The fire seemed to go out in her mum, too, as they listened to the front door close after Ol. She shook her head and turned to look out the window. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. There was a dull pause. ‘I guess you’re not likely to tell me where you got that creature, if you wouldn’t tell Ol.’
Macka lay down and curled herself into a tight ball on the quilt. ‘I can’t Mum. I promised I wouldn’t,’ she said. You wouldn’t believe me, she thought.
‘Okay, let’s drop the subject, then,’ her mum said quickly. ‘But you know what I’ve always said about pets. Even if we did want some smelly animal leaving hairs all over the house, we wouldn’t be allowed. It’s in the lease; it’s illegal to have them here.’
‘What about Wombat?’ said Macka, putting up a token fight.
‘He was on his last legs when we moved in—all he ever did was sit in his basket and mope, poor old thing.’ Her mum gave a snort of pity. ‘No estate agent in the world could have possibly objected to Wombat. Stinking rodents, however, are another matter.’
Macka breathed in through her nostrils; the sharp smell of the rat-kangaroo was faint now. She ran a hand over the quilt in front of her nose, wondering if there were any glittering, red-grey hairs left about the place, and what she should do if she found one.
‘Well, it’s gone now,’ she muttered. ‘You don’t have to worry about it any more.’
‘I’m not worried about it. It’s you that worries me, Lou, thinking you could look after some wild animal in your own bedroom. A thirteen-year-old should really be past that stage.’
Macka sat up, outraged. ‘I am, Mum. Crikey, it was lumped on me. I didn’t bring it home so I could have some cute little cuddly pet!’
‘How do you mean, lumped on you? What sort of person would force you to take a wild animal?’
‘Well, that was the choice I had. If I hadn’t taken it, it would’ve been killed. That’s all I can tell you.’ Macka knew she was teetering on the edge of telling the whole incredible truth.
Her mum looked at her for a long time, chewing her lower lip. She didn’t look convinced.
‘You could have told us,’ she said eventually. ‘I don’t like to hear that you’re being heavied by someone, especially someone who’s almost definitely involved in some kind of smuggling racket. It may be hard to believe, but your dad and I might have been able to help, you know. I mean, there are authorities—we could have handed this creature over to someone who knew what to do with it.’
Sure, like a computer-game programmer, Macka thought. ‘Well, heck, I only got it last night. I hadn’t really made up my mind what I should do. Maybe I would’ve told you—I don’t know …’ In a pink fit, I would’ve.
Macka and her mum stared at each other, similar rueful looks on their faces. Her mum drew in a big breath and blew it out slowly. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Just let me know if this … person looks like hassling you again, right? No more nasty surprises. ‘Cause if I’d found that rat-thing in here while you were out …’ she shook her head and held a hand to her chest, then pointed a sharp finger at Macka. ‘You’d be an endangered animal, for one!’
Macka heard the laughter behind the threat and grinned. ‘It’s okay,’ she said, hoping she was telling the truth, ‘it won’t happen again.’
‘Good.’ Her mum crossed to the door. ‘Now, get rid of that sandwich and stuff on the floor, hey? One rodent in this house has been quite enough.’
‘Rightio.’
Macka knelt down after her mother had gone and slowly wrapped up the sandwich in the leftover newspaper. Something felt not quite right. She should have been relieved that the rat-kangaroo’s future was out of her hands, but instead she sensed something like misery descending on her, misery and anxiety.
She sat on her heels and stared at the little newspaper parcel on the floor. It was like a symbol of the gap between her world and the animal’s; that creature just wasn’t built to use anything outside its own machine-world. It would be so frustrating for Ol and Razz, and the rat-kangaroo would get so distressed, forced to live in the same cage as a real live animal, one of those dark-eyed, randy old males. Macka clenched her jaw and shuddered.
Best to forget about it, pretend it never happened. Tell Vinnie it escaped, tell him she’d hunted all over the place for it and there was nothing they could do about it.
She looked up. The quilt was caught up where she’d reached for the rat-kangaroo, and in the darkness under the bed something gleamed, something moved.
‘Oh no-o-o-o!’ said Macka very softly, on a very high note. ‘It’s gone and replicated itself or something!’
