Tommy Makes It Rich

Chapter 15. 23 January 1900

23 January 1900

I awoke on the ground where the new house was built. I walked up past the burnt out ruins of the big house to the cow yard. Where I found a sack and made it into a type of dress. I feel more comfortable having clothes on and this was the best I could do. When Jock came to milk the cows I went further up the hill so he wouldn’t see me.

I just sat there thinking. I had nothing else to do. Shame I couldn’t bring my homework here to do. I decided the best thing was to lay low here till next year when I could fix the burning of the house problem. In the mean time, see if could get my real life back on track. Was it my real life? Perhaps I should just take the year off and be the bad kid they all thought of me as. No deep down I liked being the good kid and the smart kid.

Either way when I fixed the house burning issue that should give me back my old life. I had no idea of the chain of events that had been set in motion by the house fire but I was sure that that is what caused my family's change of fortune in 1967.

I was thinking all this while sitting in the shade of a big gum tree. The birds were chirping, the smell of eucalyptus filled the air. When I was roused from my thoughts by Jock’s voice. “What on earth are you doing?”

“Just waiting.”

“What for?”

“Dunno really. Time to pass I suppose.”

“Where were you when the house burned down?” He asked accusingly.

I had been thinking what I was going to say to this sort of question as soon has he got here.

 The best I could come up with was “I was up in the scrub.”

“You what?”

“I don’t sleep in the house. I live in the scrub. I just come down during the days to help out around the place. But there is nobody to help any more.” I couldn’t help the tears running down my face.

“How come you’re wearing a sack?”

“All my clothes got burned up in the fire.”

“Why didn’t you show yourself before this?”

“I was scared?”

Suddenly Jock lost the accusing attitude. He even changed from the cocksure bully type and started treating me like I was his little brother.

“Its all right mate. I will help you out. Do you need any tucker?”

I shook my head. “Nah, I can feed myself.”

Now he was in awe. “So you live off the land, a little bloke like you, all by yourself?”

“Yep I am self sufficient, except for clothes.”