Read Online Fake ID by Hazel Edwards - Free Book Online

history.
    In the past, Gran always helped me with school work. But when I started asking questions for my history assignment about when and why she came to Australia in 1956, she kept changing the subject to my hockey training, or ‘Let’s open some Tim Tams.’
    Mr Grant had said to copy documents like birth and marriage certificates or passports, so I asked Gran for hers. She didn’t want to let me photocopy them. I thought it was because she didn’t want to let them out of her sight. But it was more than that. I knew a bit about passports because Mum got a new one when she went to Antarctica, even though she was working in an Australian territory and didn’t need a passport for there.
    â€˜In a polar emergency, I might be taken out to South America or even the Falklands, and then I’d need a passport to move in and out of countries,’ Mum explained. ‘And my old passport had a very unflattering photo.’
    That bit was true. Mum’s nose stuck out in the old photo. Just like Gran’s and mine, although Gran didn’t worry how she looked. She just worried about her history.
    I remember the thoughtful way Gran looked when she poured the mousse mixture into bowls and said,‘ Everyone has secrets in their past. If we tell them, they are no longer secrets. And maybe others will be hurt. Have a taste of this.’ She gave me the spoon to lick.
    â€˜What sort of secrets?’ I licked the spoon and the mousse tasted wonderful. ‘Secret recipes? Cooking secrets?’
    Gran shook her head with a smile. ’Nothing as simple as that. I have a political secret. Something, which you would find hard to understand in today’s Australia. Fear can make you do unusual things.’
    Gran put the mousse bowls into the refrigerator.
    â€˜What sort of fear?’ I was beginning to sound like one of those pushy TV interviewers that shove a mike up your nose for the thirty-second grab on the 6 p.m. news.
    Gran ignored my question. ‘Switch on the music. Try this on.’ That’s when she let me try on her new dancing outfit: the red veil, baggy pants and even the gold coin belt which fits on the hips and clanks when you walk. That’s when the vivid colours and sounds started to interest me as ‘dress-ups’. I loved the feel of the silky material as I moved.
    â€˜Play with colour and music. Be someone else for a few minutes.’
    I remember saying, ‘When you get as old as you Gran, do you still like dressing up?’
    â€˜Of course. Inside, I feel only your age.’
    Maybe, but outside, she looked old, with lots of wrinkles around her neck. At least the veil covered her wrinkly tummy. Playing the music at full volume, we had fun that afternoon. And we ate all the Tim Tams.
    Only after, I realised I didn’t see the certificates or the passport. Gran was excellent at changing the subject. This time she had distracted me with food and dancing. In class, Mr Grant said towns had been destroyed or over-run during wartime and records lost, especially if the town hall had been bombed. Missing documents made it hard to prove who you were. Maybe it worked both ways? You could claim to be someone like Magda from a town where no records were left.
    So here I was now, meeting the mysterious Fortuna at Studio 17, the fancy name for the belly-dancing place. I felt in my backpack for Gran’s red dancing outfit, which was a link to my fun past, when Gran and I mucked around instead of doing homework. I also had my hockey gear for later.
    Ground level, the shop looked seedy. A worn red carpet covered the stairs to the first-floor dance room. A crystal ball hung from the ceiling, its movements reflecting lights and creating another world. Music wailed. Mirror walls reflected the dancers, suggesting more than the real number that were there.
    Behind a sign on a card table, marked:
Clara the clairvoyant — fortunes told
, sat a woman wearing rainbow