The Guilt

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Recommended: Rural schools vs urban schools

A thick layer of frost covered the ground as the Turner children walked briskly down the 2km drive way to meet the bus. The middle of winter in Peak View was harsh and the air hurt the skin. Although not likely to snow, Peak View was close enough to the Snowy Mountains to make the mornings cold and gloomy. In summer the children would use the run about car to drive to the road but in winter the car was almost always frozen over.

The school bus was quiet and Meggie took her same seat behind her sisters Josephine and Therese who were both eight. The one thing that Meggie really enjoyed about the winter was the fog that was always low and when the sun managed to shine through the fog, it made for the best scenery Meggie could ever imagine. The normally dry land was full of silhouetted gum trees and the frost glistered. At “Athlone,” which was the name of the farm, the Barron children boarded the bus. There were five Barron children and between them and the Turners they made up majority of the bus and the school. Anna Barron was Meggie’s best friend and as usual took her seat next to Meggie. The bus took half an hour and picked up a total of 16 children. The school was Jernangle Public School which had 19 students and one teacher, Mr Burns. The school was from Kindergarten to 4th form. After that most of the children went to Monaro High in Cooma, or started working. As the day progressed the fog lifted and the Australian sun defrosted the playground in time for recess.

Half way through what had been a normal day for the Turner children, their father, Bill Turner, strictly “father” to the children, came into the classroom and told them to get into the car. This was extremely abnormal as father never came to the school and was a...

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...apparent that Daniel and Meggie where truly suited for one another. They had planned to leave for a holiday in Sydney to experience a local football match in October. Only a week before they had planned to drive up Meggie fainted in class. After being rushed to emergency it was discovered that she needed a blood transfusion within the hour. The family was aware that the only person that shared her blood type was Catherine. Despite all efforts the family could not get in touch with Catherine.

Her walking stick hit the hard dry grass. The wind was hot and it picked up the dust. The gum tree provided limited relief from the harsh unrelenting Australian sun. As she approached the grave, as she had done every year before, Catherine’s heart pained with unforgiving memory that she wasn’t there to save her. She had lived, but she lived with the guilt that haunted her soul.

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