John Marsden is acknowledged as the creator of the The Tomorrow Series characters and story. The Tomorrow Series is an award winning Young Adult series of seven books written and set in the 1990s. The plot follows the lives and adventures of teenager Ellie Linton and her friends following a fictional invasion of Australia. A film (2010) and Australian TV series (2016) have been produced of first book in the series, Tomorrow, When the War Began.
1. An impossible assignment.
I'm facing a major problem which I'm hoping my boyfriend Gavin can help me solve. Yeah right! So far he's shown no inclination to do more than make light of my troubles. In fact he'd be far happier if we skipped lessons and found a quiet corner to resume where we left off yesterday. Not that I'm falling for that line again. I can't believe I was so stupid as to fall for it yesterday. My pride and reputation were literally saved by the bell.
"I don't see what's your problem," sighs Gavin when he finally accepts that Robyn-behind-the-back-of-the-bike-shed isn't on this lunchtime's menu. "All we have to do is read some stuffy old book about the 1995-6 war, and write an essay about the experiences of one of our parents during the war. How hard a task can that be?"
For Gavin it will be easy. His dad was in the army. I bet he can provide lots of interesting material for Gavin's essay. For me it's going to be an impossible assignment. Dad's no longer around, and mum quickly blows a fuse if I ask anything about the war beyond the most general of facts. It's as though her war-time experiences hold a dark secret which she guards with her life. She doesn't even like me reading books and watching television programmes about the war. I mean, I'm sixteen years old and mum still treats me like I'm six.
I suppose I could defy mum and smuggle my copy of The War from Hell into my room; but there will be the devil to pay if she finds out. It's a college library book, so at least she won't toss it into the trash out of hand. As for writing about her war-time experiences, then that'll be a choice between making something up, or tackling the forbidden subject head on.
Of course, I'm kidding myself. I've only one choice. How can I hope to make something up? The fourteen month war was over five years before I was born. Even the uneasy peace which followed had stabilised by the time I was old enough to understand anything about the world in which I lived. For years the war was a topic few people wished to talk about. It's only now that a permanent settlement has been agreed between our government and the Australian Occupied Territories Council that people are willing to openly discuss the past. It's one of the reasons why we've been given this assignment. There's no doubt that the war and its aftermath has dramatically changed Australia. The new United Nations brokered treaty will change it once again. Mum says that some of the changes will be for the better, but she still refuses to go into details about her past when I push my questions beyond some invisible boundary.
It's so unfair. I mean, I know there's something that happened during the war which is responsible for the break up of my mum and dad's marriage six years ago. Some secret detail which they never discussed before they were married, or during the decade after. Something so bad that within a few months of its discovery dad had moved overseas and out of my daily life. Sure, I get a card and present from him on my birthday, and he sends mum money every now and then. But I've neither seen him nor spoken to him since I was ten years old.
Neither parent offered me a proper explanation for the traumatic change to our family life. I've been too afraid to ask once dad left in case my curiosity completely severed all my ties to him. My biggest fear is that one or both of my parents had been a collaborator. One of the thousand or so Australians who actively helped the enemy during the war. I don't mean those who were forced to work as slave labour, but those who volunteered to act as spies and interrogators. Traitors for reward. After the war, some of the collaborators were executed, but many more simply went into hiding. I suppose it was an easy enough task in the chaos which followed the end of the war.
If the newspapers are right, then some of those collaborators have since resumed their lives, hiding their guilty secret from their neighbours in the hope that time will erase their sins. The terms of the new peace treaty mean that they will be officially pardoned for their crimes, but that isn't likely to change people's opinion of them.
Perhaps mum will break her silence now that I need to learn more about her past for my college assignment. But do I really want to discover the secret that mum's been so careful to hide from me? I think I do. I just keep remembering the poem that mum has pinned onto our living room wall.
In this life of froth and bubble
Two things stand like stone
Kindness in another's trouble
Courage in your own
All I need is the courage to confront her about my assignment. If she's hiding some terrible secret, then I think I'm now mature enough to understand. Whether I can forgive and forget may be another matter, but not knowing is far worse.
