
    'We might not have to go to school tomorrow.'
    'Why not?'
    'Cozza that America’s Cup.'
    'Yeah?'
    'Yeah, Bob Hawke said everyone can have the day off. That’ll clued the teachers...
    'Yeah.'
    'Dad said Hawkey’s all right.'
    'Yeah.'
    'Sculled a yard glass.'
    'Yeah?'
    'Dad reckons he could out scull him.'
    'Dunno. That’s a lot of beer.'
    'Dad could do it.'
    I was with my eldest brother Mick on that one. Our Dad could do anything.

* This is an excerpt from 'Talisman', a story that will appear in the next Sleepers Almanac, 'A Family Affair', and my short fiction collection to be released by Wakefield Press in 2007.