All in the Blue Unclouded Weather Read online

  ROBIN KLEIN is an award-winning author of more than seventy books for children and young adults, several of which have been adapted for television, stage and film.

  Robin was born in the small town of Kempsey in New South Wales in 1936, one of nine children. She went to Newcastle Girls’ High, left school at the age of fifteen and had her first story published at sixteen. She worked as a tea lady, a telephonist, a bookshop assistant, a photography teacher, a nurse, a library assistant, a painter, a potter and a copper enameller. She married and had four children.

  Robin’s first book, a verse picture book called The Giraffe in Pepperell Street, was published in 1978, and she became a full-time writer in 1981. In 1982, Thing won the CBCA Junior Fiction Book of the Year, and in 1983 Penny Pollard’s Diary was highly commended in the same award. Robin won her second CBCA award, for Came Back to Show You I Could Fly, in 1990. And All in the Blue Unclouded Weather, the first book in her Melling sisters trilogy, won the New South Wales State Literary Awards Children’s Book of the Year in 1992.

  Robin said of her writing process, ‘I can do up to about fifteen drafts. I start off making a master sheet of everything I want to say and a basic outline of the plot. Then I work straight onto the machine, not worrying particularly about typing mistakes or errors. I just want to get the ideas down before I’ve lost them. And after that, it’s just a process of going through and rewriting.’

  In 1991, Robin won the Dromkeen Medal for services to Australian children’s and young adult literature. Due to illness, she no longer writes.

  AMIE KAUFMAN is the internationally bestselling co-author of the Starbound Trilogy (with Meagan Spooner) and The Illuminae Files (with Jay Kristoff), which have been published in thirty countries. Amie grew up in Australia and Ireland and is now based in Melbourne.

  SELECT TITLES BY ROBIN KLEIN

  The Giraffe in Pepperell Street

  Thing

  Penny Pollard’s Diary

  People Might Hear You

  Hating Alison Ashley

  Halfway Across the Galaxy and Turn Left

  Boss of the Pool

  Don’t Tell Lucy

  Laurie Loved Me Best

  Honoured Guest

  Came Back to Show You I Could Fly

  Dresses of Red and Gold

  Seeing Things

  Turn Right for Zyrgon

  The Sky in Silver Lace

  The Listmaker

  CONTENTS

  INTRODUCTION

  Everyday Moments and Universal Truths by Amie Kaufman

  All in the Blue Unclouded Weather

  Mum’s Girl

  Something to Drop Stitches Over

  A Whole Shilling

  Pay-Back

  The Visitor

  The Best-Looking House in Town

  Miracle

  Tyrant

  Beach Belles

  Lady Muck

  Deck the Hall with Boughs of Holly

  Everyday Moments and Universal Truths by Amie Kaufman

  WHEN I was a kid, my Auntie Jan used to buy me books for Christmas. As soon as she and my uncle arrived for lunch, I’d be eyeballing the presents, sizing up their shapes, silently reassuring myself that my relatives were going to deliver again this year. As soon as decorum (and my mother’s beady eye) allowed, I’d lunge for that book-shaped present with all the undignified enthusiasm of one of the Melling sisters you’ll meet in this wonderful book.

  Over the years my aunt brought me an incredible selection of Australian authors, introducing me to everyone from Melina Marchetta to Gillian Rubinstein to Robin Klein.

  One of the very best was All in the Blue Unclouded Weather. My battered copy has now been on my bookshelf for more than two decades, and when I was offered the opportunity to introduce it, I lunged for it like…well, like my childhood self for those book-shaped Christmas presents.

  How, though, does one introduce a giant of Australian literature like the inimitable Robin Klein? Klein can quite simply write anything, from historical fiction to science fiction, and whatever you want in between. Her Penny Pollard books were my first encounter with mixed-media storytelling, and helped inspire my own Illuminae series. I went on to inhale everything from Hating Alison Ashley to Halfway Across the Galaxy and Turn Left.

  Klein’s writing is smart, daring, endlessly evocative, and seems to tap straight into our inner thoughts. As a younger reader I found my own secret questions and beliefs reflected in her books and, in finding them there, knew I was not alone.

