Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Dedication
This story is dedicated to the memory of my beloved
brother Denis Hopkins (8/5/1953 26/3/2007) who, after
working with me on No Game For Amateurs in 1990-3
would have absolutely loved to have worked with me on
this project 20 years later.
Lloyd Hopkins
RUBY
AND
LUMINARIAN
THE
CROSS
Acknowledgment
I would like to take this opportunity to thank the following
Austin Macauley staff: Vinh Tran, Lily Ryan, Hayley
Knight and Gemma Cox who have always given willingly
of their time and friendly, professional assistance. But in
particular I would like to express special gratitude to three
people who have been integral to both the growth of the
story and its ultimate presentation. Firstly there is
absolutely no doubt in my mind that without my best friend
Joy Hills penchant for historical accuracy, brilliant
imagination and extraordinary, spontaneous creative input,
there wouldnt have been any foundation on which to build
this story. Secondly there is Anne Howard (also on AMs
staff) who wrote the authors report in which she offered
some really good advice. Her remarks were so unexpected
and encouraging that Joy and I were both greatly impressed
and inspired. Anne may have written just a few sentences
but they had an incredibly positive effect on us. We read
them over and over again and with each reading, our minds
went into a frenzy of creativity. So much so that the story
grew with new characters I had hitherto never imagined.
Thirdly, Greg Carter for his brilliant artistry with the cover
design.
And finally I wish to acknowledge the Australian War
Memorial (Canberra, ACT) for producing its daily radio
segments entitled Diary of an ANZAC in
commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the landing at
Part one
About being psychopathic
but she was determined to have a natural birth. And that was
mainly because there was considerable status amongst their
friends who had all enjoyed natural births. And it was vitally
important to her that she not be regarded as outside the status
quo.
When Gorghans head began to emerge, it was on the
cards hed be deformed in some way although such
apprehensions werent evident from the multiple imaging
scans Thenki had undergone. Thus there was a big sigh of
relief when Gorghan appeared normal, well physically
anyway. But when Borga compared the two pregnancies, he
couldnt quell his gut feeling that Gorghan was going to
develop quite differently to his older brother.
Will my worst fears be realised...will this child be a
little monster? He quietly asked the leading paediatrician.
Im sorry, medical science cant give you any advice on
that score, only time will tell, she advised.
And much to Borgas heartache, Gorghans true colours
didnt take all that long to manifest themselves. Whereas
Shevki was quiet, studious, well mannered, kind, caring and
considerate, Gorghan was loud, had a spine-chilling laugh
that most of the familys friends found ghoulish. When he
was at his most diabolical, hed use the front yard to set all
manner of traps in the hope of capturing anything that flew
or walked. Then he would sit on the front porch and wait
impatiently for one or more of them to snare something. And
when they did, hed laugh as he sprang back into life and ran
to the trap. Whatever hed caught would then meet a slow
and extremely painful death. If he caught a mouse, hed first
go to the kitchen, get an aerosol can of insect killer and spray
the mouses eyes and laugh as it screamed and squirmed in
pain. Then hed get a pair of scissors from his mums sewing
kit, cut off each leg just below the knee then place the rodent
on the floor and laugh as it tried to move around. After a
minute or so of that, hed then go to his fathers tool box and
return with a blow torch and burn its eyes to a crisp...and
when it was dead he tossed it in the rubbish bin. He also got
6