earlier the word would have held no interest but now my mind clung to it like a magnet.
The lesson was about food values and burning energy. My booklet listed the calorie content of several foods and the number of calories absorbed in 30 minutes of walking, swimming, running and bike riding.
My mind recorded the entire lesson word for word and I immediately began to eat less and exercise more.
When tempted to eat, I pushed my hunger pangs aside. The more hungry I was, the better I felt. If I was feeling weak, I brushed my teeth, which helped me think I had eaten a meal, though I’d eaten nothing.
I had no idea of my weight. The only scales I had seen were those belonging to the school doctor, or those with a penny slot outside chemist shops in Bairnsdale’s Main Street. I went to town three or four times a year and was too shy to weigh myself in view of passers-by. All I knew was that I wanted to lose my breasts before the school doctor’s visit.
Until now, I had been pleased when my clothes became tight, because this showed I was growing, and I wanted to be tall and strong, like Dad. But now I didn’t want to grow. I could not be like my dad, and didn’t want to be a girl, either.
I continued to feed the calves before riding my bike to school, but did my jobs faster so I could work out on the playground equipment before lessons started.
I swung across the monkey bar and, like a monkey after a coconut, shinned up the pole; I reached for the clouds on the swing, did chin-ups, climbed the ladder, zipped down the slide, and turned myself inside out on the jungle gym. I worked out again at playtime and lunchtime, counting and always increasing the number of turns on each piece of equipment. My friends could not keep up with me.
At home I chopped more wood, looked after the chooks and fetched the cows for milking, running from job to job.
Mum and Dad thought I was wonderful. Mum was calling me ‘Tim’ all the time, I was so helpful, and I almost burst with pride when Dad told an uncle that I was a left-hander at writing but was his ‘right-hand man on the land’.
Exercise was easy but eating less was more complicated as Mum was in charge of the kitchen.
Breakfast was straightforward. Mum was usually helping Dad in the dairy when I was in the house changing out of my cow yard gear into my school clothes. She would leave the table set with Weet-Bix on a plate or porridge keeping warm in the saucepan on the side of the stove, thick slices of bread on a plate to toast and tea in the pot. Joy left an hour earlier to catch the bus to high school and any visitors would still be in bed.
The cats loved the porridge and Weet-Bix. Besides Topsy, we had about 12 cats. Some were part feral, having been dumped by uncaring owners in the bush land adjacent to our property. Timid, they lived in the stable and haystack where they caught mice; some bravely hung around the back door of the house in the mornings and evenings, hoping for a dish of stale milk, or scraps from the kitchen.
They purred as I fed them my cereal, urging them to eat it all before Mum returned from the dairy. Next I took a thick slice of high tin loaf outside, through the back gate, throwing chunks to the chooks, who snapped the bread up in their beaks and dashed about, clucking madly and throwing their heads back as they gulped their treat down. Then I ran back inside, cut a paper-thin slice of bread to toast on the open fire, spread some Vegemite and washed it down with a cup of black, sugarless tea. From the age of five I’d been drinking tea from a favourite cup that Mum half-filled with milk, and sweetened with several teaspoons of white sugar. Not any more. Every day I found new ways to reduce my calorie intake.
Lunch on school days was easy, too. Mum cut two big rounds of sandwiches, wrapping them in waxed paper and placing them in my blue lunch tin, the lid kept on with an old Fowlers Vacola preserving jar ring. I asked for only one round but she wouldn’t listen and when I came home from school with one sandwich untouched, she was upset.
‘You need two rounds; you’re a growing girl. And besides, this is wasteful,’ Mum scolded.
I thought of another solution. The next day I took an empty tin home.
‘That’s better,’ Mum said.
Some children at school came from poor families who sometimes had no bread for making lunches, so I offered my sandwiches to these children. I gave them the cheese, jam, meat and peanut butter sandwiches, keeping a Vegemite, fish paste or tomato one for myself. My classmates also enjoyed my play snacks of lamingtons, jam drops, Madeira cake, chocolate slice and Anzac biscuits. I smiled as they ate while I went hungry; I enjoyed watching them eat.
The evening meal was the one daily meal shared by my family. Mum served the food on our plates and set them on the oval-shaped, oak dining table that stood in the middle of our kitchen. I dreaded casseroles, stews and gravy. Desserts were particularly messy.
I became resourceful and devious. By sitting down first, when Mum’s back was turned at the sink and others were combing their hair before coming to the table, I had time to move food from my plate to the next plate, which belonged to whoever was visiting. This was a relief. If Mum left the kitchen for a moment, I risked reaching across the table and placing my meat on Dad’s plate. Sometimes I gave his plate a roast potato as well. These were his favourite foods and together with Grandma, Dad was my favourite person in all the world.
When everyone was seated and busy eating or talking, I grabbed fistfuls of food left on my plate, whipped it under the tablecloth and slid it in my pockets. This was why I didn’t like sloppy foods, like mashed potato and meat covered in gravy. I ate a small amount of cabbage or carrot, and pretended it was a lot, chewing it over and over, finishing my meal at about the same time as everyone else. Or I pretended to chew and swallow nothing.
Main courses were a trial but desserts were worse. They were sticky or soft and hopeless for slipping in pockets.
Mum made chocolate sauce puddings, apple crumbles, apple puddings, golden syrup dumplings, jam tarts, sago puddings and custards, usually served with stewed or preserved fruit. Made with full-cream milk and butter, the desserts also contained sugar, available by the cupful from a big hessian bag in our pantry.
My heart sank when Mum insisted on pouring custard sauce or cream over the top of a steamed pudding. About the only dessert I could slip safely in my pocket was cinnamon apple cake, and even that was messy.
I tried to tell Mum, ‘I’m full. I don’t want dessert, thank you,’ but she would reply, ‘What’s wrong with you? I thought you wanted to be tall and strong like your Dad.’
Nothing but a cleaned-up plate satisfied my mother. She would remind me how as a child she ate ‘bread and dripping through the week and bread and jam on Sunday,’ and for good measure would add: ‘Think about those poor starving children in India, be grateful and eat up.’
I couldn’t see how the eating of my dessert would ease the plight of children in India. I wanted to lose my breasts. I couldn’t tell Mum that, so I waited for everyone to leave the table and for her to leave the kitchen, even for a moment. Then I’d jump up and toss the food off my plate into the scrap bowl and run it outside in the dark to Rip the dog, whose turn it was for a meal at the end of the day. Rip developed a real sweet tooth.
Summer passed into autumn, and autumn was nearing winter. My periods were on time every month. At school, I remained the only girl with breasts but they were shrinking and I hid them by wearing more clothing as the weather turned cooler.
However, Mum was starting to question my behaviour. I was quieter and on weekends, I liked to disappear into the
