The Happy Birthday Song ✓

Chapter Five

Saturday, May 19th 2007

New Farm, Brisbane

1:31 PM

"So, what did the doctor say?" she asked.

Her mother pulled a pair of sunglasses from her inner jacket pocket and put them on. She shrugged, "The baby's fine."

"No..."Junie said, "The gender, what's the baby's gender?"

"Boy," her mother answered tersely.

Junie smiled. A little brother, she was going to have a little brother.

She was tempted to ask who the father was but knew it would be a fruitless endeavour. Very much like each time she asked Audrey who her father was. She never received a truthful or straightforward answered, just a sharp scolding for apparently talking about irrelevant matters.

It was in October of last year that Junie had found out about Audrey's pregnancy. She had been scouring the living room for the Geography textbook she had misplaced when she had saw a white plastic stick poking out of the bin.

A white plastic stick that she had immediately recognised as a home pregnancy kit. And it had been positive. Junie spent a good hour panicking about it, so much so that she had grabbed her skateboard and rushed over to Dylan's house. Who, by the way, was not at helpful in calming her down. It was two weeks later that Junie finally dredged up the courage to ask her mother about the pregnancy.

Audrey had shrugged and said, she wasn't sure whether she wanted to keep the baby. At first Junie wasn't either. In all honesty, a baby was a big deal and considering how low on money they were, how Audrey had been fired from her job and how she was already struggling to pay the bills, Junie just couldn't see how they would cope with another mouth to feed.

But one day, Junie had caught sight of her mother's pregnancy bump and she realised something. She realised that that bump was her future sibling. That bump was her future brother or sister. And that thought, that realisation, almost made her cry because she knew she would never forgive herself, if she let her mother give the baby up for adoption. The baby needed to stay with its family not some strangers. Yes, the Bennett's were not the strongest or the most traditional of families but they were still family and that's what mattered.

"Right, I'm going to see one of my friends," Audrey said, "I'll see you later."

Junie shook her head, "Don't drink any alcohol or smoke."

"I haven't drunk or smoked since I found out I was pregnant have I?"

It was true but that was probably because the doctor was keeping an alarmingly close eye on her and she was being forced to go to weekly pregnancy sessions at the clinic. Which, Junie, liked to accompany her to, just to make sure she actually went there.

"Don't worry, we're only watching some movies." Audrey said.

Junie nodded but she still wasn't convinced.

3:20 PM

Bobbing her head to the Arctic Monkeys track blasting in her earphones, Junie steadily rode her skateboard down the street. She grabbed a tightly rolled up newspaper from her bag and momentarily pausing, she threw it ahead. It fell onto the doorstep of a brightly coloured bungalow

She only had ten more houses to visit and then she could go back to Wickham Street Dailies and get her thirty dollars pay.  Junie felt rather neutral about delivering newspapers. The pay wasn't great but it wasn't bad either. It was a job. It gave something to do and they really needed all the money they could get for the baby.