A Morris Gleitzman Collection

by Morris Gleitzman

  Mum and Dad crawled in with them under the tarpaulin and they all ate the sandwiches and drank the fizzy drinks while Tracy explained that this was the place where Russell Kinlock in Year Six had broken the world record for hanging upside down by his legs until a seagull had landed on him and he’d panicked and sprained his pelvis.

  Mum and Dad roared with laughter.

  Keith was delighted, even though he didn’t see what was so funny. He’d sprained his ankle once and it had hurt like anything.

  Then Tracy went out onto the oval and reenacted Orchid Cove State School winning the Far North Queensland Under Twelves Softball Shield.

  She did it all in slow motion and had Mum and Dad in stitches.

  Keith realised, as he watched her do a slow-motion diving catch, that he’d never met anyone like her before.

  13

  ‘No more, thanks Mrs Shipley,’ said Tracy, flopping back against the caravan wall, ‘I’m stuffed.’

  Keith wasn’t surprised.

  Six pieces of cheese on toast she’d just had, four of them with tomato. And two pieces of fruitcake.

  Mum went to the other end of the caravan to turn the kettle down.

  Keith leaned forwards across the fold-down table and whispered to Tracy.

  ‘Thanks.’

  She deserved it. Three hours at the picnic and an hour and a half at the tea table and she hadn’t mentioned snakes or jellyfish once.

  Keith realised Tracy was giving him a strange look. Probably indigestion.

  ‘Great tea, but,’ Tracy called out to Mum. ‘Thanks for inviting me back.’

  ‘Our pleasure Tracy,’ said Mum, ‘I haven’t laughed so much in years.’

  ‘Me neither,’ called Dad from outside. He was sitting on the caravan steps going through the first week’s paperwork from the shop.

  ‘What about you Keith?’ asked Mum. ‘More cake?’

  ‘No thanks,’ said Keith.

  ‘You’ve hardly eaten anything,’ said Mum.

  Keith gave Tracy a look which he hoped said, ‘Parents, couldn’t you take them outside and bury them?’

  When he thought about it, though, he had to admit Mum was right. He had hardly eaten anything. This must have been partly because he was laughing so much at Tracy’s tales of life at Orchid Cove State School, and partly because his stomach was knotted with excitement.

  He had a plan.

  It had come to him halfway through Tracy telling them about Mr Caulfield, a teacher who could do Donald Duck talk with his armpit.

  Tracy’s parents.

  If Tracy could do it, be positive about Orchid Cove and not mention the bad stuff, perhaps her parents could too. And then Mum and Dad could make friends with them and spend evenings and weekends chatting with them on the verandah and never need to go to the beach or the rainforest.

  It was worth a try.

  ‘Mum’ said Keith, ‘you should meet Tracy’s parents. They’re great, aren’t they Tracy?’

  Tracy smiled. ‘Yeah, they’re tops.’

  ‘That would be very nice Tracy,’ said Mum.

  ‘Yes,’ said Dad, coming in from the steps, ‘it would.’

  So far so good, thought Keith.

  Dad put his paperwork onto the table with a flourish.

  ‘Well,’ he said, grinning, ‘looks like the shop’s a goer.’

  Mum gave him a delighted hug.

  ‘Long way to go yet, of course,’ continued Dad, ‘but if we can keep the customers we’ve got so far, and get a few more as word spreads, I’d say we’ve got a successful shop on our hands.’

  Keith looked at Mum and Dad’s smiling faces and felt like rushing outside and howling at the moon with joy. Except that it might disturb the snakes.

  Dad’s expression turned serious. He looked at Mum and Keith.

  ‘If it wasn’t for you two,’ he said, ‘I’d still be sitting in South London with a long face.’

  He kissed Mum and hugged Keith.

  Keith glowed.

  Dad turned to Tracy, grinning again. ‘When Keith started going on about Australia, I thought he’d gone bonkers. And then Keith’s Mum started and I thought she had too. But I came anyway and they were both right. It’s paradise.’

