Chapter 22: Gareth Chancelor, Saturday afternoon (continued)

The pool party was in full swing. The food was ready and piled up on the table. We had a ridiculous amount of food. I thought maybe we should’ve invited the whole school to help eat it instead of the girls from just one class.

I checked with Estelle that everything was ready, and she gave me a thumbs up. Then I waved at Jen beside the pool. She blew her whistle and started getting the girls out of the pool. As soon as the girls realised food was ready, nobody dawdled. We got all the girls sitting on the ground in front of the table. The only exceptions were Charlee and Sally who were still perched on the hips of Benito and myself respectively. Neither of them showed any inclination to get down and join the other girls sitting on the ground. My arm was getting tired so I got Sally to wrap her legs around my waist and grip with her legs as well as her arms. That made things easier. Benito saw what I did and did the same with Charlee.

Jen blew a little toot on the whistle for them to be quiet which worked surprisingly quickly. That school certainly has the girls well trained.

I nodded to Bonnie and she stood up. “Thanks everyone for coming to our party,” she said. They all cheered.

Bonnie waited until they were quiet again and then she said, “I want to acknowledge the Kamilaroi people who are the traditional owners of this land. I want to pay my respects to their elders past and present.”

All the girls clapped. They were used to this traditional opening to speeches from school.

“I want to thank my parents for allowing us to have this party. I want to thank Jen and Hannah and Annie for volunteering to be lifeguards. I have these for Jen and Hannah and Annie.”

Estelle handed her three boxes of chocolates which she handed to the three seniors and gave them a hug each.

While Bonnie was talking, I noticed she was one of four girls wearing one-piece swimmers. The rest of the girls were in two-piece swimmers of various shapes and sizes, but they were all what I would describe as appropriately modest for that age. I knew that Bonnie owned two-piece swimmers and I wondered if her body shyness was stopping her from wearing them in front of her friends.

In the meantime, Bonnie finished her little speech. “I want to thank the other parents who are here helping. And I also want to make a special welcome to Yani and Josie who aren’t in our class, but we invited them anyway.”

The girls all clapped and cheered, and Bonnie sat down again. I waited until it was mostly quiet again and I nodded to Davina.

Davina stood up and she said, “I’m supposed to say Grace.”

All the girls bowed their heads and sat still and silent. “For what we’re about to receive may the Lord make us truly thankful, Amen.”

All the girls chorused, “Amen.”

Davina sat down. I looked around for Britney. I couldn’t spot her at first but then I saw her at the back of the group. I gave her a thumbs up signal.

Britney stood up and she said, “None of the food today has nuts, so if you’re allergic like me then it’s safe to eat anything. And there’s vegetarian food as well if you want it. The plates that are vegetarian are labelled.”

Britney sat down and Jen stepped forward. “The only rule is that you need to stay away from the pool while you’re eating. We don’t want food anywhere near the pool and we definitely don’t want food in the pool. Nobody is allowed back into the pool until we’re ready to go back on guard duty.”

I stepped forward with Sally still firmly attached to my chest. “Okay girls, who’s hungry?”

They all screamed at me. I think they were screaming “me” but mostly all I heard was screaming. I held up my spare hand and they quietened down.

“Okay then, we’ll get you to line up here and wait your turn. We have ridiculous amounts of food so there’s plenty for everyone. Don’t try and take everything at once, take one or two things and go away and eat them. Then come back and get something else. Is that okay?”

The girls all nodded and chorused, “Yes Mr Chancelor.”

The chorused response threw me for a second. It was such a school-like thing for them to do.

“I’ve just thought of another rule,” I said. “We have so much food, nobody’s allowed to stop eating until it’s all gone. I don’t care if your tummies end up out here...” I held my hand out a foot beyond where Sally hung, “ ... and we have to roll you all home like barrels.”

I held my breath and blew my cheeks out and rocked around with my hand out wide to indicate the size of my stomach. They all laughed. Even Sally laughed softly into my ear.

I wanted to clap like a school teacher, but I couldn’t clap with only one hand, so I slapped my thigh. “Let’s eat.”

The girls yelled and started lining up, giggling and chatting.

“Do you want to get in line, sunshine?” I asked my encumbrance.

“I’ll wait,” she said softly.

I noticed Charlee sliding down off Benito and joining the queue. Estelle and the other mothers were behind the table waving away the flies and helping if they were needed but the queue seemed to move smoothly. I jumped onto the back of the queue so that my passenger could get something – not to mention me. I was hungry after all that heavy-duty watching I’d been doing. Not to mention the simultaneous cooking and cuddling – that sure helps build up an appetite. Jen and her friends joined the line behind me.

