Burn

by Melanie Saward

Genres: Coming of Age

Synopsis

A great book - storytelling with heart, and a testimony to truth.' - Tony Birch
When a tragic bushfire puts two kids in hospital, Indigenous teenager Andrew knows the police will come after him first. But Andrew almost wants to be caught, because at least it might make his dad come and rescue him from suburban Brisbane and his neglectful mother.
Growing up in small-town Tasmania, Andrew struggled at home, at school, at everything. The only thing that distracted or excited him was starting little fires. Flames boosted his morale and purified his thoughts, and they were the only thing in his life he could control. Until one day things got out of hand, and Andrew was forced to leave everything behind.
Now as the police close in and Andrew runs out of people to turn to, he must decide whether he can put his faith in himself to find a way forward.
Burn is an affecting, powerful novel about prejudice and growing up on the margins from exciting new Australian voice Melanie Saward.

Release date: August 29, 2023

Publisher: Affirm Press

Print pages: 304

Sample

1

Bracken Ridge, 2011

Even when the cops come to school, it doesn’t feel real. Houses have burned. A fireman and two kids are in the hospital, they say. Mrs Glenn looks down from the stage and gives us a look that says that anyone who acts up will get an instant suspension. I can feel Trent’s jitters next to me but I’m careful not to look at him. All around me kids are sweating and fidgeting; the heat makes everyone look guilty. When they finish telling us about the seriousness of what happened last week in the bushland, they say it’s not just the culprit who’ll be punished but anyone who knows anything. They talk about guilt by association and, two rows in front, I see Doug’s head bow.

I should be worried, but I’m not.

The cops say they’ll be waiting in Mrs Glenn’s office until lunchtime if anyone wants to come forward. Someone’s put two extra seats on the stage next to the one where the deputy principal, Mr Patterson, usually sits. The cops sit there and all three of them stare out into the assembly while notices are read, the choir sings a couple of songs and the school captains talk about some raffle they’re running.

Dad told me once that some cops know how to tell if someone’s lying. They talk to them for a while about the weather, their clothes, what they’ve been doing, then they’ll ask about the crime. It’s a trick, because when people relax, they forget to keep eye contact. They forget to keep their hands on the table in front of them and they forget they’re trying to look innocent. He also told me that the cops will come after the Blak kids first.

I don’t pay any attention to the notices as they’re read out. I don’t try to look innocent, but they don’t see my guilt either. I’m not sure if my face sticks out more than any of the other kids here at this big school with so many faces from so many different places. Back in Tassie, where everyone knew me and what I’d done, maybe I would’ve been interviewed before they bothered having an assembly like this. But I know that, for now at least, my record is sealed and all they see is just another uniformed teenager in the crowd.



An announcement crackles over the PA system before morning tea and another during third period reminding us the cops are still there. Waiting.

Doug, Trent and I give each other nervous glances all morning, but the cops’ presence lingers heavy over the school so we don’t say anything. We make our escape when the bell for lunch goes and we see them pulling out of the car park. We know no one’s talked to them because the three of us are the only ones who know anything.

We wait until they’ve turned onto Barfoot Street and driven away before we strip off our school shirts and leave the yard wearing plain t-shirts with our navy uniform shorts. We walk in the opposite direction along the road’s dusty shoulder towards the Coles shopping centre. It’s a long walk from school to the shops in the burning afternoon heat, but not one of us suggests catching the bus.

‘It’s so fuckin’ hot,’ Doug says, hefting his backpack from his left shoulder to his right. He makes a show of it, but I know he’s only carrying a can of deodorant and a pack of cigarettes in his bag. He hardly ever brings books to school. His phone is in his back pocket, baggy shorts sagging, the top part of his jocks showing.

‘You know what we should do?’ Trent suggests. ‘We should go into South Bank, to the beach, ay?’

