Plenty Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  Contents

  Blurb

  Logo

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Author note

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Maddy Frank has always lived in Jermyn Street. Always. But now her mum and dad are making her move from the city, far away to some place called Plenty. How will Maddy survive without everything and everyone she knows?

  Nobody understands.

  But what about her mysterious new classmate, Grace Wek, who was born in a refugee camp? Could Grace actually understand how Maddy feels?

  Chapter One

  Ex-Jermyn Street

  Maddy Frank was angry. It was late afternoon on her tenth birthday and inside the 112 tram, she was considering running away from home.

  Maddy had run away before, but she’d only been little then. And she hadn’t been angry, just curious. She remembered trembling with excitement as she slipped behind Mum and Dad. She’d walked out of the house, thinking to turn left and go to her best friend Sophie-Rose Baron’s house. But instead she’d turned right and found herself walking along the railway line. Thinking about it now, she could remember only the tracks, silver under the yellow moon, and a strong smell of diesel. She’d walked in her bare feet, balancing on one track at a time, and wondered where they were going and where they stopped. It had been like being somebody else for a while.

  Maddy Frank was considering running away now because she was angry with her parents. They knew it. The tram window had become a mirror in the late afternoon light, and both their faces were turned on her like spotlights. She pressed her own face close to the cool glass and watched the streets pass. She named each one as they rattled by. Soon they would be home.

  They passed Sophie-Rose’s street.

  The next best thing to running away, she thought desperately, would be seeking sanctuary.

  Maddy didn’t know if sanctuary was even a real thing any more. Supposing it was, she wondered where a person might seek it. She thought about seeking it from the parents of her friends. They were kind people. Reasonable people. Unlike her own parents who seemed to have forgotten what was important.

  She imagined her friends Emma P and Emma D would give her sanctuary in a flash. And Sophie-Rose, her oldest friend, would make a bed in the shed and smuggle food out. But Sophie-Rose would oppose telling Mr and Mrs Baron – and Maddy knew she would have to go along. You couldn’t claim sanctuary in someone’s garden shed without telling that someone you were there.

  Sophie-Rose had become a very secretive person lately. And she was stubborn. In fact, she could be difficult. She had developed buckets and buckets of what their teachers called attitude. Some of them said it was pure sulking and Sophie-Rose should pull herself together.

  Only Maddy understood. It wasn’t sulking; it was boredom.

  The thing is, Sophie-Rose couldn’t wait to grow up. Sometimes her impatience was like fire-ants under her skin. Maddy could feel Sophie-Rose twitching next to her at their desk at school. When it was like this, Sophie-Rose trembled and she kicked the desk leg and was occasionally mean to Maddy.

  Maddy forgave her though. She felt sorry for her friend. She had this feeling that if she was mean back, Sophie-Rose would crumble into tears. And that would be worse than all her attitude.

  And anyway, she knew it was because Sophie-Rose was too young for everything she wanted to do. Too young to take a tram or a train alone. Too young to leave the back lane that ran between her house and Maddy’s. She couldn’t even go to the shops by herself.

  Poor Sophie-Rose was an adventurer without adventures, and waiting to be old enough was making her edgy. Lately at every meeting with Maddy and the Emmas, she stood away from the group with folded arms, her black eyes flat and her mouth shut tight. In the right mood Sophie-Rose could have every adult in a room shaking their heads and saying girls were very different nowadays.

  But Maddy loved her and always had.

  They had been born on the same day in the same birth centre. Their mothers also took them to the same parks and playgroups. They learned to walk together, and then to fingerpaint, sand play and read. They had gone to the same kinder and now they went to the same school. They had spent every single birthday eve camping in Maddy’s backyard, watching the stars and eating cakes made by Sophie-Rose’s mum.

