The Slightly True Story of Cedar B. Hartley, Who Planned to Live an Unusual Life

228 Pages·2002·1.99 MB·English

by  Martine Murray

Cedar B-text pp 26/2/02 5:57 PM Page 1
Martine Murray was born in Melbourne and still
lives there. She started writing because she thought it
would be a good idea to learn a practical skill like typing.
Apart from discovering a lot about waitressing, cooking
rice and yoga, she has spent most of her time studying
impractical things (like art, acrobatics and dance). She
doubts she’ll study anything else, since she’d like to find a
normal job one day, so she can buy a car with air-
conditioning. Martine still spends time walking with dogs,
hanging upside down in the park and making things up.
She has written two picture books, A Dog called Bear and
A Moose called Mouse, which she illustrated.
Cedar B-text pp 26/2/02 5:57 PM Page 2
Also by Martine Murray
A Moose called Mouse
A Dog called Bear
Cedar B-text pp 26/2/02 5:57 PM Page 3
Cedar B-text pp 26/2/02 5:57 PM Page 4
Copyright © Text and illustrations Martine Murray, 2002
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 prior
permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act)
allows a maximum of one chapter or 10% of this book, whichever is the greater,
to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes
provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given
a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.
Allen & Unwin
83 Alexander Street
Crows Nest NSW 2065
Australia
Phone: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
Email:
Cedar B-text pp 26/2/02 5:57 PM Page 5
For my brother Cam
who is wayward and lovely,
for my friend Nicole who is amazing,
and for Nige who taught me
to walk on my hands
Cedar B-text pp 26/2/02 5:57 PM Page 6
Warning
Cedar B. Hartley would like to advise all readers
against trying out the balance positions in this
book, unless you have someone experienced to help.
Otherwise you may bump your head
or get a very sore bottom.
Chapter 1
There are only two places to muck around, where I live—in
the street or down by Merri Creek. If you had a horse there
would be absolutely nowhere to put it because, apart from
the footy oval, which is shorn like a carpet, all the ground is
taken up by streets with rows of houses on each side. Each
house has a garden which it wears like its own particular
hairstyle. The Bartons’ is very magnificent and correct, with
box hedges, a shaved rectangle of lawn and a cement drive-
way full of clean cars. Ours is wild, yellowed and weedy, with
NO JUNK MAIL written in black texta on the mailbox. Next
door, Mrs Trinka’s is flouncy, with ornamentals and puffs of
blue hydrangea. At the Motts’ house there’s a slope of grass
that you can roll down, but it makes you itchy after a while.
There are trees, of course, mainly paperbarks and plane trees,
and two hedges, but nowhere to swim—not unless you make
friends with Harold Barton who has a swimming pool out
the back. But I wouldn’t want to do that. Harold has dirty
magazines under his bed, and he sneers.
8 The slightly true story of Cedar B. Hartley
Doesn’t matter, there’s still a lot you can do in our street.
Everything happens after school and before dinner. That’s
when you go out with your dog or your skateboard or your
secret plan. There’s a spilling—kids come tumbling out of
doors and fences, with blobs of jam on their chins and
jumbled-up notions in their minds and a loosed-up flop in
their strut.We pile onto the street and shoot out a riot of
looks and hunches, we sniff about, hook up our notions, pace
our minds up and down the street and wait for something to
happen, because something always will. It’s like a chemical
rule—mix up kids on a long slope of bitumen with bikes
and boards and dogs and a lazy lurking need to mess with
the lattice of rules that looms over you at school, and before
long something happens.
To be honest, Harold Barton wouldn’t make friends with
me, anyway, because I’m not pretty enough. He only talks to
the pretty girls. Sixteen-year-olds with shapes sticking out.
Girls like Marnie Aitkin who wears hipsters and says, ‘Oh
really?’ to absolutely anything you might say.
‘Hey Marnie, they say tonight the stars will fall out of the
sky, and if you stick out your tongue one might land on it,
and if you swallow it then you become a star yourself.’
‘Oh sure,’ she says, ‘very funny.’ That’s the other thing she
says. ‘Oh sure’.
It doesn’t always happen with a bang in our street. Some-
times things sizzle into action. Sometimes you just stumble
onto a game, and if a game’s got legs you can play it again
Chapter 1 9
the next day and the next. Like the game we play in the
carpark spaces at the train station; that’s a game where still,
even now, someone will say, ‘Wanna go down the carpark on
the bikes?’ And we might go.
But in the end it all depends on who’s out there and how
the mix is made. Since the older ones (like Hoody Mott
who can play French horn, and Roland Glumac, and Sarah
with the legwarmers) go lurk in bedrooms and do
homework, or smoke or talk on the telephone, you hardly
see them much, and that leaves Harold Barton to decide
who’s in and who’s not. That’s because he has the swimming
pool and the biggest house. So he acts like he knows
everything, and kids believe him because kids like
swimming.What’s more, his parents let him do whatever he
wants, so you can eat waffles and chocolate at his house, or
watch R-rated television, or play Powderfinger as loud as
hell on the stereo. The main attraction at Harold’s is the back
bungalow, because it’s a permanent parent-free zone. The
Year Twelve girls, like Marnie Aitkin and Aileen Shelby, go
there. Barnaby says they play Strip Jack Naked. Barnaby’s my
older brother. Everyone liked him the most, but now he’s
gone. He got sent away. That leaves Harold.
Kids all have their own ways of grouping around and
ganging-up and jiggling and tweaking and overhauling the
ordinary state of things. Sometimes action surges down to
the creek or trickles out across Westgarth Street or Hutton
Street. Sometimes it scoops you up like an avalanche would