Darkness, Be My Friend

by John Marsden

  "I don't want to."

  "Yeah, I know."

  And I knew why. When we went back we would have to break the news to the other three.

  In a way I would rather have faced the enemy again than face that.

  Seventeen

  Sometimes friendship has quite a price. I loved Fi and I liked her parents, but when Fi asked me to hide with her in the park while she waited to meet them I agreed, then realised later I didn't really want to do it.

  Why? I'm not sure. I think it was too much to cope with. One night I find that three people who were so very important in our lives are dead, I go through more grief than I knew I could feel (I'd been thinking I could never feel anything again), and I realise that I'm still fairly rapt in Lee. And that was all just after Fi asked me if I would go to the park with her.

  Fi reacted kind of strangely to the deaths of Lee's parents and Come. It didn't seem to sink in somehow. She didn't react with grief, like Homer did, or rage and despair, like Kevin. Maybe she was numb to it all. The shock of finding out about her parents seemed to leave her like a robot. It was like she had shut down.

  I'd done the same thing myself a few times, that's how come I recognised it in her.

  But I went to the park at four-thirty in the morning, with her and Lee, and Lee showed us where to hide in the middle of the tree ferns. It was cool and damp there. Unlike the ferns at the high school, they had survived the neglect while the invasion was happening. Someone was looking after them now because their fronds were a fresh green and their trunks a strong brown.

  Not that we could see that until the sun came up. We moved the garden seat, which was the signal to Fi's parents that Dr. Krishnananthan suggested, then, after Lee left, I spent all my time trying to find a comfortable spot. It was so damp that I soon had a wet bottom. It was pretty cold in among the ferns. The next thing I gave a series of sneezes, about seven I think. That startled Fi out of her coma. She peeped out of the ferns nervously in case hundreds of soldiers were running towards us with boxes of tissues. Or something else.

  I was hanging out for dawn, so it would warm up, but even long after the sun rose no heat reached the fernery. It was designed that way, of course. I felt that I would die of hypothermia soon. When my teeth started chattering uncontrollably, and no amount of rubbing would warm my arms and legs, I said to Fi, "I'll have to go out in the sun for a minute, or it'll be the end of me."

  She was too nervous to do the same but she kept lookout while I did a quick two minutes in the early heat of the morning.

  The day dragged on. Fi and I didn't talk for a long time. There was so much to say that we couldn't even start. I took to looking at my watch every few minutes: 7.50, 8.05, 8.15, 8.35. We'd hoped to see them arriving for work, but we didn't. They probably came by car or truck from the Showground, and the carpark was on the other side of the building.

  Gradually I got into the spirit of things. At last I was getting excited on Fi's behalf. The only problem was that once I started sneezing, I couldn't stop. Every time I sneezed Fi jumped a metre, then looked out fearfully to see if anyone was coming. I tried to bottle up the sneezes but I couldn't stop them all. I've always had a theory that it's bad for you to suffocate your sneezes and, sure enough, I soon found myself getting a headache, so that proved my theory.

  10.35, 11.00, 11.15, 11.45. The hands of my watch moved so slowly I kept putting it to my ear to make sure it still worked. We didn't know what time Fi's parents would come out, but any time after noon seemed possible. Neither of us could stand still. Fi was almost spinning, she was so excited. She was talking now. She kept fingering her scar, and starting sentences, then changing to new ones and forgetting what she'd been talking about.

  "Do you think this bracken is ... it reminds me of the botanical gardens at Stratton ... I wonder if they got bombed ... do you remember the church there? They sure ... oh look, there's a pigeon on the hand of the statue ... did you ever see Mr. Morrison's parrots, the way they used to..."

  All of this would be in bits and pieces, like she wasn't really listening herself, stuttering and stammering and switching topics, and taking five minutes to get a few words out.

  I didn't blame her, though. If all went well she was about to have one of the most powerful moments of her life, the moment that we'd all dreamed about and longed for, and that for at least one of us could now never happen. I kept wondering how it felt for Lee to break the news to Fi that she could see her parents. No one would ever break that news to him now. Not in this lifetime, anyway.