I groan. Everyone in Brisbane is obsessed with the man-made beach in the middle of the city. Back when Dave was being all chummy with me, trying to show off how great Brisbane was, he took me and Mum there. It was full of screaming babies paddling in soggy nappies. Back home we had waterholes and rivers for swimming in. Even when we lived in Rocherlea, one of the Uncles from the Aboriginal Corporation would drive out to get me in his red four-wheel drive and take all the Blak kids from homework club to Liffey Falls so we could swim. We’d go to the meeting place first and he’d tell me about the ancestors who lived there and teach us how to pay our respects to them, and he’d remind us about the Black War. But then downstream, away from the special places, we could swim in a real river with real rocks that had been there since the beginning. Not a fake place made by men so that the tourists had a place to swim since the Brisbane River is so fuckin’ filthy.

‘No way,’ I say. ‘I’m not swimming there. Tess Hoa says her cousin’s friend was in the water and a poo floated past. It’s fuckin’ disgusting.’ I don’t bother telling them about Liffey and the real waterholes; I don’t think they’d care.

‘We could just go and sit on the beach and perve on all the hot foreign girls, hey? They’re always sunbaking with their tits out,’ Trent says.

I think about Sarah back in Tassie. I don’t want to perve on anyone if it’s not her. Except, maybe, Tess Hoa. ‘Nah, I can’t be bothered. Let’s just go sit in Macca’s. It’s the only place in this hole that’s got aircon and food.’ I march ahead and don’t wait to see if they’re following.

Doug’s right, it’s real fuckin’ hot here. It’s not the right sort of heat and I hate it. I hate the way the air feels heavy in my lungs, the way I have to sleep on top of the sheets with the windows and curtains open. I hate the way my school uniform clings, the way the shirt goes dark with sweat the second I put it on. I hate the stuffy, un-air-conditioned classrooms and the clanking ceiling fans pushing stale, humid air around. I was not made for this place; I feel it in my bones.

From the minute I got here, I’ve wanted to set the whole of Brisbane on fire. I’d start with school, then the horrible weatherboard shithole Dave calls a house and hope that Bracken Ridge would follow it into the flames. I’ve sat in the park a thousand times with my lighter against a pile of kindling, flicking it on and off and waiting for that feeling to find me: the feeling that brought possibility and questions, the feeling that the fire would fix everything like it had so many times before. But aside from the scar on my hand reacting to the heat as the flames roared away from me last weekend, there was no other great feeling. Brisbane is burning now, smoke from fires across the city mixing so that the haze hangs low over the sky and the air’s thick with it. But there’s no magic in my purple Bic lighter right now.

I can smell McDonald’s before we reach the shopping centre. It stinks of grease, and the smell combined with the heat hits me in the pit of the stomach. I gag, but as we get closer, my stomach grumbles. Greasy hamburgers and chips aren’t my favourite food, but in the last year they’ve become a staple. I eat whatever is quick, easy and cheap, because most of the time I have to feed myself with money I pinch off Mum and Dave or scrounge from Doug and Trent. Sometimes, if I’m lucky, the school will put on food for the Blak kids and I get a proper lunch, but that doesn’t happen very often. If I waited for Mum to feed me, I’d probably be dead.

We traipse inside, the cool air an instant relief. The constant heat makes me angry, and the air-conditioning lets me feel a bit more like me again. We attract a few disapproving stares from a group of old people in a booth at the corner. With their grey hair and posh clothes, I wonder why they’re not over at the Geebung RSL. Trent scowls, trying to scare them. He’s been caught wagging at least ten times and he thinks it’s ’cause the oldies call the school when they see kids out during school hours. I couldn’t care less who they call. I smile my best smile at them as we pass and say, ‘Hello, how are you today?’ in my best migaloo voice.

I never get a chance to be one of the good kids with old whitefullas like this. It doesn’t matter how neat I make my hair or how much I clean my second-hand school uniform – they see the colour of my skin and they’ve made their minds up. So I always smile and act polite and try to act the opposite of what they think I should be. Sometimes they look surprised, but most of them drop their gazes away, like these ladies who are suddenly very interested in the strawberry sundaes on the trays in front of them.

