Autumn Panic

Anzac Anxieties

"Good morning; sister" I greeted Winter as she approached our school lockers with a definite pause to extenuate the word sister.

"Morning" she said with a demure and withdrawn look.

"Morning sisters" Summer giggled as she ran up to join us.

"What's with all the sister talk" Winter enquired her body suggesting she had wished she hadn't asked that question.

"You started it! Hurry now we need to get to assembly" Summer snorted.

"Did I" Winter gasped as I grabbed her and pulled her along running to the hall.

At the school assembly Mr McIntosh mentioned that school would again be involved with the Anzac Appeal selling badges which could be collected from the front office later that day.

My great grandfather had fought in World War One. Australia had only been a nation of 14 years at the time even though the aboriginals had lived here for tens of thousands of years and white settlement of this land occurred in 1788.

Great grand dad had apparently known men who had fought in that ill-fated first battle at Gallipoli that started on April 25, 1915 and went on for eight months. The death of those 8000 souls deeply affected both Australia and New Zealand. The spirit of these ANZACs has galvanised into this national memorial day.

Each year dad would wake me in the wee hours on the 25th of April so that we could go to a dawn service to pay respects to all the men and women who lost their lives in wars representing our two nations whether or not the nation fully supported all of those wars at the time.

The dawn service is followed by a parade of ex-service men and women. Recently it was agreed a member of the family could march. I was looking forward to the day I would be able to hold the medals and represent dads grandfather. My turn would be next year when I would be 18. The extended family had the next twenty years planned out for those medals.

After assembly I said to the girls lets go and get some badges to sell. "No Way" and "Yeah" came straight back. Wait; what; why; did Winter say no?

"Did you say No" I asked Winter.

"My family don't believe in war, wars or celebrating, commemorating or for that matter even having; armed forces" she slowly and deliberately said. Her manner was considered although not quite as one would expect from Winter. Her stance was waning whether from our look of dismay or from heading down a road she wasn't ready for.

"Why?!" Summer blurted and when no response she continued her outburst "Our whole way of life; everything we take for granted; we owe to the Anzacs!"

"Please don't ask me anymore" Winter retorted. "I can't" she muttered tearily as she ran off.

"W-w-what just happened." Summer asked with a look of concern.

"I'm not sure; but the World Wars and Vietnam had horrific impacts on many people and their extended families. Maybe her ancestry was not with the allies. Perhaps conscription took family members."

Not really believing it was one of these I added "I suppose there are lots of reasons that don't immediately spring to mind. Let's head to class we'll get the badges later."

"Maybe we should not mention anything about what happened until Winter raises it and wants to talk it out."

"I think you're right Summer" I say.

We picked up our boxes of badges and caught up with Winter at lunch. No mention of the badges or the earlier conversation arose.

Summer and I were heading to Philosophy when she said "Good decision not to mention it. Clearly Winter would prefer that the matter is swept under the carpet."

"Seems so. As friends we should let this go but as friends we need to address the underlying issues. Not now though or any time before Anzac Day."

We agreed to door to door sell the badges and we went down to the local RSL to get an area to walk and knock on doors. We got two areas; one commercial and one residential. The businesses we had weren't too far from school so we could do them before and after school.

We each could only get to two or three businesses every time we tried due to the conversations staff members were having whilst their bosses were allowing them free time.

After the first day I did one side of the street and Summer would do the other.

We alternated houses on the same side of the street when doing the residences so that we could yell if anything untoward happened. It didn't.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Well that's another chapter
down. Thanks for reading.  
This chapter is dedicated to
Iloveredpianos for her great
feedback not just of this book.

So what did you think about
this chapter?  Tell me, please.

Always happy if you colour that
barren looking star. It just looks
so much better coloured;
don't you think?
Thanks to all that do vote.

The story really starts to
explode from here.
No spoilers though. Enjoy!