BlackEagle Girls
and The Quest To See

Chapter 1 - Confession
Vent your spleen!

The football season ended and The Horse Race That Stops A Nation, The Melbourne Cup, was run and won.

Three weeks later the three Black teens all passed their exams: Louis, Priscilla's older brother, easily moved up to year ten, Priscilla herself managed to attain year nine, struggling through Maths and Science but doing well enough in other subjects and Henry: runt of the litter, qualified lunatic, prankster, general rat-bag and leader of the rabble-rousing pack bolted into year eight along with all his cronies and usual suspects.

Monique Bateleur, (Priscilla's dearest friend), Narenda Upaday and Belinda Moss all moved up and stayed together in their class formats. Even Roseanne Sole, concentrating on studies after her disgrace on the awards night, got a pass that elevated her to the next level.

The day after end of school, Henry got a broken arm and a ruptured spleen.

Priscilla witnessed it happen.

She was in her room upstairs, deeply immersed in Twilight, frantically reading about Edward and Bella and their love for each other and wondering if a vampire's pricking bite might not be so bad if the vampire was Edward, when Henry hailed her.

'Hey Cilla! How am I doing? See me? No dumbo! Out here! Take a look out the window!'

Priscilla, caught unawares and so into the vampire saga, was simply staring at the empty bedroom doorway until prompted by her brother. She turned to look out the window where the great tree dwarfed the house and where Henry, grinning like a pirate flag's skull, was hauling himself aloft as if climbing into the shrouds of some long-ago buccaneer ship.

'You stupid bugger! What are you doing? Stop it! Get down from there! You'll fall and break your silly neck!'

'No I won't Sis. Just decided that it was time to do this. That old tree house up there... see it through the leaves? Sometimes I didn't think it really existed, bit hard to make out, it's so high, but today I can get up there, just want to take a look, must have been some hide-out for guys a long time ago, maybe even spotters for aircraft in the second world war.'

Priscilla's hands were clutching the window sill. 'Don't go up any higher Henry, it's an old tree and the branches might break.'

'Crap! I'm O.K. Cilla, just want to see this old tree-house, always have, since we first came here...' His hands grasped a branch that sheared away and suddenly Henry was looking at a fall through foliage to the distant ground below.

'No!' Priscilla shouted.

'Woowh!' Henry shouted back as he tried to recover, lost balance and plummeted down, smashing through branches that snapped like fire crackers, receiving cuts and abrasions on the descent and finally landing with a bone-jarring thump, lodged against the trunk and a thicker branch, though having lost consciousness he could not know that he had been saved from even greater damage.

'I don't usually do this,' Harry said, as he levitated Henry from his tree crutch, floating him gently back to earth. 'You guys are supposed to get yourselves out of situations.'

'Stop rabbiting on and just bring him down Harry! He looks really hurt,' Priscilla managed, frantically hitting buttons on her mobile phone, getting it wrong and starting again.

'Stuff it!' she exclaimed in exasperation. 'Oh sorry not you Ambo peop... bloody hell! It's a robot on the other end! Yeah yeah! Priscilla Black. 210A Silverglade Road. Camberwell... In Victoria... Australia! Yes! Of course it's an emergency you idiot robot! I want to talk to a real person not answer your stupid ques... Oh thank goodness! Yes, yes, dumb brother, fallen out of a big tree, unconscious and bleeding... No, I'm the only one at home except for Harry... our dog... yes, I'll ring my parents and Gran straight after... no I wont move him... keep his airway clear... I'm checking that right now... he's breathing hard and fast, still out of it... Phone number? Check! How long do y...'

The wail of a siren closing swiftly through the streets alerted Priscilla. 'That quick? Oh, you had a unit nearby? Great! Thank-you. Thanks so much. Gotta go and get them in to him...'

Leaving Harry to watch over Henry, Priscilla raced through the house and hailed the ambulance crew as they pulled into the driveway. 'In here! He's knocked out, bleeding but breathing!'

'We've stabilized your brother and need to get him to hospital pronto!' said the female driver. 'Brett's going to ride in the back with Henry all the way. Will you be alright here on your own?'

'I'm not on my own, I've got Harry our dog.'

'Yes, very faithful, right there by your brother, and gentle, didn't go whacko like some dogs do when their master's are hurt.'

'Harry's a S.N.A.D.'

'Sorry Priscilla, what's that mean?'

