An extract from YA novel,
NO WORRIES
© Bill Condon (University Queensland Press, 2005)

      ‘Pull over,’ said Dad.
      ‘Huh? Why?’
      ‘The lass with the horse – she gave you the eye.’
      I lightly touched the brake.
      ‘I don’t think so, Dad.’
      ‘Jeez, you young blokes are slow. She smiled at yer. Pull over. You don’t have to worry about anything. I’ll do the talkin’.’
      I stopped the car, covering my face and cringing at the thought of him doing the talking.
      ‘No, don’t Dad. It’s not a good idea. Let’s go home.’
      But he was already out the door and walking unsteadily back to Emma. ‘Come on, Bri,’ he yelled so all the world could hear. ‘This is yer chance!’
      I wanted to hide under the seat.
      ‘How yer goin’, darlin’?’
      ‘Fine, thanks.’
      ‘Briii-an! Get over here, mate. Don’t be shy.
      I wanted to kill him but the damage was done. There was no escape.
      ‘Yeah, I’m coming,’ I said, silently begging my face not to change colour.
      Emma looked amused by it all; a drunken matchmaker and a woeful would-be Romeo who’d just realised his shorts had a tomato sauce stain – directly over the crotch.
      ‘Hi,’ I said. ‘This is my father. Dad – this is Emma Freeman. She goes to my old school.’
      ‘He’s a bit of a dark horse, this lad. Never mentioned you once, Emma. Me friends call me an old bastard – but you can call me Mick.’
      ‘Nice to meet you, Mick.’
      Dad’s only reply was an extremely stupid grin. He had a glazed look on his face as if the grog was fast shutting down large sections of his brain.
      The silence roared around us. I had to say something.
      ‘This is tomato sauce,’ I said pointing at my crotch.
      ‘Is it?’ she replied.
      The word ‘dumb’ entered my brain and tolled like a huge bell – DUMB, DUMB, DUMB, and for the first time I knew what a girl could do to me by not doing anything. But not just any girl.
      ‘What I mean is – um, ah … ’
      She watched me squirm, the faintest hint of amusement in her eyes.
      Finally I spluttered, ‘Nice horse.’
      She rubbed its nose.
      ‘His name is Zeb.’
      ‘Like zebra,’ said Dad, springing back to life.
      ‘Zebra?’ Emma raised her eyebrows.
      I hated to think what she might have been thinking about us.
      ‘Well, come on, Dad. We better be getting back.’
      ‘Nooooooo.’
      Dad let the word run out so it sounded like a moaning cat.
      ‘Youse two have a natter. Take yer time. I’ll have a snooze while I’m waitin’. In fact, better still – I’ll drive Goldie home and you can walk back when yer finished. Problem solved.’
      I screamed inwardly, ‘No! No!’ But all Dad heard was a vague and mumbled protest. Then he was gone. And we were alone.
      Emma saved me by doing the talking. It was as if she’d looked into my heart, and seeing how madly it was beating, had decided to help me out. And I was more than willing to take all the help she could spare.
      ‘Let’s go over to the stable,’ she said, pointing across the road. ‘I’ve had Zeb out for a pick – he likes new grass. I didn’t feel like riding today, so he took me for a walk.’ She rested her head against the horse’s massive side. ‘Didn’t you, Zebbie?’
      Zeb was a grey. A humungous thing with a hulking belly that felt hard like a wall. I was worried he might step on me – I’d never been around horses before. He laid his ears back as I touched him, not a good sign.
      ‘He can sense if you’re scared,’ said Emma.
      I slapped him across the backside. Dust rose from his coat.
      ‘I’m not scared,’ I mumbled, hoping I hadn’t slapped him too hard and made him angry.
      We walked on in silence. I wasn’t about to say anything. If I opened my mouth it might break the spell. Apart from a thousand very real fantasies, this was the closest I’d been to a girl. For Emma it was probably nothing. Just taking the horse to the stable with some dopey boy tagging along. But for me it was huge. Emma was with me. Where was the paparazzi when you wanted them? Take my photo! Take our photo! … I was walking on air.

