Chapter 1
Eight years later.

We were still living on the station, but my brother John was sent to the nearest town and started to work for a builder. Rita was not interested in school so she started helping my mum in the kitchen cooking for all the workmen. There was no school within two hundred miles, so schooling was by School of the Air, which in those days was by two way radio with a teacher in the nearest town. It was too expensive to send me to boarding school, so I did about three hours of school work a day on the radio. The rest of the time I was looked after by my sister, which was when I started to feel my twin within me.

Rita was fourteen and developing into a pretty young woman. There were no other kids around, and my brother did not come home very often, so she only had me around to talk to and of course this is when she started to dress me in her old dresses and underwear. For some reason it felt right for me to be in girls clothes. My mum saw what was happening but only said not to let my dad see what we were doing.

There were lots of men’s working quarters that were empty a lot of the time, so it wasn’t hard to find somewhere to dress up without being seen by anyone. Every time I was dressed as a girl I seemed to have a strange feeling of my twin being inside my mind, and when I went to sleep at night I was always a girl. We eventually moved to a city, and as I got older the dressing did not stop, and I always had my sister’s support. My brother did not want to know me, and my dad left to live with another woman,

My mum decided to move away from the sheep station for a new life. I had just turned eight and Rita was now fourteen years old. While my mum Donna, and my sister Rita were tying down the tarpaulin with ropes covering all our meagre belongings on the back of a borrowed utility truck, I went back inside the worker's cottage, for one last check to make sure there was nothing left behind. While I was doing this it dawned on me that there was a stash of my sister's clothes in one of the rooms of the workers' quarters, down near the shearing sheds.

I told Mum and she said if I didn’t get my backside into gear, I could stay with the other sheep on the station , so I did as I was told and nearly tripped over my own feet since I’m pretty clumsy at the best of times. I got my bag of goodies that were hidden under a bed in the workers' rooms, and high-tailed it back to the others. Mum raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

We were all ready to go. The ute that Mum borrowed was an ex-army four wheel drive Landrover with a flat tray back and high wire meshed sides, so it took all our belongings with ease. The station owner loaned it to us for as long as we needed to use it. He was a nice man and I was going to miss his kind face. I settled in the back seat of the dual cab. I think the army uses them to carry men and equipment all at the same time. Mum started the noisy diesel engine, and we were on our way. Rita turned around and smiled at me and told me to wave goodbye to the station owner and his wife. I was sad and had tears in my eyes, but we were going to start a new life in a town so I would have more opportunity to attend a real school, and Mum and Rita could find jobs.

As Mum started driving she said “It's just as well we have a four wheel drive,” because it was at the end of the wet season, and the station is in the far south west of Queensland, so the track out to the main gate of the property was at least a one hour drive on wet ground. My mum had had plenty of practise doing this over the years, living on a remote place like River Downs, which is fifty thousand acres of grazing land with a river and smaller creeks running through it.

Mum asked me if I wanted to visit my twin sister's grave one last time before we left for good and of course I said “Yes”. It was only seven am, so there was time enough to detour a couple of miles to Jean's resting place. Mum and Rita said their goodbyes to Jean, and left me alone to be with my twin sister for a few minutes to say my last goodbye. I didn't realise then that it would be a while before I would get a chance to come back to visit her again, only next time I would be wearing something more feminine.

I sat beside her grave and told her that she would travel through life inside my body and see and do all the things we would have done if she had lived. I picked some wild flowers that were growing nearby and placed them on Jean's grave, tears streaming down my face. Then I made my way back to Mum and Rita who had both been crying too, so we all had red eyes.

Now we were ready to hit the road or in our case, a rough track. After half an hour of driving through this beautiful property, we reached the main gate and mail box which is an old forty four gallon drum with a lid on a hinge at one end, and the name of the station painted on one side of the drum, Now, this being nineteen fifty six, the roads out west were gravel,and a grader would come along every couple of months and push all the dirt back up to the middle to reform the road. In the wet season a lot of these roads were impassable for weeks at a time. Even today there are times when it still happens.

