Going Home
The protagonist of the title story in the collection is a high flyer. He achieves a lot in a very short time. Now, at University, he is a talented and successful athlete, top student and all around really nice guy. He has a special talent for painting and his art is both admired and collected by white people. He feels white because this is the world that he lives in, but he still feels proud of his black roots, although in order to achieve the success that he has, he has turned his back on his roots, and the family that raised him. When he turns twenty one years old he finds himself wanting to revisit the Aboriginal camp where he was born, but he is not well received there, and realizes that there is enormous cultural ignorance on both sides, and also that when he lives amongst his Aboriginal relatives, white people coming to the camp don't treat him as they did out in the white world.
Davey is one of a group of kids who bully Aboriginal children. Davey is a nice boy who could be friendly to one of the boys, Herbie, if he chose to, but he decides to go along with the crowd and torment him for his ethnicity and cultural heritage. One day, Davey stands by and watches as the bullying of Herbie is taken to more threatening levels, and he does nothing to prevent the escalation of events. However, after Herbie's death, he feels remorse, and feels particularly bad for Herbie's mother. The story is a cautionary tale about the dangers of schoolyard violence and the need for authorities to step in.
