Puffin Books Australia

As Alice ran along Lovers' Walk, the path by the river, she thought back to Teddy's latest painting, which they'd put up on the wall just last night. When you looked at it from across the parlour, it was the most perfect copy of their tall brick house with its wide verandah, honeysuckle up the wall and the rope swing on the ghost gum. He'd painted their tennis court to the left, the orchard on the right, and their bright green lawn, as big as a field, sloping gently down to the fence line. But if you went up close to the canvas, you could see that the whole scene was made up of thousands of dots – millions – that seemed to shimmer like tiny coloured stars with the magic that Teddy gave them. Castle of Dreams – Ours, he had written underneath.

Now why would he ever leave that?

'What's eating you, Tink?' asked Teddy, looking up as Alice stormed round the bend and dropped her bag next to his easel. 'Tell Uncle Ted.'

'Everything,' she said, kicking off her shoes and not knowing where to start. She found a soft patch of dirt and slid into the splits, laying her chest down and inching her fingertips towards the sliver of moon, white as milk, hanging over the water. Every night, Alice would stretch and point and glide and unfold until she felt that she had done everything that a perfect ballerina would be able to do. A real ballerina. It was all that she wanted to be.

Her thoughts wandered back to poor Jilly, out doing the milking. Even though Jilly's house wasn't much different to theirs from the outside, on the inside it felt a little like a church and a little like a gaol. Jilly had once told Alice that her father ran a cold bath in the evening and let it sit all night so that by the morning, when he jumped in, it was extra specially cold. Papa Sir had liked nothing better than a warm bath, a pipe and a hot cocoa all at the same time, while someone sang to him from outside the door. It's a wonder that Jilly turned out so nice, thought Alice.

'Teddy,' she said as she switched legs, 'why aren't we like other families? Not that I want to be,' she added hurriedly.

Teddy paused with his brush in the air.

'There are lots of ways we're different. Which way are you thinking?'

'Well . . . how Mama doesn't really believe in things. You know, like going to church, and having a cook or a governess or anyone, and being on those committees that make things for the war – you know, like Jilly's mother does. And how she has a job.'

Mama was brilliant with numbers, and had been asked to work at a bank in Perth when the manager had left to go to war. They were all so proud of her that they didn't mind one bit that it meant extra chores. Besides, Little was magic at cooking, if someone helped her lift the pans. And even though he couldn't talk, they could always call on Uncle Bear, Papa Sir's brother who lived at the bottom of their garden with Pan, the handsomest, smiliest dog that Alice had ever met.

'Mama doesn't care what people think – she just wants everyone to do what they love,' said Teddy. 'Why do you think I paint and you dance? And Mabel sings like a blooming bird, and Little can cook like some kind of fairy chef? And Pudding, well, who knows what she'll do?'

'Love people,' said Alice smiling, thinking of their littlest sister, who was three and so blonde and plump and soft and sunny that she was always being squeezed but didn't mind a bit.

'If we were off to church or knitting socks every second, we wouldn't have time for any of that. Good grief – can you even imagine what a governess would make of Mabel?'

Alice laughed as she pictured it. Mabel absolutely could not be quiet. Mama said it was because she was eight, and that eight is a chatty age. But Alice could just imagine Mabel as an old lady, chattering away to a young man at a shop counter while people waited behind her, looking at their watches.

'As for Mama's job,' Teddy went on, 'well, she works because now she can. You mightn't remember, but before the war, women mostly stayed at home with their crochet and croquet.'

'Some still do,' said Alice, thinking of the ladies in their frilly white dresses who took tea on their verandahs every afternoon.

'Perhaps around here, where they're not short of money. But others are working in factories and shops – there are even some at the front, driving ambulances. And the really clever ones like Mama, they're showing that they can do a man's job just as well,' said Teddy, frowning at his canvas. 'Now, is that really what was on your mind?'

Alice looked out across the mauve water to the curved white sandbar that sliced into the bay. She took a deep breath. 'Jilly heard her mother say to someone . . . that you might go and leave us. To fight, I mean.' She couldn't bear to look at Teddy, so she put her hands on the ground and flipped her legs over her head, pushing into a handstand with her body straight and strong, just as Miss Lillibet had taught her.

Teddy looked up. 'I think the real question here is whether you're going to leave us. They'd go wild for you in the circus, Tink.'

'Don't be funny,' said Alice crossly from upside down. 'I'm serious, Teddy. You'll be seventeen soon. Are you going to war?'