The stable was nothing much. Green-painted strips of corrugated iron roofing held up by four posts. Wooden palings that only went halfway to the dirt floor made up the walls. And lots and lots of manure. Everywhere.
      Eventually I felt that I had to say something. Anything.
      ‘Great stable,’ I told her. ‘You build it yourself?’
      ‘Me and Dad.’
      ‘Right.’
      Dead end. That was all the conversation I could manage, and it was over. It was Dad’s fault. If I’d known beforehand I was seeing her I could have memorised some jokes or read up on the Net about horses, or manure even. But now, unprepared, I was wallowing in the deep end and about to drown.
      She took a couple of steps back so she could see on top of the roof. ‘Oh good, it’s there.’
      Emma stood on the tips of her toes and reached up to the roof, groping around. ‘I can’t quite get to the rake – do you think you could, Bri?’
      ‘Sure.’
       Yes! I could do that! That was my one great skill. Hopeless at conversation but perfect for getting rakes. I almost leapt on to the roof in my enthusiasm.
      ‘Thanks. Dad puts it too far back sometimes and I can’t quite reach it.’
      ‘If you ever want help with something like that’– I could hear myself rambling but I couldn’t stop – ‘just let me know. Mum says that’s all I’m good for, reaching things, ’cause I’m tall. So any time I can help, I don’t care what it is …’
      ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘I’ll keep that in mind.’
      As she raked up manure Zeb cantered over and nudged her back with his head.
      ‘Hello, Zebbie, you want some attention, do you?’
      Resting the rake against a wall Emma leant forward and picked up one of his hoofs to examine it. Leant forward right in front of me. The manure smell had bothered me at first but now I didn’t notice it. Didn’t notice anything except that she wasn’t wearing a bra.
      ‘You want some manure for your garden?’ she asked. ‘We can bag it up.’
      ‘Um … no thanks.’
      I knew I should look away but a chance like that might never come again. I’d only ever seen boobs in books and magazines, now they were in front of me, on the loose. It was like watching my own personal wildlife documentary.
      ‘One thing about old Zeb – he’s got good feet. Haven’t you, boy?’
      Emma’s boobs seemed on the small side, but the size didn’t matter. They could have been Amazonian Giant Boobs and I wouldn’t have been any more impressed. I felt like some primitive tribesman who’d seen a plane for the first time. Who cared if it was a helicopter or a jumbo jet? It was still a miracle. I edged a bit closer in case I was missing something.
       ‘Bri!’ She straightened up in a hurry. ‘You’re perving!’
       My mind screamed, Deny it! Deny it! Plead insanity! Run!
       ‘No I wasn’t. Honest.’
       ‘Oh come on – your eyes were almost popping out of your head.’
       If I lived to be a thousand I wasn’t going to own up.
       ‘No, I promise. I was looking at – at Zeb’s hoof.’
       ‘I should walk around without a shirt on so you can have a real good look.’
       Did she mean it? I would’ve gone home and got my camera.
       ‘Why don’t you just admit it?’
       ‘There’s nothing to admit. Of course I wasn’t looking at you. Don’t be paranoid. There’s hardly anything to see.’
       Oh no! Oh no!

Extract from
MISS WOLF AND THE PORKERS
©Bill Condon (Aussie Bites, Penguin Books, 2001)

This is the tale of the Porker Kids and a nice librarian called Miss Wolf. We’ll meet her soon, but first, the Porkers ...
       The kids names were Rails, Dan and Shorty. Rails was short for Raelene, Dan was short for Dandruff, and Shorty was just short.
       Each of the Porkers had curly red hair, happy smiles and more freckles than you’d find on a freckle farm.
       They looked like any other kids, but they had a special talent. The Porkers were World Champions when it came to sucking up to teachers.
       They carried their teachers’ books.
       They cleaned their car windscreens.
       They gave them apples (with hardly any worms in them).
       And they wrote sweet little poems for them, like this:

Our teachers are so cute and kind.
They teach us very well.
They might look a bit like zombies
But they hardly ever smell.