I think Trent and Doug look exactly like the type of kids who deserve to be yelled at. Their school uniforms are oversized, their shirts are always half tucked in and half out, and their shorts are so baggy they have to keep hitching them up every few steps. Trent’s always fiddling with his big black curls that look more like dreadlocks every week. Doug has strawberry-blond hair that his girlfriend, Maria, is always telling him would look cute if he got it cut proper. He’s the opposite of me, with fair skin and a scattering of freckles across his nose.

‘Cheeseburger?’ Doug waves a $50 note under my nose and I nod, pleased. One less thing I have to worry about later.

‘How come you’re so flush, ay?’ Trent asks.

‘Took it out of Donna’s purse this morning. Gotta spend it all now so there’s no change when I get home.’

Donna is his stepmother. She’s rich and spends half her time zonked out on painkillers and the other half at her hairdresser’s salon. As far as step-parents go, she’s actually pretty nice.

‘In that case, I’ll have a Big Mac,’ says Trent.

‘Make mine a meal. Large,’ I say.

‘Yeah, yeah,’ Doug answers. ‘Get us a table, then.’

He joins the line at the registers while we pick a table in the back.

I lean back in the booth and close my eyes, enjoying the flow of icy air from the vent above our table. Macca’s sounds and smells the same no matter where it is, and with my eyes closed I can almost imagine I’m back home in Tassie, at the one in Devonport. I try to find the feeling that I used to get, that burgers and fries were exciting treats that I didn’t get very often – now they’re all I can afford. But Trent breaks the fantasy before it can properly get started.

‘So,’ he says, ‘what do you think’ll happen now?’

‘With what?’ I ask, but I keep my eyes closed.

‘With the cops.’

I open my eyes and stare at him, trying to work out if he’s worried and likely to squeal. It makes him uncomfortable and he runs his fingers through his hair, messing it up even more, staring at the tabletop the whole time. It’s nice not being worried about the cops coming after me. They could open my records, I guess, but if they do then they’ll call my dad and everything will be okay anyway. It doesn’t matter if it’s in the police station or back in Tassie, I’ll see my dad soon and that’s all that I care about. I reach into my pocket and run my finger over the purple Bic lighter.

‘Seriously, I think you should just relax,’ I say, my own body unclenching as I squeeze the hard plastic between my fingers. ‘Forget about it. The cops don’t know shit, or else they wouldn’t have bothered with the whole assembly crap. They’re just trying to make us feel guilty. Do you feel guilty?’

He looks at me and I raise an eyebrow. He bites his lip and I stare, not blinking. We don’t break eye contact, even as Doug slides a tray full of food onto the table in front of us.

‘What’s goin’ on, guys?’ he asks, clearly feeling the tension.

‘Trent?’ I ask, pushing him to answer me.

He takes a deep breath and shakes his head. ‘Nothing’s going on,’ he says. ‘Nothin’, hey, Andrew?’

I nod. ‘Yeah, nothin’.’ But I know he’s lying and it’s only a matter of time before he cracks.



I’m surprised to smell dinner when I get home a few hours later. Mum and Dave only eat at the house if they’re drinking at home.

I go in through the back door and head straight down the narrow hallway to my bedroom. The room is pretty small and I sleep on a single mattress on the floor. I don’t complain. If I did, no one would listen. I have a map of Tasmania on the wall above the bed, stuck down with globs of chewing gum. Looking at it makes me feel better. Calm.

Dad used to say that we were connected to Tassie, even though we didn’t really know who our people were. ‘It’s about where you’re made just as much as where your people come from,’ he said. I never understood what he meant by that till Mum told me we were leaving. From the minute the plane took off, I felt a thread connecting me to home get more and more stretched.

Mum’s side has no real connection to this place or to Tassie, Dad always said. Maybe that’s what made it so easy for her to just pack up and leave without a second thought; she’s got no threads connecting her anywhere.

