Cassandra

2 - Betrayal

~ 2 ~

BetrayalThe snake waits under Cassie’s bed. She can feel it tingling through her back, just like when she was under the house. When her mum and dad and Poppy go to sleep, the snake slides through the floor dust to the end of her bed. He lifts his head and tastes the air with his tongue. He curls himself around the bed leg, his strength rippling through his body. He rises up the leg and glides onto the bed base and in between the sheets. Cassie’s toes ache with anticipation, but the snake lingers and slithers, until at last, he tickles the soles of her feet. He turns and travels alongside her calf, her thigh, and onto her hip, across her stomach and her chest, finally resting his head in the snug space between her shoulder and her neck. Cassie dares not breathe in case she scares him. Her body is light—she thinks she might be floating. His breathing is slow. It is forever between each of the snake’s breaths. She breathes with him. His tongue licks her ear. She giggles.

‘You were giggling in your sleep last night.’ Her mother sits on her bed. Her weight pulls the sheet tight across Cassie’s body. Cassie wriggles, trying to get loose. ‘What was so funny in your dreams?’

Cassie’s eyes open. Through the window the sky glimmers a light blue, the colour that makes Cassie wonder what it might be like to fly. ‘It wasn’t a dream, Mummy,’ she says. ‘A snake was licking my ears. It made me giggle.’

Her mother makes her face with the deep lines between her eyes. When she makes this face she sometimes says, ‘You’re making me cross,’ even though the lines don’t make a cross. There seems no reason for her to be angry. Except of course, she doesn’t like snakes—or flies, or bugs, or frogs. Not even ladybirds, which are so pretty and lonely without their children.

‘It was a dream,’ her mother says, going to Cassie’s older clothes drawer. ‘Get up. Aunty Ida will be here soon.’ She hands her a pair of shorts and a t-shirt. ‘And don’t forget shoes and socks.’

Before Cassie dresses she checks under the bed, in her cupboard, behind the door, but her snake is gone.

* * *

Sunshine sprinkles through the lace curtains at the kitchen window. It glitters over the kitchen sink and a little bit on the table too. Poppy has his weather notebook open, making his important observations. One time he let Cassie write in his book. She ran her hand over the bumpy pages. Every line of Poppy’s writing went from edge to edge. Writing is like lines up and down, and tiny circles joined together. She wrote something but she doesn’t know what. She wouldn’t know until they teach her writing at school. Then she can go back and read it.

‘Is it spring yet, Poppy?’ Cassie asks.

‘Well, let’s see. We have had one good rain. The wattle has finished flowering. The grevilleas are out. Have you checked the jasmine lately?’

‘Yes, it’s covered in flowers. Can’t you smell it?’ Cassie giggles and points to the trailing pink and white flowers in the middle of the table.

‘Well, I think that means spring is in the air.’

‘Spring starts on the first of September,’ her mother says, pouring a tea for Poppy. The teapot wears a tea cosy with an orange pompom on it. Aunty Ida made it. Great Aunty Ida. Not because she is wonderful, even though she is, but because she is Poppy’s sister and her dad’s aunty too.

‘Spring starts when it’s spring.’

Poppy knows more about flowers and seasons than her mum. She always plants her tomatoes too early. They get frosted every time.

‘Well, so long as we get some rain,’ her mother says.

Her mum gives her two pieces of toast with the Vegemite too thick. She skims it off with her finger and scrapes it onto the side of the plate. ‘Does spring mean the snakes wake up?’

‘No more about snakes.’ Mum clouds the kitchen with fly spray stink. Not good, because Aunty Ida arrives then.

‘Put that fly spray down, will you? You can’t be having breakfast with that stink all over the place,’ Ida says and kisses Cassie on her head.

Mum bangs the fly spray on the sink, but no one looks at her.

‘Will fly spray kill snakes too?’ Cassie asks.

‘What’s this about snakes?’ Poppy puts down his pen and slurps on his tea.

