That's My Dad

• Vincent Kahulugan, Grade 10
• Short Story
• 2010

By the time I was eight and a half an ambulance parked at the front of our house. It was a neighbourhood tradition. It would go belting down our street siren blaring and halt abruptly at our front gate. The ambulance officer knew just how to manage dad. Usually dad teetered out awkwardly by token support. Other times when his left lung collapsed he went out on a grey blanketed stretcher.
Jill, Billy and I accepted his comings and goings with the innocent selfishness of children. We never doubted that he would come back.
Dad hated being in hospital. I heard him telling Mum about how he'd woken up in the hospital one night screaming. he thought that he was captured again. There was dirt on his mouth and a rifle butt in his back. He tried to get up but couldn't move. Next thing he knew the night sister was flicking a torch in his eyes.
'All tangled up again are we Mr Milroy? It's only a dream you know. No need to upset yourself.'
Dad laughed when he told Mum what the sister had said. Only a dream I thought. I was a kid and I knew it wasn't a dream.
When Dad got really bad our only way out was a midnight flit to Aunty Clara's house. Other nights, the five of us shut up in one room. Sometimes Mum put Rebecca and George; the babys of the family in bed at the back of the van. I was so envious. I complained strongly to Mum, it's not fair. Why can't I sleep in the van? I never realised that if we have to leave home the babies would be the most difficult to wake up.
Aunty Clara, a cicillian widow, lived at the back of us. Nan had knocked out six pickets in the back fence so we could easliy run from our yard to hers. Many times we were quietly woken in the dark and bundled to Aunt Clara;s house.
'Sally, wake up. Get out of bed but be very quiet.'
'Aw, not again Nan'
It had been a bad two weeks.
'Your mother's waiting in the yard; you go out there while I wake Billy and Jill.'
I wlaked quickly through the kitchen, scuttled across the verandah and into the shadows where Mum was standing with the babies. She was rocking Rebecca to stop crying and George was leaning against Mum's legs, half alseep. Nan shuffled down the steps with Billy and Jill and we were on our way.
'No talking you kids' Mum said, 'stay close'.
We followed the shadows of our yard. Just as we neared the gap in the back picket fence. dad flung flung open the door of his sleepout and staggered onto the verandah yelling abuse.
'Oh no' I thought, 'he's going to come and get us'.
We all crouched down and hid behind some bushes. I prayed that Rebecca wouldn't cry. I hardly breathed. I was sure Dad would hear me if I did. I would feel so terrible if my breating led him to where we were all hiding. I remmebered the stories Dad had told me about the camps he had been in. Horse head soup. They'd had horse head soup and the men fought for the eye because it had a little meat on it. I was shivering. I didn't know whether it was from nerves or the cold. I remmeber the Germans ahd stripped Dad naked and forced him to stand up for hours in the snow. My heart was pounding. I suddenly understood what it had been like for Dad and his friends; they felt just the way I was feeling right now. Alone and frightened.
For soem reason Dad just stopped yelling and swearing; he turned and shuffled back to his room.
'Now kids' Mum said.
We didn't need to be told twice. With unusual speed, Billy, Jill and I darted through the gap to safety.