Chapter Two - Friends and Forevers


After that trouble with the calf I saw Joe just about every day, he would appear at the back of our dry and dusty selection and whistle and I would scamper off into the bush as soon as me Ma’s back was turned, wondering what Joe had found. I was the youngest of eight, four years younger than me closest sister and no one wanted to be having to look after the baby, Joe was the first person ever that wanted to be with me and I was happy, happier than I could ever remember. He would be waiting just across the creek and it was come on have a look at this, and it would be where some parrot, her nest full of little uns or that he had found a big snake skin the biggest you have ever seen I swear by all that is Holy it tis, not really important things, just things. Other times we would run through the bush pretending we was some one else, with sticks for swords and we was both brave and true and we would run until we was so hot that we would jump in Reedy Creek, clothes and all just to be cool again. We found rocks that we was sure were jewels and fished for yabbies and Joe would squat on his haunches and be sure that he was seeing gold in the pebbles that run through his rough fingers.

And when we was tired of fishing and running we would talk, Joe liked books, and he could read pretty good, better than me, I only knew a few words and was wanting nothing more than to go to school so that I too could see the words that made his eyes go all far away. But even though I could not touch them books meself Joe would tell me everything that he was learning, and in the quiet of the bush I would sit and close me eyes while he talked.

“do yer reckon we’ll be friends forever?”
It was a hot day and I was almost asleep in the dry grass, Joe’s stories being like one of them lullabies me Mam used to sing, afore she got too tired, afore me Da got so poorly. I opened me eyes. Joe was looking at me, his face serious and I knew that even though we was only little kids that this was important.
“I reckon we will be Joe, forever and ever.”
“aye me too” he was nodding his fingers twisting a piece of bark into knots “seems like I have already known you forever, like we was just waiting to be friends, or summat” he looked slightly worried as if he had been thinking on them words for a bit and was maybe fearing that I would laugh at him.
But I did not laugh cos something squeezed real hard in me chest and I felt like was going to cry, so I kind of gulped “aye”.
He smiled.

Me Ma never really knew that I was running about with him as much as I did, I think she thought he had one of his sisters with him and I never thought to tell her that it was just Joe and me. It didn’t really seem that important though thinking back she might have said that it was not proper or something. Though probably not, she liked Joe.

It was when I started school that my Mam properly met him. It was me first day and we was walking up the dirt road, she was walking with me, like she had done with me brothers and sisters, walk with yer to school on yer first day and then yer on yer own after that. We was plodding along the road, me brothers and sisters going on ahead and Ma holding me hand just her and I talking quietly when I saw Joe. He come out of the shanty town where all the China men lived and with a jump leapt on to the road, he had a stick in one hand and was swinging it. When he saw Ma and I he stopped, waiting and he fell in to walk alongside us, swaggering along in that way that he did so that me Ma looked sideways at him, this odd little smile on her face. When I think back I reckon that me Ma knew just who Joe was right then, only a little feller and already he was making the ladies smile. And he smiled right back at her.

“Good Morning” he was real polite was Joe and me Ma smiled and said Good Morning back and that was when he said that he was Joe Byrne and that me Mam was not to worry about me walking to school and all, that he would be looking out for me. He looked so very serious and I was of a mind to say that I could walk well enough on me own but me Ma thanked him ever so politely. And he strode along beside us, keeping pace until we got to that one roomed building that was the place that all the Woolshed children went for learning.

So that was how it went, each school morning Joe would be waiting somewhere, sometimes with his cousins, sometimes not but he would walk with me on the rough road, dust in summer and muddy in winter and it was on that road that I met Aaron.

I knew who he was but I didn’t know him. Aaron Sherrit, his family being protestant and us being Catholic he went to the other school. I was never really sure when they had met but Joe and Aaron they was good mates. I could see Aaron thinking but she’s just a girl and looking at Joe as if somehow he was playing some sort of trick on him. But Joe was straight faced and waiting and after one or two glances Aaron seemed to decide that if Joe thought I was alright that I must be.

I suppose you could say that Aaron was me friend then as well, though I think that it was really just cos of Joe. He cared very much for what Joe thought. I did like Aaron but I liked it better when it was just Joe and me. Joe was different then as if he did not have to be like others thought that he should be.