The Party Line by Sue Orr Page A

just got no use for them. They’re mostly the boy calves. They can’t produce milk, and they can’t have calves. We get rid of them so we don’t waste money on milk and feed for them.’
    Nickie blinked down at her breakfast.
    ‘Aren’t you hungry, Gabrielle?’ said Joy.
    ‘I’m a vegetarian. Actually.’ Gabrielle picked up a piece of toastfrom her plate and carefully, with her knife, scraped away the eggs. She bit into it. ‘Very good toast, Mrs Walker. Thanks.’
    Joy leaned back in her chair, folded her arms and stared at Gabrielle. ‘ Vegetarian? ’ She said it as though it was a disease. ‘The chicken isn’t killed when it lays an egg. Why on earth wouldn’t you eat eggs?’
    ‘Their cages.’ Gabrielle reached across the table for the jam. She smeared it across her other piece of toast. ‘If they’re kept in tiny little cages, with no room to move or walk around, then I won’t eat their eggs.’
    Joy started clearing up. ‘I’ve never heard anything so ridiculous in my life,’ she said. ‘They’re brainless bloody birds.’
    ‘I can see Gabrielle’s point of view,’ Nickie said. It was safe to say something, now that she’d finished her breakfast. Her last ever meal of bacon and eggs, possibly. ‘You’ve got to agree, Mum, that our chooks don’t have much of a life.’
    ‘Oh for God’s sake,’ said Joy.
    ‘Kept in a wire cage. Watching their unborn babies roll away from them, no arms to stop the eggs going down into the collection tray. How awful would that be?’
     
    Nickie and Gabrielle fed the calves, before school and afterwards, but they didn’t talk about the bobby calves again. Nickie was too scared to bring it up, it was hard to talk about death with someone whose mother had just died. And Gabrielle never mentioned it. They did talk about being a vegetarian, though. Gabrielle said Nickie should feel no pressure to be one, too. It was personal choice, she said. Sacrifice for the greater good wasn’t for everyone.
    Sacrifice for the greater good . The words rolled round Nickie’s head every time she biked past paddocks full of cows. It felt as though those eyes, big and brown like puddles, were accusing her of murder. She told Gabrielle that she was probably going to become a vegetarian very soon. She didn’t say that she’d prefer to wait until the ham in the fridge was all gone. Ham was a treat, only when it was on special. Usually it was luncheon sausage. Luncheon would be easier to sacrifice than ham.
     
    The weeks went by, then it was religious instruction Friday again. They did the usual Our Father to start with and waited to see if Father Brindle fell asleep, which he did. Gabrielle stood up. She stepped over everyone’s legs, reached out to grab him by his sleeve and shook it hard.
    ‘Father. Wake up.’
    Everyone else went quiet. Father Brindle twitched awake.
    ‘You fell asleep,’ said Gabrielle softly. ‘Before we got to the end of Our Father.’ She stepped through the bodies and legs, back to her place on the mat. A few kids were giving her dirty looks. She gave them dirty looks back.
    ‘Father Brindle,’ said Gabrielle. She had her legs crossed, and was leaning forward with her hands clasped in her lap. ‘Do you do requests?’
    ‘What do you mean?’ He squinted at her. ‘What do you mean by that?’
    ‘You know, can one of us request a story from the Bible? Like on the radio on Sunday mornings, they have requests for stories. I thought that if you had nothing special planned for this morning, I’d make a request.’
    Never, in the whole seven and a half years that Nickie had been at Fenward Primary, had anyone asked for a request during religious instruction.
    ‘What exactly is it that you want to know about?’ He looked a bit frightened, nervous that her question would be one he couldn’t answer.
    ‘Herod, King of the Jews,’ said Gabrielle. ‘I sort of know the story, but I’ve got a few questions on the issues.’
    ‘Well, young lady.