I toss my schoolbag in the corner of the room and go to check under the loose floorboard in my wardrobe. I frown, shifting my heavy winter boots off the board. I could have sworn they’d been on the other side last time I checked. At the very back of the hole, behind an Orchy bong, my fingers curl around the ‘Extra Long’ Redheads matchbox and my heart thumps as I slide the box open.

Inside is a roll of notes and a few gold coins wrapped tightly in a scrap of cling wrap to keep them from jingling. I set everything out on the floor and count twice, then a third time, to make sure not one coin has moved without my knowledge. With what’s in my pocket from coins I found today and the change I swiped from Doug at Macca’s, I’ve built up another $20. That brings me to a nice even $320. I run through the list in my head. It’s enough.

When I’m done, I tuck the box into the back of the hole, toss the pile of shoes and clothes back over the top and venture out into the kitchen.

Mum is standing at the stove, moving something around in a frypan. Hot oil fizzes and spits and I smile when I see her jump back to avoid getting burned. Dave’s on the couch watching Millionaire Hot Seat and shouting out wrong answers.

I turn my attention back to Mum. The food smells good and even though I’m full of junk, my stomach growls. I lean against the bench and try to remember the last time she cooked dinner. It was before we moved to Brisbane – probably even before Dad left. The thought of the dinners she used to cook starts my mouth watering. Since Mum’s cooked, maybe I’ll sit at the table and eat with her and Dave. Try to make conversation. After all, I just want to get by with as little fuss as possible until I finish this school year and can go back to Tassie.

I’m trying to remember if there are placemats anywhere in this house when Mum turns, holding the frypan.

‘Oh, you’re here,’ she says, putting the pan onto a wooden board. ‘I didn’t think you’d be home. You’re always out with your mates.’

The Big Mac churns in my stomach.

‘Dave and I … well, we’re kind of having a date night. We’ve both been working so hard and have hardly had a chance to see each other …’

Working hard? Hard work is not letting my disappointment show. I look at her, part of me hoping she’ll realise she’s said the wrong thing. But I’m coming back to myself now, and I quickly push all that hope aside.

She hasn’t cared about me in a long time.

2

Launceston, 2003

School is almost always bad, but on the last day before holidays, it’s horrible.

Mrs Mackenzie is mean and we’re still doing schoolwork, even though it’s nearly home time and nearly holidays. The other classes are watching movies and I even heard that Mr White’s class plays a version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, with actual prizes, for the whole day before holidays, but not our class.

My writing book is open in front of me, but instead of answering the work questions I am thinking about the movies. I love going with Mum, and she loves it too. Every holidays she lets me pick something to see. It’s more special than just seeing a movie, though – we also get to eat pancakes for lunch instead of something boring like sandwiches. We always sit upstairs in the big room they usually use for birthdays and Mum empties all the coins out of her purse so I can play with the jukebox. I like flicking through all the old stuff because when we find songs that Mum likes, she always gets up and dances. She’s even taught me the steps to some of the dances she used to do when she was a kid. I love it when she dances: her hair always comes loose from her ponytail and she smiles and giggles a lot.

My leg bounces up and down when I think about the dancing, and it makes the desks wobble. Marcus Newman gives me a funny look.

Marcus Newman would tease me if he knew how excited I was about going to the movies with my mum. Even though he’s eight like me, he hangs around with some kids from the high school and they do bad stuff. Every time someone pulls all the flowers out of Mum’s garden, I know it was Marcus Newman and his bad friends.

I have been planning our trip to the movies all week. I even pulled a page out of one of my schoolbooks to write Mum a list of instructions. It says:

When I get home this afternoon, I’ll work out exactly how much time we need at each stop. Mum will know how many minutes it takes to drive from our house at Blackwood Drive, Rocherlea, to the car park behind 7LA radio station, which is in York Street, Launceston. I will have to leave some time in the plan, though, because I don’t know how long it usually takes me to eat a plate of Death by Chocolate pancakes at Jilly’s. Or how long Mum will take to eat her blueberry ones. And I need to leave time for us to play with the jukebox.