  All in the Blue Unclouded Weather takes us to the country town of Wilgawa, somewhere in rural Australia, some time in the late 1940s. We meet the four Melling sisters, and follow their everyday adventures as they establish their own identities in relation to each other, to their country township, and to themselves. They are wild and vivid, unpredictable and always up for the next adventure.

  One of Klein’s greatest achievements in this book is the way in which she takes ordinary moments—a walk home from school, a trip to the beach, a decision on whom to sit with in the playground—and elevates them to the status of triumphs or disasters, bringing them to life with the sort of vivid detail that transports you straight back to your own playground. As a young reader, I was amazed to discover somebody else agonised about these very decisions. Here is Cathy, who has been turned away at lunchtime by the popular girls whose company she’s been courting:

  She carried her hurt feelings away and mourned under the peppercorn tree. Most of the other 6B girls were playing skippy on the asphalt, using a length of beautiful new rope that belonged to Barbara Sylvester. She could have strolled over there and insinuated herself into the queue, but how awful if someone said, ‘What do you think you’re doing, Cathy Melling? It’s Barb’s rope and she didn’t even ask you to play!’ One shattering rebuff was quite enough, so she stayed under the tree by herself.

  And speaking of those moments of agony, I come to Vivienne. Of all the sisters, I identified most as a young reader with bookish Vivienne, who feels small things so deeply, lives a complex inner life that often questions how things should be done and why, and pays great attention to the nuances and questions of etiquette that her sisters Heather and Cathy often blunder straight past with a shrug and a shout. (Eldest sister Grace is of course too dignified for any of this.) Like Vivienne, I suspect, I was always equal parts delighted and terrified when her irrepressible cousin Isobel showed up, ready with an outrageous new scheme or a dreamy new picture of Clark Gable.

  One of the joys of All in the Blue Unclouded Weather is that there are different experiences waiting for the reader as a child, and again later, as an adult. My eleven-year-old self thought eldest sister Grace Melling was as stuck-up and boring as her younger sisters did, at least most of the time. As an adult, I recognise Grace’s generosity, awkwardness and her attempts to change the path life’s laid out for her.

  With sly little hints, Klein lets us know that nobody in the town of Wilgawa is exactly as they first appear—we meet the boring Nancy Tuckett through Vivienne’s eyes, but then slide across to Nancy’s point of view to catch glimpses of her inner rebellion. We meet the posh bully Marjorie Powell and the terrifying teacher Mr Pratlow, both seeming at first to be toweringly, threateningly one thing—their identity is beyond question. And then with an impish whisper, Klein gently lets her reader know that they are more complex than they might appear. We catch an unexpected glimpse of their private lives—literally, of what takes place in their own backyards—and view them from a new angle. Klein gently dismantles these intimidating characters, prompting the reader to wonder who in their own, real, lives might seem to be equally one-dimensional, but in fact harbour their own complicated backyard of secrets.

  The relationships between the sisters, and the ways in which they negotiate their lives together are so completely authentic that the truth in Klein’s writing rings out independently of the setting—whether her readers grew up in the city or the country, in Australia or far away, she takes them straight to the heart of the universal truths about family that we all recognise. The sisters are untamed creatures, planning and executing revenge as they jostle for position, threatening and terrorising each other, occasionally bailing each other out of trouble, but ultimately loyal to their very core. Every character jumps off the page.

  In many ways, All in the Blue Unclouded Weather is Australia’s own Little Women, but though the Melling sisters have a great deal in common with the March sisters—the trials and tribulations of their everyday lives, of their sometimes wonderful, often maddening siblings, and of their attempts to elevate themselves from poverty—there are points of contrast as well, and many of them make the story uniquely Australian.

  There is enormous power in seeing oneself at the centre of a story. Finding characters of one’s own race, gender, sexuality, ability or nationality confirms the importance of one’s own experience and existence, and this book is a superb example of the power of that kind of reading. Klein makes All in the Blue Unclouded Weather an unapologetically Aussie story, full of slang, local touchstones and experiences, and, as a young reader used to seeing characters pursue their adventures in America, or England, or even a fantasy realm more commonly than my own country, I revelled in the familiarity. In describing my own country and my own experience in something as impressive as a book, Klein confirmed to me that these things were valid, and important.