  Keith looked at Tracy, expecting her to be pretty pleased with what Dad had just said about her country.

  Instead she stared down at the table.

  Then she said, ‘Thanks for tea, I’d better be going now.’

  Tracy didn’t say anything as Keith walked with her down to the road.

  She seemed in a strange mood.

  Keith decided it was definitely indigestion and thought he’d better leave off telling her his plan about her parents until another time.

  ‘Do you want to come down to our shop tomorrow for some free fish and chips?’ he said. ‘There’s something I want to talk to you about.’

  It wasn’t until he’d said it that he remembered about the six pieces of cheese on toast. Could be an expensive talk. Hundred potatoes at least.

  ‘No thanks,’ she said, not looking up.

  Keith stared at her.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Cause I don’t want to see you any more.’

  Keith couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

  ‘Why not?’

  She turned to him angrily.

  ‘Cause you’re a whinger.’

  Keith didn’t know what that was but he felt sick in the stomach anyway.

  ‘A what?’

  ‘A whinger. OK, we’ve got a few crocs and stingers around here, so what? That’s not the end of the bloody world.’

  Keith realised what she meant. A whinger was a misery guts.

  ‘You should learn to think positive,’ she said, ‘like your parents.’

  Keith opened his mouth but nothing came out.

  ‘Instead of being a whinging Pom,’ Tracy said.

  She walked away down the road.

  After a bit she stopped and turned round.

  ‘If you cheer up, give us a yell,’ she shouted.

  Then she kept on walking.

  Keith watched her. He realised his eyes were stinging. He rubbed both of them hard.

  A mosquito must have bitten him on both eyelids.

  Later, in bed, Keith felt better.

  Mum and Dad are happy, he thought, and that’s the important thing. If they’re happy, I’m happy.

  He thought hard about whether he was happy.

  He decided he was.

  As he went to sleep, he tried not to think about what a great friend Tracy would have been.

  14

  Keith struggled awake.

  A noise. On the roof of the caravan. Drumming. Rumbling. Thumping.

  Snakes fighting?

  A crocodile demanding to be let in?

  Suddenly he knew what it was.

  Rain.

  Rain? Less than twelve hours ago, at the picnic, it had been searingly hot and there hadn’t been a cloud in the sky.

  He sat up in the darkness and pulled the curtain aside. Water was running down the outside of the window.

  Think.

  It could be a lawn sprinkler that had come on by mistake. Perhaps that couple in the other caravan had had another fight and one of them had switched on the lawn sprinkler to sprinkle the other.

  Keith peered over towards the shower block floodlight. In the arc of light he could see millions of drops of water falling from much higher up than a lawn sprinkler could sprinkle.

  Rain.

  Panic gripped him in the chest.

  How could he do anything about rain?

  Even if Tracy’s parents were the best actors in the world they couldn’t keep Mum and Dad shut up in their living room with the curtain drawn and the telly turned up for ever.

  Sooner or later Mum and Dad would step outside and there it would be. Grey skies. Grey buildings. Rain.

  And gradually, drip by drip, Mum’s forehead would pucker up and Dad’s mouth would droop and the custom
ers would stop coming and the shop would go broke and they’d be reduced to living on river banks and fighting with crocodiles over scraps of rotting takeaway chicken . . .

  Keith clenched his fists.

  Think positive.

  If the sky was blue twelve hours ago, this must be a freak storm that’s blown in from somewhere close that has rain. New Zealand. China. Somewhere like that.

  And if it’s blown in, thought Keith, stands to reason it’ll blow out again. Probably by morning. When Mum and Dad wake up, the sky’ll probably be blue again.

  Not probably, it will be.

  And Mum and Dad’ll never know anything about it.

  As long as they don’t wake up now.

  Keith held his breath and listened for their breathing. He couldn’t hear anything except the drumming of the rain.

  He felt on the floor next to his bed and found the candle and matches Mum had left there in case of emergency.

