Chapter One

  It's only half an hour since someone - Robyn I think - said we should write everything down, and it's only twenty-nine minutes since I got chosen, and for those twenty-nine minutes I've had everyone crowded around me gazing at the blank page and yelling ideas and advice. Rack off guys! I'll never get this done. I haven't got a clue where to start and I can't concentrate with all this noise.

  OK, that's better. I've told them to give me some peace, and Homer backed me up, so at last they've gone and I can think straight.

  I don't know if I'll be able to do this. I might as well say so now. I know why they chose me, because I'm meant to be the best writer, but there's a bit more to it than just being able to write. There's a few little things can get in the way. little things like feelings, emotions.

  Well, we'll come to that latter. Maybe. We'll have to wait and see

  I'm down at the creek now, sitting on a fallen tree. Nice tree. Not an old rotten one that's been eaten by witchetty grubs but a young one with a smooth reddish trunks and the leaves still showing some green. It's hard to tell why if fell - it look so healthy - but maybe it grew too close to the creek. It's good here. This pool only about ten metres by three by it's surprisingly deep - up to your waist in the middle. There's constant little concentric ripples from insects touching it as they skim across the surface. I wonder where they sleep, and when. I wonder if they close their eyes when they sleep. I wonder what their names are. Busy, anonymous, sleepless insects.

  To be honest I'm only writing about the pool to avoid doing what I'm meant to be doing. That's like Chris, finding ways to avoid doing things he doesn't want to do. See: I'm not holding back. I warned them I wouldn't.

  I hope Chris doesn't mind my being chosen to do this instead of him, because he is a really good writer. He did look a bit hurt, a bit jealous even. But he hasn't been in this from the start, so it wouldn't worked.

  Well, I'd better stop biting my tongue and start biting the bullet. There's only one way to do this and that's to tell in order, chronological order. I know writing it down is important to us. That's why we all got so excited when Robyn suggested it. It's terribly, terribly important. Recording what we have done, in words, on paper, it's got to be our way of telling ourselves that we mean something, that we matter. That the things we've done have made a difference. I don't know how big a difference, but a difference. And by God that matter to us. None of us want to end up as a pile of dead white bones, unnoticed, unknown, and worst of all, with no one appreciating the risk we've run.

  That makes me think that I should be writing this like a history book, in very serious language, all formal. But I can't do that. Everyone's got their own way and this is mine. If they don't my way they'll have to find someone else

  OK, BETTER DO IT THEN!!

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