Bird and Sugar Boy

by Sofie Laguna

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  Bird & Sugar Boy

  Sugar Boy gave me the name Bird, otherwise I’m James Burdell. I live with my dad who has a big tattoo that says live to ride. He is so strong he can lift up a car, but he can’t tell me what he’s thinking. Maybe he’s thinking about my mother who shot through.

  Sugar Boy is my best friend. We hang around down at the river, in the bush tunnel, or beside the railway tracks riding our bikes fast enough to beat the train. There’s only two of us, but we’re the whole team.

  I don’t know what would happen if I didn’t have Sugar Boy …

  To Marc

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

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  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London, WC2R 0RL, England

  First published by Penguin Group (Australia), a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd, 2006

  Text copyright © Sofie Laguna, 2006

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body, and by the Victorian Government through Arts Victoria.

  www.puffin.com.au

  ISBN: 978-1-74-228286-2

  Birding, if given the chance, will take you in new directions …

  Birds: A Field Guide

  A P DAVIES

  Sugar Boy and me were getting ready to go fishing at Grenfell River. We got our rods and tackle fixed so that we could ride our bikes and carry things at the same time, then we headed down to Grenfell Park. Sugar rode in front of me and I watched his legs push up down up down, moving in time with a song that he was singing. Sugar always rode standing up – even downhill. I couldn’t hear the words of the song properly, except for Ooh Mumma, which he sang louder than all the others whenever he got to them. The rods banged against my knees as I pedalled and the warm wind was in my face. The song of a butcherbird mixed in with Sugar’s song. Butcherbird singing is like music from a pipe.

  When we got to the park we threw down our bikes at the top of the track, untied our things and ran to the river. There was nobody else there, only Sugar Boy and me. We stood and looked at the caramel-coloured water, the white shining gums and the willow trees. A wagtail hopped between the branches of a wattle and two thrushes flew in and out and around each other. We climbed over to the rock, which was our fishing place. Long branches on both sides hid the rock, and made a willow cave that was big enough for both of us.

  ‘I’m feeling lucky today, James Birdy Burdell, real lucky.’ Sugar said the same thing every time he dropped his line into the water, even though he never caught anything.

  After a while of not catching anything, Sugar said, ‘I think the sun is too hot for fishing, Bird.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I asked him. It was cool and shadowy in the willow cave.

  ‘I think the sun makes the water too hot close to the surface, and the fish swim very deep to get away from it.’

  ‘Do you reckon?’ Grenfell River wasn’t deep. It was hardly even flowing.

  ‘That’s what I think. That’s why they’re not biting – the water’s too hot. Do you want to go down to the edge?’

  ‘Yep.’ We pulled in our lines, climbed off the rock and went down to the edge of the river. Sugar skimmed a stone and then I did.

  ‘Go for ten skims,’ said Sugar, looking for more stones.

  ‘Easy.’ Sugar got up to seven and I got to six and then we played cricket with sticks and hit mud balls into the river. Then we dropped the sticks and threw the mud balls at each other. We saw a leech go down a hole. Sugar was sure it was a leech. He told me how his dad once got so many leeches on his legs when he was working in New Guinea that he nearly ran out of blood and fainted and they had to give him extra with a drip. We filled the leech hole with mud. I kept hearing the chit chit chit of the wagtail all the time we were doing things. Chit chit chit, chit chit chit. The mud felt cool in between my toes at the same time as the sun was warm on my shoulders and neck. I could hear frogs, and Sugar splashing behind me.

  ‘Look over there,’ Sugar Boy pointed to Ern Tippy fishing off the bank on the other side. We weren’t the only living humans. Ern drank rum and coke from a can, smoked cigarettes and fished, with a radio playing the dog races. Ern’s face was always red and he drank and drove. I know because Dad had to fix Ern’s Holden after he ran into his own gate from drink driving. Ern’s face had no mouth. You could only see that he did have one when he took a sip from his can of rum and coke.

  I looked at Ern’s red face sipping and I heard the buzz of the dogs running from his radio and then I thought of Mrs Naylor saying ‘learn to behave’. I turned to Sugar. ‘Want to steal his bait?’ We’d never stolen anything before.

  ‘Yep,’ Sugar didn’t say no much.

  ‘We have to wait until he goes for another tinny.’ Ern had an esky that he’d built into the passenger seat of his Holden. I knew from when it was at Dad’s Auto Repairs. We climbed back to the willow cave and watched him for a while from between the leaves. Soon he checked his watch, pulled in his line and wandered back up the track to his car.

  ‘Come on, Sug, quick.’ We went down to where the river was easiest to cross, and then slowly, bending low like two spies on a mission – the Enemies of Ern – we hopped from rock to rock to the other side. We crept along to his fishing box. We had to be quick, the car park was only a few minutes up the track and if he caught us he’d kill us. He’d put us in his Holden and crash us into his gate. Even though it was dangerous I wanted to laugh, and I could feel Sugar Boy wanting to laugh too, and I knew if that happened I’d laugh so much I’d roll down to the river and I wouldn’t be able to stand up and run away from Ern.

  I opened up the fishing box, pulled out Ern’s sticky plastic bag of prawns, and grabbed a handful. Some slipped through the cracks between my fingers and dropped into the dirt. ‘Sugar, take them,’ I whispered to Sugar, without looking at his face in case I saw the start of a laugh. As I put back the plastic bag of prawns I noticed two bright yellow new-looking flies in the fishing box.

