Competition
2009 Winners
Ipswich City Council Award – 16-17 Years
Brother
by Rebecca Lynch
Muirlea, Qld
ours was a collective childhood where bedtime stories were impromptu;
the epic tale of Gloria the Gumnut Fairy was
allowed to be questioned, contested and altered.
we hacked Ned Kelly helmets out of scavenged cereal packets and went marauding
around the back paddock on our tricycles.
we shrouded our cubbies and fairy gardens and sand castles and miniature dams in
secrecy and intrigue.
and do you remember how we used to like talking, alone, together? how
conspiratorial whispers passed from concerned lips to serious ears in the back seat of
the Ford?
we were as mysterious and sporadic as the world seemed to us.
caught in the garden during thunderstorms,
we were sorcerers,
whacking the white metal post holding our lantern-of-a-garden-light,
which had the direct effect of
delivering lightning shards down from the angry sky
into some unsuspecting suburban backyard over the highway.
believe it.
