Uncle Pike leaned in and kissed Devon on the cheek. ‘It reminded me of you, and your ear.’
Devon fake-smiled and moved away. ‘Yes, but it was my phone.’
I checked out the skinny white bookcase with Devon. It was filled with books, games and an Anne Geddes 500-piece jigsaw puzzle of a baby perched on a pumpkin.
‘Tippy, be careful with this,’ he said, flicking the side of the bookcase.
‘Why?’ I said.
‘This is called MDF. It’s poisonous and will eventually kill you socially.’
I nodded.
Devon picked up the jigsaw.‘Why is there a baby on a pumpkin?’
‘That’s Anne Geddes,’ Uncle Pike said, walking past.
‘Why is she on a pumpkin?’
‘That’s what she does.’ My uncle grunted and kneeled down next to the pot-belly fire, scrunching up newspaper to start a fire.
‘Pumpkins?’ Devon frowned and opened his mouth to say something else, then closed it and put the puzzle down. ‘Anyway—’ he grabbed my hand and swung my arm ‘—we’re so excited to be here.’
Uncle Pike took kindling from a wicker basket beside the potbelly and built a tepee over the newspaper balls. ‘You can invite a friend over if you like?’ He struck a match and leaned in, lighting the paper. ‘How about Todd?’
‘He’s not able to leave home by himself yet,’ I said. Todd had suffered a brain injury when he fell from Riverstone Bridge at Christmas. He was in a medically induced coma for weeks afterwards. Todd had good and bad days. Mum took me to visit him at his house. His mop of springy-hair was growing back slowly, after being shaved off, but it would be a long time before it was anything like it used be. I didn’t want to tell Todd or Mum how weird it made me feel being back on that street, the one Todd lived on near Sam and his family’s old house, where a murderer used to live. A murderer who nearly caught me one night. Every time Mum drove near that street—or worse, down it—I’d dig my fingernails into the car seat and wouldn’t let go until we were far enough away, usually back on Main Street among the shops.
I distracted myself by watching the flames grow as the newspaper burned, causing the wood to crackle and spark. ‘It’s okay,’ I said to my uncle. ‘I want to be with you guys.’
He groaned as he pushed himself back up. ‘Don’t you have any new friends?’
No. That was short answer but I didn’t want them to worry. I got on with my classmates okay, except for the mean girls. There just wasn’t anyone outside of school time that I hung out with. Not like I had with Sam and Todd, my old best friends. But Sam was long gone and Todd, who used to be full of stunts and pranks, now sometimes forgot who I was. Next Monday was Todd’s thirteenth birthday, so I would go see him then.
Uncle Pike pushed the potbelly’s door nearly closed. ‘What about the girls in your class?’
‘They always stick together, except for Emily Watson,’ I said.
‘The delicate flower girl?’ my uncle said.
‘I remember her,’ Devon said. ‘She was cute. Why don’t you invite her over?’
‘No, thanks,’ I said. Emily and I were from different planets. ‘Anyway, all the other girls just talk about clothes and hair and celebrities. Nothing interesting.’
They stared at me.
‘What?’ I said.
Devon stroked his throat. ‘The horror.’
‘Who are you?’ Uncle Pike asked me.
Devon put his arm around my shoulder. ‘Sounds like someone needs a makeover.’ He grabbed my hands. ‘Come on.’ He jumped up and down doing a high-kick cheerleading routine. The glasses on the kitchen shelves rattled and the tall skinny bookcase banged against the wall. ‘Give me a four!’
‘Four!’ I responded.
‘Give me an “R”!’ he chanted.
Uncle Pike grunted and headed to their bedroom.
After Devon and I spelled out Ronsdale Place and did a few more cheers, I said goodnight.
My single bed seemed clean, and my bedroom had the same fake wood-panelling as in the living room, but the carpet was different. Long lamb-poo-coloured shag-pile, which was soft to walk on but I didn’t want to think about what lurked within it. I dumped my bag and changed into my nightie. After brushing my teeth in the freezing mint-tiled bathroom I climbed into bed. My nose wrinkled as I lay on the pillow. It smelled musty. I sat back up. I would definitely need to bring mine from home tomorrow. I got up and grabbed a faded brown Airbnb towel to cover it, but when I lay down again the towel felt stiff and scratchy against my cheek and ear, and that funky smell crept through and hung around.
