“Being Fern” by Trish Smith

“Being Fern”

My favourite book when I was a kid was Charlotte’s Web  (it was the only book I read, or the only one I remember reading, so picking a favourite was never going to be difficult).  When I was in third grade we had a relief teacher for a few weeks and she read it to us.  I can’t recall her name, but she had unfortunate teeth and one of those shrill voices that would strip the bark off the trees at the bottom of the oval if she was on playground duty and had to holler for us all to hurry up and come inside.  So her voice characterisations were incredibly distracting and I will always remember that teacher for the way the spit flew out from between her teeth as she did the goose – “he’s trying to lure you back into captivity-ivity!”

I read it to myself in third grade, and then read it again, and about ten more times.  Whilst my sister was busily devouring the Tolkein trilogy, I was happy to keep reading about Fern and Wilbur and the Zuckerman’s farm, about the huge swing in the hayloft and the rotten egg that Templeton had stowed under the trough.  I fell in love with the idea of living on a farm, talking to animals and spending long hot summers in the shade of a huge barn like Fern did.  I learned words like ‘injustice’ and ‘radiant’ and discovered that a pig could be cleaned in a buttermilk bath.

When Maddie was old enough I read it to her.  There are so many great characters in that book, all requiring different voices.  I did Templeton with a southern drawl (“It pays to save thangs… Ahh nevah throw ana-thang ah-way”) and was careful never to spit when the goose was talking. 

That book had the same effect on Maddie as it had had on me; it made us want to live on a farm.  It’s a romantic idea. We seriously considered it, once.  We put an offer on a block of land about 45 minutes out of Canberra – 125 acres of bushland with a small but neat house, and a couple of paddocks – there was even a stable for two or three horses.  The offer wasn’t accepted and in the end we realised it was for the best.  We don’t think it can work, not at the moment.  We are too firmly wedded to the city; our jobs are here, the kids are at school in town, and frankly I’m not prepared to live more than 5km from a decent flat white.  Living on a farm would require a huge change of lifestyle beyond the change to fresh air, fresh eggs and wide open spaces.  It would mean a 45 minute commute every day to get to work.  It would mean after school activities would have to be carefully managed.  Saturday morning sports would be a pain in the neck.  Can you imagine the logistics?  Living on a farm sounds idyllic, but I think it would quickly become living in the car. 

My dad’s cousins grew up on a farm, and one school holiday we visited for a few days, and I sat amongst the chooks for an afternoon as they roamed freely, scratching and scavenging.  A huge grain silo provided handfuls of wheat, and I turned over the soil with a big shovel to reveal worms and grubs that sent the chickens into hysterics.  I must have overstayed my welcome, though, because eventually the rooster, an angry black and red bird that was about as big as a turkey, attacked me from behind and chased me away, flapping its wings and pecking at my legs as I ran, screaming towards the house. 

I’m going to read Charlotte’s Web with Caitlin soon, because the movie is coming out and I want her first introduction to that story to be from me and not from Julia Roberts and Dakota Fanning.  I am looking forward to seeing the film, and I’ll definitely take the kids, but the charm of that story for me was in imagining what Zuckerman’s farm was like, in being able to picture things as I thought they should be and in wondering what it would be like to live on a farm.  I haven’t read The Lord of the Rings, but one day I’ll get around to it and I wont be able to imagine Frodo as looking like anything but Elijah Wood. 

Maybe one day we will have a farm.  I haven’t completely rejected the idea.  I’m sure the kids will be begging for us to move from our comfortable suburban existence as the credits are rolling on Charlottes Web the movie.  I hope the farm in the movie is as I have imagined it in my mind.  I hope there is a big swing from the hayloft, and that Templeton sounds like a hillbilly from Alabama.  And I hope that if we do get a farm, we don’t get a mean old rooster that wont let my daughters sit amongst the bags of wheat, pretending to be Fern.  If we happen to accidentally end up with a rooster, you’ll find me in the shed, sharpening the axe and justifying the injustice with thoughts of chicken pie.

Trish.

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