  As they got older, the birthday cakes got fancier. The first cake was in the shape of a simple moon. A flaming sun came next, with the flames made of pieces of a whole separate cake. The third was a butterfly – and then came a long list of fairy cakes starting with Tinker Bell out of Peter Pan. Last night they’d eaten the Blue Fairy out of Pinocchio, saving her delicious dragonfly wings until last. She could still see Sophie-Rose stuffing the silver veins of icing into her mouth.

  When Maddy and the Franks got off the 112 tram, it was almost dark and Jermyn Street looked like it was made of light. The leaves on the trees flickered like candles in the last rays of the sun and the footpath leading home was a river of rose gold. Everything was filled with a glow that looked like it might blow away if you breathed too hard.

  Maddy held her breath.

  Then, as she always did, she laid her hand flat on the fence at number one. The warmth leaked from the bricks into her palm. This was usually the moment of Maddy’s deepest homecoming. The best part of the day. To stand at the start of Jermyn Street with her hand on the first fence always made her heart swoop a little.

  As he always did, Mrs Bentley’s bulldog, Winston, was slobbering gently down the path of number one to meet her, asthmatic and beaming. He’d been waiting since half past three for her to come – but tonight something was wrong. Maddy looked through him like she didn’t know him, and when he whined to remind her, she didn’t hear. So Winston flopped down in the grass with one leg stuck straight in front and wheezed sadly instead.

  Maddy started to run the fence line.

  At number three, Miss Patel’s sandy greyhound, Mumtaj, waited to lick the air around Maddy with a careful, curling tongue. Mumtaj was too well-mannered to lick people on their skin, but she was too doggish not to want to with all her heart, so she usually just tasted the air around a person’s face. She liked mouths and noses best. But today Maddy didn’t even slow down and Mumtaj sighed back to her old couch on the verandah.

  At number five, three of Gunter and Franco’s six Burmese cats lay flat out on the warm path. They always ignored everything, especially dogs, and Maddy always ignored them back on behalf of Winston and Mumtaj. Two of the cats sat on each of the gateposts, and one slept under the lemon tree. Today they turned their neat heads as Maddy’s fingertips drummed along their corrugated fence. But they watched with bored full-moon eyes and didn’t even blink.

  There were no animals at number seven, and number nine had only birds in cages. Maddy’s fingers traced the line of the picket fences. She got a splinter from number seven but she left it in – the sharp pain felt right for this day. This terrible day. This worst birthday.

  She’d finished running the fence line now. And it was still no good. It was still all changed. The Jermyn Street glow was fading already.

  Then she came to number eleven.

  This fence was tall with so much razor wire tangled along the top that Maddy couldn’t see the house. Inside lived a tall grey-skinned man who never talked, only whispered to himself,
and his black long-legged dog who never barked, only growled. The dog paced inside the fence line all day, matching people on the footpath step for step. You could hear him in there sometimes, growling at shadows. When she passed number eleven Maddy usually walked close to the road.

  But not this evening.

  This evening she stopped by the gate. She could hear the dog’s wet breath through the fence. She laid her cheek on the still-hot metal and it felt good. On the other side the black dog stopped breathing. Then he growled, low and threatening. You could hear the teeth in that growl. You could hear the wild dog, the wolf.

  Maddy’s finger throbbed from the splinter.

  Her heart pounded from the black dog’s growl.

  And her eyes ached from ignoring her parents.

  Maddy Frank thought she was going to cry, but instead, she found herself growling back. Baring her canine teeth. Snarling.

  Nobody in Jermyn Street had ever done such a thing. The black long-legged dog was silent for a moment. Then he let out an enraged howl that set off all the other dogs in the neighbourhood. Maddy let the howling wash through her. It felt satisfying.

  Only when the tall man came out did she move and then she ran. Hard as she could with her new birthday sandals slapping the footpath.

  At number thirteen Mr Sorrenti’s mini Jack Russell pack rushed to meet Maddy at the fence. Nobody but the Sorrentis knew how many Jack Russells there were. They never stayed still long enough to count and they were slippery as fish to hold. Maddy ran straight past and the Jack Russells turned like seals in a tank and raced alongside her.