She looked away, pretending she hadn’t seen what she’d seen. Feeling sick, she crawled over to the bed and peered underneath.
It wasn’t another rat-kangaroo. It was something that lay in a small pile among the fluff-balls, and squirmed, slowly.
‘Yuk-o, what is it?’ Macka pulled her head back a bit, screwing up her face. The thing squirmed itself up into a peak and a piece fell off. ‘Er, yuk! No!’ Macka drew back further, unable to take her eyes off it.
The fallen piece rolled to one side, then pushed its wobbly back end up on a matchstick-thin pair of legs. Macka, finally managing to focus properly, saw a pair of miniature paws at its chest, struggling too. The thing had a head—too heavy for its scrap of a neck—in which Macka could see the shadow of an eye sealed up behind a film of gleaming skin.
The pile of light beside it broke into three other creatures like the first, which set off blindly and with excruciating slowness in different directions over the carpet pile. Macka covered her mouth with her hand. The skin on her head felt as if it were about to get up and walk away.
‘God, how re-vol-ting!’ she said, jumping up and going to the window. Everything outside looked disgustingly normal. A group of uni yobs were yelling their heads off at each other as they punted a soccer ball around the park. At closer range a couple were reading a newspaper, sprawled in the sunshine on a neatly-spread rug. Sparrows chirped. The sky was spotless blue.
Macka took a deep breath. She would need something soft. She went to the wardrobe, and unearthed a sewing basket. Another Christmas present, it was barely used, a sturdy woven exterior lined with silky pink cloth. Macka tipped out a tiny tapestry on a hoop, a collection of odd buttons and a fresh packet of pearl-headed pins, and carefully removed all the needles stuck into the cushioned lid. She folded a few tissues and laid them in the bottom of the basket.
‘Oh crikey, where’ve you all gone?’ she said nervously, peering under the bed.
She managed to track all four down; one was just about to emerge at the foot of the bed, two were crawling over and under each other behind a shoebox, and the last was bumbling about under a discarded sock. More carefully than she could remember doing anything, Macka rolled each jelly-bean-sized body onto a tissue and tipped it into the sewing basket. When they were all in there, she picked them clean of carpet fluff, her top lip curled back on her teeth. They lay together on the tissues in an orangey-pink, hairless cluster, a tiny rapid pulse going through them.
She closed the lid gently, then conducted a painstaking search under the bed, just in case there were any others worming around there.
‘Looks like you’re the only ones, guys,’ she said, quickly checking them again. She was all sweaty and her hair, and the arms and chest of her sloppy joe, were grey with dust. She fastened the lid of the basket and ran her grubby hands over her grubby face.
Two minutes later she was in her parents’ room, clutching the basket in one hand and the phone in the other. ‘Vinnie,’ she was saying, ‘Can you do me a big, big, big favour?’
6 DAYLIGHT ROBBERY
‘I don’t like this one little bit,’ said Vinnie, hurrying along King Street beside Macka, his empty schoolbag banging against his back.
‘You’re just a born worrier,’ said Macka determinedly. ‘We’ll get her back, you’ll see. We have to. Like you said, we have to at least try!’ She had the ba
sket held tightly to her chest, and was concentrating on walking quickly without shaking it too much.
‘And you’re sure she’s there?’
‘Yeah, Ol said he was going to take her straight there. His mate’s so rapt about getting another rat-kangaroo, he’s going to come to the lab to check her over and keep her under observation for the day.’
‘But he’ll be able to tell, won’t he? That she’s not for real?’
‘Hopefully—then we might have a chance of convincing him just to give her back, instead of—’
‘Instead of having to steal her. Oh geez, Macka, how are we going to do this? I mean, what if he’s got her locked in a cage with the key hung on his belt or something?’
‘Look, Vinnie, don’t start. Wait and see what happens before you go all doom-and-gloomy about it, will you? She might just be hopping loose around the lab for all we know!’
‘Fat chance—he’ll have her under lock and key, for sure.’
Macka gave him a push. ‘Shut up.’
They didn’t speak for a few metres.
‘And anyway,’ said Vinnie. ‘What makes you think I’m such a good talker that I can stop him watching what you’re up to? What if my mind goes blank?’