The teachers at Mount Barker School were certain that Rails, Dan and Shorty were perfect angels.
       How perfectly wrong they were.
       Behind the Porkers’ syrupy smiles lay a dim, dark secret. Sucking up to teachers was not their only talent. The Porkers were masterminds at Being Bad – and getting away with it, every time.
       Here’s some of the vile deeds they got up to in just one term:
       Rails crept into the assembly hall and put a whoopee cushion under the deputy principal’s seat.
       Dan released a mob of mice that terrorised the tuck-shop ladies.
       And, in the most daring, rude and crude crime of all, Shorty drew a coloured picture of Principal Kidney’s naked pink bottom and hung it from the school flagpole.
       Everyone at Mount Barker, except the angelic Porkers, was questioned about that, even Principal Kidney’s mother. (Who else would know his bottom was pink?)
       Luckily, Mrs Kidney had a sound alibi. She was colour blind, and she couldn’t draw bottoms.
       ‘Who could the villains be?’ asked the teachers. ‘Not the Porkers, that’s for sure. They’re far too nice to be naughty.’
       ‘Sucked in!’ sniggered the Porkers.

Children’s poems
© Bill Condon

FAMILY TREE

The mother was a ghost gum

A really terrific tree-mum.

The father was a noble oak

A shining prince of tree-dom.

You'd think with a family tree like that

The offshoot would have to be a winner.

Instead he was a toothpick

Who lived in fear of dinner.

FREE

It’s like this:

I’m on my bike down by the sea

There’s just the waves,

The ocean smell

And me.

I sweep around a turn

And then I’m gone

Out of this world -

Down, down the hill

Screaming into the land of No Brakes,

The wind a motor on my back

Just me

With a smile as big as the sea –

That’s free.

I NEED TO WALK

I need to walk each morning

Because there’s a horse that waits for me to rubs its nose.

Though whether I stay five minutes or an hour,

I can never rub away its loneliness.

I need to walk

So I can talk to a white dog that prowls in endless circles,

Forever haunted by a chain

That cuts us both.

KIT-CAT

Fluffy balls of cuteness,

Curled up sound asleep.

No miaows

Or late-night howls,

Angels aren’t as sweet.

Pussy cats grow up to be

Big and bold and smug.

I want my cat always to be,

No bigger than a bug.

I don’t want it to scratch and snarl,

Or chase a car and die.I want my cat to be a kitten,

So I’m practising

Bonsai.

ROBOT REMINDER

Good morning from your friendly robot...

While you slept -

Your bath was taken for a walk,

Your dog was filled,

Your toast was cleaned,

Your dishes were buttered,

Your carpets were fried,

Your eggs were vacuumed,

Your pants were cut,

Your nails were ironed.

You are now drinking coffee

That has been greased and oiled.

Warning! Warning!

Do not forget my birthday again.

ROCK AND ROLL ELEPHANTS

Each year at the Animal Ball

The goose and the gander brawl

The cow is ejected for stepping on toes

The eagles and hawks are awful to crows

The skunk and the skink create a great stink

The bull goes bananas and charges at llamas

The iguana and brolga decide that’s it’s vulgar

And make a quick dash for the doors

But before they can make it the elephants shake it -

There goes the unbreakable floors.

WHAT A BLOW

My nose was feeling ugly,

But I knew just the ticket.

I put it in a Beauty Contest…

The judges didn’t pick it.

A MIRACLE IN YOUR OWN BACKYARD

Glorious, glorious sky,

That hour before night.

Flying mountains

A dozen shades of pink and red.

Endless canyons blue and purple,

A wisp of yellow, a silver shaft.

Please, please,

Turn off the TV.

Can’t you hear?

The clouds are calling -

‘Look at me! Look at me!’