Over The Top: Chalk Dust

"Why was he mad at me?" I asked Mum.

"He wasn't mad at you." said Mum, "Its just some bad memories. He used to live here, when he was a boy. He was born in the town just up the road. There's something around here he wants to forget."

"Born here!" I gasped.

"What's so surprising about that?" said Mum "Everyone has to be born somewhere. Your father happened to be born on the coast. I'll show you where the settlement used to be if you like?"

"Great!"

We walked to the top of the track and came to a clearing. A sign told us about the history of the place. The first explorers to go through, the first logging work with the bullock teams and pit saws, the first telegraph lines, the first house and the first school, how it was burnt down and even where the teacher went - like anyone would want to know that! It had all the dates and lots of names, which of course I couldn't remember, but it was really interesting. Fancy that. My Dad was a little boy when he lived here. Amazing. A little, nobbly-kneed kid in shorts. Ha!

I walked round the area and found some bits of glass, stuck in the soil. Green glass, from old bottles. And slate, from the classroom. Mum told me about how the kids in those days used to sit at their big, heavy wooden desks, scratching their alphabets into the black, stone slate boards, and the teacher would keep them working for nearly the whole day, making them learn heaps more off by heart than us kids ever did today. It sounded like a prison sentence to me.

When we got back to the lake. Dad had three big fish to show off. He told Mum to cook two of them for tea. The third one went into the little freezer in the caravan.

In the evening, we sat on some blankets, waving sandflies away from our faces, and listening to the birds and things whistling to each other in the forest. As the sun threw its last burst of glory into the sky I saw the pendant round Dad's neck sparkle.

I'd better tell you about that.

Ever since I can remember. Dad has worn that pendant. Its the strangest pendant I've ever seen. It's made of clear, polished plastic stuff, and it's oval-shaped. It reminds me of those insects you see in books, stuck in a blob of amber. It's about as long as my little finger. And it has a hole in one end for the chain. But what I really like about it is what's inside the plastic. A dead match. One end is still white wood, and the other end is black and bent over, with a little knob on the tip.

"Why do you wear a match?'" I've asked Dad.