It was Friday afternoon.
The last day of school, before the first day of the
holidays.
Leigh McGee tried to walk into his room. He couldn’t get very far. There was no room to move. He tossed his school books onto a very high
pile of something somewhere in the middle of the room and walked away.
It was summer.
Leigh put his bathers on and threw his school clothes into his room.
They landed somewhere in the midst of another pile of something or other.
What Leigh McGee did not know, probably because he
didn’t look around his room, except to follow a thin cleared path to his bed,
was that his room was more than just a place where he threw his things.
It was a home.
A home for a hairy-nosed wombat.
The wombat had made a complex tunnel system in Leigh
McGee’ s room.
Its burrow was in the middle of a large pile of
clothes in the corner of Leigh’s room at the foot of the bed. The main tunnel from the wombat’s home
followed the walls around the room. It wandered beneath the full length of the
bed, behind an antique 18th century cupboard, past the overflowing clothing
hamper, past the desk – then stopped.
At the end of the tunnel the wombat would peek about to see that the
coast
was clear, then hop up to Leigh’s desk to the
window. Leigh had left the window open the summer before and because it got
stuck he never bothered to close it again.
Leigh’s desk had a huge pile of things on it. Papers, books, toys, some baseballs, a
football, basket ball and a computer that had yet to be used, as well as food,
clothing, dreams and wishes.
The only clearing in Leigh’s room was a narrow path
to his bed.
Leigh McGee’s dad used to help him clean his
room. Actually his dad did the cleaning
by himself in the “old” days while the
kids were at school. But since he had
started writing his latest novel, he just didn’t get to Leigh’s room any more.
Leigh’s dad worked in his office writing.
He would get so involved with writing that he would forget to do the
things he used to do. He would leave
his desk only to make something to eat for the children when he
remembered. Once a week or every other
week, whenever he remembered, he would go into town and purchase groceries, do
laundry or buy clothes because the children could not find their school
uniforms or socks.
The children didn’t mind. They knew it was just a
phase. Though they thought it was a very strange phase. His other novels had sold well, so there was
money enough to live on. It was easier to give the children money to
go and buy a new track-suit or sneakers, then it was to take the time to try
and find the lost sneaker, or the other odd sock, or a favourite jumper. It was often easier to order pizza or
Chinese take away than to make a meal. As their father often said. ‘We are
flying on automatic at the moment.’ The
kids understood.
The childrens’ parents had once lived together in
the city. When their dad wanted to
move into their seaside holiday home after the
separation, to write his novel, the children went with him. They liked the
seashore and they liked going to school in the small nearby town. Mom liked the city. The noise, the activities, art galleries and
museums. The children liked the
country. They wanted to play outside,
something they didn’t feel free to do in the city. Most of all they wanted their parents to live together and they
knew that some day, someway, they would succeed.
Their mother was an artist and like their dad with
his writing, she would get so involved with a painting that she would forget
everything for days, sometimes weeks
and months.
It was the novel that Leigh’s dad was writing that
was so strange. Its title was, “The
Yellow-bellied Sheath-tailed bat that scared Ned
Kelly at Stringbark Creek in the Wombat Ranges and the ecological effects on
the world if it becomes extinct”
The children tried to tell their dad that the title
was too long, and would anyone really buy it when it was finished? He didn’t pay any attention though. To him it was going to be a
masterpiece. Maybe even a major
movie. At least, it would become a four
part television series.
After three novels that were easy to write “They
just came off the top of me head their dad had said” “The Yellow-bellied
Sheath-tailed bat that scared Ned Kelly at Stringbark Creek in the Wombat
Ranges and the ecological effects on the world if it becomes extinct.” was the
first story that he had to do research on.
His office was almost as bad as Leigh McGee’s room. Tables were filled with books and papers.
And there was always the lights on, music,
television and even singing and laughing.
And there were several paths to the desk. No
hairy-nosed wombat would settle in his
office.
Of course no one knew what was going on in Leigh’s
room. It was too much of a mess to go
inside. Both children slept in their
father’s office. The children liked to
be near their dad and since he would sit typing until the middle of the night
they would bring their sleeping bags into the office and sleep on the
floor. They had made areas in between
books, papers, maps and the filing cabinets to sleep in.