We left the property, which is two hundred miles west of a town called Quilpie, and started our long trip towards the the east of the state. The road was rough and dusty and there was nothing much to see except bush on both sides of the road. The radio was on, but there was no reception and it was hot and dusty. I asked Mum if we could pull off the road for ten minutes so we could have a drink of cold water from the water bag that hung on the front of the truck's bumper bar. Mum found a large gum tree to park under. We had been travelling for almost two hours, so we sat in the shade, had some sandwiches and got water from the canvas water bag.

This is when Mum looked at me and said “Carla, I know you and Rita have been playing dress up for a while now, and Rita has told me, how you feel like Jean is inside you when you are dressed like a girl.”

It was cool in the shade, but I could feel my face getting hotter after she called me Carla. Just then Rita came and grabbed my hand, looked me in the eye's and said “It's ok.” and gave me a hug.

Mum said we had better keep going, because we want to reach Quilpie before nightfall, so we got back in the ute and settled in for the next section of the hot and dusty road ahead. Some of the creek crossings still had quite a bit of water flowing over them, so Mum got out, and waded through the crossing to find the safest track through the water, because if we were to get stuck in the creek, we could be there until someone else came along, and 'out here' that could be hours or even days, so Mum was not going to take any risks.

There were three more of these crossings, but Mum was a safe outback driver and three hours later the township of Quilpie came into sight. It was just as well because after almost six hours on the road we were all getting very tired. Of course Rita was capable of driving. Even though she was only fourteen, kids were taught to drive at this age in the bush, but Mum insisted on driving all the way to be safe.

We pulled into an Ampol service station and filled up the fuel tank with diesel, and the man checked out the radiator for water and the oil level in the engine. Mum paid the man five pounds and three shillings for twenty gallons of diesel, and he asked Mum where we were headed, and if we were going to stay in town overnight? Mum said it was too late in the day to keep driving any further and asked the man where the best place would be to stay overnight. The man said his name was Bill, and that he owned the caravan park behind the garage, and we could stay in one of the cabins there if we wanted. Mum said she was Donna White and said we would be staying the night. The cabin cost two pounds a night, so Mum paid the bill and we drove into where our cabin was and opened the door with the key that Bill gave to Mum at the garage. We took the large suitcase which most of our travel clothes from the back of the ute and into the cabin.

Then something Mum said to Rita made my heart jump. She asked Rita to go and grab the bag of clothes that I got from the workers' rooms back at the station from the ute and bring it into her. Mum looked at me and she had a big smile on her face.

I said in a panic “What are you going to do with the bag of clothes Mum?”

She replied “Carl, don't you think we should have a talk about who “Carla” is? I have watched you and Rita for over a year now,and I think I might have a second daughter,and if that is what you truly want then I will be there for Carla.”

Rita came in with the bag of girls clothes

She said “Where do you want these Mum?” smiling at me while she said it.

“Put it on the bed that you and Carla are going to sleep on tonight, and open it up so we can look at what will fit my new daughter.”

She looked at me saying “This is what you want to do Carla isn't it?" I went and sat on the bed next to her and hugged her, and cried on her shoulder.

Rita came and sat next to me and stroked my hair which hadn't been cut for over six months, so it came down past my collar. Anyway I got my emotions under control, and I told Mum how I felt my twin sister Jean was inside me; how when Rita put me in girls clothes that the boy side of me just seemed to disappear.

Mum said “Ok. I’ll see what we can work out, but for now you will have to dress in girl's clothes inside only, or we could end up in trouble, Now lets see what is in your bag.”

There were three skirts and matching blouses, a couple of slips and six or seven panties all washed and folded, also ribbons and some bobby pins in a little draw bag. Rita had learnt to sew on an old treadle sewing machine, so she had made everything to fit me over the next few months. Mind you I looked like a stick insect in a skirt.

Half an hour later we went to the only restaurant in town to have a well earned meal. I had to stay in my boy's clothes for now. After we ate a meal of steak and eggs, which cost mum one pound and four shillings, we went back to our cabin and got ready for bed. I had to share a bed with Rita, as there were only two beds in the cabin, so she let me have one of her nighties to sleep in. Jean was inside me once again and I went to sleep next to my big sister in girl mode.

To be continued