Song of the Cicada

By Rosalie Brockfield-Olding

Heather Buckland is a nine-year-old girl growing up in the late 1960s in the working-class Melbourne suburb of Noble Park. She has an older sister, Colleen, and a younger brother, Roland. Her grandparents and a maiden aunt live across the road.

Heather is one of the less popular children in her area and is teased and bullied for her thin body and lack of confidence. Her very small group of friends is also ostracized for their appearances and social status.

However, Heather always manages to triumph over diversity and enjoy the relative freedom the 1960s has, and she engages in various adventures. Her observations of other children, teachers, and adults are outlined in the story and incorporated as innocent and often hilarious ponderings. The vast differences of living in that era as compared to modern day are also implicated, particularly how children at that time relied on their imagination, internal resources, and outdoor activities to fill in their days without television and computer games.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Mar 31, 2015
• ISBN: 9781503503724

Rosalie Brockfield-Olding

I was born in 1957 in an outer-eastern, working class suburb of Melbourne. Even as a child, writing was my passion and created the draft for my first novel at the age of twelve. The concept of that original story appeared years later as a completed fantasy novel. In 1994, I followed my passion and completed a writing and editing diploma and was awarded the Herb Thomas Memorial award for new writers in 1995. Seeking out the peace and solitude needed to write, I moved to Gippsland, Victoria, in 2007, where I live on a small farm amid various wildlife with my horses, cats, and dogs.

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Copyright © 2015 by Rosalie Brockfield-Olding.

ISBN:      Softcover      978-1-5035-0371-7

                eBook            978-1-5035-0372-4

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 03/16/2015

Xlibris

1-800-455-039

www.Xlibris.com.au

699744

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter One

I t was going to be a hot day, thought Heather as she lay snugly in bed. Even though it was early morning and it was still cool in the bedroom, the cicadas were already making a din in the huge gum tree, which rose majestically in the neighbour’s backyard.

‘Your friends are back,’ she heard her father, Brian, say to Mum, who was clattering breakfast bowls a short distance away in the kitchen. Julie answered with a kind of mutter. Heather knew cicadas were no friends of her mother. They sang the arrival of stinkers, those hot days where everything shimmered in a blistering haze, days when people stayed indoors or sat on sagging verandas, fanning themselves with newspapers.

Hot days also meant Heather’s birthday was near. She was born in December, annoyingly close to Christmas, when people gave her a single gift and told her it would do for both her birthday and Christmas.

Just as she was daydreaming what sort of presents she may receive for her tenth birthday, Mum’s voice interrupted her thoughts.

‘Heather, Colleen, time to get up now. Remember, we’re catching the eight o’clock diesel, and it’s going to be hot today.’

‘Hey, Colleen, wake up,’ whispered Heather, hoping Mum wouldn’t hear her say hey. ‘Hay is what horses eat,’ she would say sternly. Grammar and manners were very important in the Buckley household, and Mum was quick to scold anyone who didn’t use proper language. Dad, on the other hand, didn’t care, as long as there was no swearing or unladylike behaviour.

‘Hey,’ said Heather again. ‘Wake up, we’re going into town today!’

Colleen’s eyes flew open, and she sat up, brushing her sleep-tousled brown hair away from her face. Her sister had turned twelve a few months ago and was in her first year of high school. To Heather, this seemed terribly grown-up.

As Colleen swung her legs out of bed, Heather noticed how long and shapelier they appeared. She sometimes felt envious of her sister. Colleen’s hair was darker and straighter, much prettier than her wavy frizz of dull brown. Her eyes were bluer, her teeth straighter, but what Heather envied even more, what she envied about most people, was the fact that Colleen had normal, well-rounded limbs.

Catching a glimpse of herself in the dressing table mirror, she thought how pitifully thin her arms and legs were as they protruded like sticks from baggy short pyjamas. It almost looked as though the pyjamas were still on a hanger.

‘Are we going on the eight o’clock diesel?’ asked Colleen eagerly, bringing Heather back to more pleasant thoughts.

‘Yes, that’s what Mum said, so we’d better get ready. We have to be at the station in plenty of time. I think Mum’s got our clothes ready in the kitchen.’

Both girls leapt to the wardrobe to snatch out dressing gowns and slippers.

‘I’m first,’ declared Colleen, glaring at her younger sister.

‘But I’m busting,’ complained Heather.

‘Too bad. You should’ve gone when you first woke up.’

They weren’t allowed to use the potty during daylight hours. The white enamelled, slightly chipped chamber pot stayed on the bathroom floor at night; a comforting sight for anyone who couldn’t brave the trails of the backyard at night. For a young child, the pan toilet was truly a daunting trip in the darkness.

Rushing out the back door, Heather jumped off the wooden ramp after her sister. Running swiftly, she headed for the small cement sheeting and corrugated iron structure which sat far enough away in the large backyard to avoid smells wafting through the house.

Colleen was already on the toilet, breathing an exaggerated sigh of relief deliberately