With five big sisters leading the way, I learnt how to keep up with the crowd

When I was a kid, as number six daughter I was always running up behind the pack of siblings singing out, “Wait for me!” I was scared of missing out.

Some summers, we’d travel miles for a beach holiday with Aunty Valda and Uncle David and our cousins, staying at their South Gippsland dairy farm. We swam and played in the rock pools around Inverloch.

On stinking hot days, we’d march single file to the bottom of the wild beach cliffs of Cape Paterson. I’d cling to Dad’s slippery, red ears, perched high on his thick neck, my pudgy prep-school arm wrapped around his Germanic forehead. Our little brother would ride piggyback slung against the lumbar of Dad’s backache, gripping the tail ends of his flapping shirt. Five big sisters trailed behind, descending the narrow, sandy track as the brutal sun bit our bare shoulders.

Mum was back on the farm, preferring to savour a Bex and a good lie down.

We’d tear through scrubby bush screaming across burning sand: “The lava!” Plastic sandals cast adrift, we’d sink ankle-deep into the sandy shore. Spinning, laughing, we’d become scary sea monsters and frolicking dolphins in the wild waves, submerging and popping up to the surface, creating mermaid hairstyles and seaweed wigs. Sitting on the edge of the rockpools staring into miniature underwater worlds, we’d dream of a week of peace.

Huddled in the shade of a faded canvas green-and-gold striped beach umbrella spiked into the sand, five beach towels lay side by side as big sisters jostled for a tan. Us little kids waded in the frothy shallows, waves drawing us in and spitting us out. The big girls dived into the ocean swell. Eldest sister was on watch, warning me again and again not to go out any further. She pointed and read aloud from the rusty danger sign: “Float with a current or undertow. Don’t try to swim against it.”

Flipping underwater somersaults, diving into handstands, head held high movie-star swim-strokes, I was in way too deep. I couldn’t touch the bottom, even on tippy toes. Breathing came before calling out. My body floated upright underwater, climbing an invisible ladder. Surfacing, a wave slapped me in the face. A monster rip grabbed my leg, pulling me down. Bubbles burst from my nose in a blur of churning sand and fizzy seawater. I gave in and went with the irresistible flow of the undertow.

Dappled yellow light danced on the sea floor. Pairs of feet attached to two liquid figures stood over me. Flapping, kicking horizontal on the sandy mound, I lifted my sea-soaked head, blinking through saltwater eyes. The twin blurs looked down at what the sea had washed up. Two big sisters pulled me upright by my bather straps. Standing waist-deep in water on the outer sandbank, now I really was in trouble.

“What the bloody hell are you doing out this far, Krissy?” growled second-eldest sister. “You’re not allowed on the sandbank!”

Coughing, spluttering, I couldn’t tell them the ocean had pulled me under. Big sisters flanked me in freestyle as I dog-paddled slowly back to shore.

I learnt early how to float on troubled waters. I counted on my big sisters, and they were always there looking out for me. But as the youngest daughter, I was a daredevil looking for the next risk to take.

One overcast day on the farm, I walked with the youngest siblings while the cousins rode their bicycles up to the back paddocks.

“Hey Krissy, I dare you to ride down that big hill,” said one of the boy cousins.

“Okay, give me a lend of your bike and I’ll show you,” I said, gripping the front wheel of his Dragstar between my knees.

I walked the bike to the top of the mighty slope and looked down to see the kids waving and yelling at me.

“Hey, I made it to the top!” I yelled, and waved back.

“Look behind you, behind you!” the kids shouted in unison.

I turned around to face the biggest black bull I’d ever seen, snorting and dragging his front hoof over the grass. I jumped on the bike and took off down the hill, gripping the handlebars as the fixed pedals whirled around, my feet flailing either side. Over rocks, tearing alongside the barbed-wire fence, I hit a ditch and went flying over the front wheel, skidding head-first into the ground.

“That was the best thing ever, Krissy. You’re Evel Knievel!” said the kids.

I checked for broken bones and slowly stood up, covered from head to toe in steaming bull shit. The kids bent over laughing, only straightening up to sing out, “Pee-yeww!” before running back to the farm, busting to tell on me to Mum.

A wobbly dung monster, I staggered back to the farmhouse where Mum yelled, from a distance, to strip off on the verandah while she ran a bath. As I undressed, I cried angry, triumphant tears. I had ruined my new jeans and striped jumper but I had survived a spectacular, death-defying ride.

Edited extract from Girl Friday (Hardie Grant Books) by Kristine Philipp, out now.

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