Sometimes, actually a lot of times, when the
children awoke the next morning, their father would be asleep at his desk. The children didn’t say too much about, “
The Yellow-bellied Sheath-tailed bat that scared Ned Kelly at Stringbark Creek
in the Wombat Ranges and the ecological effects on the world if it becomes
extinct”.
They wished that the book would become extinct too,
so that they could go back to living like a normal family again. Maybe their mother would even come and live
with them. At other times they talked
about making the title into a cartoon series when they grew up. But they didn’t tell their father that. They didn’t want to hurt his feelings.
The hairy-nosed wombat liked her new home. She was from the Nullarbor Plain and had
snuck onto a truck and had ended up at a truck depot on the same block as Leigh
McGee’s house.
When the wombat first walked around the block she
wasn’t impressed. It was a lot
different than the Nullarbor Plains.
She had never seen so many houses.
And all so
close together too. There were cats and dogs in her
new neighbourhood. The wombat stayed
away from them. She didn’t know whether they would be friendly toward her or
not. She had watched a dog chase a cat
up a tree. It wasn’t a pretty
sight. She didn’t want to get involved
in rough housing like that. No
way. Leigh McGee’s house was near a
river that flowed into the sea, so there was plenty of exploring to do and
plenty of food left by plenty of tourists. The hairy-nosed wombat
had a pretty good life, except that there were no
other wombats around to play with.
The wombat used to go out of the open window every
night and walk over to the truck depot that she had arrived at. She hoped another wombat would arrive at the
truck depot like she had. She had discovered the
open window a year ago when a dog had spotted her and began to give chase. She quickly looked for a place to hide and
that is when she spotted the open window to Leigh McGee’s room.
She had been hungry too. She found a lot of food in the room. There were a lot of new
things to try. There was a half eaten
peanut butter and jelly sandwich next to the bed. It was strange tasting to a wombat that had never had anything
more than grass and shrubs and herbs before.
There were other things to eat too. Biscuits, crackers, toast, potato chips,
nuts and lollies. The wombat liked to
try different foods. But usually she
settled for the normal things growing in the front yard. The family hadn’t mowed their lawn for a
long time so there was tall grass and the shrubs were good. And because no one in the house seemed to
notice much of anything any more, they didn’t notice the partly eaten plants in
the front yard. The children would play
in a nearby park instead of their front yard. At least the nearby park got
mowed.
One night the wombat was in the front yard chomping
on a shrub when she heard a commotion.
A dog was barking loudly. The
wombat sat up and looked over the tall grass.
Running in her direction was another wombat. The two wombats spotted each other and both ran toward the house
with the dog loudly barking after them.
The two wombats quickly climbed through Leigh’s open window. The
visiting wombat had climbed aboard a road-train that had arrived at the nearby
truck depot too.
The two wombats took up home in Leigh McGee’s
room. Both wombats made their own
burrows - though they shared the tunnel to the window. They explored together
and no one knew that they were in Leigh’s room.
During the summer more animals arrived at the truck
depot. There were marsupial
moles, fat-tailed dunnarts, ring-tailed possums and
a wide variety of small animals that were looking for places to live. Soon Leigh McGee’s room was more like a zoo
than a child’s bedroom. It wasn’t
possible to see at first glance from the doorway to Leigh’s room, all that was
going on in the bedroom.
As more things were thrown into the room and the
piles of clothing, books and whatever else Leigh didn’t know what to do with
landed in the room, the animals inside made more and more tunnels.
The children’s father was finished with his current
writing project. “The Yellow- bellied Sheath-tailed bat that scared Ned Kelly
at Stringbark Creek in the Wombat Ranges and the ecological effects on the
world if it becomes extinct” was over two- thousand pages not counting
additional maps, photos, diagrams, and non-related items such as pictures of
the kids when they were young, a trip to Paris and a recipe for tofu
cheesecake:
|
Mix in a blender then let it set in the
refrigerator. Oh! cover with slices of mango before putting in the fridge.