It took ages to get to sleep. The curtains didn’t quite pull together and the wall opposite my window glowed orange from the streetlights outside. Late night trucks rattled and rumbled in the distance. I lay on my side, staring at the wide stripe of bright light. My bedroom at home was pitch black compared to this.
Dad. I couldn’t believe it was only a year ago. I remembered crying myself to sleep that first night after Dad died, then waking up the next morning and not remembering for a couple of wonderful seconds, before it hit me all over again. At his hospital bed with Mum, holding his warm, dry hand and then the silence when the life-support stopped. I curled up in my Airbnb bed, lowering my head and crossing my arms like a sleeping bat. It still hit me, that I’d never see him again; my eyes would sting and I’d have to remember to breathe.
Around me the old wooden cottage creaked. Our house did the same, Mum called it settling in for the night. She was working close by on Main Street, only two blocks away. She left me to go to work on Dad’s first anniversary. Who does that? I pulled my knees up higher and closed my eyes, trying to stop my thoughts and go to sleep. The sound of the toilet flushing comforted me. I wasn’t alone. Finally, I drifted off.
All of a sudden there was a jolt so hard I fell out of bed onto the floor. The house shook. Earthquake. A split second later from outside came the loudest explosion I had ever heard. Crashing and smashing noises came from the next room. Then a sharp crack, like thunder. My ears rang and I covered my head, expecting the window to smash and glass to fly inside. Loud banging, like giant hail, rained down on the corrugated-iron roof. I worried the ceiling would cave in. Outside, car alarms went off and dogs lost it.
My bedroom light flicked on, blinding me. As my eyes adjusted, Uncle Pike and Devon stood above me, dazed.
‘You okay?’ they yelled. My hearing was muffled, but I nodded. Uncle Pike helped me up and out to the living room, where the bookcase lay skewered on the rug, its books and puzzle pieces splattered everywhere. Broken glass and smashed plates covered the kitchen bench and floor.
‘What’s happening?’ I cried, crouching and covering my head with my hands.
Outside a loud mechanical wail sounded. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up as it continued.
‘What is that?’ Devon asked.
‘Town siren,’ Uncle Pike said. We followed him carefully through the broken glass to the kitchen window. We all gasped. Above the orange streetlights rose a huge cloud of dust and black smoke. It mushroomed over the roofs by Main Street and was lit underneath by a deep flickering glow, which could only be fire.
Mum’s work.
Uncle Pike grabbed our wrists and dragged us away from the window. ‘That wasn’t an earthquake,’ he said. ‘That was an explosion.’
I didn’t wait. I yanked my gumboots on and ran.
CHAPTER THREE
I sprinted towards Main Street, dodging chunks of debris on the footpath. Behind me Uncle Pike and Devon yelled my name, but I wasn’t stopping. I made it to the steps of the Bully on the corner before Devon overtook me. He spun and grabbed my arm, pulling me off the road as an ambulance sped past towards the blast, its wailing siren mashing-up with the sounds of other emergency vehicles in the distance.
A white car following the ambulance stopped in the middle of the road across from us. Two women with raincoats over their flannel pyjamas scrambled out. The passenger held up her phone, filming
the plumes of smoke and flames rising above the roofs near Mum’s work.
I struggled against Devon’s grip. ‘Come on! Mum might be hurt.’ We needed to find her. I yanked harder. She had to be alive.
Uncle Pike leaned on his thighs, panting from running the half block. Beside us the newspaper office’s lights were on.
Devon let me go but crouched in front of me. ‘Stay here for a sec, Tippy. Let me run ahead and check.’ I nodded and my uncle took my hand.
‘Hurry, please!’ I called as an old green Land Rover rattled past us away from the blast. Devon sprinted across the street.
The doors to the Bully opened. A young man with a camera around his neck and Lorraine Ashton, a local reporter, came down the stairs. She stopped when she saw me, her face both scared and filled with hatred.
‘What’s happening?’ I asked her.
She gave Uncle Pike a chin tilt. ‘Heard you were back.’ She ignored me and my question, barging past to get into a silver hatchback parked nearby. Lorraine opened the passenger door. ‘What are you doing?’ she yelled at the photographer. ‘Town hall. I’m not bloody walking.’
