Gift of the Gab

by Morris Gleitzman

  Revenge felt good.

  But only for a sec.

  Dermot’s angry yell, ringing out across the carpark, put an end to that.

  The human heart’s almost as weird as the human brain.

  It does exactly the same skip when you feel love as when you feel fear.

  Mine did it just then, when I heard Sergeant Cleary coming back again with someone else. The other footsteps sounded like Dad. He’s got metal tips on the heels of his cowboy boots and they click on lino.

  The thought of seeing Dad made my heart skip with love.

  The thought of him seeing me here in a cell made my heart skip with fear at exactly the same time.

  Then, after all that, it wasn’t Dad, it was Dermot’s mum. She must have metal tips on her heels too.

  When I saw her hair bobbing past the window in my cell door, my heart skipped again. It always does when I see people’s mums. It’s not love or fear, but. I think it might be jealousy.

  My heart’s been doing a lot of skipping today.

  It did a huge one earlier when I saw Dermot and his mates running at me across the carpark, yelling furiously.

  For a sec I stood, frozen.

  I thought I could hear stewed apples bubbling away behind me in Dermot’s car, but then I realised it was my tummy churning with fear.

  My heart started pumping and I ran.

  I thought I could get away because even though I’m much smaller than Dermot, I’m a good runner. Dermot and his mates play footy, but they also smoke and eat heaps of sausages.

  Boy, was I wrong.

  Dermot must have been doing extra training, or perhaps he was just extra furious, because I could hear his pounding feet getting closer behind me as I sprinted along the road back to town.

  The road’s called Memorial Drive. It’s lined with trees and each tree’s got a metal plaque on it in memory of a soldier who was killed in World War One. Their families planted the trees when that war ended, so the trees are over eighty years old and pretty big.

  I was grateful for that today.

  When I started hearing Dermot’s angry breath behind me, wet and raspy, I knew my only chance was to be a better climber than him.

  Dad’s taught me a lot about climbing trees, including how you should never rush at one.

  Except in emergencies.

  I rushed at the nearest tree.

  The trunk was big and smooth, but Dad once showed me some tricks for getting up big smooth trees. Luckily my hands weren’t too sweaty and soon I was hauling myself up onto the first branch.

  I clambered up into the high branches among the foliage.

  Below I could hear Dermot swearing. I was in luck again. His mum didn’t seem to have shown him any tree-climbing tricks.

  My heart was skipping all over the place as I wrapped my arms round a branch and listened to the boons trying to form a human pyramid. I could half-see them through the leaves. The pyramid kept collapsing and there was lots of swearing about people standing on other people’s faces.

  Then something ripped through the leaves close to my face.

  And again.

  ‘Aim for her head,’ one of the boons yelled.

  They were chucking rocks at me.

  I huddled against the branch, desperately hoping there were enough leaves to camouflage me. And wishing it was an apple tree so at least I’d have something to chuck back at them.

  More rocks crashed through the leaves.

  I heard a car approaching. It slowed down, then drove on.

  ‘That’s illegal,’ shouted one of the hoons at the car. ‘Driving and using a mobile. I’m calling the cops.’

  The driver must have beat him to it because about ten minutes later, just as I’d decided to climb down and offer to show the hoons how to throw straight in return for my freedom, I heard Sergeant Cleary’s siren approaching.

  ‘Run!’ someone yelled.

  ‘No,’ shouted Dermot. ‘I want the cops to see what she’s done.’

  Sergeant Cleary made the hoons stand on the other side of the road while I climbed down. As I slid down the trunk past the metal plaque I noticed the tree was in memory of Private Em Wilson, killed 1917, aged nineteen.

  ‘Thanks, Ern,’ I said silently.

  When Sergeant Cleary saw the apples cooking in Dermot’s car, his mouth gave a little grin before he could stop it. The police in our town have had a lot of trouble with Dermot’s car.

  Dermot went mental.

  ‘It’s not funny,’ he yelled and tried to grab me.

  Sergeant Cleary pushed Dermot back. He wasn’t smiling now.

  ‘You’re right, son,’ he said. ‘It’s a serious crime, attempted assault. Do it again and I’ll take you both in.’

