Tasmanian children's writer and dramatist

STEPS: Part1 City

CHAPTER 1

"Dannielle, meet Dannielle."

Mum was laughing as she made the introduction, pleased with herself, pleased with her joke. Danni scowled. She scowled at Mum and at the moustached man in the hippy clothes and at the scruffy kid in the beanie who - judging by her flat chest! - could have been either sex but was obviously, from the introduction, a girl. The beanie was the first thing Danni noticed about her, about this Dannielle. She noticed the beanie because it was so garishly bright, the colours crisscrossing in confident slashes.

How dare bean-head the beanie wearer share her name, how dare she!

"Well, Danni, aren't you going to say hello to El," Mum said.

"Hello," Danni said sullenly.

The girl in the beanie (at least she was El!) nodded back, her face giving nothing away. Maybe she didn't say anything because she was a mute, or maybe she was just plain dumb.

"This is Tom," Mum said, "Tom Hugstone. Meet my flesh and blood and only Earthly heir, Dannielle. Called Danni - if she's not called something dreadful."

Mum was showing off. If Danni hadn't known better, she would have thought that Mum had been drinking. She got really silly on a couple of glasses of wine, really morbid if she had a third or more (and when she'd had that third, she found it hard not to go on to the fourth and fifth and sixth!)

When Tom Hugstone (he must have been at least fifty!) held out his hand, Danni reluctantly took it. He then brought his other hand up to encase her hand in both of his and Danni felt a moment of panic and wanted to pull away but the man, maybe sensing it, gently squeezed and somehow the hand (and her heart) felt instantly calmer. "Hello, Dannielle, Danni," he said. His voice (his name couldn't really be Tom Hugstone!) was deep and gravelly and infuriatingly calming and Danni suspected that there might have been a touch of an accent, American or something.

"Well, we all know each other now," Mum said. "Danni, why don't you take El out into the garden to play."

"There isn't a garden, only a stupid bit of communal grass," Danni snapped, withdrawing her hand from Tom's grasp. "As you very well know! Besides, I've got homework."

"Homework, what homework, doll?"

"You wouldn't be interested. You never are." Danni was aware of El studying her but couldn't tell what the girl was feeling. She seemed to be interested in them - her and Mum - as she might have been interested in lions or some other exotic animal at the zoo. It made Danni feel angry, slightly deflecting the anger she felt towards Mum for bringing these people, these strangers, into their flat.

"Give your homework a miss tonight, Miss," Mum said. (More showing off. She was never like this.) "Tom and El are buskers."

"So!" Danni said.

"So, give yourself a break. You work too hard anyway," Mum said.

"Yeah, well I want to get a good education so I don't end up in a dead end job like you," Danni said. "I don't want to be a parking meter inspector. Or a busker." She shot her most venomous look at Mum. Mum simply shrugged and grinned in such a disarming manner that Danni immediately felt her anger evaporating (and that annoyed her!)

Then El said, "We don't usually busk in dead ends actually. You don't get the passing trade in dead ends."

Mum laughed.

Danni turned her venomous stare on the girl, bean-head. El shrugged like Mum and Danni stomped out of the room, slamming her bedroom door behind her. The sound was her anger reverberating through the house. Why couldn't the waves of anger laser away annoying little blots like a sort of a mosquito zapper for human pests! They could go and rot for all she cared, stupid idiots, no-hopers, free-loaders. What did Mum mean by picking up beggars from the street? They were probably axe murderers. Or worse! The girl didn't look like she'd washed in a month. Though, infuriatingly, Danni did feel a slight quickening of the heart at the thought of the old blue-eyed hippy with his greying long hair and bushy moustache and deep voice. Tom had some sort of charm but spoilt things by knowing he had it.

It was Mum's fault. She just didn't know how to read people. She was too trusting. She let herself get taken in and got hurt. It had happened numerous times since Dad had left, numerous times. Mum just cheerfully continued on, confidently expecting the latest new relationship to be the perfect one, expecting whatever slimeball she'd dragged home to be her Prince Charming. She'd never learned that fairy tales were just lies and that Prince Charming always turned out to be Wince Charmless. No-one would ever ride up on a white charger to sweep Mum off her feet and take her away to be the queen of his kingdom.

Tom Hugstone would a dead loss too. He'd hurt Mum even if he didn't mean to hurt her. He'd hurt her because he could never be what Mum hoped he'd be; her one pre-destined true love. Mum's life was a perpetual quest for true love, but true love was bunk, stupid fairy tale stuff. Only silly little kids believed in it.

Poor Mum!

Poor her!!!

Danni dropped heavily onto her bed. The springs squeaked and her bag started to fall off. She grabbed it and swivelled round so her back was against the wall. She took out her books and opened her project. She'd elected to do it on Rome, past and present. One day she'd escape to Rome. She'd fly there in a big luxury jet and escape from the morons who surrounded her. She'd spend her days looking at all the old buildings and eating pasta and drinking hot chocolates in street cafes. But maybe the street cafes were more Paris than Rome? Didn't matter - she'd go to Paris too!

There was a noise from the window as a white fluffy shape jumped up onto the still. Danni yelped with pleasure and went to open the window, her books and things cascading onto the floor.

She swooped up her cat, cuddling her. "Lecki, come in. Mum's got these stupid visitors."

Lecki went floppy and then somehow stretched the front of her body so Danni had to let her go. Lecki immediately made a break for the door, squeezing through the crack and mewling her way to the kitchen. Danni went to slam the door on her. Last time she'd let the ungrateful cat in. The rotten beast could stay outside and fend for itself.

