Macbeth and Son Read Free

famous, and Mum had stayed at Breakfast Creek and married Dad and worked on the farm.
    She hadn’t met Sam again till after Dad died, when Sam came back for their school reunion. Mum had come home all gooey and dreamy, and within a year they’d got married and Sam had moved in, and he’d had a stepfather…
    …and things had changed…
    ‘Here we are,’ said Sam, as the limo swung through the gates. They were stone, with something written in Latin and a crest carved on them.
    Luke peered ahead. He could see tall trees that looked like they’d been there forever, and the sort of grass that was regularly mowed and watered, and flower beds all around, as if no one at St Ilf’s had ever heard of a drought—a far cry from the rutted dirt playground and shabby weatherboard buildings of Breakfast Creek Central.
    I’m going to fail, I’m going to fail, thought Luke. There was no way he’d ever pass an entrance exam in a place like this, no matter how much coaching Sam had arranged for him and how many old exam papers he’d gone through.
    Sam was out of the door before the driver could open it for him. Luke followed him up the steps. A crowd of boys and parents were already milling around on the grassy terrace.
    More flowers, thought Luke. There was enough grass here to feed all of Mum’s cattle for a month.
    Maybe if he did end up going to school here he could send the grass clippings home.
    No one else was wearing boots and moleskins. Luke wished he’d worn the expensive joggers Sam had given him last month. Most of the boys seemed to have both parents with them too. For a moment he wished Mum had come as well. She wouldn’t have looked out of place these days, not with her hair all short and streaked like most of the other mums here—not if she dressed in her ‘going to Sydney’ clothes, anyway, and remembered to do her hair.
    But he’d been so sure he was going to flunk he’d asked her not to come. And Sam had agreed. ‘Gives us boys a chance to spend some quality time together,’ Sam had said.
    Luke supposed ‘quality time’ was having dinner last night at that Japanese restaurant where half the stuff was raw and all the other diners kept looking over at Sam while he pretended not to notice. Or breakfast this morning at that trendy café, where the omelette wasn’t half as good as Mum’s, all pale and tough like a kitchen sponge with bits of tomato inside, and where everyone looked at Sam once again and Sam sort of glowed with all the attention.
    They were looking at him now, Luke realised, in that out-of-the-corner-of-their-eye way so it didn’t seem like they were staring. Luke supposed Sam wasused to it after so many years on TV. But it still made Luke feel weird.
    ‘Attention! If the boys will all follow me…’ a teacher’s voice said.
    It’s time, thought Luke. He looked up at Sam and tried to smile.
    ‘You’ll be right, mate,’ said Sam confidently.
    No way, thought Luke, as he followed the others in.
    The hall was three times as large as the school hall at home, with big stained-glass windows at one end. The desks were polished wood. They looked as old and mellow as the school itself.
    The teacher looked at his watch. ‘Everyone got their pens? Right…if anyone needs anything just raise your hand. You can start writing…now!’
    Luke lifted the exam paper and opened it. The maths section was first. The words blurred for a second, then cleared.
    ‘If 3x =…’ Luke stared. He felt a grin slide over his face. He knew this one! It had been on one of the old exam papers Sam had given him.
    Maybe this wasn’t going to be as bad as he’d thought.
    He flicked over the other pages. ‘Write an essay on one of the following…’ ‘Examine the difference between State and Federal governments…’
    Cool! He knew it all! This was going to be easy…
    Too easy…The thought went through him like an axe through butter.
    How come he knew all the answers? He’d seen every question before,