  Reading about the Melling sisters prompts a nostalgia for many aspects of
the world Klein writes about, but the story is never softened, and never shies away from the realities of country life. Klein perfectly evokes her settings, and the places her characters occupy within them, delivering a masterclass in writing along the way.

  I’m so delighted to see All in the Blue Unclouded Weather back out in the world once more, and I hope a new generation of readers will make the trip to Wilgawa, just as I did. One of my favourite families is waiting for you there.

  All in the Blue Unclouded Weather

  For Elliot Maxwell

  Mum’s Girl

  ‘Look who’s over there gawking at us,’ said Cathy and because she liked audiences, even if it was only that pudding-head Nancy Tuckett in frilly pink gingham, she started to show off upside-down on the turnstile. The letters above the hospital entrance blurred into a long nonsensical banner—Wilgawaandriverdistrict-hospital. You never knew your luck, Cathy thought, spinning. Visiting Hour had just started, so maybe someone important would come strolling in to see a patient in Wilgawaandriverdistricthospital while she was being so athletic. The manager of a circus, for instance, who’d offer her a trapeze job with red spangly tights and a tiara made out of feathers…

  ‘Stop making an exhibition of yourself—everyone can see your pants!’ Heather said and wrenched the turnstile to a standstill. Cathy tumbled off and skinned a knee. She chased Heather angrily across the clover-studded grass and around the kiosk, and a fine way that was for such big girls to behave, the old ladies in cane chairs on the hospital veranda mumbled dis-approvingly to each other.

  Vivienne didn’t want anyone to think she was related to them when they were like that in public. They were older than she was—Heather, for instance, was in Second Year at high school and should be setting her a good example. She strolled towards Nancy Tuckett and sat on the other end of the iron bench. Nancy Tuckett was too shy to say anything, even though they were in the same class at school. Vivienne looked at her enviously. As well as the pink ruffled gingham, Nancy Tuckett wore white ankle-strap shoes. Her plaits were doubled into loops fastened with pink ribbons which had little picot edgings. Vivienne’s envy swelled in her throat as painfully as quinsy.

  New clothes rarely came her way; there were three older sisters in between. Grace and Heather were neat and looked after things, but by the time Cathy had outgrown garments, they were more patches than fabric. Like the awful pinafore skirt she wore now. First it had belonged to Grace, who’d ironed the pleats carefully with a damp cloth after each wear, then it was Heather’s, who had tried to liven it up with multi-coloured zigzag braid. Then it was Cathy’s disastrous turn, and now it had finally come down to Vivienne, but the hem had been raised and lowered so many times it looked like a graph of permanent Plimsoll lines.

  Oh, it was hateful to be poor!

  ‘The hospital garden’s nice, isn’t it?’ she said in a posh, proud voice, to hide her feelings. ‘We’re not visiting anyone inside, we were just passing. Hot, isn’t it? I’ve got a new gingham sun-dress but I never wore it today because I’m saving it for when we go to the beach. I’ve got white ankle-strap shoes, too, just like yours, only I haven’t broken them in yet.’

  Nancy Tuckett reached into her pocket and drew out a beautifully ironed hanky which had a picture of Snow White printed in the centre. She blew her nose. She always had a cold, even in the middle of summer.

  ‘I saw Smitty outside the pub yesterday,’ Vivienne said. ‘I don’t reckon teachers ought to go into pubs, do you?’

  If Nancy Tuckett had an opinion about that, she didn’t offer it. She straightened her brooch. It was shaped like a Swiss mountaineer’s cap with a pair of tiny black climbing boots dangling from it on chains. Vivienne could have killed for a fascinating brooch like that. Her jealousy felt as though she’d opened a train window inside a tunnel and breathed a chestful of thick, cindery engine smoke.