‘It won’t. I trust you.’ Macka gave him a dark look. ‘And if it does, just do something. Knock something over, have a fit, faint. Whatever.’
Vinnie gave a nervous little moan. ‘I’m just not the kind of person who can do that, you know? I’m not quick or adventurous like you.’
‘What a load of horsecrap, Vinnie. Adventurous!’ Macka rolled her eyes and hurried on. She scrabbled in her jeans pocket and pulled out a crumpled bit of paper with an elaborate diagram drawn in biro.
‘It’s true, though. I mean, I just run around in your shadow like—’
‘Vinnie, pipe down. I’m trying to work this out.’ Macka turned the paper this way and that and glanced around as they walked. ‘Okay, that’s the footbridge and there’re the gates. That must be the Wentworth Building there.’
‘Yeah, it says so on the front,’ said Vinnie wearily.
‘Well, what we want is Science Road, wa-a-ay up here.’ She stopped and showed Vinnie the map.
‘Macka, that’s miles away!’
‘No it isn’t. I went for a walk up here with my mum once, and it’s not so far. I figure if we go up behind that building there …’
‘Hey, are we allowed? What if someone stops us? We’re not uni students or anything.’
‘Don’t be daft, Vinnie. It’s Saturday—look, the place is dead as a dodo! Anyway, anyone can go in and out here—it’s not like it’s private property or anything.’
‘Isn’t it?’ Doubtfully Vinnie followed her through the gates.
They scurried along past some intimidatingly old buildings, then a big shed that looked as if it didn’t quite belong there. The road was empty, shaded by the occasional tree that looked as if it had been there forever. A road opened out on their left, leading down past tennis courts where a tall, tanned couple in shorts and Reeboks were pok-pokking a ball around. Vinnie wished strongly that he could be one of them.
‘Where are we?’ he asked nervously. Macka was rushing on, looking around and muttering at her map.
‘Under here,’ she said, ducking into a tunnel under a pair of newer, uglier buildings. He followed her through, then into a positively sinister tunnel whose walls, floor and ceiling were all plastered with posters and graffiti.
‘This is horrible. Anyone could jump out and bash us or rob us.’
‘Rob us of what?’ said Macka, springing up some stairs. ‘I can’t see anyone being desperate for black-faced rat-kangaroo embryos, or whatever they are.’
‘Well, I know of at least two people who are. What’s this guy’s name again?’
‘Roland Hart. He’s in Zoology, which should be right about … down there somewhere.’
They emerged into dappled sunlight on Science Road. Yet another tunnel, of thickly-leaved plane trees this time, led down the hill. Macka walked along the middle of the empty road, peering up at the ivy-covered buildings. It was cool; a breeze tickled the back of Vinnie’s neck and made him shiver.
‘Here we are.’ They climbed the steps and entered a cream-painted corridor with a sound-deadening grey carpet.
‘Ol said turn right, and Razz’s lab’s the last door on the left, S72.’
Vinnie was almost paralysed with fright. ‘I wonder where the toilets are,’ he whispered.
Macka looked severe. ‘Hang on, Vinnie. We’ll be in and out before you know it. Here it is: Doctor R. Hart. Terrific.’ She knocked briskly five times.
‘Come in,’ said a cheerful voice. After all those dim tunnels and corridors, they were almost dazzled by the sunlight flooding in through the huge, high windows and bouncing around from one cream wall to another.
‘Hullo,’ said the owner of the cheerful voice. He was tall, thin and pale, with uncontrolled curly red hair and a thin red beard that looked tired, as if it had taken great effort to grow. He was wearing black and white striped pants that made his legs look even more weirdly long and thin than they already were, and a burnt-orange jumper with no elbows. Macka thought he looked extremely silly, and Vinnie felt a twinge of guilt that the guy looked so wimpy, and wore such an innocent smile. If he knew what we’re here for … he thought, swallowing hard to fight down his fear.
‘Hi,’ said Macka firmly. ‘I’m Lou. Ol was going to—’
‘Oh, so you’re the girl who—’
‘Yeah, that’s right,’ said Macka. ‘This is my friend Vinnie. He just wanted to have a look at the rat-kangaroo.’ She looked around. ‘Is Ol not here yet?’
