We sit outside the local café drinking coffee.  The sun is shining and for all we can see the world is bright and happy.  Very occasionally a car will pass, but they are quick and quiet in today’s modern world, the people inside passing through and barely noticing anything beyond the windows of their own world.
‘These are lazy days.’ Says my mother, looking at a young man crossing the street.
The young man looks in our direction but not directly at us.  He has noticed us too, but that could simply be because we are the only other people in the street, which is not an uncommon occurrence in a small town such as this.
The town, located in the Adelaide Hills in South Australia, is average by the region’s standards with just under one thousand people living in it and the surrounding area.  The region is mostly reliant on farming and its people are a mix of locals who have lived here most of their lives and city families who have moved more recently as it’s near Adelaide but far enough away to offer the country lifestyle.  This is my home, my town and has been my world until recent years; before I began to work in the city.  In two days time I will leave here and move to Melbourne, hopefully to create a new world and possibly a new home.
We watch the young man as he walks down the main street and out of sight.
My mother turns to look at me, ‘That reminds me.  Jimmy was back in town.  He’s out of gaol now.’
I look at my mother but have nothing to say, I haven’t seen Jimmy in years.  Many years and almost a life time ago.
‘You remember Jimmy.  Jimmy James.  He lived with the Atkinson’s next door.  The little Aboriginal boy?’
‘I remember Jimmy.  He helped me dig witchetty grubs out of that old tree stump.’ I smile at the memory.
‘How old would he be now? Twenty two, twenty three?’
‘Twenty four, nearly twenty five.  He was just over two years older than me.’ The silence stretches and we sip our coffee to fill it.  ‘Do you know why he’s back?  Did you see him?’
‘No, I ran into Adam Levin.  He told me.  Didn’t say why but that he was here for a couple days, may even have left by now, too’
I smile at my mother, she will miss me when I have gone but she understands that this is something I need to do.  I need to go out and meet the world, find adventures.  This reminds me there is something I want to do before I go.

The yellow bus pulls away and drives noisily and bumpy down the road and over the hill.   A child in a blue school uniform and a large backpack races over the driveway to the house at the end.
Inside a woman looks out her kitchen window to see the girl running home after her day at school.  The door opens and she is there to meet her.
‘Hey Mum!’ the girl is bright and her smile is quick as she kisses her mother on the cheek in greeting.
‘Hi Anna, how was school?’  the mother asks but Anna is already moving towards the hallway and her room only to reappear minus her backpack.  Her mother moves towards the lounge, picking up a book as she goes.
‘Anything to eat?’
‘There are apples and possibly a banana in the fruit bowl.’
As Anna moves towards the kitchen herself there’s a brief knock at the door.
Her mother doesn’t even look up, just calls out, ‘Come on in, Stewart.  The door‘s not locked.’
A boy, around the same age as Anna enters as she turns to her mother with an apple in her hand.
‘Why do you call him Stewart, Mum?  He’s Jimmy!  Only the Atkinson’s call him Stewart’  Giving her mother a look that said to do so was very uncool in her eyes.
‘It’s his name’.
Anna rolls her eyes and smiles at Jimmy.
‘Wanna apple?  Were out of everything else.’
‘Nar.  You wanna go to the cubby?’ He replies.
‘Anna, you need to change out of your uniform first.’
‘Mum, I’m not going to get it dirty.’
‘You say that and yet every time you go out there you come back with just that all over your arms and legs.  Go change.’ She says sternly.
Anna again disappears down the hallway.
‘How was your day, Stewart?’ She asks him with a smile.
Jimmy shrugs.  ‘You can call me Stewart. I don’t mind when you do, Ms Paxton.’
Her smile softens as she says, ‘I’ll make a deal with you.  I’ll call you Jimmy, if you call me Liz.’  Then she winks.
Anna rushes back into the room wearing different clothes.
‘One day I’d like to see your cubby.  Maybe one day you could both show me.’ Liz watches her daughter face as she answers.
‘Mum, it’s our place.’
The two children leave the house and set out in the direction of the bushlands which start a couple hundred metres from the door.

My mother and I drive home after our coffee.  This maybe one of the last times I make this particular trip with her and we are silent in recognition of this.
She parks and we both get out and as we do I turn to look where for years I have not; over past the house, to the edge of the bushlands.
‘Mum, I’m gonna go for a walk.  I won’t be long.’ I say to her.
She looks at me and sees where I am looking.  I see the understanding in her eyes and she takes my bag as she heads to the door.
I set off, steps unhurried.  I notice the landscape as I go.  It’s darker and harsher than I remember.  The grass is green and damp and disappears at the edge of the trees which are greyer, bigger and more spindly than I remember.  They are also closer together and I wonder if I will be able to go all the way to my destination.  I’m not as small as I once was.
At the edge I pause.  While I have been into the bushlands in recent years it has not been at this particular point.  I step forward and take a breath.  It’s even darker under the canopy created by the trees but I never remember that bothering me like it does now.
As I adjust to the environment again, I notice more of the world I am now in.  The rocks on the ground, the spiky black boy bushes, the leaves on the path, which is barely more than a rough track.  I remember this world, as once it was my world, in the same way the town and city is now.  