At the door, Danni sniffed. Frying garlicky smells were coming from the direction of the kitchen. She hated garlic, hated it. It made everything stink and it made your stomach make revolting noises. The kids would tease her about it in class tomorrow, not that they needed much of an excuse to pick on her anyway.

And the flat would have to be fumigated to get rid of the stench! Bean-head's pong plus garlic fumes; revolting! Hippies didn't believe in washing and El probably stank so much that if you tipped a truck-load of rotting fish-heads onto her she wouldn't smell any worse.

Danni slammed the door on turncoat-Lecki and on Mum and the interlopers. She shut them all out.

She wouldn't be eating the stinking meal even if she was invited to join it. The beanie-wearing, bean-head El could have her share.

Hunger strike time!

Mum would regret this, really regret it. This outrage was going to be permanently marked as a red cross on Mum's report card; unforgivable! There were a lot of red crosses on Mum's report card, marking various unforgivable acts that somehow had been forgotten. Not this one though, not this time!

Danni went back to her bed, scooping up her fallen books but then when she plonked herself down too heavily, they fell off again. Enraged she kicked everything else off the bed and then for good measure pulled out the doona from under herself and flung that down too.

Starve and freeze, she would. Mum would suffer.

CHAPTER 2

"Danni!"

The door opened a crack and Mum poked in her head. "Food's up in a mo, doll. If you want to join us."

Danni shrugged. Annoyingly she was hungry. Curse her stomach for rebelling against her rebellion.

"They're not going to eat us, they're going to eat my fish, I hope." Mum giggled at her own joke. "They're nice people."

"How d'ya know?" Danni said. "They could be anyone."

"Could be, but I can tell," Mum said.

"You have a great success at reading people judging from your last boyfriend."

"Len had his points."

"Yeah, all of them bad!"

Mum laughed. Danni felt a little glow of pleasure at the sound, but not quite enough to forgive Mum for bringing some new stranger home; some new stranger who, to make matters worse, had a bean-head of a daughter in tow. "How d'ya meet him anyway? This Tom bloke."

"During work," Mum said. "He and El were busking outside the station. I had to check to see if they had a licence. We got talking. Turned out that his little girl was a Dannielle like you. One thing led to another."

"He could be an axe murderer." Danni decided to air her theory.

"He's got a daughter." Mum shrugged this time.

"So he's an axe murderer with family."

Mum laughed and said, "He's got nice eyes."

"Oh, great, that's a real recommendation. Atilla the Hun had nice eyes too, apparently."

Mum laughed again and came right into the room to hug Danni. "You're a rogue, young lady," she said. "Did you know that, a lovable rogue. If Tom turns out to be unsuitable, you can scare him off. You're certainly scary enough when you want to be."

Mum kissed her, her breath a mixture of garlic (she must have been nibbling it), wine and the strawberry lip balm she wore nearly all of the time because of working outside.

"I'm not a rogue. And I'm not lovable. I'm worthless," Danni said.

"To anyone else, maybe, but to me, you're the most precious thing in the world," Mum said. "A perfect gem, a flawless, sparkling diamond mounted on a ring of the purest white gold. White gold is much more valuable and beautiful than that common plain old yellow stuff."

Danni loved Mum when Mum acted the pork chop like she was now, pretending to be a jeweller who was trying to make a sale to some rich customer. Mum's act might have been completely over the top but it was somehow believable at the same time.

Mum could have been an actor.

"Come on out, doll. Tom and El don't eat meat so I've bought some tuna, fresh tuna." Mum grinned at her as though she was sharing a naughty secret.

Danni suddenly remembered how Dad would pretend every time they had tuna salad sandwiches for tea that the piano was off-key. 'I see you've had to get the tuna in, the piano tuner. Pity we don't have a piano for him to tune.'

Dad the dag!

So, bean-head, the beanie-wearer was a bean eater; typical!

Mum put her hand on Danni's knee and squeezed. "I've blown our household budget to kingdom come, doll. Don't know what we'll be living on till payday." Mum laughed. Money troubles were a fairly constant problem but Mum always weathered them somehow. "Come and join us, please."

Danni nodded. "Okay. I'll just pack up my stuff." She hadn't actually done a scrap of homework, her brain hadn't been able to get around anything because it had been to busy creating her self-pitying scenario.

"Good." Mum moved to the door.

"Did he?" Danni asked.

"Did he what, doll?"

"Have a busker's licence?"

Mum shook her head, laughed and after blowing a kiss went back to the kitchen. Danni shook her head in turn.

"What am I going to do about that wayward Mum of mine?" she said to herself, before laughing and rolling off her bed. She wandered over to her dressing table to study herself in her mirror. She was tall (tallest girl in the school, curses); her hair was a mousy brown and had to be kept short because it just tangled (more curses!); and her eyes were brown, like Mum's. Dad loved her eyes. When he wrote from his new base up in Sydney he called her his brown eyed darling.

But parents always pretended that you were perfect. It wasn't real how parents saw you. This group of boys at school, lead by Nick Phillips, called her 'Dunny' instead of Danni. When she went red with embarrassment, Nick would taunt, "Hey, look, Dunny's flushing!"

Danni felt herself blushing slightly at the memory.

She stuck her finger up at Nick Phillips and his stupid hanger-on-ers. "Really funny, ha-ha! You creeps would all know about dunnies, since that's where most of you have crawled from!" she said aloud. "At least I've got half a brain."

Posing in front of her mirror she pushed her shoulders back and rolled her hand through the air like some member of the aristocracy waving to an adoring crowd.

"Catch you later, reflection."

She swept out.