My college history book says that we lost the war, and we lost it badly. Well, it doesn't say that in those exact words. It tries to bury the hard facts under a lot of warm fluffy sentiment. But I'm hungry enough for the truth that I can peel away the fluff. In reality, we were a country which ignored the problems faced by our poorer neighbours, and adopted a "fortress Australia" foreign policy. A policy which might have worked had our bungling politicians not left the gates to the fortress wide open. The initial invasion was like Pearl Harbour in 1941, only on a much greater scale.
In the end we were lucky that the economic sanctions imposed by the United Nations against the invaders were gradually having an effect. That, coupled with a successful surprise assault by the New Zealand armed forces in the last month of the war, is what finally persuaded the enemy generals to go to the negotiating table. Under pressure from their own government, the generals reluctantly abandoned their plans for the total domination of Australia, and agreed to an armistice. However hard our politicians try to sugar-coat the terms of the armistice agreement, it was a humiliating defeat for loyal Australians. Millions of people were forcibly resettled as a result. No wonder that for years few people wanted to talk about the war. Too many painful memories.
Then something changed about a year or so ago when a new government was elected. The last of the politicians connected with the inept pre-war government were finally forced out of office, and a new generation of politicians took the reins. People voted for radical change rather than the steady-as-she-goes don't-talk-about-the-war stability promoted by the old guard. The armistice was only intended as a temporary agreement, but for over two decades the peace treaty negotiations had dragged on with no real progress. The new politicians made it a priority to conclude a peace treaty settlement.
Suddenly people were talking about new opportunities and looking towards the future. Not that the past is being allowed to be forgotten. The causes and conduct of the war contain many lessons on what-not-to-do. I don't know enough to fully understand all the issues, and the so-called experts disagree on most of them anyway. But at least people are now feel able to talk about the war without sinking into a funk.
None of this solves my immediate problem, though. Gavin offers to help me smuggle my copy of The War from Hell into my room. Unfortunately I know his offer is a thinly disguised attempt to get inside my bedroom. Something I've steadfastly refused to allow, knowing mum would ground me for life if she discovered that I had invited a boy into my bedroom.
"Anyway, what happened to your mum during the war?" asks Gavin as we eat our lunch together.
"That's the whole problem," I say, slightly exasperated at his obvious inattention to what I said earlier. "I simply don't know. I've asked her enough times, but she never answers my questions. All I know is that she lived in Wirrawee at the time of the invasion."
"Wirrawee? That whole area was captured on the first day of the invasion," replies Gavin, telling me something even I already know. "She probably spent the war in an internment camp. She may have been one of those forced to work in a factory or a farm. How old was she during the war?"
I do a quick mental calculation. "She was about my age at the start of the war."
"Could be something bad happened to her while she was a prisoner," says Gavin. "A captive teenage girl might attract the wrong sort of attention at the hands of the enemy guards. Maybe that's why she won't talk. Do you understand what I mean?"
"Yes," I reply glumly.
That possibility has often crossed my mind, but for some reason I've refused to believe it could be true. I've heard plenty of horror stories of internment camp life from other students at college. Nearly everybody has parents or grandparents who were interned. Even if only half of the stories are true, it paints a bleak picture. But I don't think that's why mum won't tell me anything. It doesn't explain why dad suddenly upped and left us. Gavin and I finish our lunch and our conversation drifts onto other matters. I'm so nervous about confronting mum that I barely remember my afternoon classes.
If there's one thing I share with my mum, it's an ability to take action once I've decided to do something. I decide that I must ask her as soon as possible. Tonight even.
I arrive home about four o'clock to find mum sat at the table reading an official looking letter. I can tell that she is nervous.
"Are you 'right, mum?" I ask.
"Yeah. Yeah," she replies. "Just a ghost from the past."
"Is it bad news?"
"No. It's nothing like that. I've been invited to attend an official ceremony in Wirrawee on the 25th.