  ‘I found a lizard brooch over by the gate once,’ she boasted. ‘Course I took it straight inside and gave it to one of the nurses, but she said finders keepers, losers weepers. I was going to swap it with Isobel—that’s my cousin—for two shillings, but she said she already pinched…bought one just like it from Woolies. Isobel goes to the Convent. She learns tap-dancing. She can tap-dance up and down staircases.’

  Silence. Even in class Nancy Tuckett hardly ever spoke, and once, Vivienne reflected, she’d even burst into tears when Mr Smith asked her to come out the front and read ‘Bellbirds’ aloud.

  ‘Viv, we’re off home now!’ Heather yelled from the gate. ‘We’re walking round the back way over the aqueduct.’

  ‘That’s my big sister and I’ve got to go,’ said Vivienne. Nancy Tuckett, in spite of all her finery, looked rather lonesome sitting there doing absolutely nothing, so she added graciously, ‘See you at school Monday.’

  To her surprise, when they reached the aqueduct pipes, Cathy whispered, ‘Why’s that silly Nancy Tuckett trailing after us like Brown’s cows? Did you ask her home to play?’

  ‘No, and I didn’t even know she was following us,’ Vivienne said. ‘But she’ll turn around now and go away. She won’t be game enough to cross over the pipes.’

  The pipeline emerged from a high bank on the other side, spanned the swamp underneath and then disappeared again into earth. It was thick and black and was supported every few yards by a concrete pylon. Cathy pranced and capered, stopping in the middle section, the highest from the ground, to stand dangerously on her hands.

  ‘Rotten show-off,’ Heather said crossly. ‘Just wait till she gets to high school next year and she’ll know it!’ She went over, exaggerating the peril by spreading her arms wide as though it were Niagara Falls down there.

  Vivienne followed, because if she didn’t try to keep up with what they could both do, they always ran off and left her. She hated the sick giddiness of crossing the pipes with the swamp underneath. Its surface was covered with reed islands that never stayed in the one place, but shifted mysteriously to other sites from time to time. And things you couldn’t see plopped and jumped and squirted rings of slimy green bubbles…She shuddered and hopped down thankfully on the far side. Nancy Tuckett was gazing after her across the scummy water, and because Nancy looked so lost and gormless she called, ‘There’s some stepping-stones there that little kids and old ladies use. You can get over that way if you want.’

  ‘Vivienne, come on!’ Heather ordered bossily, and Vivienne hurried up the steep hill, past the sinister brick building without windows that everyone at school said was the morgue. Heather claimed scornfully that it was just an electric generator, but Vivienne imagined packaged bodies lying on slabs in total darkness and silence. She fled past, not looking, up to the crest of the hill where the others were stealing flowers from the nurses’ garden. Vivienne stopped to watch, rather hoping they’d get caught. They thought they were so marvellous—Heather with a sleeve full of Guide badges and Cathy able to climb trees higher than anyone else. It would serve them right if the hospital Matron sailed out like a yacht in her big flapping starched veil, but they climbed safely back over the fence, hibiscus flowers tucked behind their ears.

  They went across the road to the river bank where they had a secret place to which Vivienne was forbidden to come. She watched them go, feeling desolate. It wasn’t worth tagging along when she so obviously wasn’t wanted. They’d play mean tricks. Last time they’d shown her a place on the ground beguilingly spread with armfuls of fern and told her that if she stood on it and made a wish, the wish would come true. But the ferns covered a hole which they’d filled with squishy cow manure.

  Soft footsteps padded up behind her, and she twirled around, but it wasn’t Matron or anything nasty that had crept out of the morgue/generator. It was only Nancy Tuckett. Nancy Tuckett glanced nervously at a biscuit-coloured cow grazing behind a rail fence.

  ‘That’s our cow and she wouldn’t hurt a fly. Cathy can even stand on her back,’ Vivienne said. ‘Do you want to come to my place to play?’

  On the whole, it would be prestigious to be able to boast at school on Monday morning that Nancy had come to her house. Although she wasn’t very stimulating company, her father was the bank manager. She had a matching maroon fountain-pen and propelling-pencil set in a little leather case, learned piano, and scarcely ever went to anyone’s house to play.