My hands pulse as I sift through my suitcase.
With my thumb and quivering fingers, I gently knead the folded bundles of clothes.
Rejecting the stinging in my eyes, I slam the lid down and wrestle its pregnant belly shut.
The balmy Perth air licks my skin as I step outside. The sky, a deep blue, hangs heavy, starless and sad.
I tug at the handle of my suitcase and the rattle of small black wheels breaks the night sound.
I listen hard to the whistling, clicking and cracking of the cockatoos, to the shushing of the palms and to the whoosh of the highway.
"Not yet, keep yourself together," I mutter to myself.
I collect my feelings and hold them in my fist, ignoring their writhing, raised brows and taut expressions.
I tighten my grip and follow the burnt red concrete path.
My other hand dances between the grooves of the brick wall.
The house teeters and wanes at my hand.
I smile apprehensively at its face, bright with giggles.
Uncurling my fingers, I gingerly stand the suitcase against the boot of the car and look to my family.
A light wind whips Gemma's hair from her face; my eyes follow the strands.
They float into the air like party streamers.
I'm falling in her melancholic eyes.
My arms are flailing above my head, reaching and straggling for a holdfast.
My eyes return her stare with one of lousy consolation.
Can they tell I'm holding myself back?
Hudson is holding his arms uncomfortably, as though they're not his own.
He's gripping his wrist awkwardly and his elbow hangs loose.
His feet are tilted in my direction.
He won't hug me.
Mum leans into my arms. I rub my open hands against the soft fleece of her jersey, dropping my head to the hazy pools of artificial light spilling from the tatty streetlights overhead.
Shadows stretch across the driveway.
Jim, nana's partner, walks over. His sandals tick on the concrete.
Jim carries his commitment to cricket and ice-cream cones in his peachy creased complexion.
His rolling, off-white hair, like depressions in sand, flickers with his stride.
He opens his shovel bill to let out a low hiccupping chuckle at my perplexed expression.
He then throws his head back in organised speech.
He holds his words carefully, letting them ripen in his crown.
I pretend I can't see through his dusky blue windows; watching as his thoughts are decanted, checked for inaccurate grammar, laced with impressive vocabulary and then judiciously released from his command, to hover in the air.
Brooding over my ball of string, his delicacies slide over my sharp toffee shell. "It's really all about . . . ," Jim dictates.
I nod dispassionately.
"You just need to . . . ," he continues.
"Yup, sure, I understand," I reply absently.
The summer holidays have crawled by slowly.
Nevertheless, the end came too quickly.
A glossy white taxi painted in uniform pulls into the driveway.
It sparkles under the street lights.
The sticky noise of the tyre tread announces a heaviness inhabiting my body.
It's eating me, swallowing my defences.
Can I go back to New Zealand?
Can I leave them, again?
My family stand around me, rigid in posture, tight in face.
The goodbyes are hurried. I slip into the heavily perfumed leather nest and dad shuts the car door behind me.
It closes with a satisfying crispness.
Wild in their suppression, my feelings claw at my bolted pout as we reverse on to the road.
The taxi glides along the street.
At a safe distance, I turn back to look through the rear window.
Holding the body of my ball of string, I watch dolefully as it twists undone and the distance between my family and me expands.
My string is drawn along the road, catching pieces of loose gravel, cleaving to their contours, tumbling in their motion. I take a gulp of cheap air freshener and melt into my seat.
Goodbye Australia.
• By Rehanna Callaghan, Year 13, Cromwell College
