the other urchins then, boy,” Hill snapped sharply. “I need to get some details from your guardian. Just be sure to come running to the classroom with the others when you hear the bell to start the lessons.”
After being dismissed, Brennan wandered about the schoolyard for a while, watching the other children at play and generally idling about. When the bell rang, he followed the teeming mass of children into the small schoolhouse and quickly found himself a seat on the hard wooden bench seat. The long desk in front of him had little slots at the front for his pencils, and a deep recess for his writing slate and a ruler. The other children seemed friendly enough, and he soon relaxed. After finding the place confusing at first, he soon began to find it amusing to sit and listen to the teacher speak of reading and writing, geography and arithmetic. The books on these subjects were issued to him before the first lesson. Excited, he started at once to leaf through the well-thumbed, grubby pages. Oblivious to the tittering of his classmates, he scanned through them eagerly, reading the contents and looking at the pictures. The huge store of knowledge the books contained teased his hunger to learn.
“Please close that book at once and pay attention,” Hill suddenly snapped, striking the desk top with his long cane and making Brennan jump with fright. “You will have plenty of opportunities in the future to read the books, boy,” the teacher added in a gentler, kinder tone. “For now, however, you must listen to me, and I will guide the entire class through the lesson together.”
Brennan closed the book and stared straight ahead, waiting for Mister Hill to return to the front of the class and begin the lesson. “We have a new boy with us today,” the teacher began. “You must all make him welcome; his name is Brennan. Stand up, boy, so we can all see you.” Brennan rose uncertainly. A few giggles rippled about the room until Hill’s stern gaze froze the student body once again to silence. “Brennan is a little late in beginning school,” he continued when the room was again quiet. “We will need to be patient with him until he catches up with the rest of us.”
He then took up one of the books and surveyed his small charges. “Now let us read from Charles Dickens. The story is David Copperfield and we will begin on page thirty-two. Laura, please start us off.”
A red-haired girl stood up and began to read clearly and confidently until Hill told her to stop. He then called on each of the other students in turn to read a few lines from the story until at last it was Brennan’s turn.
Not wishing to embarrass the boy, Hill was about to pass him by when Brennan rose and began to read easily, acting out the speaking parts and ‘living’ the story as Ede had taught him. Hill was clearly impressed, allowing Brennan to read two whole pages before calling him to silence. When Brennan sat down, he noted the mixed looks of envy or resentment that passed among his fellow pupils.
Chapter
2
When lunchtime came, Brennan took his cheese sandwiches and his orange and went looking for a warm place in the sun where he could sit and eat his food.
“Come over here, new boy,” a girl with red hair and and a splash of freckles across her nose called out to him. He recognised her as the first girl to read during the morning class. She beckoned him over to where she sat on a log against the fence. “I want to talk to you.”
Brennan walked over to her slowly. He had not met too many girls before, and he did not like being bossed about by one on his first day at school. She saw his resentment and smiled warmly; the smile cooled his anger at once as he sat on the log beside her. She had a small, pretty face. Apart from his own, her eyes were the bluest Brennan had ever seen.
“My name is Laura,” she said. “I did not mean to sound so bossy, but most of the kids pick on me because I have such red hair; it makes me a bit pushy at times. I wanted to get off on the right foot with you.” She smiled again. “I suppose I wanted us to be friends. I sit a few seats in front of you and I saw how well you read. Some of the students also pick on me because I am good at schoolwork, but I bet you’ll also be good.”
“I’m Brennan,” he said as he rummaged in his school bag for his food, not commenting on her observations.
“What is your other name then?”
“I don’t have another name. Just Brennan.”
“I see,” she said, accepting his answer at once. “Did you like the first part of school?”
“I don’t like school much at all so far; the teacher takes too long to get to the point,” he said as he bit into his first sandwich hungrily. “Why don’t you sit with the other girls? Surely they won’t tease you about having red hair or being too smart? Girls aren’t as cruel as boys are.”
She wrinkled her freckled nose. “Don’t you be so sure about that. Anyhow, I don’t much like girls. They talk about silly things mostly, dolls and boys, or their mothers and babies. I want to talk about schoolwork and books and the big wide world; my parents talk about such things all the time in the evenings. What do your parents talk about?”
“I don’t have any parents,” Brennan said. “I never knew them; I don’t even know what became of them. My aunt Ede looks after me; she always has.”
Only one name and no parents, Laura thought sympathetically. Then she shrugged her shoulders; after all, the boy did not look too unhappy. “Well, what do you and your aunty talk about then?”
“We don’t talk much at all,” Brennan said thoughtfully, pausing to stare at the groups of children who had finished their lunches and were now playing noisily about the schoolyard. “Ede is pretty old and her mind wanders a lot. But she reads to me; that’s how I learned to read myself, by watching and listening to her. I don’t really need her to read to me anymore, but I like it because she makes the stories sound better, and I like being close to her.”
The girl nodded, admiring his openness. Most boys would not admit they liked being close to their parents; and she could relate to his words because her father read to her as well.
The two of them continued to sit and chat, lingering on the log in the warm sunshine, enjoying one another’s company. Magpies and colorful parrots jostled for space in the branches of the tall gums casting mottled patterns over the schoolyard, while a lazy white cloud drifted through the orb of deep blue sky and dragged a little shadow across the grounds. Brennan was beginning to doze off when the bell rang to signal the start of afternoon school. After school, he and Laura walked together to the front gate of the schoolhouse to wait for his aunt to call for him. Ede had promised to meet him there, but she had probably forgotten about it; she was very absent-minded.
“Where do you live?” Laura asked when she saw him looking up and down the road.
“Mariner’s Lane,” Brennan said absently. “I think I’ll make my own way home; Aunty has most likely forgotten all about picking me up.”
“Why, I live just down the road from you, in Anchor Street,” Laura said happily, grabbing his hand. “We can go home together. But we don’t have to walk; quickly, come with me.”
She led him at a trot out into the road towards the rear of a bullock wagon loaded high with bales of wool. The harness chains jingled as it moved slowly along the dusty street, mingling with the snorts and lowing protests of the bullocks which strained under the heavy load of the wagon. The tailboard of the wagon was about two feet above the ground, forming a kind of bench seat. Quickly they scrambled up, their heads bowed so they would stay hidden from the teamster who drove the outfit, and sat watching the receding wheel tracks and the turmoil of