‘Lorraine?’ I yelled at her. ‘Is it the town hall?’
She didn’t look up as she got into the car. The photographer clambered in the driver’s side door. They sped off down the road towards the plume.
‘Friendly as usual,’ my uncle puffed. I’d need to fill Uncle Pike in later about what happened between me and Lorraine. He put a hand on my shoulder. ‘Your mum will be okay, honey.’
I moved away. You don’t know that.
A block away Devon stood with his back to us, by the Bank of New Zealand on the corner of Main Street. A fire engine sped past in front of him towards the smoke plume. He turned, watching it, and slowly lifted his arms, locking his hands behind his head.
Mum. I sprinted away from Uncle Pike towards Devon, darting between cars and the footpath so my uncle couldn’t grab me from behind. He roared my name. Devon turned and held up his hands for me to stop, but it was too late. I dodged around him and turned the corner on to Main Street. And froze with my mouth open.
The street was dark except for clouds of smoke and dust. Two blocks away, flames billowed out of a gaping hole that used to be the front entrance of Riverstone Town Hall. Its broken columns like giant smashed teeth. Parked cars nearby blazed; orange fire raged out of shattered windows.
‘Tippy!’ Devon held me tight around my waist. It took me a second to realise all the streetlights were out. Above us, a giant black smoke cloud blotted out the sky, lit underneath by an orange glow from fires in the town hall and down Mum’s block. The headlights of emergency vehicles also cut through the darkness, their flashing red and blue lights giving hellish glimpses of the damaged rows of shops in the distance.
Uncle Pike caught up with us. Hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath again. In the middle of that nightmare was Mum’s work. I wriggled free of Devon again and ran towards the medical centre.
As I got closer, the roar of the fires and the wailing of sirens got louder. I noticed the shop windows were blown out on both sides of the street and pale brown dust covered everything; a fine haze of it hovered in the air. I kept running, but clamped my mouth shut. At the end of the first block, a police car pulled up and parked on the wrong side of the road.
Barry, the policeman, climbed out. I ran up to him and shouted over the sirens, ‘Mum, I need to see Mum!’
He looked shocked to see me.
‘Tippy?’ It was Mum yelling my name. Through the dust cloud, I spotted her across the road from the medical centre. She was crouching beside a body lying on the footpath near the pub.
I forgot Barry and bolted to her, shattered glass crunching under my gumboots. Fires across the road blasted heat against my bare skin. Close up, Mum’s hair was coated in dust and then I saw the blood. My eyes bugged out. Her uniform, face and surgical mask were splattered and smeared dark red.
She pulled down her mask. ‘It’s okay, it’s not mine,’ she said. Her hair stuck to her face with sweat and grime.
‘You sure?’ I needed to hear her say it again. The dust and the smoke made my eyes water. My mouth tasted of ash.
Mum nodded and gave me a quick reassuring smile, the skin under her mask extra white compared to the soot covering the rest of her. She coughed and put her mask back on. ‘Cover your mouth,’ she said to me, pulling at my nightie. ‘We don’t know what this dust is.’ She looked around for Uncle Pike and Devon. ‘You need to get out of here.’
‘We heard the blast,’ I said, unnecessarily. I checked out the man on the ground beside Mum. His face and hair were covered in blood mingled with the dust. Suddenly my stomach heaved. Was his face gone? I began to cough or dry-retch, or both.
‘Fire,’ the man slurred, waving towards the town hall.
Mum put her hand on his arm. ‘It’s okay, Chuck. You’re okay.’ She turned to me. ‘Where’s Pike?’
I tore my gaze away from Chuck and pointed back down the street towards my uncle. My throat felt raw as I pulled the collar of my nightie up over my mouth and nose.
She called him over.
I crouched beside Chuck. What can I do? The only Chuck I knew was the town drunk, but with his face covered in blood I couldn’t be sure it was the same man. I took his warm hand. It was heavy and limp. ‘I want to help,’ I said to Mum.
‘You’ve got to go, baby. Now!’ Mum said firmly. I hesitated. ‘He’s okay,’ she said. ‘All this blood is from small cuts to his head. Chuck’s lucky. I think he was passed out when it happened.’
