The River Gum
an excerpt

Even when there were far more interesting things to be had all across basic programming, Nathaniel would set the television station to whichever news channel suited his fancy and wait for the weather forecast to enlighten him. It was amusing how the forecast would differ from station to station, and how the channel devoted solely to weather reporting was the worst of the lot in terms of predictions. Sometimes Nat could plan his days by weather forecasts – “plentiful sunshine, highs near 27 ºC, becoming partly cloudy for the nighttime hours; winds steady at 10kph from the northwest.”
The weather honestly had not changed much over the past several weeks. It remained unseasonably warm but otherwise it was apparent that late summer was heading toward autumn. All the symptoms were present: the highs typically in the mid- or lower twenties Celsius, cooler breezes, the leaves turning colours as they clung to or leapt from their trees. Sadly, nothing was ever said on the weather reports about the leaves. Nathaniel thought the trees were being denuded more quickly than usual, but he supposed it could vary from year to year. If he really wanted to compare autumns, he should begin keeping charts, or some sort of weather journal. He had done that once as part of a school project.
Ah, something else to worry about. Nat did not want to return to school. He watched the weather without really seeing it. Channel 9 featured a very pretty woman informing the public that none of the fallen leaves should be burned on private property due to the fact that the season so far had been unexpectedly dry. She didn’t come out and say “drought,” but Nat didn’t need her to verify what he could see with his own two eyes by looking out any window of his house. A coloured bar at the bottom of the screen, rather like a label, said the pretty woman was Malina Campbell, senior meteorologist.
It was just after five o’clock. Nathaniel hoped his mum would come home soon and feed him. If the boredom he felt failed to develop into a terminal condition, his starvation may yet prove fatal and finish him off just as slowly as boredom would. Saint George, his mother’s fat and wicked cat, waddled through the sitting room toward the kitchen and his food dish.
Spoiled little monster, thought Nat unsympathetically, he eats better than we do most of the time. With that thought, Nat switched off Malina the meteorologist and got himself up to stretch and trudge to the kitchen to commit the repeated and futile offense of fridge-browsing. Saint George squatted by his dish and gave a long yowl of displeasure at its emptiness, which ran contrary to the experiences of interested parties. Nat managed to muster a small measure of pity for the cat, and so he leaned down and carefully petted Saint George. The cat clawed him in thanks and held on, oblivious to Nat’s gasps as he tried to free the bloated Himalayan’s talons from the back of his hand. When he finally succeeded, Saint George began to meow blame at Nat, as though the boy was responsible for the blood on the floor and for Saint George’s own violence and indeed, all the violence in the world, for that matter.