‘Andrew, have you finished the questions?’

I jump and try to slide my list into the back of my writing book before Mrs Mackenzie sees. But I am not fast enough.

‘What are you hiding there, Andrew?’ she asks, and I stare at her. Sometimes I wish her head would explode. Instead it’s her mouth that usually does the exploding.

‘Nothing.’

She holds out her hand and clicks her fingers at me. I sigh and pass her my list. She glances at it, and then glares back at me. ‘You will stay in your seat until you’ve answered all the questions,’ she says, just as the bell rings.

‘I need it back,’ I say, and she gives me such a mean look that I can’t watch her anymore. I look at my empty page.

She slides it into the pocket of her skirt. ‘When you’re finished.’

The questions take me a long time to finish and when I come out of school, there are hardly any cars left in the car park and most of the other kids are gone. It doesn’t matter, though – the holidays are here now. I run to the car and chuck my schoolbag in the back seat. I jump into the front and grin at Mum.

‘Hi, Mum! I think I want to see Finding Nemo!’ I say.

‘What’s that, honey?’

‘For the movies these holidays. I think we should see Finding Nemo.’

She flicks the indicator and starts driving. ‘I’ve just got to go to the supermarket,’ she says, turning in the opposite direction to home. ‘We need milk.’

‘Okay.’ It’s Friday and the start of holidays – a proper special occasion. She’ll probably let me choose a chocolate at the shops. Spit starts running in my mouth when I think about chocolates and I swallow hard.

‘So … do you want to see Finding Nemo?’ I ask, even though I know she’ll see whatever I want to see.

We stop at a red light and she looks over at me. Her face looks funny – all red and splotchy and her eyes are watery. ‘Sorry, love,’ she says, her voice sounding a bit thick, like the way mine does sometimes when I talk after eating lots of ice-cream. ‘We can’t go to the movies these holidays.’

Tears prickle in my eyes and I kick my foot against the front console.

‘That’s so unfair! Everyone else gets to go to the movies all the time. The only time I get to go is in the holidays and now I can’t even go then? This sucks.’ I kick the console again.

I see a tear slip down her cheek and she wipes it away quickly. ‘Andrew, stop it. Your dad just lost his job. Again. So there’s just no money for trips to the movies. I’m sorry.’

When we stop at the supermarket, I pull the plan out of my schoolbag and chuck it in a rubbish bin.



It’s nearly lunchtime and Mum still hasn’t come out of her bedroom. I’ve been up for hours. I heard Dad leave the house very early, before the sun had even come up. He’s been going out every day looking for jobs. I think he’s driving to places much further away than Launceston because Mum said it only takes approximately eighteen minutes to get to town and he is gone from before the sun wakes up until long after it’s gone to sleep.

At first it was okay – there were cartoons on telly and I watched until I got hungry, then I had Coco Pops with only a tiny bit of milk for breakfast. It was good, actually, that Mum was busy sleeping because she always makes me have more milk than Coco Pops. I don’t like milk. Unless it’s chocolate flavour.

But now the kids’ shows have finished on the TV and my tummy hurts because it’s lunchtime. I walk into the kitchen and open the fridge to see what we have. There’s a little lump of cheese wrapped in cling wrap, the milk, a jar of Vegemite and half a jar of Nutella. I frown. Even through the wad of plastic I can see the cheese is bright yellow, the way it goes when it’s all hard and yucky. Vegemite on toast is Dad’s favourite, but I don’t like it at all. Mum doesn’t believe in waste, which is why there is gross cheese in the fridge. She will probably force me to eat it in my sandwiches next week. When she does that, I chuck my sandwiches in the bin and tell Mrs Mackenzie that I forgot my lunch. She always organises tuckshop for kids with no lunch.
. . .