‘Cassie had a nightmare about a snake,’ her mother says, leaning back on the kitchen bench with her arms folded.

‘It wasn’t a nightmare,’ Cassie says.

‘A dream then,’ her mother says.

‘No, it was real.’ Cassie flattens the Vegemite on the side of her plate with her finger and licks it clean.

‘Stop making a mess and eat your toast.’ Her mother flicks a tea towel off the bench and turns to the sink.

‘Let the girl have her dreams.’ Poppy ruffles her hair and walks away with his tea. He sits in his chair on the back veranda and watches for the clouds that might come.

Aunty Ida pours herself some tea; the pompom flops on its side. ‘When I was little, I had a dream it was raining lollies. I wanted to go out and pick them up, but I wasn’t allowed. I was sure it was real. It is hard to tell dreams from what’s real when you are small. I can’t eat lollies now. My teeth just aren’t up to it.’

‘The snake was real. It was the same one I saw under the house.’ Cassie’s hands fling to her mouth, and she wishes she could take the words back.

Her mother’s voice rises high like a magpie. ‘There’s a snake under the house?’

Cassie takes her hands from her mouth and sits on them. ‘No. It was a dream.’

‘You tell me now, Cassie Shultz, was there a snake under the house?’

‘No.’

‘Oh god, Ida. I can’t go out in the garden today, not till Peter’s been and looked under the house.’

‘Nonsense, it’ll keep out of our way. Besides it’s probably long gone by now,’ Ida says, stirring sugar through her tea.

‘Can I go sit with Poppy?’ Cassie asks.

‘Take your toast.’ Her mother doesn’t look at her as she answers.

Cassie leaves the table, her tummy tight, like a full balloon is about to burst in there. If her mother makes Dad find her snake he will hit it with a shovel. Bang its head in! Chop it off!

Poppy sits in his cane chair where he’ll stay until lunch time and then he will change to the front veranda, then at evening time he’ll come inside to watch the news and talk back to the weather report. He fiddles with his portable radio, trying to fix the signal better. The voices on his radio always have a bit of a crackle.

‘Ah, come to have breakfast with your old Pop, have you?’

Cassie climbs in the other cane chair and puts her toast on the table between them.

‘Looks like you had too much Vegemite on your toast.’

‘Mum always does that. I tell her all the time but I think she has cabbages growing in her ears. She never hears.’

Poppy laughs.

‘Snakes are good at hiding, aren’t they, Poppy?’

‘Snakes are the best at hiding,’ Poppy says.

‘Would a snake want to hide in a house or in a garden?’

‘Well,’ Poppy scratches his chin, serious, ‘what sort of snake are we talking about?’

Cassie thinks for a while, swinging her legs back and forth under the chair. ‘A soft snake,’ she says.

‘I don’t know too much about those soft snakes.’ Poppy pulls tufts of tobacco from his tobacco tin.

‘Will it rain soon?’ Cassie bites into her toast, crumbs sprinkling on her lap.

‘Well, I agree with the weather man on the radio, fine and sunny.’

‘No rain then?’

‘No rain.’ He nods as he spreads tobacco along the Tally-Ho paper.

‘Can I roll it?’ She talks with her mouth full, but Poppy never complains when she does this. Not like her mum.

Poppy glances towards the kitchen. ‘Your mother’ll have my hide. Maybe next time.’

‘Sunny weather?’ Cassie watches his fingers like fat sausages curl the paper around the tobacco.

‘Sunny spring weather,’ he says.

‘Sunny spring is time for snakes to wake up, isn’t it?’

‘Yes my girl.’ He reaches into his pocket for a box of matches. He strikes the match and holds it to his smoke. He shakes the flame away. The smoke streams from his mouth as he picks stray tobacco off his lip.

They both look out over the paint-chipped veranda rail. A blanket of silver dew glistens across the back yard. A breeze tickles Cassie’s feet. She has to find the snake before her dad does. Like a game of hide and seek.