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.Is there anything else you want to say to me? If there is, let’s hear it.I’m going to sell, I’m going to sell it, for the first time, for the second time, don’t walk away from here filled with regret, ladies and gentlemen, last chance, third time, fair warning, I’m selling’, and down came the hammer.‘Sold for one and a half million dollars, and congratulations, you’ve acquired a very fine property, and thank you everybody for coming here today.’As he wound up with a free ad for his next auction I looked around desperately.Where was Homer? Fi? Bronte? Lee? I couldn’t ask anyone else the big question: who’d bought the place? I’d feel too stupid.I started walking towards the house and then ran into Bronte.I clutched at her.‘Who bought it? Who bought it?’‘God, I don’t know, how would I know? I don’t know anyone’s names.’‘Where’s Homer?’‘I’m not sure.Wait, there’s Lee.’Lee came over and I took both his hands with mine.‘Who bought it, do you know?’‘Yeah, it was the twins’ dad.Mr Young.’‘Oh thank God.Are you sure?’‘Yeah, that other guy, Rodd, he went for it pretty hard but Mr Young just kept nodding away like he didn’t care how much he paid for it, and eventually Rodd gave up.’‘Oh that’s such a relief.’ I let go a little, let myself mould in with Lee, felt him tense against me before he too started to relax.A sudden delight ran through us both – I felt it as much in him as I did in myself.He hugged me.His passion, which had smouldered for so long, was ready to burst into wild flames and when it came to Lee I was totally combustible.‘Hey, careful you two,’ Bronte said.‘Here comes Homer.’I grinned at her.‘So?’‘Well you know, the one you’re in love with? The one who’s in love with you?’‘Homer? You’ve got to be kidding.Is that who you were talking about? Homer!’I couldn’t believe the Scarlet Pimple had got it so wrong.‘Bronte! Are you crazy? I’m in love with Lee!’CHAPTER 29COURT OF PROTECTIVE SERVICES: JUDGEMENT IN THE MATTER OF LINTON V DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY, HIS HONOUR JUDGE CULLEN PRESIDING.The appellant in this matter asks for an order that would give her the guardianship of another even though she is herself under a guardianship order and even though she is a minor.Such an application raises obvious issues of maturity and responsibility, which the appellant has sought to answer in three ways.Firstly, she argues that her age is irrelevant and that the Court is entitled to consider her suitability on her merits.In making this argument she has relied considerably on Grant v Breadsell, where the High Court found that leaving a sixteen year old in charge of a crèche was not in itself proof of negligence, on Ruppy v Dalby University, where the university was compelled by the Supreme Court to admit a fourteen year old to its medical faculty, and, since the war, on two cases decided by this court, namely Macalister and David, where adoptions by under-age parents were permitted.However, in Macalister the appellant was the aunt of the child, and in David the older brother of the fifteen-year-old mother who had died.Further, in the first of these cases the child was four months old; in the second, ten months.Counsel for the present appellant makes much of the remarks by Justice O’Massey in Grant v Breadsell where that distinguished jurist said that ‘sometimes the age of a litigant can be the least relevant measure for assessing maturity, and indeed relying upon chronological age can amount to discrimination’.Further, in David, Justice Chen said she was satisfied that the seventeen-year-old brother showed considerably more maturity in court than the maternal grandparents, to whom the Department of Social Responsibility had originally granted custody, and that ‘there is no reason to suppose that age always confers wisdom; a sense of responsibility is not the exclusive province of those over the age of eighteen, and a judge is entitled to draw upon her own experience of life in recognising that youth alone does not prevent the practice of good parenting’.Secondly, the appellant here argues that the new flexibility exercised by the courts since the war in such matters as these ought to be extended to her, and that the other options for the child who is the subject of these proceedings are of such poor standard as to entitle her to be considered the better alternative
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