The trees are green and grey, the light is bright.  The two children are running and chasing and racing each other down a small track only noticeable as it is the only place not covered by eucalyptus leaves.
Birds call out and bushes rattle quietly but neither of these things bother them, this is their world and nothing is dangerous here.
The track opens up to a very small clearing; at the other end is a large gum tree.  Leaves grow on the top most branches that reach high into the sky and at the base there is an opening to a hollow, creating a shelter inside.  There are logs and sticks and a tyre and other various bits the children have scavenged.
The two move towards this opening and the boy lingers and lays a hand on the old gum, looking up at their living shelter before entering.
‘You wanna finish working on that chair against the tree we were making?’ Anna asks Jimmy.
‘Yeah, I guess.’ He says.
‘Well either that or can you finish that story you were telling me?’
They both sit down on the ground inside and Anna pulls out a banana from her pocket.
‘Want some?’ She offers.
Jimmy shrugs and Anna hands him half, they eat quietly.
‘We could always find more witchetty grubs?’ Jimmy says with a grin.
Anna glares at him, ‘those are gross and swishy and you didn’t even eat it!’
‘That’s cos girls eat those ones.’
Anna gives him a doubtful look.
Time passes and eventually its nightfall, in the distance a voice calls out and both children head back along the track in no particular rush.

After sometime I come to a larger tree than those around me.  It is old and hollow at its base but with leaves sprouting from its highest branch to show that it is still alive.  Nearby there is a fallen log and an old tyre.  There are sticks and bits of rope scattered around.
I remember this place, I remember running through here, playing over there and always in this place with Jimmy.
Jimmy was my friend, my companion and neighbour.  He stayed with the family next door and this here was once our world, our place.  This was where we adventured and created.  Here he told me stories of his home, he was originally from northern Western Australia.  Here I learned about another culture and people but without the understanding that that was what I was doing.  I learned of a people that were the same but different with interesting stories and dreamed of a time when I could go adventuring in the environment I was learning about.
Now I look around and see that environment is taking our little world back. The bushes are closing in and the trees will soon to.  I look around and see that this is no longer my world and I know the moment that changed.

Evening was close and the two children were again heading back towards their little world, heading down the track at a fast pace but this time without the light hearted smiles.
‘Its fine Jimmy we can fix it, they just chucked stuff around.’ Anna says quietly struggling to keep up with Jimmy’s faster steps.
‘They wrecked it.  People are always wrecking my stuff.’
Anna is silent when they get there as Jimmy inspects the damage.
‘Did you see who did it?’ he asks over his shoulder.
‘No, I just heard them doing it.’  Anna says quickly.
‘What did you hear?’
Anna avoids his eyes.
Jimmy gets to the tree and sees that one of the older branches has been broken off deliberately.  His expression changes from grim to angry and Anna sees it.
He turns back to the branch, ‘they did it cos of me.  This was my place and they did it cos it’s mine.’  He yells as he picks up a stick and slams it against the tree.
Anna watches, worry in her eyes, ‘Why would they do that?’  She stammers out.
‘Why do you think?’ Jimmy yells back, ‘it’s cos I’m black!’
Jimmy turns and runs into the bush, away from the path.
Anna starts to go after him, calling his name but no answer comes and she turns back after to wait by the tree.
Some time later dark sets in, she shivers and listens to the rustling of the leaves.  Not long later she leaves, quickly, back down the track towards home.

I saw Jimmy several times after that night, but it was then that he began to pull back.  I saw less of him right up until he left to move home again at the end of that year, at the end of his primary school years.
That last time in the bushland had changed the way I saw the place and I never went back.  The world I had known there was gone with one word, a word I had never read in that way before, a word that had simply meant a colour now had more depth to it, other meanings that until that moment had been incomprehensible.
The realisation had come with seeing Jimmy in our place at that time, his seeing what happened.  Before he had been there that last time it was something we could fix, recreate and rebuild even after they had wrecked it but, after, it seemed impossible.  Part of the problem was that I had heard what they had said and he was right.  They had come because of him and while that understanding was also a big moment for me it was realising that Jimmy knew it too which changed our little world.
I look around and see the branch lying on the ground, the tyre where it was kicked to.  I look around this place and realise it wasn’t my world any longer as it is a part of a world I can no longer live in with the innocence of childhood gone.
I turn to head back towards the house.  I have to pack, to ready myself for the next phase in my life.   What I take with me from this place is the understanding that people are people no matter the outside colour but that not everyone in this world can see that.
I remember Jimmy, I always will no matter how far I go or how much I change and that of the world I live in.  I sometimes wish I could see him again but then think I may prefer the memories of the boy who was just a boy and the innocence had not yet been lost to his experiences.  While I wonder if I should ever return here to this particular world I grew up in, I still dream of a time when I can go adventuring in the world Jimmy taught me about.