Memory - stub

"The boy stood on the burning deck . . . " but I was standing on a chair and it wasn't burning; I was on fire with shame and embarrassment. Was this a punishment of some kind or was the class set an assignment to each tell a story to the class? I can't remember. What I can remember is that prickling sensation of panic rising up my legs to my reddening face as I squirmed thinking desparately of what to say.

Australia was a fascination for us then what with the £10 assisted passage for emigrés to that land, The Flying Doctor series on the wireless and learning about the peculiar animals of the outback, including the wallaby, duck billed platypuss and wombat. What a lovely word: wombat; I wandered what the animal looked like. I'd listened to a tale about a wombat on the wireless a few days before. What little television I saw was at friends' houses; I knew none of my contemporaries listened to the wireless so I retold the tale of the wombat escaping a bush fire . . . knowing it would be fresh for them. And thereby I esaped burning embarrassment.