Chapter 10

Eddie woke when he heard his door open. He was still rolling over to look towards the door when someone lifted the covers and dived into the bed with him. All of a sudden his arms were full of a trembling girl, her breath coming in gasps.

Sarah. He held her tight while she shook and moaned. He waited patiently while she calmed down. After a few minutes she was ready to talk, and she told him a little of what she had dreamed. When Eddie tried to calm her down, to tell her that it was just a dream, she wailed.

"Eddie, that's not a dream, I saw what happened after I was taken from my time."

Eddie was starting to get through to her that the dream was about her fears, not a vision of what had really happened, when Danni knocked on the door. Eddie sat Sarah up and hopped out of bed. He was pleased that he'd listened to his mum and had put something on. She'd warned him that this might happen eventually. Sharp, she was, real sharp.

The three of them sat on Eddie's bed, since there wasn't any other furniture in Eddie's room, and they talked about dreams and Sarah's family. Eventually Sarah agreed that while John could be pretty violent when he was drunk, he'd never been quite as bad as in her dream. She felt a lot better by the time Danni walked her back to the house. After they checked on Paris again, she turned to Danni.

"Thank you so much for waking up."

Danni laughed. "No worries. You woke us all up, but we had kind of been expecting you to have nightmares sooner or later."

The next morning, when Sarah came inside for breakfast after doing her chores, she was a bit taken aback to see that Eddie was sitting across the table from her spot instead of next to her; he hadn't done that before. Why? Sarah told herself that it wasn't important, but she couldn't push aside the niggling feeling that it was wrong.

Danni sat down next to her. "Sarah, I've got today off work, and you're going to spend the day with me learning some of the stuff I can teach you."

That evening, when Sarah sat down for dinner, she leaned back into the chair and sighed. Eddie hadn't been able to run her off her feet with a whole day of hard work, but his mum had done it, though nothing had seemed very hard. She'd spent the day with Danni, learning about things like money, washing, and supermarkets (so much fresh food and meat just waiting to be eaten!), before she'd finished the day by making dinner all by herself, a stew like her mum would've made.

She sighed. So much to learn. Danni had shown her around the kitchen, concentrating, at Sarah's request, on anything dangerous. And then there was money. Danni had explained to her that they really didn't have a lot of money, but that if Sarah stayed and worked on the farm, then they would save money that they might've otherwise had to spend on labour, and Sarah was astounded at how much labour cost compared to the prices of the things in the shops.

Dinner was the first time she'd seen Eddie since breakfast, and he'd eaten the meal as if it was no big deal and then hopped up without saying anything about the food. Sarah was left behind at the table trying to not to cry. All that work, and he hadn't even noticed. He'd basically ignored her any time he'd seen her today. Danni was the last one left sitting at the table with Sarah. "Well, Sarah, I noticed, even if no one else did, and I know how much you achieved."

Sarah sighed. Danni had missed the point. She didn't really care about the dinner. You just did it, and people took it for granted. But Eddie ignoring her, that hurt, hurt deeply. She needed Eddie so badly, for so many reasons. All she had was that she was available as a woman, and if Eddie turned his back on her, how long would it be before the whole family tired of what she cost them and how dangerous her ignorance was?

Well, she could do housework; weird how she could go on this amazing journey and end up in exactly the same place as her mother.

After she'd cleaned the dishes and the kitchen, Eddie dragged her into his Jeep with Jill and Danni, and they all headed down into the outskirts of Sydney so that Eddie and Jill could play indoor beach volleyball. Jill sat in the back with Sarah trying to explain how the game worked, but Sarah wasn't following. When Sarah's first two questions were "What's a ball?" and "What's a sport?" Jill knew that she'd be better to let it go. After that, she tried to keep up with Sarah as she practiced reading all the signs that flew by, and answered a stream of questions about what they saw.

When they walked into the indoor sports centre, Sarah was struck dumb by the sight. It was quite a big centre, and there were people playing the indoor variants of cricket, netball, soccer, and beach volleyball. She watched incredulously while Jill and Eddie paid for the volleyball match, and then followed them over to the beach volleyball courts. There were two of them, surrounded by nets and filled with sand. People were there already, playing two to a side. While Eddie and Jill stretched and warmed up outside the court, Danni sat with Sarah and explained how beach volleyball worked.

