Whole Wild World by Tom Dusevic

chocolate, which porky Sam has clearly acquired a taste for, as well as picture books and photographs.
    One of my older cousins has sent me a lacquered wooden box with naïve art of a forest on the hinged lid. The rich aroma hits me as soon as I break the seal on the box. Inside, neatly pressed and asleep like factory orphans in tight rows, are fifty cigarettes.I’m surprised to say the least; no one in our family smokes – yet. I sulk.
    â€˜What am I supposed to do with this?’
    â€˜People are coming to visit us, it won’t go to waste,’ says Mama, who is thrilled by the return of the prodigal pair.
    She’s anticipating the multitude that will come to collect letters and gifts sent from relatives.
    I had been banking on a watch for my Communion. The accompanying sense of entitlement I have built, brick by bloody brick, is a monument to behold. Teta is feeling around a stack of her underwear and pulls out two rectangular black boxes.
    â€˜We bought them in Singapore for you and Å ime. Pick which one you’d like,’ says Teta, always happiest, and at her best, giving presents. The watches are as different as Milenka and Danica: one is open-faced, classic, uncomplicated; the other is smaller, nervy, with a third hand busily counting the seconds – that’s the one I choose.
    A big change has greeted the rovers. While they were overseas we moved house – back to Chalmers Street, after almost six years away. The rundown house next door has become a block of flats. I can’t believe the size of our yard. We have a cricket pitch, with a long bowler’s run up the side of the house. The yard is five pitches wide, maybe seven, if you count the area where the giant palms reside; it is play-ready for soccer, footy, even Aussie Rules if we pull out the five-foot wooden stakes supporting tomato plants in the garden to use as goal posts. The tomato stakes will also double as javelins in our backyard Olympics, coming to you in 1972.
    I had a week’s start on Sam to check out the possibilities. The workshop, musty and dark, is an Aladdin’s cave of hardware. On one of the workbenches is a wooden cross that appears to be some sort of steering wheel, which can be turned but is too stiff to be spun around. You can pretend to have a kid on the rack, like in the movies, or that it’s the captain’s wheel on a pirate ship.
    The shed is cool on a hot day. Tiny holes in the corrugated- iron roof make pinpoint shafts of light, turning dust motes into graceful swirls. It’s a fair way from the house; the reward of mucking around in peace exceeds the risk of injury or being bitten by a spider. For one kid, Chalmers Street is like a posh estate; for two boys with ample time, it is an empire. The only downside is an outside dunny, particularly on cold nights, and the attendant indignity of the piss pot that will be under Sam’s bed for years until Tata adds plumbing to his do-it-yourself skillset.
    Sam and I are finally sharing a bedroom. There’s a spare sunroom-cum-kitchenette and another bedroom, which will soon be rented out to a young couple – a Slovenian man and a Croatian woman, the reverse of Ineska and me, engaged to be married. Joza is a cool dude with a moustache, who drives a two-door Ford Escort. Zorica is olive-skinned with fuzzy dark hair. She wears a lot of make-up. Both are especially kind to me and respectful to my parents. The place is big enough for the seven of us to coexist in splendour, given the house is only where I eat and sleep. Joza and Zorica work during the day and at weekends spend most of their time out with friends.
    I’ve been chosen to do one of the readings for the Communion Mass on a Saturday morning. The teachers have taken me through it a few times in class. On the day, the boys wear black winter shorts, white shirts and school ties. I’m showing off my new watch. The Italian girls are mini-brides with veils, while the