“I think I want to be a teacher of some kind,” Laura said slowly. “Perhaps not a normal school teaching job, but one where I can help people open their minds and learn new things.”
He nodded. “That way you could be any of the things you have considered. First learn the trade yourself, then teach it to other people.”
“Why of course!” she exclaimed. “I never thought of it like that. You really are clever.” A few quiet minutes passed as they watched the weekend traffic. “What do you want to do, Bren’?” she asked at last. “You are so smart, you could be anything you want.”
He didn’t deny it. After giving it some thought, he rolled on to his elbow and stared up at her. “I don’t know, exactly,” he said earnestly, “but whatever it is, I know I will be helping people. Ede has told me that I am to have some special gifts that will come to me in time. I won’t even have to go to the university to learn them, she says they are inside me, a gift from my parents; but I won’t get them until I am older. She says that then she will tell me all about my parents and where I came from, but she can’t tell me when that will be. In the meantime, I just have to wait.” He scrambled up into a sitting position, drawing close to her on the rocking chair. “But I do know that I am going to travel,” he added. “All over this land – but just Australia, I don’t want to go anywhere else. I am going to see all of the places that are in the books, and more. However, if I am going to be doing something to help people, then I will need to be on the move so I can meet them.”
“That sounds so wonderful,” Laura said, her eyes taking on a faraway look as she began to rock gently in the old chair. “I would love to do that. To wake up in a different place every morning, meeting and helping new people everyday.”
A thought struck him. Taking her hand and staring up into her eyes, he said eagerly, “You could come with me. We could travel around together; you said you want to help people as I do. We could be a team.”
Closing her eyes as she tried to imagine what it would be like to travel the countryside with him, Laura absently ran the fingers of her free hand through his untidy hair. “I think that would be wonderful,” she said softly. “Thank you, Bren’. But we must finish school first, before we decide what it is we are going to be that will allow us to travel about and help people.”
He stood up and stretched. “It will come to us when the time is right,” he said simply, matter-of-factly. “What say, in the meantime, we go down to the waterfront and look at the ships? While we’re there, we can get a beef pie and some sarsaparilla from the wagon café on the pier. I’ll leave a note for Ede so she knows not to make supper and won’t worry.”
“Let’s do that!” Laura said. “We can stop at my house on the way and tell Mummy where we are going.” With a smile she added, “Thank you for offering to take me along on your travels, Bren’.”
He smiled in turn, squeezing her hand. “But I would not be taking you,” he said. “We will be going together.”
After he quickly left a short note on the table, they strolled hand in hand down the street towards Laura’s house, where they informed her mother of their plans. Then they stole a ride on a passing dray that took them down the rise to the waterfront, slipping off again when it turned away from the road that led down to the docks. The streets were quiet as they began to walk toward the pier along the dusty lane that snaked its way down the hill towards the water; it was Saturday and most people were resting. Rows of terrace houses stood like sentinels on one side of the lane, and small, pretty cottages adorned the other. People sitting on their verandahs smiled in a friendly way as the two of them passed. At one point a group of drunken sailors staggered by, talking and swearing and completely oblivious to the two children.
“Let’s go down this way,” Laura said suddenly, grabbing Brennan’s hand as she pointed to a narrow path that passed between two cottages. “It looks like it could be a shortcut; I can see the pier down at the end of it.”
They were most of the way down the lane when they heard a loud snarl, and then a huge brown dog suddenly hurled itself to the limits of the steel chain holding it, just short of the low garden fence. A woman screamed and hurried down the steps of her cottage. “Get away from here, quickly,” she shouted to the children as she tried unsuccessfully to subdue the dog. “This is my husband’s hunting dog. It is a trained killer; run quickly before it breaks the chain.”
Laura froze. Brennan pulled at her, trying to draw her away from the danger as the dog became more and more enraged. All at once it broke free and cleared the fence in a single bound, the remains of its chain trailing from its collar. The woman screamed with a new energy, calling frantically for her husband. Laura remained locked to the earth, her eyes wide with terror.
With no other choice, Brennan turned to face the attack. Staring at the charging dog, his mind suddenly focused on what he had to do; and his mental and emotional energy reached out to make contact with the enraged beast. In a cloud of dust the animal’s charge came to an abrupt, slithering halt, only a few yards from Brennan’s feet. There it crouched, growling deep in its throat as Brennan continued to watch it without speaking. Then, slowly, the growls subsided, until finally it was silent. Only now did he speak gently to the animal, soothing the massive creature with his words; while the dog began to whimper softly, edging forward toward Brennan’s feet with its shaggy belly dragging along the dusty path. When it finally reached him, he gently stroked the great, battle-scarred head. “Good boy. There was no need to be so upset, was there? You go on back to your master now; I see he is waiting for you.” And Brennan smiled at the big, rough-looking man staring at him from the garden gate; while the trained killer dog padded back to the man like a timid poodle.
The boy turned back to Laura, taking her hand and leading her down the path to the pier. “You are a strange one, aren’t you?” she whispered at last, and his smile grew even wider.
* * *
Brennan began to wag school soon after that, preferring to wander about the city. On these occasions he would usually visit the library, where he soon discovered that it took him very little time to read a book or manual and internalise its contents completely. Building on his growing knowledge, he began to question everyone and everything around him, often making him an embarrassment and even a threat to Ede’s brother-in-law Arthur, his wife, and the few friends they would sometimes bring along when visiting Ede. To Brennan it sometimes felt as if they thought they could not rely on Ede for stimulating conversation; so they brought their own.
Arthur had become a pompous sort of fellow who spoke often about his money, and the large property on the outskirts of the city that he owned, and his other many business interests. Brennan, however, knew that it was his Uncle John who had originally built up the money and the businesses before he died, and he wondered why Arthur should be so smug about something he had clearly only inherited. He also felt sorry for Ede, who had been given a bad deal because for some reason, her husband’s will had favoured his brother; but who had never shown any ill will against Arthur because of it.
One day, while Ede fussed about making tea and Arthur and some of his friends were sitting around the small table in the kitchen after dinner, sipping port and smoking smelly pipes or cigars, Arthur announced passionately that what the country needed was a new form of democracy. His wife, a thin sour-looking woman, and the assembled friends all nodded knowingly. “But we need to restrict the vote only to those people who have demonstrated an ability to be contributing members of society,” he continued smugly. “Allowing the riffraff and layabouts to vote is the reason we have so many scoundrels in government nowadays.”
Brennan finished his glass of buttermilk and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. He had been reading about politics during one of his library visits. “What you propose then, Uncle,” he said clearly, drawing a surprised look from Ede, “is not really democracy at all. Rather, it sounds like a form of selected representation by a particular class,