  Mrs Sorrenti stopped watering the tomatoes in her front yard to call hello.

  But Maddy didn’t stop.

  “There’s no reason to be so angry,” panted Dad, catching her by their front gate.

  Maddy gave him a look. There was a reason to be angry, actually – a very good reason to be very, very angry. In fact, just off the top of her head, there were eight good reasons.

  Winston and Mumtaj.

  The Jack Russells. Mr and Mrs Sorrenti. Their tomatoes.

  Even the snooty cats and the caged birds.

  Even the black dog.

  And there was another thing. Something loitering inside her mind. Something she didn’t want to look at.

  Before today she was somebody.

  She was Maddy Frank, Keeper of the Street and Queen of the Back Lane. Friend to Dogs. Runner of the Fence Line.

  Now all that was flying away.

  The moment her parents had told her the news, her life had flown apart. Everybody and everything she loved started rushing and slipping like the Jack Russells. The moment they’d told her, she’d become nobody. Maddy Frank, Homeless Person.

  Every night of her life Maddy had stood at her back door as the sun set, to see the fruit bats drop and the orb spider weave. To think about the day that was gone – and about all the days that were to come. And how good it was to be her own brilliant self in her own brilliant skin, in her very own perfect place right at this perfect and brilliant moment.

  Tonight, however, she didn’t feel like watching the sky for fruit bats or seeing the orb-weaver start her web. She didn’t feel like thinking about the days in Jermyn Street. Tonight her skin felt tight. The backyard wasn’t hers any more and this was the most terrible rubbish moment she had ever had the misfortune to live.

  Poor Maddy Frank, Ex-Owner of a Backyard. Ex-Mistress of a House.

  Ex-Jermyn Street.

  Chapter Two

  Fairies Tree

  Every year, on the eve of their birthdays, Maddy and Sophie-Rose had a campout at the Franks’ place. And every year, on the afternoon of the birthday itself, Mum and Dad took Maddy to the Fairies Tree in Fitzroy Park. They took the 112 tram and had lunch at the Pavilion Cafe in the middle of the park. This year Maddy and Sophie-Rose were turning ten.

  Maddy Frank had walked the broad shady avenues with the new confidence that comes from reaching double figures. Mum and Dad had strolled, talking behind her, like it was a normal day. They’d stopped to watch a little girl making a kebab of fallen oak leaves on a stick. They’d seen a man praying on a rug by the pools, and a bride in long red veils posing for photos by the Scar Tree. The Franks had given Maddy no warning. It had been the best day – and then they had told her.

  By the Fairies Tree.

  “Moving?” she repeated.

  The word meant nothing. It was just a sound. Mum and Dad joined hands and smiled at her with all their teeth and most of their gums.

  “But,” she said. And then, “But where?”

  They had said it like it was good news but it wasn’t. It was bad. Even another cherry ripe slice at the Pavilion Cafe couldn’t change the badness of this news. Maddy raised her eyes to the top of the Fairies Tree where Bunjil the eagle perched. He spread his wooden wings over all the creatures carved into the trunk. But even he couldn’t save Maddy.

  “We’re going to live in the country,” said Mum.

  “What country?” asked Maddy.

  “Not what country,” said Dad. “The country. Where Nana lives. Do you remember Nana?”

  Maddy remembered something but wasn’t sure what it was.

  “Well,” he said. “It doesn’t matter. You were only a toddler when you saw her.”

  “It’s called Plenty,” Mum said dreamily. “Upper Plenty. Such a great name! It’s got mountains. And trees.”

  “There are trees here,” Maddy pointed out.

  Fitzroy Gardens was absolutely full of palms and oaks and other trees she didn’t know the names for. And Plenty didn’t even sound real. It sounded like the sort of place you’d put in a story. She looked at her new birthday watch. Silver with aquamarine. Purple leather band.