  The candle flame lit up the caravan with a flickering yellow light.

  Keith slipped out of bed and gently pulled aside the curtain that hung between Mum and Dad’s bed and his.

  Mum and Dad were both asleep.

  Keith silently thanked the traffic of South London for turning them into such heavy sleepers.

  But the rain on the roof was getting louder.

  He couldn’t chance it.

  He found Mum’s make-up bag, pulled out some tufts of cotton wool, rolled them into little balls, and carefully, gently, holding his breath, pushed one into one of Mum’s ears.

  She stirred slightly but stayed asleep.

  He eased one into her other ear.

  Dad was harder to do because he was on the other side of the bed.

  Keith leaned over Mum, praying she wouldn’t wake up and scream.

  The first ball fell out of Dad’s ear. Too small. He made bigger ones and eased them in.

  Done.

  He straightened up, heart pounding.

  Now, check to make sure all the windows are closed.

  That’s when he remembered.

  The side window in the shop.

  He’d left it open so the shop wouldn’t be too hot on Monday morning.

  A night of pounding rain and the shop could be awash. Electrical wires could short-circuit. There could be a fire.

  Another one.

  He stood there, sweating, in the flickering candlelight.

  I’ll have to do it, he thought. I’ll have to go and shut that window.

  He was drenched to the skin before he got to the bottom of the caravan steps.

  So much for Mum’s showerproof raincoat.

  He clasped it round him and sloshed across the caravan park, slipping in the mud, eyes almost closed against the rain that beat on his head and shoulders like stones.

  Blimey, he thought, this is worse than Worthing.

  Then he reached the road.

  For a moment Keith thought he’d been slammed in the back with a plank of wood, then he realised it was wind, screaming at him out of the darkness.

  He staggered across the road and was only able to stop when he came up against the rough brick wall of the milk bar.

  The rain was coming at him sideways now, and it felt like it was going to rip Mum’s showerproof raincoat to shreds.

  Keith squinted towards the beach.

  All he could see were huge black waves pounding in, and foam being torn off them by the wind. Forget Worthing, he thought, this is worse than Scarborough.

  He started to edge his way towards the shop at the other end of the street, eyes almost closed, the wind flattening him against the buildings as he struggled along.

  Just past the hardware store he took another painful squint at the beach.

  And saw the palm trees.

  No longer were they leaning gracefully over the sand, they were thrashing around, fronds flailing in the black sky.

  Suddenly it hit him.

  Coconuts.

  Fortunately it was only the thought that hit him. The coconut itself, the first of them, slammed against the post office wall in front of him and exploded.

  Keith saw that the road was littered with coconuts. He heard others smashing into wood and glass.

  Run, he thought. Leg it. Go back.

  Then he remembered the shop.

  If he didn’t save the shop, there was no point in going back.

  He hunched over and put his left arm up between him and the thrashing palm trees and edged forward.

  A car with only one headlight and no windscreen went slowly past and the driver shouted something at him but Keith kept his head down and kept going.

  Another coconut exploded against the wall in front of him.

  A rubbish bin flew past his head.

  Then he realised he was outside the swimwear boutique which meant the next shop was theirs. He peered ahead. There it was.

  He heard a screeching, groaning noise above him. He looked up and saw that the metal roof of the swimwear boutique was flapping around like a bedspread. It was coming down, towards him.

  He flung himself against the wall as the sheets of tin crashed onto the road and were hurled along it, sparks flying.

  And then suddenly the sheets of metal were in the air again and smashing, two and three at a time, into the front of the Paradise Fish Bar.

  Keith watched the front of the shop disappear as the wind picked up the shattered glass and splintered wood and twisted metal and whipped them away.

  He stared, numb, as the next gust, thundering into the open front of the shop, blew out every other window in the building.

  He stood leaning against the swimwear boutique wall until the feeling came back into his body.

  Paradise, he thought, looking at the dark, howling beach.