  Dermot tried to grab me again.

  Sergeant Cleary took us both in.

  Except that Dermot’s being released now.

  I can see him and his mum out in the corridor. She’s got her arms round him in a big hug.

  He’s lucky, having a mum who’s got a motel. Sergeant Cleary’s got a lot of rellies who visit from interstate.

  Why are my eyes going all hot and damp? Police perks are a fact of life, nothing to get upset about.

  It’s not that.

  There’s another reason my cheeks are wet.

  Watching Mrs Figgis hug Dermot makes my heart give the most painful skip of all.

  Because even if I sit in this cell for the rest of my life, my mum can never come here and hug me and set me free.

  I still can’t believe it.

  There I was, mentally preparing myself for jail, feeling lucky I can have these conversations in my head so at least I wouldn’t get too bored in the dink, not for the first couple of years at least, when suddenly I heard a rattling and Sergeant Cleary opened my cell door.

  ‘OK,’ he said, ‘hop it.’

  I stared at him.

  ‘Off home,’ he said, ‘and don’t upset any more eighteen-year-olds.’

  ‘But,’ I said, gobsmacked, ‘aren’t I under arrest?’

  Sergeant Cleary watched my hands closely, frowning, but he didn’t understand.

  I wrote it in my notebook and showed him.

  He gave a weary grin. ‘No, Rowena,’ he said. ‘You’re not under arrest. What you did was technically a crime, but under the circs, given that Dermot Figgis had it coming, and given the stress you must be under with that dopey dad of yours, I’ve decided not to charge you.’

  As I followed Sergeant Cleary down the corridor to the front desk, I wrote indignantly in my notebook.

  ‘What do you mean, dopey dad?’

  Sergeant Cleary gave a sigh.

  ‘I don’t mean anything,’ he said. ‘I’m just saying it must be tough for you having a dad who’s a bit of a ratbag.’

  For a sec I couldn’t speak. My hands were rigid with anger. I wondered how many years in jail I’d get for filling up a police car with rotting apples. We’ve got heaps more back at the orchard.

  Constable Pola looked up from the TV.

  ‘Don’t get us wrong,’ he said. ‘Your old man’s a nice bloke. It’s just that he’s a bit of a disaster area in the singing and clothing departments.’

  It was an outrage. The police are meant to be tolerant and understanding. We did a project on it at school.

  Sergeant Cleary offered me an oatmeal biscuit.

  ‘We’re not having a go at you,’ he said gently. ‘You do a top job, coping with him. We understand it’s a tough call for a kid, having an embarrassing dad, that’s all.’

  I ignored the biscuit.

  I didn’t ignore the vicious insults about Dad.

  I grabbed a sheet of paper off the desk and wrote on it in big letters so they’d understand.

  ‘MY DAD IS THE BEST DAD IN THE WORLD. IF YOUR WIFE DIED, YOU’D PROBABLY TRY TO CHEER YOURSELF UP BY WEARING BRIGHT SHIRTS AND SINGING COUNTRY MUSIC TOO.’

  Sergeant Cleary and Constable Pola looked up from the sheet of paper and exchanged a glance
. I could see they’d never thought about it that way before.

  Sergeant Cleary pushed about six biscuits into my hand and steered me out the door.

  ‘I haven’t told your dad about this,’ he said. ‘I didn’t want him coming down here and singing at me.’

  He went back into the police station. If I could, I would have shouted after him that Dad doesn’t sing at just anyone, only when he’s feeling really moved.

  I thought about putting it in a note and leaving it under the windscreen wiper of the police car.

  I didn’t, because what Sergeant Cleary had said was starting to sink in.

  He hadn’t rung Dad.

  Dad didn’t have to know what had happened.

  I was still standing there, weak with relief, when a woman got out of a van and came over to me.

  ‘Rowena?’ she said.

  She was tall and blonde and wearing posh clothes and for a millionth of a sec I had a totally and completely dopey thought.

  That Mum hadn’t died after all, that she’d just lost her memory and wandered off and now she’d got it back and here she was.