A whistle blew, and Sarah looked around to see the players already on the court walking off. Eddie and Sarah walked on and started hitting the ball to each other. Two older men went on to the other side of the net. While they were finishing their warm up, more and more people came over, ready to watch the match.

"Why are there so many people watching?"

"Well, there's always some people watching any game Jill and Eddie play, but the two older guys used to be Australian champions about twenty years ago, and so they always attract a crowd too. The old guys will win, but it will be a good game to watch."

"People come to watch Jill and Eddie? Why?"

"I think it's called eye candy. Watch."

As Danni said this, the referee climbed back up his ladder and blew a whistle. Eddie and Jill walked over to the entrance of the court and pulled their t-shirts off. Jill also pulled her shorts off and gave them to Eddie, who threw everything through the entrance and over onto the floor in front of Sarah. Jill was left wearing a navy blue triathlon bikini, matching the board shorts Eddie was wearing. They walked back onto the court and gave each other a high five.

Sarah gasped. While she couldn't believe that Jill was wearing that in public, her attention was focused on Eddie. He looked good with no shirt on, and she felt a burst of desire. What did she have to do to get him to take notice of her? She looked at Jill again. She could see why Eddie hadn't noticed her when Jill looked so amazing, beautiful and desirable. Sarah was plain and not even pretty, and after all, she was of convict stock.

She turned back to Danni. "How can she wear that?" How can you let your daughter look like a whore?

Danni laughed. "I guess no one would wear that in the time you came from, but it's not a big deal now. There's a time and a place, and this is one of them. And Jill's always liked people to look at her."

Jill served first, hitting the ball hard over the net, but one of the old guys moved quickly to his side and flicked the ball perfectly upwards. The other one jumped up high as it came down towards the net and smashed it down to the sand. Eddie lunged towards the ball, and actually got his hands under it, but he couldn't control it. This set the tone for the rest of the match. Though Eddie and Jill were winning a few points, the older guys rapidly pulled ahead. Still, Sarah was amazed at how Jill and Eddie threw themselves around the court trying to get the balls that came from the other side. At one stage Jill threw herself down at a ball and got a face full of sand. She jumped up, brushed the sand off, and then reached down to flick some sand out of the inside of her bikini top.

Sarah heard some cheers from some of the men in the audience, and Jill turned and gave a quick acknowledging wave with a smirk. Sarah heard an exclamation from one of the women standing behind her.

"Oh, I wish I had a hot body like that one. She looks so good in that bikini."

The other one replied "Forget the girl. How about the guy? I'd have me a piece of that!"

The first woman laughed. "In your dreams, Jo, in your dreams."

Sarah nodded. That would be right, in her dreams would be the only chance she'd probably ever have herself, but oh, how she wanted Eddie. She grinned to herself, remembering her mother telling her that when the time was right, she'd actually want to have sex. She'd assured her mother that she'd never ever want to do what she'd seen her mother have to do. But she wanted more than just sex, she wanted all of Eddie.

Eddie and Jill were losing by a fair amount by the time the first break came, but they still came over for their drink smiling at how many points they'd managed to take off the two old guys. And then they went back out, going for it again. By the end of the match, Sarah had actually started to understand the game, and she could see that though Jill and Eddie played with incredible energy and could throw themselves around the court well - something the crowd loved - it was the old champions who controlled where the ball went, and though they didn't have anywhere near the same ability to chase the ball down, they seemed to never need it.

The final score was forty-five to nineteen, and Eddie and Jill declared themselves quite happy with that. Sarah watched as they slowly settled down while brushing sand off themselves, drinking water, and talking to the two old guys.

Sarah so wished that she could be part of it, but yet again, there was so much that she didn't know, so much separating her from them. She thought back to the promise she'd made to her mother only yesterday morning. It's not going to be easy, but I'm going to do it. So much had happened since then! Well, her mother had never had it easy, but she had kept going. So Sarah would too.

The next day was Friday and Sarah was back on the farm. Today, Eddie was back to treating her like a big brother. It was definitely better than the day before when he'd completely ignored her, but still not quite what she wanted. They worked hard until the end of school time, the end of Jill's last day at school for the year. Sarah went with Eddie to pick Jill up, and then Jill was going to get her hair done while Eddie went back and got the barbeque ready; they were having some family over for the evening.

Sarah was intrigued as she walked through the school. Eddie explained a little what all the different buildings were and introduced her to some of Jill's friends and a couple of teachers as "my distant cousin from up-country."