  But side by side with my grief for Lee was my happiness for Fi. I just wished there was more room in my little body to accommodate all these violent wild feelings that kept screaming around inside me. I already had so much stuff squashed in there—liver and appendix and intestines and heart and all that junk. There was absolutely no room for feelings. But they still managed to squeeze in somewhere. Most of them lived in my stomach—a whole huge mess of them in there—but some kept crawling over my hands, and some stuck in my throat like I'd swallowed a doorknob.

  While I thought about all that, half an hour more sneaked past. And suddenly Fi grabbed my left wrist so hard she nearly broke the bone. Just like she'd held Lee's hand back at the school. I had no idea she could be so strong. I looked up at the tech building. There they were, sauntering across the grass, trying to look casual. They did look pretty good, too. They were both very thin, although they always had been, but before the war they were slim and now they were skinny. They both wore jeans and T-shirts, which was funny, because their style used to be corduroy and tweed. Mr. Maxwell looked naked without a tie.

  Fi gave a little sob. If I hadn't pulled her back by the shirt I think she would have run straight out there. But I wasn't much better because I sneezed, three times, very loudly. Mr. and Mrs. Maxwell looked over towards us like they'd heard gun-shots. Then they both glanced around guiltily. They were walking about five metres apart but it was as though a string connected them, because their movements were so co-ordinated.

  I hoped desperately that no one was watching. I scanned the park, searching for any sign of movement.

  Mr. and Mrs. Maxwell went past the ferns, one on each side, then Mr. Maxwell pretended to see something in there worth looking at. He called to his wife and pointed to it and they both came walking in, as though they were botanists in the jungle.

  I grinned at them and Mr. Maxwell gave me a nervous smile and patted my arm but, of course, they only had eyes for one person.

  "Oh my poor darling, look at your face," I heard Mrs. Maxwell say, as she put an arm around Fi and sort of folded Fi into her.

  I left them to it and eased my way to the edge of the fernery. The pretend reason was to look out for soldiers, but if any appeared I wouldn't be able to do much. We could run away but Mr. and Mrs. Maxwell couldn't, because Fi's little sister was at the Showground as a hostage. And if we ran away and the soldiers saw us they would know we were the ones they'd been searching for in the bush, the ones who lit the fire. So Fi's parents and her sister would be in deep sewage if that happened.

  On the other hand we couldn't just stay there and let ourselves be caught. In all the time I'd spent with Fi since early morning we never got around to discussing what we'd do if we were seen. I supposed we would run—we would have to run—but the consequences would be so awful that I couldn't even imagine how we'd live with them afterwards.

  For the first time I began to realise just how terribly dangerous this situation was. We should have thought it through much more. We were losing the old habits of caution that we'd had before we went to New Zealand. We were getting too casual.

  I felt guilty thinking it, but I couldn't help hoping Fi wouldn't spend too much time with her parents.

  Of course, the real reason I stayed away from their meeting was that I wanted Fi to have her parents to herself. It was precious time she was getting—it might be months, or even a year or two, before it happened again—and despite all the dangers I was
anxious not to interrupt it.

  I suppose there was another reason I kept away. And it was simple enough. It was just too painful for me to get involved in all this. It hurt too much. That's all.

  So I crouched at the edge of the damp greenness and sneezed as quietly as I could and wiped my nose and sneezed some more.

  From the fernery I could hear Fi's voice rising and falling. She sounded surprisingly calm, and she was doing nearly all the talking. I guess she had plenty to talk about. I heard my own name mentioned a few times, but for once in my life I was trying not to eavesdrop. I heard Mr. Maxwell's deep bass rumble as he said something about Fi's sister, Charlotte, and I nearly got the giggles suddenly as I remembered a corny magazine article I'd read in an old New Idea magazine back in New Zealand. It was about relationships between fathers and children and it said it didn't matter if the father was away a lot as long as when he was with his children it was "quality time."

