That year, a boys school from the city had decided to experiment and send all their students from year eight to eleven on a six-week life-education project as part of the Cadet program. They were to live by the river from mid-September to the week after the October holidays ended.
We can play skirmish, Fitz said, clutching his gun, his eyes blazing with the possibilities as the convoy of buses drove into town.
As his Cadet troop jogged along the Jellicoe Road, their boots thumping the ground, eliminating anything in their path, Jude Scanlon noticed the damaged poppies. There seemed to be five, bent out of shape, fragments on the bottom of the boot of the kid in front of himdamaged beyond repair. For reasons he couldnt understand a sadness came over him and it was then he saw the girl standing on the other side of the dirt road, her eyes pools of absolute sorrow, her light brown hair glowing in the splinters of sunlight that forced their way through the trees. It was as if he had seen a ghost, some kind of apparition, which haunted him through that night. The next day he found himself returning to the very same spot, after hours, with five seeds in his pocket. Then, on his knees, he planted something for the first time in his life.
They have to go deeper, he heard a voice say. Or else the roots wont take.
There were four of them. Two boys and two girls. He recognised one of the girls from the day before and something inside him stirred. He could tell the speaker was related to her, his hair was the same golden brown, his eyes, though, were full of life. The girl on the other side of the speaker was smiling gently and then there was a boy with a wicked grin and laughing eyes.
Tate, the smiling girl said, extending her hand. And this is Webb and Fitzy and you kind of met Narnie yesterday.
Narnie.
I didntwe didnt mean to
The boy, Webb, shook his head. It always happens.
Maybe you should find another spot to plant your flowers.
There can be no other spot, Webb said quietly.
Jude pulled the rest of the seeds from his pocket and they all took one each then side-by-side on the Jellicoe Road they planted the poppies.
Each day, at the same time, Jude would return and each day they would be there, led by Webb, whose life could not have been more different to his. Where Webbs memories of childhood were idyllic and earthy, Judes reeked of indifference. Webb read fantasy; Jude read realism. Webb believed a tree house was the perfect place for gaining a different perspective on the world; whereas Jude saw it as perfect for surveillance and working out who or what was a threat to them. They argued about sports codes and song lyrics. Jude saw the rain-dirty valley; Webb saw Brigadoon. Yet despite all this, they connected, and the nights they spent in the tree house discussing their brave new worlds and not so brave emotions made everything else in their lives insignificant. Somehow the world of Webb and Fitz and Tate and Narnie became the focus of Judes life.
The next year, as the Cadet buses drove into Jellicoe, Jude was desperate for a sign. A sign that would tell him that things would be the same as the year before. Hed spent most of the year wondering about them. Had they fallen out of love with one another? Did Narnie still have that half-dead look? Had Fitz got himself into trouble? Had they outgrown him?
But there they were, on the steps of the Jellicoe General Store, where the Cadets always stopped to pick up supplies. Waiting. For him.
Who are they? the Cadet sitting next to him asked.
Jude looked at Webbs face, the grin stretching from ear to ear.
Theyre my best friends. Im going to know them until the day I die.
Chapter 3
The territory wars have been part of the Jellicoe Schools life ever since I can remember. I dont know who started them. The Townies say it was the Cadets from the city who have been coming out here for the last twenty or so years. They set up camp right alongside the Jellicoe School for six weeks each September as part of their outdoor education program. We say the Townies started the wars because they think Jellicoe belongs to them, and the Cadets blame us because they say we dont know how to share land. All I know is that they began sixteen years ago because thats what the Little Purple Book says. In it the founders wrote down the rules, the maps, the boundaries.
The wars take place only for the six weeks the Cadets are here and mostly they are more of a nuisance than exciting. It takes us double the time to get to town because the Cadets own most of the easy access trails. Its always around that time that we get pep talks from the teachers and the Principal about getting out there in the fresh air and taking bushwalks. What they dont know is that most of the House leaders confine their younger students indoors in case they trespass onto enemy territory. That is one thing you dont want happening. Because after the Cadets are long gone and the Townies are back in their rabbit holes, the real war begins. The Houses are at one another, particularly if one was responsible for losing us territory. When I ran away with the Cadet three years ago, Raffaela and Ben went looking for me and trespassed onto Townie territory. We lost the Prayer Tree because of it. Raffaela and Ben were completely ostracised and when I returned we didnt talk to each other much. Then we stopped talking altogether. And now here we are leading Houses together and about to fight a war.