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In yesterday’s writers’ workshop, we had to write for 20 minutes about a childhood memory. Here’s what I wrote:

I was seven years old and had just moved up north to Queensland with my mum, my little brother, nan and grandad. We were the first ones in the street. Our houses were still being built — nan and grandad’s at the top of the street, ours at the bottom of the cul-de-sac. There was no road, just a wide dirt track and lots of gum trees.

We stayed in caravans a few streets away while the builders worked on our new homes. Ashley — Ash — and I would run through the bush playing hide and seek to pass the time. Nan would stay in hers and grandad’s caravan, her eyes red and puffy, a tissue held close to her face. Mum and grandad made lots of trips to the building site to check on things.

When the sun was level with the trees, I knew it was time to come home. I couldn’t yet read the time, but grandad had taught me to keep an eye on where the sun was. When it sunk to the top of the trees, it was about five thirty.

On the way back home we’d often see a family of six big red kangaroos. They watched us from the bush as we skipped along the track. As the sun disappeared behind the trees, the bluish black sky would fill with hundreds of fruit bats, flapping loudly and screeching as they tore off in search of dinner. I remember stopping and looking up, trying to get a good look at their strangely shaped wings.

We ate dinner outside, sharing our cold meat and salad with the mosquitoes and listening to mum, nan and grandad argue about the builders and what they weren’t doing right. Nan kept saying she never should have left Melbourne. She shook her head a lot and looked wild and sad.

In the morning we’d wake up with the birds and Ash would run out to get the milk that got delivered by the milkman. One day he came running back, his eyes wide with horror, his mouth agape.

“Something’s drunk our milk!”

He held the carton up high above him with both hands to show us how empty it was.

On closer inspection, there were teeth marks in the bottom of the yellow and blue carton. Mum, Ash and I went outside to look for more evidence. There wasn’t much to see. A dribble of milk on the ground, dirty and already covered in ants, and a few half chewed eucalyptus leaves.

Further down the track we saw large broken off branches of eucalyptus trees and more half-chewed leaves. In the dirt were paw prints leading back to the bush. Ashley skipped ahead, shouting loudly, excited about what kind of animal could have drunk the milk for his cereal.

We followed the prints sending silvery-black geckos scampering away. The sound of our feet crunching down on twigs and dried leaves disturbed their sun bathing. When the trail turned toward the trees, we stopped at the edge of the bush and looked up. A few large white birds with yellow crests took off from their nests.

“Look! Cockies!” Ash shouted, pointing at the Cockatoos flying away.

“Yeah, aren’t they lovely!” said mum.

I scanned the trees for koalas.

“Do you reckon it was a koala, mum? That drank the milk?” I said.

“Could have been. Yeah.” she mused.

High up in one of the trees, I spotted one.

“Look! I found one! Up there! See it?” I shouted quickly.

We all stared at the koala in amazement. Our first wild koala spotting!

The next morning we got up very early to watch and see if the koala came back for more milk. We sat quietly, watching, waiting. But no koala came. After a few days of this, mum asked the milkman about it.

“Oh yeah, that’ll be a koala for sure.” he chuckled.

After that, our milk got delivered under heavy plastic milk crates.

I finally climb into bed around 3am.

My head hits the pillow and the next thing I remember is being woken up by Charlie. He objects to the fact that I am still sleeping and he stands on the pillow above my head, biting my hair. His sharp teeth graze my skull. I tilt my head up and look at him through half-closed eyes. I screw up my face at the greyish white light flooding the room and push him away.

I fall right back asleep.

At 10ish I am again woken up, first by the landline phone and then by my mobile. I trudge into the loungeroom, somewhat off balance and hunt in the pocket of my faded pink suede jacket for my phone.

“Hello?” I answer in my chirpiest I-wasn’t-sleeping voice.

“Hello? Narelle?” An anxious female voice.

“Yeah? Yes! Hi?” I manage.

“What’s wrong with you?” Natasha is concerned and confused.

“I just got up.”

“Lazy bum!” she laughs, “Hey! Do you know how many people are coming to the writers’ group today?”

“That’s what you woke me up for!?” I grumble and mumble for a few seconds “I don’t know. Me, Chris said he’d come, maybe Saskia…four people maybe?”

“How will I know how many worksheets to print? Oh well, I’ll just print four.”

“That’s a safe number. Okay, see you this arvo.”

“Okay, bye!” she rings off cheerily.

I hang up.

Charlie meows at my feet, rubbing his head against my leg. I bend down and give him a pat and suddenly realise I need to pee. But I can’t just yet. I promised myself I’d take a pregnancy test this morning.

I struggle to read and understand the instructions on the cardboard packet. It’s hard to read French when you’re going red in the face from the strain of having to hold it in.

I eventually tear open the foil packet, yank out the white plastic stick and shove it in the path of destruction. Nothing happens. I breathe a little, trying to relax.

“Here we go… one, two, three, four, five” I count in my head and then remove the stick.

I place the purple cap on the end and hold it in my hand. The diamond-shaped window immediately shows a dark blue line. The test is valid.

The round window shows a faint cross. My heart stands still in my chest and then the faint cross blurs and fizzles into a solid blue line.

I stare at the round window willing the positive cross to re-appear.

The negative blue line bleeds a little and could almost look like a cross, but it’s not. I know it’s not.

I’ll try again in a few days.

The day stretches before me.

I sit at the big wooden table in my dining room, legs dangling, bare toes grazing the cool fake-parquet linoleum, swinging them back and forth while I type.

Two brushed metal lamps are turned up as far as they’ll go and the heavy, unbleached cotton curtains are pushed aside to let in the greyish white light from outside.

In front of the glass doors that open out to the balcony, railing boxes filled with pale purple and white violas sit on the floor. Beside them are two leafy green frangipani trees, one in a large round terracotta pot on wheels, the other in a smallish glazed green pot. In the middle is a metre-high bougainvillea topped with masses of shocking hot pink bracts encasing tiny white flowers.

It’s too cold and windy outside today, so my plants sit inside with me looking out the window at the giant pine and poplar trees across the road.

The flat is quiet but I can hear everything in every other flat. The echo of the shower running in the upstairs apartment, the squeak of a lively little body sloshing about in a bathtub, a cupboard door being slammed shut, heavy footsteps in the stairway.

I check e-mail. I consider getting another cup of coffee. I should be planning tonight’s English lesson. I should be sorting out papers in the office. I should be applying for a proper job. I should doing something constructive.

I’d rather be writing, but starting is always difficult. I face the blank screen with grim determination.

I flex my fingers and place them on the keyboard of my laptop. The light-weight plastic keys make no sound as I press them down. ASDF and ;LKJ are smooth and shiny in the middle. The left mouse button on my keypad is completely worn through.

Doubt flickers through my mind from time to time. Who am I to think I could be a writer? What makes me think I have anything to say that anyone would want to listen to?

Everyone has a story to tell. If we never commit to telling it, it never gets told. My mind is made up. I’ve commited to doing it.

I can do this.

I’ve found the perfect spot to write.

Bar Le Tivoli, 34 allee Jean Jaures, Toulouse, France

I went there by chance on Monday afternoon on my way home from a job interview. I couldn’t get home because the metro had broken down and so I decided to get a coffee and fill in some time. I was there for around 40 minutes, and here’s what I wrote…