  Then I remembered that Mum wasn’t tall and blonde. In the photos in Dad’s album she was shorter than him, with dark hair. And she had smiling eyes.

  This woman was smiling, but her eyes weren’t.

  ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘I’m Paige Parker.’

  Of course. That’s where I’d seen her before. On telly, on that current-affairs show.

  I saw the van she’d just got out of had a TV logo on it.

  ‘You been having a bit of a run-in with the police?’ she asked.

  I didn’t know what to say. I was confused. If Paige Parker and her TV crew were filming a story on Mr Wetherby as one of the oldest surviving diggers in the state, why was she interested in me?

  Then I twigged. Mr Wetherby isn’t much of a talker, not since his teeth got a bit loose. Ms Parker must be looking for other local personalities to pad out her story. People with World War One relatives and quiet teeth. The police must have given her my name. Kids with bits missing always get heaps of viewer interest, specially if they’re into crime.

  Except I’m not into crime. Not really. I had to explain that to Ms Parker before I was branded a crim on national TV.

  I handed her the police biscuits and pulled out my notebook.

  ‘I was just getting Dermot Figgis to back off,’ I wrote, ‘like our soldiers did to the Germans in World War One.’

  I handed her the page and waited for her to thank me for linking my explanation to her story about Mr Wetherby.

  The cameraman was getting out of the car. Perhaps she was going to thank me on camera.

  Then I realised what a total and complete idiot I was being. I snatched the page back from her and turned and sprinted down the laneway next to the police station.

  ‘Rowena,’ I heard her yelling. ‘Wait.’

  I didn’t.

  I ran across the supermarket carpark, round the back of the newsagent and hid in the fruit shop’s big waste bin.

  It was pretty revolting in there. Today’s a public holiday so it hadn’t been emptied since yesterday and the heat had made all the fruit and veg scraps go mushy.

  It was like I was being punished for what I did to Dermot Figgis’s car.

  But I stayed in there till I was sure the TV people had gone.

  If I’d appeared on TV, Dad would have seen it and then he’d have known about Dermot’s car and me being hauled in by the cops.

  Dad works very hard at being a good dad. He’s not so hot on punishment and discipline, but he does it if he thinks he has to.

  He’d really think he had to if he heard about the car and the cops. Which would totally and completely ruin what’s left of Mum’s special day.

  I wish I didn’t have so much cabbage slime in my shoes. It’s hard to walk fast with soggy socks and I want to get home as quickly as I can so Dad and me can get back to being really close and I can forget about all the crook stuff that’s happened today.

  Oh no, I’ve just had an awful thought.

  The TV people probably know where I live.

  Dermot Figgis certainly does.

  It’s not over yet.

  I hurried into our driveway and stopped dead.

  The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. Or they would have done if they hadn’t been sticky with peach juice and mushy cauliflower.

  A strange car was leaving the house and coming towards me.

  My brain twitched with fear but it didn’t switch off.

  Who was it?

  One of the TV people?

  Dermot Figgis in a hire car?

  Luckily our driveways really long because it goes right through the orchard, so I had time to duck behind a tree before the car got close.

  As it bumped past I had a look inside. There was only one person, a bloke a bit older than Dad with black curly hair and a suit.

  Dermot Figgis’s lawyer?

  A TV producer who’d been to see Dad about the screen rights to my life of crime?

  I hurried up to the house, my chest tight and not just because the watermelon juice in my T-shirt was drying all stiff.

  Claire was in the kitchen washing up and keeping baby Erin amused with the timer on the oven.

  ‘G’day, Ro,’ she said. ‘What’s that in your hair?’

  I looked at my reflection in the oven door.

  ‘Lettuce,’ I said. ‘Don’t worry, I’m planning to hose it off.’

  Claire grinned. She’s got really good at understanding sign language since she married Dad. Less than a year and she knows ‘planning’. Not bad.

  Erin gave a big chortle and pointed to my head. Two-month-old babies think soggy lettuce on the scalp is the funniest thing they’ve ever seen.

  ‘Who was that who just left?’ I asked, trying to keep my hands steady.

  Claire hesitated, but only for a sec.