  Rain and sand stung his eyes and he didn’t care.

  Twelve thousand miles, five airlines, seventy-three hours.

  And all you had to do was make us happy.

  ‘Thanks a lot, paradise,’ he yelled, ‘thanks a bleeding lot.’

  He yelled it again, screaming it into the wind with great sobs.

  He was still yelling it when the real plank of wood slammed into him and everything went black.

  15

  First he saw Mum’s face, looking down at him with sad red-rimmed eyes and wet cheeks and her forehead screwed up into so many crisscross lines he felt dizzy and sick trying to count them.

  Then he saw Dad’s face, frowning at him with dark eye bulges and droopy mouth creases that were darker and droopier than he’d ever seen before.

  Then he saw Mitch Wilson, staring at him gloomily.

  Then he saw Owen the milkman, looking at him sadly.

  Then he saw Mr Naylor, smiling at him with a thin mocking smile.

  Then he woke up.

  He was in a bed in a big bright room with lots of other beds in it.

  Mum and Dad were sitting by the bed looking down at him.

  Mum smiled, but her frown lines didn’t go away.

  Dad smiled too, but his droopy mouth creases just sort of stretched a bit.

  They both hugged him.

  Keith realised he had a headache.

  ‘You’re in hospital in Cairns, love,’ said Mum gently.

  ‘You’re going to be OK,’ said Dad.

  They told him about the storm and how it was the edge of a cyclone that had gone back out to sea and how Raylene from the chemist’s had found him lying unconscious on the road on her way to check that Mrs Newman was OK and how the ambulance had taken hours to get him to Cairns because the road was blocked by trees and how he’d been asleep for eighteen hours and how worried they’d been about him.

  Keith didn’t say anything about the shop because they didn’t and he thought they looked depressed enough after sitting on those hard hospital chairs for eighteen hours.

  He didn’t mention it in the days that followed, either.

  He decided not to say much about anything.

  He slept most of the tim
e, and when he wasn’t asleep he pretended he was so he wouldn’t have to talk to Mum, who sat by his bed for several hours each day.

  He wanted to talk, but not about the things he thought she’d want to talk about.

  Like how coming to Australia was the worst thing they’d ever done and how they’d be going back to England as soon as Keith was better.

  Anyway, she didn’t have to tell him that out loud. He could tell from her face.

  On the third day he couldn’t stand it any more and spoke.

  ‘Nurse,’ he said, ‘could you get my Mum a cushion?’

  The only cheery person around was the doctor who stopped by the bed each day and shone a light into Keith’s eyes.

  ‘Good,’ he said every day, ‘good. I wish the plank of wood was coming along as well as you.’

  Then one day Mum came in looking much happier.

  ‘Come on,’ she said, ‘we’re going home today.’

  ‘Where’s Dad?’ asked Keith.

  ‘At home,’ said Mum.

  Great, thought Keith, Dad was so anxious to get back to Owen the milkman he couldn’t even wait for us.

  As Keith got dressed, he wondered if people who’d had concussion were allowed to fly.

  Perhaps they won’t let me on the plane, he thought.

  Then Mum would have to fly to England without him and he’d stay in Australia and become a wealthy sheep farmer with a property the size of Lewisham and then he could fly them back out.

  Forget it, he thought gloomily. Champion boxers fly all the time and they get concussion on a weekly basis.

  As he climbed into the ambulance Keith briefly considered making a run for it, but decided not to.

  He didn’t fancy being on the run in a country where the police carried guns and chewed chewing gum.

  What’s the point, he thought glumly. Lie back and let it happen.

  He’d tried to make Mum and Dad happy and it hadn’t worked out.

  At least he’d have the consolation, when they were living in a high-rise council flat and Dad was selling roof insulation and they were all miserable, of knowing he’d tried.

  Keith wondered why the ambulance was taking so long to get to the airport. He tried to see if they were in a traffic jam but couldn’t because of the frosted glass in the windows.