  I wondered if the editors of New Idea would call this quality time, and if they'd think it didn't matter that Fi hadn't seen her father for over nine months.

  I checked my watch. We knew that Mr. and Mrs. Maxwell had only half an hour for lunch. The one thing Dr. K. had been adamant about was that they got back on time. Otherwise the supervisor came looking for them and there were big punishments because the supervisor's job depended on everybody being where they were meant to be and doing what they were meant to do. The punishments didn't necessarily matter much but the supervisor coming out looking for people mattered a lot.

  It was twenty-four minutes already by my calculations and I thought I'd better say something. I called out, "I think you're meant to go back in a couple of minutes."

  Before the war I'd never have dared to speak to people like the Maxwells in that way, but now I did it with no real hesitation.

  Mr. Maxwell answered. "Yes, thanks, Ellie, we're coming now."

  I stepped back into the ferns as I heard them saying goodbye to Fi. I turned to face them. Mrs. Maxwell had obviously been crying and Mr. Maxwell's eyes were red too. They both hugged me and said nice things, so I guess Fi gave me a good report. "Give heaps and heaps of love to my parents if you see them," I said. "Tell them I've been good. Tell them I miss them and think about them every day, and I can't wait to see them again. Tell them the Landie's still hidden up on Tailor's Stitch."

  I don't know why I said that last thing, just to show I'd looked after the Landie in a responsible way or something.

  They both patted me and then went out of the fernery on the side away from the tech building. What made me laugh, and what gave Fi the giggles, was the way they'd figured out to look innocent in case anyone was watching. They walked out like lovers, hand in hand, kissing and canoodling as if they were in an old movie. So it was pretty obvious what they wanted people to think they'd been doing. Fi, who was beside me by then, squealed. "Oh how embarrassing!" she said. "Oh God, I hope no one's watching."

  I had to admire their guts though, and the cleverness of it. It was a good trick.

  As they got back to the building a soldier came around the corner and said something to them, but it didn't look too serious.

  It reminded me, though, that we were right in the middle of the enemy's nest.

  Now Fi and I were faced with another long wait. We'd decided before we arrived that we'd have to stay there till dark. But it was I—normally the patient careful one—who persuaded Fi we should leave.

  "Even if we take an hour to move a hundred metres, it'd still be more interesting than sitting here all day," I argued.

  Fi agreed after a bit of hesitation. She was in a different mood. It was fascinating to see how much she'd changed in that little time. She seemed to be floating, making irrelevant comments, leaving me to do the worrying, the watching out. All she wanted was to chatter nonstop about her parents. Fair enough, of course, but we were still in an incredibly dangerous situation.

  We withdrew gradually from the fernery and kept on retreating through clumps of bushes and trees. At one point Fi was so distracted she leaned over and pulled out a weed from the garden bed next to us. "Oh, for Christ's sake, Fi," I said irritably, "concentrate on what's happening, will you?"

  She looked away, but didn't say anything. I felt guilty, and angry with myself.

  The boys were going to wait at the school, so that's where we headed. There wasn't anything very interesting about the trip, except that from one point, near the vet clinic, we could see the airfield. I was amazed at how Wirrawee's little airfield, which before the war had been a dirt strip for Cessnas and Cherokees, for cropdusters and rich graziers, was now transformed into a big busy place, with a dozen brown and green jets parked outside a big new terminal building. There was a huge new hangar too, and a highwire cyclone fence around the entire base, and the runway was all concrete, and much much longer. And there were people everywhere. We counted eighteen, just in the short time we were watching.

  No wonder the Kiwis wanted to attack it. This was a major part of the enemy's plans.

  I noticed they were improving the road into the airfield, too. They had a bunch of graders and bulldozers and trucks, just like in peacetime. I was surprised and sad that everything was going on with no sign that they were scared of opposition.

  As for evidence of an attack by the Kiwis or anyone else—there was nothing. Not a single hole in the fence, not a damaged plane anywhere, not even a broken window. The twelve New Zealanders had vanished without a trace.