  It was exactly 3.20.

  “There’ll be farms,” said Dad.

  Maddy concentrated hard on the Fairies Tree so she wouldn’t have to listen.

  “And horses,” said Dad.

  The timber of the Fairies Tree seemed to have turned to stone. She hadn’t noticed that before. The pixies’ eyes bulged from their wooden faces, and the tree’s carved frilled-necks and tree frogs looked shocked.

  The Franks had always lived at number fifteen Jermyn Street.

  Maddy couldn’t imagine living any other place. She felt like she was in a story. That story where the girl is told she has to go live with a beast.

  “Why?” she asked at last.

  “Because,” said Mum and she had tears in her eyes. “I want trees. I want trees for you.”

  “But these trees are good, Mum,” Maddy told her straightaway, relief flooding her body. “Brilliant. Honest.”

  Maddy thought Mum and Dad just wanted to give her more trees. She thought once they saw how she loved the Fitzroy trees, they would give up the moving idea with relief too.

  “You’ve only seen these,” said Mum though. “You wait until you see the trees in Plenty.”

  She saw they were determined to go. They’d decided without her. Maddy concentrated on the Fairies Tree again. She saw, like it was the first time, the fairies gathered in their knotholes. And then she wondered how a person might crawl into those knotholes and stay there.

  “But I don’t want to,” she said, developing what Mum called a tone.

  “All right, now. Calm down,” said Dad, taking charge because of the tone. “We’re moving because we want to. Mum and me. Melbourne’s crazy: it’s loud – and it costs a lot. I have to work all the time to afford it.”

  Maddy never knew what to say when her parents talked about costing and affording so she watched the Fairies Tree and waited for something to make sense.

  “And then there’s Nana,” said Dad. “She’s the main thing. She’s getting old.”

  “But she’s always been old,” said Maddy, reasonably. “And we never had to move.”

  “Not old like now,” Dad told her. “She forgets things and can’t walk so well.”

  Dad was a quietly certain sort of person. He
could never be sidetracked or wound-up like Mum. Now each of his quiet and certain words settled like frost inside Maddy Frank.

  “Nana needs help,” said Mum. “And I want to do that.”

  “Family is one of the most important things in life,” said Dad.

  Maddy gripped the palings around the Fairies Tree. All around her, everything seemed to be flying away and apart. She read and re-read the plaque set in the ground before the Fairies Tree, spelling out each letter of each word one by one. Each word of every sentence over and over.

  She was reading it for the third time when she realised exactly what it said.

  She pointed at it, trembling.

  “See!” she said.

  “What?” asked Mum.

  “Look! Ola Cohn says here that homes are sacred,” Maddy told her parents, who were the sorts of adults who thought a lot of writers and often quoted them. She thought Ola Cohn might change their minds. She traced the words and read aloud. “She says she carved this tree as a home for the fairies so they’d be safe. Because it’s necessary – necessary – for every living creature – to have a sanctuary. I’m a living creature, aren’t I?”

  “You certainly are,” Mum said.

  “You carry your sanctuary in here,” said Dad and touched Maddy’s chest. “And right now your home is wherever me and Mum are, pumpkin.”

  And that’s when Maddy Frank knew it was no good. The argument was done. She was lost. When her parents started talking about the things she wanted being inside herself there was nothing left to say. Her stomach dropped. Her throat ached. And in the once-warm and soft spaces of Maddy Frank the frost hardened.

  Right at that moment of giving up Maddy wanted to reach out to the fairies and wish the biggest, strongest, deepest wish she had. She knew, of course, and had known for a long time that the fairy magic was gone. That it was only in stories now. But some part of her still hoped. Maybe there would be just enough magic left in the real world to stop this terrible day.

  There wasn’t.

  She looked at her watch.

  It was 3.29

  It had all happened in nine minutes.