He sent the manuscript to several book
publishers. The publishers had no idea
what to do with “The Yellow-bellied Sheath-tailed bat that scared Ned Kelly at
Stringbark Creek in the Wombat Ranges and the ecological effects on the world
if it becomes extinct”. One publisher even sent a letter saying it was the best
book - that made absolutely no sense - that she had ever read.
The children’s father didn’t understand. To him it made perfect sense. If anything, he thought that maybe the book
was too short. And so was the
title. The title clearly had to be
longer in order to explain what was inside.
The children worried about their father. They tried to talk to their mother about him, but she was very
busy painting.
Their mother was getting ready to do a major art
show at the museum in the city. The
children thought her paintings were even more ridiculous than their father’s
books.
Her paintings were huge. They didn’t look like anything that was describable. The
closest the children could come to describing her
pictures was to say that they looked as if someone had poured buckets of paint
on the canvas then rolled across it. It
was difficult for the children to believe that their mother actually spent
months on each picture.
The children and their father drove to the opening
of their mother’s art show. It was very
crowded there. There were radio,
television and newspaper reporters at the show.
After all, both parents were famous people. One for
art and one for novels.
The children’s parents hadn’t seen each other for
over a year and they were both quite nervous about seeing one another again.
Their dad brought along his finished novel and
handed it to the children’s mother.
The children’s mother thought that the book had an
excellent title and she sat down in the middle of the museum and began to read,
“The Yellow-bellied Sheath-tailed bat that scared Ned Kelly at Stringbark Creek
in the Wombat Ranges and the ecological effects on the world if it becomes
extinct”
The children shook their heads and said, “ but mom,
it is two-thousand pages long. It will
take weeks to read it”. But she wanted to read it, then and there. Even when
the gallery was closing she was still reading.
She hadn’t noticed anyone else.
She just kept reading. And every
once in awhile she would say, “This is really good.”
Meanwhile the children’s father was standing in
front of one of the huge paintings.
One of the ones that looked like some people had
rolled across the canvas after spilling buckets of paint. He stood there for hours, staring. Every once in a while he would say, “This is
really excellent.” Even when the
gallery was closing, he was still standing and staring at the painting.
The children looked at each other. They knew what to do. They managed to get their mom and dad into
their father’s car. They put their
father’s book in with their mom.
They talked the security guards at the museum into
taking down their mother’s painting and had them tie it onto the top of their
father’s car.
Their father drove to their seashore home. All the while saying, “I didn’t know your art was so
wonderful. And the mother said, “This
book is great, I had forgotten what an imaginative writer you were.”
It took the children’s mother weeks to finish “ The
Yellow-bellied Sheath-tailed bat that scared Ned Kelly at Stringbark Creek in
the Wombat Ranges and the ecological effects on the world if it becomes extinct
Then she wanted to read it again. No
publisher in the world would publish it.
But the children’s mother loved it and to them that was what was
important. The family was back together again and they were all away from the
city.
The huge painting was put up in the garage. The children said that they would never go
into the house again if the painting was in the living room. The parents were unhappy about putting it in
the garage but they did anyway.
They hired a house cleaner and the family prepared
to go away on holiday.
Before they left on holiday, the house cleaner came
screaming out of Leigh’s room.
The animals had been discovered. Everyone in the family liked the animals so
much that they fenced in the front yard and let the animals live there.
When they came back from their holiday, together,
the house was incredibly tidy.
The children’s parents got jobs in a nearby town as
shopkeepers. The father still worked on
his writing, but wrote stories for children instead of long novels that made no
sense. He wrote children’s stories that
made no sense, but children loved them and they sold well.
Leigh’s mother took up film making in her spare time
and though the children thought some of her movies were a bit strange, they
were happy that she wasn’t rolling around in paint or whatever it was that she
did to do her paintings.
Most of all, the family was back together again,
they didn’t live in the city any more, and they had all the animals from the
lost world in Leigh McGee’s room. The
animals even had a door in the fence where they could go in and out whenever
they wanted to. But most of the animals
chose to stay in the yard all the time.
Terrell Adsit-Neuage 1992 Victor Harbor South
Australia
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