New Age Dog, Megan, and thanks again for coming so soon. Take good care of Henry, got to ring Gran, then start calling my parents...'

Henry ended up in hospital undergoing treatment and in plaster for four weeks altogether, which wiped out a large chunk of the school holidays.

Christmas came, the Black family gathered, finally, for three weeks together.

Mathew flew in from Western Australia where he was busy working on a new documentary about early exploration impacts on the Indigenous populations of the times.

Rachael Black (Stage name Rachael Davies.) buzzed in from New Zealand where her play, 'The Ant's Pants,' (On Christmas Recess.) was still pulling audiences after two months.

Henry, as always, made the best of a bad, or indeed any situation; even thoroughly-autographed-plaster and a damaged spleen.

His eventual recovery was celebrated by Granny Black, Molly their Irish cleaner, Rachael, Mathew and Henry's siblings. (Oh and Harry, who scruffled and wrestled the discarded plaster arm-caste with lots of growling and shaking. So much so that all those gathered broke into spontaneous laughter at his antics.)

'Harry's such a ditzy dog,' said Henry. 'He should have been a Dumb Blonde.'

'What? Like an afghan d'you mean?' asked Louis, engaging in a tug-of-war with the little black dog.

'He'd need a sex change as well as colour to be a Dumb-Blonde afghan,' said Priscilla.

'I'm just amazed that you didn't kill yourself if you were up as high as Priscilla said,' Mathew remarked, changing the subject.

'Gee, look who's talking Dad.' Henry answered defensively. 'You ended up on a ledge in Tazzie with a broken leg.'

'Umm,' Mathew twisted his mouth in the same characteristic way as his son. 'All the same, maybe I should get that tree cut down. It's too near...'

'No!' Priscilla and Henry shouted simultaneously. Harry released his grip momentarily and yodelled before biting down again hard on the plaster.

'Like it's not the tree's fault that I fell out of it.' said Henry.

'That's right and it's such a beautiful tree and it gives us shade and it's really no problem and oh please don't cut it down Dad,' Priscilla pleaded. 'Henry promises not to do that ever again don't you Henry?'

'Never?'

'O.K. You can when you're a hundred,' offered Louis, still wrestling with Harry, whose eyes were staring hard into Priscilla's even as he growled and tugged with all his might against Louis.

'Alright, alright.' said Mathew. 'I know it's a noble tree and kind of sets the house off. Tallest tree in the whole street, but if it drops too many leaves into the pool...'

'What pool?' Three voices shouted at once.

'Oh, didn't your Father mention that?' Rachael said, handing glasses of bubbly to Molly and Amelia. 'We are finally to have a swimming pool on 22B. Not quite the old-time tennis-court-set and all that, but probably more suitable for my little flock and their friends.'

'Wow! Serious?' said Henry, waggling his repaired arm.

'Break a leg, and break an arm on it!' Rachael proclaimed, passing a glass to Mathew and lifting her own.

Victorious, Harry belted off toward the hallway dragging the broken, scribbled-over caste along with him and was seriously pursued by Henry.

'That one! He's a roight divil puppy,' said Molly, downing the last of the fizzy wine in two gulps. 'But oi've got to get on now. Mussus Mayberry over in Prahran wants her carpets shampooed and after a tot o' Steam I'm primed ta get on ta ut!'

'I'll see you out,' said Granny Black, bustling down the hall behind the house-cleaner's ample bulk.

'Ah Molly. She's such a dependable soul, pity she doesn't do Zen massage.' said Rachael, topping up her glass. 'Oh well, dearest Matty, I must fly, literally, tomorrow. I will miss you all of course but such is the nature...'

'Of the beast?' suggested Louis, idly thumbing through a theatre programme brought over from New Zealand.

'My darling boy! How very perceptive of you. I'll call as usual when I arrive in the land of the kiwi bird.'

'Ring me in W.A. day after tomorrow,' said Mathew. I'm flying back with Jean-Michael on the night-owl.'

'Oh my poor, dear man, we'll be an ocean away from each other again,' said Rachael. 'How hard is that on both of us? I shall dream on my pillow, in some rough hotel, of you and the children.'

Priscilla felt like putting two fingers down her throat but managed to refrain.

'True my pet... nature... beast... pillows.' offered Mathew, rolling his eyes whilst gently stroking his wife's hand and wondering exactly what Zen massage was.

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