Adelaide III

When I was a little girl I lived in a house with my two sisters and my dad. It was in one of those real poor suburbs, so the rents were cheap. Dad could pay a whole week's rent with a few five dollar bills.

Well, we lived there, and the back part of the house was divided off, and an old drunk man lived there. He didn't come out much, but when he did he was kind of stooped low. He tried to be nice to us and smiled really big, like this, but we didn't speak back. It felt kind of mean, but it also felt like the right thing.

We had a yellow brick house and next door was a wooden house where a real old lady lived. Mrs Bishop. She had chooks. She lived with a really old man. The house was always dark because they didn't open the blinds.

Mrs. Bishop had carpet in her house that was thick, but kind of dirty. Everything was like, dusty. And there were things piled up. Mrs Bishop would let children come over after school. Me and my sisters went, and there'd be about three or four others. They probably went to to our  school, but we didn't know them.  Everyone from round there went to the same school.

When we went over we sat on wooden chairs between piles of other things in this tiny lounge room. Mrs Bishop would give us a drink, and little pamphlets to share between two. The pamphlets would have four pages with a few songs and one story. Sometimes the songs were the same, but the stories were always different. Mrs Bishop would read them out, and we would listen.

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Dad would leave for work early. Before he left he would lay out the clothes we had to wear on our beds. He would put our breakfast cereal in our bowls and pour the milk on. He was gone by seven when I woke up.

I had to get up first because I was the eldest. I had to make sure my sisters got to school on time. If dad left some change on the table we could catch the bus. Otherwise we'd walk.

My sisters didn't always get up on time. I would eat my breakfast first because I hated how the rice bubbles went soggy and the milk got warm. Sometimes my sisters wouldn't eat their breakfast. They'd chuck it over the fence for Mrs Bishop's chooks.

Mrs Bishop used to come over to give dad bunches of mint. Dad hated mint, but he took it anyway. After she'd gone he'd pull a face and tell us how much he hated mint and chuck it straight in the bin. One time when she came over she told dad she found rice bubbles on her side of the fence.

Dad wasn't happy about that. He made us all sit at the table, so I knew it was going to be bad. I just sat hard and stiff and bit down on my teeth. It didn't take him long to work out whose breakfast it was. I just kept staring at the table when my sisters got the paddling.

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The school we went to was really big. There was an oval, and grass, and lots of black bitumen. The buildings were big too. With real big windows that looked down at you from everywhere. It was sort of beautiful because they were so old, but it was spooky too. You could have fitted two floors under the ceilings in there. Always made me feel like a lynch mob would be coming any moment to do their business.

The buildings might have been nice but the kids weren't. I never heard fouler words than I heard in that yard. Some things I mightn't understand the meaning of, but I knew what they meant. It was like everything was turned inside out. All those things we hear about in church was upside down there.

Because there was three of us, one dad and no mum we didn't have to pay for much at that school. One day I lost my pen and I felt real bad. The teacher came round and told me to ask at the window by the principal's office. They gave me a brand new one just like that! Not chewed or anything.

They must have known that dad never told us to brush our teeth. There was a portable building where dentists who were still learning used to come a couple of times a week. Whenever I had to walk up that ramp my back felt all icy. I didn't like going there because it always hurt.

Just about every time they'd be drilling. Just like they were drilling for fun to learn about drilling. First you got to see the long needle, then you'd watch them start up that ugly grey bit on the end before they put it in your mouth. I will never forget the time to man drilled so much he drilled out of my tooth and into my gum. Even though he'd given me the needle I felt it.

One time they told me they wouldn't be doing drilling and gave me a fluoride treatment. They had these rubber things they put around your  teeth. The dentist person said it was hawaiian flavoured and would taste nice. He told me to bite down. After a while it hurt and I wanted to stop but I knew I should do what I was told. I bit and bit the whole time even though my jaw was sore. I don't know why they called it hawaiian flavour. It tasted like vomit to me.

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