  That reminded me to check with Fi to see if she'd asked her parents about them, but she hadn't. She'd forgotten. Which made me mad all over again, although this time I had enough self-control not to snap at her.

  We couldn't stand there watching for too long. The sun was still bright in the sky and we were in cover that was very thin. So we slipped away and continued our slow journey back to the school.

  When we got there the boys were much nicer to Fi than I had been. But then they hadn't spent most of the day huddled in wet ferns with her and getting no thanks for it. They crowded around asking a million questions, laughing with her. I felt very out of things. I stood there and sneezed.

  Of course, I was just jealous, and missing my own parents. But that's no excuse. I could have been more generous. If anyone had a reason to feel rotten right then it was Lee. But he acted like he was really happy for Fi. Knowing Lee, I thought he was faking it. He might have been pleased for her, but underneath that, he was just plain desperate.

  When things were more normal again the boys started telling us how they'd spent the time. I should have guessed what they'd do. From early morning till now they'd been discussing the airfield. They'd even done what we'd done: snuck up to a good lookout point and checked the action from there. They'd made notes of what we could do.

  The first thing I told them was to get rid of the notes. If we were found with them we'd be executed on the spot as spies or saboteurs. We'd have no hope of talking our way out of that one.

  Still, I listened to their ideas. Lee did most of the talking. With a few decent meals in him he'd got back a bit of energy and health but the main fuel he was running on was the thought of revenge.

  I made a mental resolution to keep a close eye on him. Lee didn't care much any more if he lived or died. The rest of us still did care. We'd have to watch that Lee didn't get us in trouble by doing something crazy or gung-ho. I figured I should try to get him on his own and remind him about his little brothers and sisters. Maybe that would help him to realise that he had responsibilities.

  Anyway, the boys did have two main ideas. I was kind of reluctant to listen, but I already knew I wasn't going to get much choice in the big question of whether we'd try an attack. If I didn't have a choice in that, I could at least make sure I had some choices in the smaller questions: how and when and where, and how much we attempted. I didn't want to get stuck with another rotten job, like being inside a pitch-dark container full of anfo, and taken down to Cobbler's Bay on the back of a truck. Thank you
, but no thanks.

  One of their ideas was quite clever, quite cute. Lee had gone past Curr's, the fuel depot in Back Street, three nights before. We all knew it because ages ago we'd taken a truck from there and used it to blow up the old Wirrawee bridge.

  "Now," Lee said, looking at Fi and me like he was a teacher and we were a couple of new students. I wondered how long it'd be before I saw him smile again. Would he ever smile again? "Now, they've improved the security since then. There's a cyclone fence around it, higher than the old one: in fact it's the same as the one at the airfield, about two-and-a-half metres tall. There are two sentries, and they walk around the inside of the fence every half hour or so. They don't look too excited about it, I must say."

  "Neither would I," said Homer, "if I had to spend years of my life walking around a fuel depot."

  "Then they go back into their little shed," Lee said. "It's a galvanised iron one near the main gate. It used to be the office, I suppose."

  "That's right," I said. "There was a book in there. When we had to get fuel in town we'd write our names in it and how much fuel we'd taken. And the night we blew up the bridge Fi and I got the keys for the tanker from that hut."

  Lee continued. "The point is that that's the fuel depot for the airfield. I saw the whole thing. These trucks marked Aviation Fuel' come in from the Stratton Road and connect their hoses to an underground tank and empty their loads into it. It must hold heaps."

  "It'd be a security thing," Kevin said. "They wouldn't want millions of litres of fuel in a tank at the airfield."

  "Well, I'm not blowing it up, I'll tell you now," I said. "It's not worth it. All they'd do is put new tanks in and bring in another million litres."

  "I know that," Lee said impatiently. "You're not the only one with brains here, Ellie. What I want to do is something more long term, something that'll wreck the delicate engines of their beautiful jets for weeks, maybe forever. Maybe cause them to crash just after they take off."