Not really quite sure where this belongs as there isn’t a fan fiction group and this is the first chapter of a fanfic “Sally Called!” (based on Aussie TV soap Home and Away) that I wrote a while back. The background story was that when Sally was three her parents died in a boating accident and she was taken in by her grandmother, who later developed Alzheimer’s. When the series opened, eight-year-old Sally was the newest foster child of Pippa Ross and had brought with her an invisible friend, “Milko“.

The soap never explained whether or not Sally witnessed the boating accident so this is my own version of events. Also the Phillips brothers were much later characters in the show and were never featured as children; I just thought they’d be an interesting addition.


Chapter 1

Sally Calls!

"We've got Milko. Don't tell nobody and 'specially don't tell the cops or Milko gets it..." The little boy with the innocent sparkling blue eyes and baby face casually removed one hand from his pocket to make a slicing gesture across his throat. "We'll be in touch."

Sally Keating froze. The kid was much younger than herself. Although he was wearing school uniform, he didn't look old enough to be in school at all but he acted like he owned not only Summer Bay Primary but the whole of Summer Bay as well. After coolly delivering the ultimatum, he thrust his hands back into his pockets and strolled back through the strictly-forbidden-access bushes (protecting, as they did, Reception class's newly-planted flower beds) from whence he came.

Sally watched the bushes move and a taller head above the bushes bobbing in apparent conversation. She didn't need to ask who the kidnappers were. She'd only been in Summer Bay a handful of days but already she'd heard the other kids talking about the Phillips brothers. How, if you weren't quick enough, they'd do heaps of bad stuff to you, call you names, rob you, bash you even, and it was best to keep away from them. But she hadn't been quick enough and now Milko had been kidnapped.

They'd never been separated before. It was like someone had ripped out her heart. Tears blurred her vision. If she'd never come to Summer Bay, Milko would still be with her and everything would be alright again. She wished she could go back two days and tell Mrs Ross she'd changed her mind. It just might work if she closed her eyes real tight and wished hard enough.

Little Sally Keating squeezed her eyes tight shut and wished with all her might that she'd never called on Summer Bay.

*****

Yesterday

"I'm not staying for a long time. But I just thought I'd call."

Pippa Ross smiled down at the polite, solemn child (the complete opposite of confident, outgoing Lynn who had been fostered at the same time as her much younger friend) who'd carefully taken the (standard Home issue) pink-striped pyjamas out of her overnight bag to fold extremely neatly and place carefully on the pillow and who now turned to her hostess with an air of quiet self-sufficiency.

"I see. And how long do you think you'll be calling for, Sally?"

Pippa tenderly brushed back a stray tendril of dark hair that was threatening to engulf Sally's right eye. Poor kid. Small wonder she was so reserved.

When she was only three Sally's parents had drowned in a boating accident that she'd witnessed and she'd gone to live with her grandmother. But, ironically, Sally herself had become the carer when the old lady later developed Alzheiemers. Thankfully, one of her teachers became aware of the situation and alerted Welfare. But it hadn't helped matters that, only days before she was taken into care, a kindly elderly neighbour and the neighbour's two cats that Sally had lavished attention upon had perished in a house fire. By the time she was eight...

...Sally has come to the conclusion that those she loves will inevitably leave her and so the wisest course of action is never to get close to anyone in the first place. To compensate, she has created for herself an imaginary friend "Milko", who can NEVER be taken away from her and therefore always gives Sally the love, security and stability she so desperately craves...

A lump had come to Pippa's throat when she read the reports. She and her husband Tom had previously only ever fostered teenagers and had promised each other that they would tread very, very slowly with this little girl who had known so much tragedy at so young an age. It would be a learning curve for all three of them and they'd take it one step at a time.

"I'm not quite sure," Sally replied in answer to Pippa's question. "What do you think, Milko?"

She looked towards a blank spot on the wall and seemed to listen intently, nodding two or three times, while Pippa waited patiently.

"Milko says he thinks you're very nice, thank you for having us and we might call for a few days. If you don't mind." She added, a tremor of anxiety slipping into the previously composed little voice.

"Well, tell Milko thank you very much, I think he's very nice too and I'll be very glad to have you both call for as long as you like."

Pippa once more tenderly brushed back the rogue tendril of hair that had worked itself loose with all the nodding. No doubt Sally would grow out of Milko in time. But the little girl still needed her imaginary friend as yet. As long as Sally had Milko to help her cope, everything would be fine.

*****

"We're not really gonna kill him, are we, Scotty?" Kane Phillips asked, having successfully delivered, word for word (although the slicing throat gesture had been Kane's own artistic flourish) the message his older brother Scotty had tasked him with.

Nine-year-old Scott blinked. "What the do you think, drongo?"

Kane gazed at the patch of grass where Scott claimed to be holding Milko prisoner and shuffled in thought, managing to trample a few more of the flowers his class had been busy nurturing that very morning.

"D'ya think we oughta get him something to eat then?"

"No, I don't!" Scotty raised his eyes Heavenwards. Jeeeez-us! The whole idea of "kidnapping" Milko had been to tease the new kid, not to provide four-course meals.

"But we can't just starve the guy..."

Scott Phillips wondered, not for the first time, why he was the only one in his family to have been blessed with a brain. Dad was sometimes so off his face with the grog that he thought he saw giant mice and miniature kangaroos. Mum was so far gone into Fruitcake Land that some days she could hold whole conversations with a wall. Now his four-and-a-half-year-old brother, recently started at Summer Bay Primary and, until this moment, having shown promising signs of following in Scotty's footsteps, was enquiring about luncheon arrangements for the weirdo newbie's imaginary friend!

"Give him a menu if ya wanna!" He said sarcastically, catching Kane's ankle with a well-aimed kick. "I gotta go."

"But we can't just leave him tied up there! What if someone sees him?"

He sounded so convincing that Scotty looked to where he indicated before he pulled himself together. Kane had him going as loopy as he was.

"Jerk!" He replied with another kick, leaving Kane with a throbbing ankle and just as baffled as he'd been before.

*****

Sally opened her eyes and sucked in a shuddering, tearful breath. The wish hadn't worked. She was still in the schoolyard and still without Milko. And if she dared tell anyone he'd been kidnapped the Phillips brothers would kill him and then she'd never get him back! But if she never got Milko back, everything would be like it used to be before and, one by one, all the people who loved her would leave her and...

No, oh no! It was happening again! Last time it had happened, when one of the bigger kids at the Home had been picking on her, Lynn had been there to yell at him and put her arm round Sally until it stopped. But Lynn wasn't here to stop it.

Sally pressed her hands against her ears, trying to block out the deafening crash of the waves, feeling the earth swaying beneath her feet, screaming in terror as the ground began to turn into the terrible sea...