ROUND, ROUND, THE FAIRY RING
I liked our new house, but I didn’t like my new baby sister.
She cried too much. She was loud and pooey and woke Mummy and Daddy up late at night. Mummy was exhausted, with dark circles under her eyes and limp hair. Daddy was grumpy when he left for work, and grumpy when he came home from work. He took up smoking again and would stand outside in the dark for one last cigarette. The boxes from when we moved house remained unpacked.
Celeste had arrived too early. She was very small and pink. She had tiny little red fists and screwed her face up as she screamed. I covered my ears with my hands. I just wanted it to stop. She was nothing like my Mary Sue dolly that I could feed and put to sleep, and leave when she was boring.
The new house was bigger, but it wasn’t newer. A few different families had lived there before us. It had a medium-sized backyard with a play set and a swing, which I sometimes sat on to get away from Celeste’s crying. The grass was long and thick and green – Daddy had yet to pull out his lawnmower and attack the overgrown lawn, despite placing the half-full can of petrol out in the shed in readiness. We had a small vegetable garden with enormous marrows and pumpkins. Flowers were planted along the edge of the house in blue and pink and yellow. I picked some for Mummy and put them in a little glass with some water. She smiled when she saw them.
Framing the garden, the long grass, and the play set, was a tall brown wooden fence. Beyond that, quite close, was bushland – a real forest, green-blue trees and everything. Shrubs and bushes and saplings all vying for sunlight and soil.
There was a little gate in the backyard fence. One day I would go through it and explore the bush.
But not today. Mummy was calling – she needed help with Celeste.
I tried to help Daddy with unpacking the boxes – he set me to put the books on the bookshelf, but I could only reach so high. I fetched and carried for him all morning – the house was starting to feel more like a home now that our belongings were finding their own spaces. Celeste whined from her crib as Mummy, yawning, stirred something on the counter.
“She’s not feeding properly,” Mummy said.
Daddy stopped with three books in one hand and a clock in the other. “Do you want me to take you to the doctor?”
“There’s no one to watch Abigail. We don’t know any local babysitters yet.”
“I’ll be OK for a little while,” I piped up. “I’m a big girl. I can read a book.”
My parents exchanged a glance. Celeste made a bubbly sound through her lips and started crying again. Mummy sighed. “OK. Let me get dressed and we’ll go.”
A whirlwind of activity later – phone calls, Daddy looking for his keys and his fat silver lighter ‘Zippo’, Mummy dashing to the bathroom to put on her ‘face’ – and Celeste was bundled up and packed into the car. I stood at the front door and waved as they drove away. They told me to lock it closed and not open it for anyone.
The house was empty without them. Feeling deliciously naughty, I picked up my daddy’s silver lighter and opened it with a click. I pressed my finger against the little wheel and flicked it down. The flame leapt into life and I quickly blew it out. Once was enough.
I wandered down the hallway and into the kitchen. The mixing bowl was still sitting on the counter. I dipped a finger in and tasted it – a sweet, thin batter. Maybe a cake, or my favourite: pikelets. I pushed the bowl away and looked out the large windows at the backyard, and the forest beyond.
A distant longing swelled within, and before I knew what I was doing, I had raced out the back door and through the long, tangled grass grabbing at my skirt. I leaped over the debris from the garden and reached the gate in the fence.
It was padlocked. Disappointed, I looked around for something to help me climb the fence. There was nothing. The play set was too far away to use. The shed in the other direction didn’t have anything to help, either.
I went back to the house and waited for Mummy and Daddy.
When they came home Mummy was red-faced with wet eyes. Daddy pulled out the plastic bottles from the kitchen boxes and boiled them in water. Mummy mixed some powder with warm water, put it in a bottle, and shook.
She fed the bottle to Celeste, who stopped crying. Now it was Mummy’s turn.
Celeste slept well for the first time that night. In the morning, she looked a lot better. She was less pink, and bigger all over. Even her hair was thicker.
I wondered what was in that powder milk Mummy gave her.
It was Sunday, and I asked Daddy if he could unlock the gate in the backyard fence. After breakfast he hunted through his keys, found the right one, and opened it for me. I hopped impatiently from foot to foot. Maybe I would find a friend in the forest.
“Don’t go far, Abigail,” Daddy said, and kissed the top of my head, puffing cigarette smoke away from me. “Be back in time for lunch.”
I nodded and happily skipped off. It had rained through the night and half of the morning, and the trees were dripping green and rainbow with the smell of fresh plants on the air. My sandshoes squished in the mud and my skirt was streaked with drops from where I had brushed too close to the bushes.
I saw a puddle and jumped in it, the cold water splashing up my legs. I giggled, and looked for another puddle, and jumped in that one, too. Despite it being summer, the rain had cooled the air considerably and dropped that sticky feeling the warmer months sometimes left behind.
I heard the sound of children’s shrieking laughter up ahead. It seemed to be coming from a clearing I could just make out between the trees, and I wondered if there was some kind of park hidden in the forest. A park where I could make a new friend before school started, perhaps, and we could have all sorts of summer adventures exploring my new neighbourhood.
When I reached the clearing, there was nothing. No play area, no children. I kicked at the sodden twigs and leaves on the ground, and listened for the children laughing again. Something came to my ears faint on a breeze that ruffled my brown hair. Although I turned and listened, I couldn’t work out where it had come from.
I saw something out of the corner of my eye. Something bright orange and yellow, glistening in the dewy grass. I wandered over to inspect it, jumping into a particularly wet-looking patch of dark grass and enjoying the squelching noise.
It was a ring of little mushrooms with darker, lusher grass on the inside. Big enough to stand in. The grass was thick and soaking wet from the rain, and I anticipated a lovely smacking noise from it if I slammed my feet down hard enough.
Without further thought, I jumped into the mushroom ring.
And kept falling.