  ‘Bloke Dad used to know,’ she said. ‘He’s passing through town. Dropped in for a cuppa.’

  I concentrated on tickling Erin under the chin so Claire wouldn’t see how relieved I felt.

  ‘Dad’s outside,’ said Claire. ‘Spraying the back paddock.’

  I wasn’t surprised to hear that. Dad always has a spray on Mum’s anniversary. Spraying perks him up when he’s feeling down. He sprays on the day his mum died, too, and every time a big bill arrives. When Erin peed on his Carla Tamworth records, he sprayed for about six hours.

  I took a deep breath and hoped there hadn’t been any other visitors before the one I’d seen. TV journalists, for example, or motor-vehicle insurance investigators.

  I went out to the back paddock. Dad was on the tractor. He must have fixed it because it was hauling the big blower up and down the rows of trees as good as new.

  Dad looked at me through the misty clouds of spray.

  I looked back anxiously, trying to tell whether he was angry or upset. I couldn’t see his face. When Dad sprays he pulls his cowboy hat down over his eyebrows and ties a scarf round his nose and mouth. He reckons it’s just as good as a spray suit and doesn’t make him feel like a Martian.

  I could tell from the way he was sitting that everything was OK. Dad’s one of those people who, when they’ve heard something that makes them angry or depressed, their shoulders sort of hunch up and they hardly ever steer a tractor with their feet like Dad was doing now.

  I felt wobbly with relief.

  Dad waved and told me to stand back while he finished spraying.

  ‘OK,’ I said. ‘Then we’ll get the album out and look at photos of Mum.’

  That’s another good thing about having a dad who can speak with his hands. You can have a conversation even when he’s got a scarf over his mouth and you’ve got a two hundred horsepower blower roaring away next to your ear.

  I stood back and watched Dad blasting the root weevil, plus any blue mould, codling moths and apple scab that happened to be in the area.

  They wouldn’t h
ave known what hit them.

  Just like I didn’t know what hit me a few minutes later.

  Dad finished the last row, switched everything off and strolled towards me, tipping his hat back and pulling his scarf down.

  ‘G’day, Tonto,’ he said. ‘I was worried about you. Thought Dermot Figgis might have clogged up the car wash and flooded the town.’

  My insides dropped, but only a little way because Dad was hugging me so tight.

  How did he know about Dermot’s car?

  Then I saw the empty trailer, still caked with bits of rotten apple, sitting in the corner of the paddock.

  Of course. Mr Lorenzini must have told him.

  I looked anxiously up at Dad.

  ‘Good one, Tonto,’ he said proudly, grinning down at me.

  I gaped at him. I almost asked him to say it again with his hands in case the blower had damaged my eardrums.

  ‘That’ll teach Dermot Figgis to mock the memory of a fine woman,’ continued Dad. ‘I’ve rung Mrs Figgis and told her that if Dermot’s got a problem with what you did, he can come out here and I’ll hose his car out myself. Then I’ll do his mouth.’

  I sagged against Dad’s chest, dizzy with relief.

  ‘And I rang Sergeant Cleary, too,’ Dad went on, ‘and told him that next time he decides to lock you up, I want to know pronto. I asked him why he hadn’t rung me, but he wouldn’t say. Just kept saying it didn’t matter cause he’d already released you. I reckon he’s a ratbag.’

  I grinned into Dad’s shirt.

  ‘Here,’ said Dad, stepping back and rummaging in his pocket, ‘I want you to have this to help you pass the time if you find yourself in the slammer again.’

  He pulled out his hanky and unwrapped something silver and shiny.

  It was a mouth-organ.

  Dad blew a few notes and handed it over.

  ‘It was my grandfather’s,’ he said. ‘His mates sent it home after he was killed in the war.’

  Then Dad launched into a Carla Tamworth song about a bloke sitting in jail waiting for his sweetheart to turn up so he can prove he didn’t murder her. She turns up eight years later because it’s taken her that long to finish the tunnel she’s dug to rescue him.

  I tried to play bits of the tune, but I didn’t do a very good job. It’s not easy, playing a harmonica when your throat’s all lumpy with happiness.