When I got to the front, Carol was dolling out the sausages with a pair of tongs. I grabbed a piece of bread one handed and held it out for Carol to add a sausage. I passed that sausage sandwich to my passenger. Then I made another for myself. Jedda had taken control of the bottle of tomato sauce so we held out our sandwiches while she squeezed sauce onto them. We both said thank you to Carol and Jedda, then I backed out of the way and found a corner where we could eat our sangas without being trampled by hungry ten-year-olds.

Okay, they didn’t eat everything, but I was astonished at how much food did get eaten. A plague of locusts wouldn’t have done so well. And nobody ended up having to be rolled home like a barrel. Despite that, the girls were delightful with their manners. I heard an almost continuous string of pleases and thankyous as the girls went up to the table to get food and then went back to sit down and eat it. We had asked for any food that was brought to be finger food as we didn’t want to muck around with plates and utensils and so forth, so that made things easier. Once the initial surge had died down, Jen and her friends took the plates of sliced fruit and plates of other mixed finger-food and scattered them around the place on the ground. Little groups of seated girls formed around each set of plates as they nibbled and chattered.

Apparently I was able to feed Sally enough because she was happy to stay where she was. In fact, she stopped eating and relaxed so much that I suspected she was having a little nap on my shoulder. I claimed another sausage sandwich for myself, then I went back to the beach chairs and sat myself down. I arranged Sally in my lap where I could cuddle her against my chest. That’s when I discovered that she was awake, but she seemed to be almost zoned out. I nibbled on my sanga, taking care not to drip sauce onto my passenger.

I saw Benito back on a deck chair with a plate of sliced fruit on his lap and a little girl tucked in on each side of him. One was Mona and the other was a little Chinese girl called Jade. Davina was sitting on his legs so she could reach the plate and join in whatever conversation they were having.

I don’t know how he does it. Benito must give off some vibe that tells girls it’s okay to cuddle with him. He isn’t the slightest bit creepy about it. After watching him today, I wouldn’t have a moment’s doubt if Bonnie wanted to cuddle with him or whatever. I guess he’s just naturally good with children. Given his job, that’s probably a good thing.

Jen had put the rec-room TV on a trolley and wheeled it outside. Now she started playing video clips of music bands that the younger girls liked. She kept the volume down to a tolerable level, which I was grateful for, but it added to the general atmosphere.

My little companion stirred and looked up at me. “May I please look at your watch?” she said in a soft voice. I held my watch up where she could see it and she timed her pulse.

“Five beats slower than with Mr Puretti,” she said. “But I stayed with you longer so that might explain it. This was really lovely. It made me feel very special. Thank you so much Mr Chancelor.”

“Do you want to write your times down?” I asked.

“I’ll remember them. I’ll write them in my experiment book when I get home.”

“Okay then Sally,” I said. “It’s been a pleasure.”

She stood up and wandered off to find the bathroom. A couple of minutes later Britney wandered up to me and said, “Hi Mr Chancelor.”

“Hello Britney,” I said. “Are you having fun?”

“Heaps,” she said. She slid onto the chair next to me and leaned into my side. “This party’s been fantastic.”

I rested my arm across her shoulders so she could squeeze into my side more comfortably.

“I missed seeing you at gymnastics last weekend,” I said. “I heard you went up to Queensland to visit your dad.”

“That’s right. I wanted to do the Daddy Challenge, so I called him and made a special trip up on the bus. Normally I only see him during school holidays.”

“How’d that go last weekend?”

“It was awesome. We cuddled on and off for nearly the entire time I was there. And we talked and talked – way more than we normally would.”

“You must miss your dad,” I said.

“Yeah, I do. We try to skype a couple of times a week but it’s not the same. I just wish he and Mum would get along better but they really don’t like each other. And I wish he didn’t have to stay up in Queensland for work, but he’s nicer now that he’s working in a better job so I s’pose that’s better.”

She sat and cuddled against my side for a couple of minutes, then she said, “Thanks again for the party Mr Chancelor.” She got up and skipped off to join a group of girls sitting under the big tree against our back fence.

Once the girls had finished eating and had a chance to sit quietly for a while, Jen ran a couple of quiz games that soon ratcheted up the excitement levels. Then she put on a dance video with easy to follow moves and soon had all the girls up and dancing as they copied what they were seeing on the screen. They did a couple of songs like that, then Jen and Hannah and Annie got up and demonstrated the Macarena and soon they had all the girls doing that in unison while the video played. Benito and I and the three mums all joined in on that one. We enjoyed that as much as the girls did.

