Whole Wild World Read Online Free Page B

was decided corrective measures were needed; an operation would be a last resort.
    For a time I wore a pinkish, skin-coloured eye patch over my left eye. Pirates were not generally idolised then. The patch was green-black on the inside, but if you looked closely it had a pattern of tiny perforations that could let in the teeniest bit of light. I’d get eye drops put in and when I saw myself in photos or in the mirror, my eyes looked like I’d been crying. I’d bump into furniture and knock over items I was trying to reach, and get into trouble for breaking things I didn’t mean to, which made my dad cranky.
    It felt like Tata got angry a lot, even more than Rudy, and I was often relieved when he went to work after lunch at the cornflakes factory as it meant I could be alone with Mama. A little later, Teta would be home, usually in a bad mood. Danica means ‘morning star’, not that I knew it then, but for me she was a little black-mood cloud of castigation and threat. Teta was almost ten years older than Mama and was bossy with her as well. She was short, unlike anyone else in our family. Before I started school I was up to her bosom.
    The best time of day was when we went to pick up Å ime and Mary from school. Ineska and I would hold hands. We’d see other preschool kids while we waited for the bell to ring. On the walk home we’d often stop for cakes. I’d always choosea meringue, coloured white, blue, pink or yellow. Although I’d heard the baker say to another customer they all tasted the same, I was convinced pink was best. Meringues defied nature, yet their colour, texture and lightness formed an alluring harmony. Biting into one was like crunching compacted air.
    I pestered Å ime about what was happening at school, looked at his books and learnt new words. He’d patiently listen as I went through the TV shows I’d watched that morning and what I’d learned, especially on Owly’s School , hosted by a puppet that seemed pretty real to me.
    Romper Room was my favourite show, overseen by Miss Patricia, firm but fun, who I was hoping would be my teacher when I started school. I tried to get Mama to join in the games but she was usually busy with housework. My mum was fantastic with the ‘posture baskets’, the segment when you had to balance a basket – a tin or plastic bowl at our place – on your head and walk around; she could do the housework and not drop the basket.
    In the parlance of the show, Ineska and I were good ‘Do-Bees’, marching around the lounge-room, doing dress-ups, having milk and a snack at the same time as the six or seven kids who were on the show that day.
    â€˜Oh, come with us and gallop, and gallop, and gallop,’ Miss Patricia would sing as we circled the lounge-room riding a broom or mop.
    There was the ‘Bend and Stretch’ song to get you loose all over. ‘Bend and stretch, reach for the stars, there goes Jupiter, here comes Mars.’
    There was time to rest your head and listen to a story. This was how we learned English, by hearing it said. But my first thoughts were still in Croatian. ‘ ZaÅ¡to ’ came more naturally than ‘why’.
    At the end of the program, Miss Patricia looked into a Magic Mirror: ‘Magic Mirror, tell me today, have all my friends had fun at play?’
    Yes, yes, we’d reply.
    Then the picture changed in a trippy sequence and she’d be looking straight at us.
    â€˜I can see Jason and Kylie, Sharon and Kevin. Jane, Sally, Jennifer and Peter, too. I can see all my friends …’
    Much as I craved it, Tomislav was never going to be called, but even Tommy and Thomas were rare. Ineska was like me, an outsider floating out there in space with Jupiter and Mars. We were made for each other. Pre-literate, a heart settled, my mind turned over a new phrase I’d picked up: Ineska was my best friend in the whole wild world.

    My father and I