Fire Fire by Eva Sallis Page A

peace back with her and Ursulawasable to sleep.
    Never forsake me and I will never forsake you , the kitten told her in her dreams and she was comforted.

    Pa didn’t appear much in Ursula’s diary—there was barely a mention of him. But Ursula was dismayed to find that she didn’t appear in his. Not at all.
    As she made his bed one morning she found a black leather notebook in his blankets. She was safe as long as she could hear him playing. She snuck off to the edge of the bush and sat down to read it out of sight.
    It was written in German. Although she didn’t know some of the words, she could follow the gist of it. It was full of comments on European culture, art, poems, quotes from whatever book Pa was reading, and snippets of music. She hummed them to see whether they were familiar. They were not. She skimmed the last two-thirds, looking for her name, looking for any of their names.
    She shut the book and stared up at the stringybarks, feeling very lonely. The diary covered a period of about three months. Big things had happened in that three months. She had improved on the violin, and excelled in her lessons—these were things that seemed to matter a lot to Pa. She had murdered a goat and a kitten, and had stayed at Whispers alone for two whole weeks while he went with everyone else to New Zealand. She had turned twelve.
    She felt flooded with anxiety. Nothing was really as it seemed.
    The viola trilled and wailed to nobody across the paddocks.
    Pa wasn’t really on their side at all.

H elmut and Siegfried started Christmas jokes. The first were droll puns and bad word play, usually born over Christmas dinner. They were burpets and farticles—jokes of bad taste and minor wit. But Christmas jokes evolved into quirky gilt-edged criticism of the family’s pain, an end-of-year concession to suffering, a surreptitious goading notice to Acantia that the children were vaguely aware that not all was well; and, in effect, an acceptance.
    One Christmas dinner when everyone was in high spirits, the twins started a casual conversation about the names of prospective children.
    â€˜Whaddaya gunna name ya kids?’ Siegfried said into the air, but everyone knew he was addressing Helmut.
    â€˜Oh, I like the name Victoria,’ Helmut said, turning with an engaging and serious face to Siegfried.
    â€˜For myself,’ Siegfried said, sucking thoughtfully on a drumstick, dropping the Aussie drawl, ‘I think Timothy is a lovely name for a boy.’
    Acantia looked at them brightly. Everyone else could tell something was up.
    â€˜You all have lovely names. When you have children we will all help!’
    â€˜Between us, we could have one of each. “Victoooria! Teeeeeee-mothy!”’ Helmut experimented with a peremptory summons.
    â€˜Yep, I think Victoria and Timothy are the names for me,’ Siegfried said.
    â€˜But they will get called Vic and Tim!’ Acantia wailed in protest.
    Beate told Ursula they were cruel. She was right but even she couldn’t stop laughing.
    â€˜G’day Vic,’ Ziggy would say.
    â€˜Howdy Tim.’
    The others began calling either twin Victim and the joke was banned.

    â€˜Children. Keep your minds clean. Bad thoughts make bad people. If you desire evil that is what you will bring into the world. I desired goodandgoodonly and I brought you into the world. If I wanted you dead, Ursula, you would die. I would only have to point the bone, like the Aborigines. It’s all in the mind.’
    As they grew up and began to desire more than mental cleanliness, the demands on the house’s resources increased dramatically. Helmut and Siegfried got hygiene late but when they did, the pressure on both houses was intense.
    Acantia tried ridicule:
    The vanity of teenage boys has no limits.
    Acantia tried sabotage:
    Teenage boys do not need underpants.
    Acantia tried science:
    Hot water gives you pimples.
    Acantia tried