Cricket, Tadpoles & The Sunday School Anniversary

In the heat of the sun, I stood outside on the bitumen road watching the game of cricket from a distance since I was one of the fielders. Every now and again someone would yell, "CAR!" and we'd all move off the road to the nature strip, watch it pass and then resume our game. Finally, one of my brothers would yell. "Howzatt!!!" and throw the tennis ball up into the air. I'd rush over to the footpath which was the cricket pitch and ask, "Is it my turn to bat yet?"

My brother would reply, "Not yet. You haven't been here long enough and you have to get someone out first. And now it's Glenn's turn to bat, then Alfonzo's, then Gavin's, then Scott's. then......"

As he listed all the names of the neighborhood boys, I realised then, that I would not be getting a turn to bat and I had other things I could be doing. I'd walk inside the house and choose a book to read. I loved, and still love to read. I read all the books I could find and when I was reading, I would be so absorbed in my book, I had no idea what else was going on around me. Even now when I read, I shut myself off to everything else. I do not hear the TV, the people speaking or the sounds of birds singing outside. Sometimes I would take my book and climb up into the tree in the front yard, especially if it was a whodunnit type book. "Inspired" by the book, I would watch the cars passing by (which was very few in our street) and try to memorise their number plates in case they were robbers trying to get away.

During the winter, we would play football across the road on the barren block of land that also led to one of the busiest intersections in the State. That barren land also had a creek running under a bridge and we'd go down the muddy banks with our buckets to go tadpoling. There was a hint of danger since the creek went into a tunnel, rumoured to be a sewer and some children had drowned there once.

We'd take the tadpoles home and throw them into an old bathtub that was in the shed, watching them grow legs, lose their tails and become frogs. Soon the bathtub was empty and mum told us we couldn't go and get some more. I wonder where those frogs hopped to. I know they didn't find their way into my bed so maybe they found their way back to the creek.

It was a Sunday afternoon, the day of our Sunday School Anniversary. Our new dresses that Nanna had made were waiting to be worn, but we thought we had time to go down to the creek for more tadpoling. We rushed off without telling Dad or Mum and climbed down the muddy bank, covering ourselves with mud and grass along the way. We were in the middle of catching tadpoles when Dad came and ordered us all back home. We were in trouble and we were running late.

Angrily, with tears in her eyes, mum got us ready and declared that she would not be able to attend the Anniversary as she didn't have time to get ready herself. I was pretty much devastated and we all sat in the car subdued, on our way to church.

We all went and sat on the platform, sqeezing into our places. Obviously, with five children to get there, we couldn't sneak in. I sang the songs but my heart wasn't in it.

The door opened quietly and I saw mum come and find herself a place to sit. I brushed back a few tears of relief and concentrated on enjoying the rest of the anniversary.