‘Oh, he’s been and gone. He left your animal here, though. I’m Doctor Hart, but you can call me Roland.’ He held out a hand for Macka to shake, and his eyes smiled at her through thick-lensed glasses with skinny wire frames. ‘I’ve just been making her at home,’ he added cosily. Macka saw Wombat’s cage on the floor under a table, its door hanging open in a pathetic way. She crinkled up her eyes at Razz Hart.
‘I’ve just put her in here for the moment,’ he said, indicating a large, professional-looking cage under the window. ‘As you see, we’ve another couple of specimens, but we’ll leave her in here until she settles before we open the gates and let either of them in.’
Macka suppressed a shudder. The rat-kangaroo was huddled in a corner of her section of the cage as far as possible from the two males. She rested her chin on her front paws and stared in a glazed way out at the floor. Macka knelt down and looked closely at her. She smelt the strong whiff of shock and terror, and saw that the whole furry body was slightly a-tremble.
‘She doesn’t look too good.’ Macka couldn’t keep the accusing note out of her voice as she looked up at Razz Hart’s beaming face.
‘Oh, on the contrary, she’s a superb specimen, and in fantastic condition, too. We looked her over thoroughly when Ol brought her in.’
I’ll bet she enjoyed that, Macka thought.
‘Whoever you got her from really looked after her, which is surprising.’ He looked at Macka and grinned. ‘It’s okay, I realise that’s a delicate matter. I’m not all that fussed about her origins; all that cracking of smuggling rings is Oliver’s hobbyhorse, not mine. I’m just thrilled to bits to find a female at last.’
Vinnie felt wretched. The guy was just too nice to rip off the way they’d planned, and yet if they didn’t, what would happen? Those babies would die, and the mother would spend her life locked in a cage.
He dropped his schoolbag on the floor, then gave it a kick so that it didn’t look so obviously open and empty. He crouched down beside Macka and looked at the other two rat-kangaroos. They were plump, solid animals, slightly larger than Macka’s, and unlike hers they had aggressive self-confidence written all over them. Their eyes were a brilliant, shiny black. And they smelled different; underneath the fine electric stink of the female Vinnie could distinguish something rougher, more clos
ely related to real earth and real grass.
Macka shifted impatiently. ‘You didn’t notice anything, um, different about her, did you?’ she asked Razz.
He leaned over and gazed proudly at his new specimen. ‘Different in what way?’ he asked.
‘Well, sort of strange, like … when you look at her, do you find it hard to focus on her?’
Razz gave a slightly embarrassed smile. ‘I’m afraid I have that problem with a lot of things, Louise. That’s why I have to wear these great lumps of glass on my face. And I must admit, my eyes have been bad this morning. Since I got in here I’ve been getting one of my eyestrain headaches, I think. But nothing worse than usual,’ he finished cheerfully. He took another look at the rat-kangaroo and pushed his glasses up to rub his eyes.
‘Maybe it’s not your eyes that are the problem,’ said Vinnie carefully. ‘Maybe it’s what you’re looking at.’ To him, the difference between Macka’s animal and the others was unmistakable; hers had a glow from within that the others lacked, a transparent shimmer when it moved.
‘If only that were so,’ smiled Razz. ‘But no, I’m afraid there’s no getting around the fact that I just have weak eyes.’
A weak imagination’s more like it, thought Macka savagely. She stood up and wandered away. ‘What are you feeding her on?’
Razz Hart straightened up and followed her. ‘Well, it’s funny you should say that, because she doesn’t seem at all interested in any of the things we’ve offered her …’
Vinnie, left crouched by the cage, was stung by anger and panic. Macka was switching roles on him—she was doing the distracting, and he was supposed to do the stealing! He stared stupidly at the rat-kangaroo, cowering and shivering in her corner. He couldn’t—he’d be scratched to bits, or she’d cling to the wire, or Dr Roland Hart would realise and come running. He glanced up at Hart’s back, slouched in its orange jumper as he talked to Macka. Silently he reached for his school bag.
‘You’ve sure got some strange-looking equipment in here,’ he heard Macka say in a high, artificial voice. ‘What’s this thing over here, for instance?’
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