He doesn’t look lucky. Beside us, the pub’s windows had been blown out and one of its main doors hung sideways off a hinge. Chunks of blackened concrete and bricks covered the street and nearby cars, their bonnets and roofs crushed. Behind Mum, there was a crater in the town hall carpark the size of small swimming pool. Time seemed to slow down.
Across the road, fires blazed inside what was left of Henderson Lawyers. The heat was fierce on my face and arms. Most of the first floor of the building had gone. Flames and black smoke funnelled high up into the night air. A flutter of burnt paper rose up then floated back down around us like black snow. In a strange way, it might have been beautiful—the broiling darkness with flashing coloured lights and twinkling glass—but it wasn’t. It was bloody and broken and scary.
I gasped and stumbled, letting go of Chuck and falling back on my hands; luckily, not cutting them on the shattered glass. Tears pricked in my already watering eyes. Our founding tree was gone. A jagged splintered stump was all that remained of the beautiful old macrocarpa, alive since 1854. No, no, no! Its massive trunk lay across the town hall carpark, away from Main Street. A giant, dead. My eyes welled up. I couldn’t take any more, my head felt like it was stuffed full. My town was ruined.
Mum grabbed my arm and snapped me back to the present. ‘Pike!’ she yelled out to my uncle, who was running towards her. ‘Get Tippy out of here.’ She turned to me. ‘I’ll see you when I can.’
‘But I want to help,’ I said once more, quickly wiping my eyes with the hem of my nightie, not caring if anyone saw my undies. I crouched back in front of her.
‘Go!’ Mum said. ‘Do as you’re told. I love you.’ She gave me a quick hug.
‘I can—’
Uncle Pike grabbed me from behind. He lifted me up and carried me off in a trot before I realised what was happening.
‘No!’ I shouted, kicking my feet. ‘Put me down!’
He was coughing, but he wouldn’t let me go. ‘Sorry, honey. Your mum needs to know you’re safe.’
‘But I can help.’ I thrashed about and managed to slide back down to the ground, but my uncle’s grip was tight on my wrist. We were back at the police car. Barry had put up a cordon. Blue and white police tape stretched from a streetlight to a parking sign across the other side of the street. Barry avoided my eyes and moved away slightly.
‘I’ve got first-aid training,’ Devon said. ‘I’ll stay
and do what I can to help.’
Uncle Pike kissed him. ‘Be careful. Promise me no heroics.’
Devon kissed him back then gave me a quick hug. He ran over to speak to Mum, who was busily bandaging Chuck’s head injuries.
‘Come on, Tippy,’ my uncle said. ‘Let’s get out of the way.’
‘But I—’
‘There could be another bomb,’ Barry said.
I froze.
‘For fuck’s sake, Barry.’ Uncle Pike lifted me up and carried me kicking and screaming, away from the carnage.
‘No! Mum!’
‘He’s right, honey,’ my uncle said, not stopping. ‘We’ve got to go. Leave the first responders to do their job.’ He held me close. ‘Your mum’s tough as hell, Tippy. She’ll be okay, and Devon, I promise.’
‘You can’t promise that.’ I smacked his back. ‘You can’t promise anything,’ I yelled against the noise of the sirens.
Uncle Pike jogged, taking me further away from Mum. I held on to his shoulders, bouncing up and down. I swiped at my blurry eyes with the back of my hand. I needed to remember every detail: Mum covered in dust, bloodied mask on, crouching on the footpath with Chuck and Devon. This couldn’t be my last memory of her. Of them. ‘I didn’t get to say goodbye,’ I said, against my uncle’s warm neck. His shaggy hair tickled my face. I didn’t say I love you.
CHAPTER FOUR
Inside the Airbnb, I hopscotched through the mess and switched on the boxy TV, finding a channel with live coverage. On the screen, a policeman at Barry’s cordon issued a warning to all Riverstone residents to stay indoors. I stood still, searching for Mum and Devon in the background, but they weren’t there. I pressed my hands together, unable to stop them from shaking.
Uncle Pike took them and squeezed. He was panting with sweat trickling down his face. His white hair and beard were dusted with soot. ‘They will be okay, Tippy.’
I was still upset with him and I pulled my hands away. ‘You don’t know that,’ I said. ‘What if there’s another bomb?’
His jaw clenched, then he let out a big sigh and wiped his brow. ‘We can’t think like that, Tippy. Not now. We need to have hope. We have to.’
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