Jedda sidled up to me and asked if I wanted her to teach the girls a tribal dance. I said I’d be delighted and signalled for Jen. We had a quick discussion and Jedda trotted out to her car to fetch her set of clap sticks.

When the Macarena finished, Jen handed over to Jedda who told the girls she was going to teach them a tribal dance. The girls clapped excitedly.

Jedda got Bindi and Yani and Patsy out the front so they could help demonstrate. Jedda said this would be a local dance about a day at the place which we call Emmerton Lake but which in Kamilaroi is called Burrulgaawul. She divided the girls up into small groups and gave each group one of the several different birds or lizards or snakes that live around the edge of the lake. Then she and the three aboriginal girls demonstrated to each group how to dance their creature. Each bird and animal had specific movements.

Then she got all the girls to crouch down in little balls like sleeping animals. She started singing in Kamilaroi and beating her sticks in a simple rhythm. Then she said “Now the sun, he wake up and all animals wake up. You girls show how your animal wake up then you dance as it look around for food.”

She went back to singing and changed the rhythm of her sticks, and the girls, taking their lead from Bindi, Yani and Patsy, unfurled from their little balls and started dancing the different animals moving around and occasionally pecking food from the ground. I was impressed at how quickly the girls picked up the general idea of the movement though I could see that Bindi, Yani and Patsy were much more experienced.

Then Jedda stopped singing and said, “Now the sun, he is high and the birds fly around, and the lizards and the snakes sleep on the warm rocks.” She went back to singing with a new rhythm and the girls who were birds started flying around the area or if they were snakes or lizards, they lay down and stretched out in the sun.

Then Jeda stopped singing and said, “Now the sun, he go low, and the birds land and they hungry from flying, so they walk around and look for food, and the lizards and the snakes, they hungry so they move around and look for food.” She started singing again and repeated the earlier rhythm while the girls acted out the birds walking around and pecking food off the ground or lizards and snakes squiggling around looking for food.

Jedda stopped singing and said, “Now the sun, he go to sleep and all the animals go to sleep.” She reverted to the original rhythm and sang while all the girls slowly stopped moving and curled up in little balls.

Jedda slowed the rhythm down until it stopped altogether, and the song cut off.

Everyone clapped and the girls jumped around in excitement, talking about the dance they’d just performed.

I thanked Jedda and she said she was happy to do it. I asked if it mattered if the girls didn’t quite get the movements right and she said, “No matter. Kids learn by dance. Next time they dance better. Now they know Burrulgaawul more. Next time they dance more story. Then they know more Burrulgaawul.”

Jen got the girls sitting down around the edge of the pool with their legs dangling in the water and ran a couple of games which involved the pool in some way. Both games seemed to go well and involved a lot of splashing and squealing. We older folk took the opportunity to graze on some of the uneaten sliced fruit. Finally Jen called free time and let the girls all do what they wanted to do, most ended up in the pool again but a few were content to laze around on the grass and a handful went back to the TV and put on another dance video and started dancing. More food got eaten. It was all suitably chaotic.

Eventually the time came around to finish the party. Jen told the girls they should have a quick rinse under the outdoor shower before they put their street clothes back on, so the girls started doing that.

A few seconds later, I heard Bonnie say, “Sally, what are you doing?”

I turned around and saw Sally standing under the shower stark naked.

“You took your swimmers off!” said Bonnie.

Sally looked at her with a confused expression on her face. “I’m having a shower. I always take my clothes off when I have a shower.”

I was about to rush up and get Sally to put something back on when Benito stopped me. “Sally respects you,” he said. “If you reprimand her for this she’ll be shattered. Let the girls handle this.”

In the meantime, Mona had stepped up and said, “It’s okay Bonnie. It’s only skin.” Then she turned to the other girls. “Sally’s right, it’s a shower just like the showers at school. You can choose to leave your suit on like Bonnie will or take it off like Sally and me.”

Then Mona stripped her own swimmers off and stepped under the water next to Sally.

“Oh,” said Benito in my ear. “I wasn’t expecting that. Sorry.”

I looked at Benito. “I think I’m going to turn my back and walk away. They might be used to each other being naked in the shower, but I feel wrong being here while other people’s kids are naked.”

I matched my actions to my words and walked away. Benito walked with me. Behind me I heard squeals and giggles as 21 little girls discovered they didn’t all fit under the single shower at once.

“Am I going to get into trouble from the other parents for letting this happen at my party?” I asked Benito.

“I doubt it,” he said. “They decided to do it themselves. I’m actually proud of Mona. She made it really clear they had a choice. We did the right thing by walking away, though.”

By that time, we’d joined the mothers who stood in a group near the door to the rec room.