"On ANZAC Day?" I ask, recalling that the 25 April is a public holiday to commemorate the various conflicts in which the Australian and New Zealand armed forces have fought side by side. It's a special commemoration this year ... it's the day on which the new peace treaty comes into effect.
"Yes. Apparently they are unveiling a new monument. I suspect they are trying to rustle up as big a crowd as possible."
"Can I come?" I ask, barely containing my excitement. What a golden opportunity to find out more about her past life.
"If you want," replies mum, reading the letter again as though she might have misread it before. "I don't think it'll be very exciting."
"Listen, mum," I say, deciding I'd best tackle the subject of my college assignment now. "My class was given our social studies assignment today. I'm expected to read a book about the '95-6 war and write an essay about your wartime experiences. I know you don't like talking about the war, but I need you to tell me something so I can do the assignment. I don't mind inventing some of it if you want, and I won't write about anything you don't want me to mention."
"I see," replies mum after a pause which seems to last a lifetime. "Which book you are expected to read?"
"The War from Hell. It's supposed to be very good. Something suitable for my age group."
"I know the book," replies mum, suddenly looking as though she is about to burst into tears. "Have you read any of it yet?"
"No," I reply. "We were only given it this morning. I know how you feel about me reading books about the war. I wanted you to know before I started reading it."
"Well, it looks as though I must let you read it. But promise me you won't start reading it until after we've been to Wirrawee on ANZAC Day."
"Well, okay," I say, puzzled by her request. In truth, it's unlikely any of my class will be reading the book until the last possible minute. We have six weeks to complete the assignment, and hardly anybody will start either part of the assignment before the beginning of May.
"What about my essay?" I ask. "Will you at least tell me something? I can't make up a believable story on my own."
"I suppose I must," replies mum. "Let me think on it for a few days. We can have a good long talk when we come back from Wirrawee."
By the time we set off for Wirrawee I'm a bundle of nervous excitement. By now I know the stakes are high on the social studies assignment. As I thought, none of my friends has started reading The War from Hell, and only a few have started writing their essay. None have progressed further than a couple of paragraphs. But we listen to each other's stories about our parents' wartime experiences. To hear some of my classmates talk you'd think their parents won the war single handed from the inside of an internment camp. Some of the stories are quite harrowing. Several students lost one or more of their grandparents during the war. I'm lucky. Both mum and dad's parents survived the war, although only my maternal grandmother is still alive today.
Surprisingly, among all the students in my class, only Gavin has a parent who was in the military. My mum and dad were only slightly older than I am now, so were too young for military service during the war. But they are quite young compared to the parents of most of the students in my class. I've fobbed off pressure from my friends to reveal my mum's war time stories with a promise to tell them everything next week. I just hope mum delivers on her promise, and she hasn't done anything that she's ashamed about. I don't know how I'd handle that.
We arrive in Wirrawee in plenty of time for the ceremony. The dawn parades in remembrance of those killed in the two World Wars are long over, and everyone seems to have gone for breakfast. The cafés are very crowded, so mum takes me for a short drive around town. Our route takes us across the Heron bridge towards the low hills that separate the Wirrawee valley and the ocean beyond.
"They've finally built a new bridge," observes mum as we cross the bridge spanning the Heron river and some low-lying fields.
The bridge doesn't look anything special, apart from being nearly a kilometre long. We have several of those dotted about the countryside, spanning rivers which are normally only 50 metres wide, but which can swell into massive torrents when bad storms hit the mountains. This bridge doesn't look that new, either. But anything built in the last twenty years must seem new to mum after being away for so long.
"So, what's so special about this bridge?" I ask when mum stops the car half way across and we get out to admire the view.
"I helped blow up the old one during the war," replies mum as though she's discussing the view.
I stand opened mouthed at this astonishing announcement. The smile on mum's face makes me wonder if she's pulling my leg. It wouldn't be the first time she's played a trick on me. The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that she's joking. I ignore the bait and return to the car.