  ‘Go on, Bird, take them too.’ Sugar nodded at me as he took the prawns from out of my hand. More dropped onto the dirt. I shoved the flies in my pocket, and we scrambled to the river just as we heard Ern coming back down the track with his radio blaring the
dog races – Silver Rex is on the outside followed by Jaded Lady …

  Back in our willow cave we let go of our laughs. Kookaburras, butcherbirds, wagtails and songlarks everywhere heard us and joined in until the laughter and the singing of birds mixed to make one loud laughing-singing sound. Then the sound died away and it was just the soft swish swish of the willow leaves around us.

  It was time to go home. Dad would be on his way back from work by now and he liked me to be there. My dad’s the boss at his own work, Burdell’s Auto Repairs. He says nobody can tell him what hours to work – he’d rather be bloody broke than work when anyone else says he should.

  ‘G’day, boys.’ Dad came into the kitchen. He had grease marks down the front of his overalls and one on his cheek. I don’t think I’ve ever seen my dad without a grease mark on him. Even if he sits in the bath for ages you can always find a grease mark on him somewhere. It might be hidden on the top of his ear or behind his neck, but you can always find one. The B and the A had fallen off his Burdell’s Auto Repairs overalls so that it looked like urdell’s uto Repairs.

  ‘Hi, Dad,’ I said, reaching for the fridge at the same time as Dad put the kettle on.

  ‘Hello, Mr Burdell.’ Sugar Boy’s scared of my dad. Quite a few people are. It’s because he’s big and he can fix anything, it doesn’t matter how much of a bomb it is. I’ve seen my dad lift a car when he couldn’t find his spanner. He said, ‘Where is the bloody thing?’ and just lifted up the back end of this Mazda so he could look underneath the wheels.

  ‘Will you be staying for dinner, Sugar? James, use a plate! I don’t want to have to wipe up after you all the time!’ I see the kitchen bench as one giant plate, but Dad doesn’t. ‘Sugar? You staying for dinner?’ Dad asked again, as he pulled a tea bag from the box and put two teaspoons of sugar into his cup.

  I saw Sugar Boy looking at Dad’s tattoo. He always does. My dad has big arms and on one of them is a tattoo of a blue-and-red bird holding the end of a ribbon in its beak. The ribbon is flying out from the bird’s beak like the string of a kite in the sky. Inside the ribbon it says live to ride. Dad said he got it put on him when I was born. It means live to ride motorbikes. Dad used to ride motorbikes in his younger days. Now he never goes near one because he had an accident and hurt his hip, and now he’s got a permanent limp and says motorbikes are madness. Him and Uncle Garry argue about it a lot. Uncle Garry still lives to ride because he reckons motorbikes are the road to freedom. Dad says, ‘You mean the road to hospital.’ Sometimes Uncle Garry goes away for three weeks at a time with Carby, Animal and Wiggy and they live on the road with their Harleys and Triumphs. At night they sleep in tents and they make dinner on a fire. Uncle Garry says, ‘Come with us, Guy – you can bring the kid!’ Dad shakes his head and says, ‘Motorbikes are madness.’

  Sugar looked at the ground. ‘Ah no, Mr Burdell. I have to get home.’ It doesn’t matter how many times my dad has said to call him Guy, Sugar Boy can’t do it. Dad’s given up.

  ‘Righto then. Garry, Lena and a couple of the boys are coming round for dinner, Jamie,’ he said, as he poured boiling water into his cup.

  ‘What time are they coming?’ I asked.

  ‘They’ll be here in an hour or so. If you want to stay up with us for a bit you better go and get your homework done.’

  Sugar picked up his backpack. ‘I should get going.’ I walked with him outside to his bike. I wish he could’ve stayed for dinner.

  ‘See ya tomorrow, Sug.’

  ‘See ya, Birdy!’ he shouted, and pedalled off down the road.

  I went into my room, lay on my bed and looked at Birds: A Field Guide. I started to draw the nest of a bower bird. It was just a lying-down drawing that I was doing – not one I’d ever show to A P Davies. The male bower bird builds a nest on the ground and then he hangs around outside it hoping that a female bower bird will see it and like it so much that she’ll want to come and live in it with him.

  When I was eight I was having lunch with Dad, Uncle Garry and Lena in the park near Lena’s house. Lena is Uncle Garry’s girlfriend. I like Lena a lot. She’s Lebanese and sometimes she brings round babaghannouj and crispy bread to have before dinner. You dip the bread in the babaghannouj and you take as much as the bread will hold. Lena gives Uncle Garry a lot of cuddles and says things like, ‘How do we put up with these brothers, hey, Jamie?’ Then she winks at me like we’re on the same team.

  We’d finished eating, and me and Lena were throwing sticks for Lena’s dog, Razz. Razz is a big, noisy grey dog, and when he runs strings of spit fly out of his mouth and land on everybody.

  Suddenly a big, shining black-and-white bird swooped down from a tree at Razz’s head, trying to peck out his eyes. The bird was screaming. Lena screamed back, ‘No! No! Shoo! Shoo! Go away!’

  I couldn’t move.

  Dad and Uncle Garry had to drag me by my arm away from where the magpie was swooping. ‘Dad! Uncle Garry! Why did the bird do that?’

  ‘Protecting its babies, Jamie. Magpies are fierce little buggers. You’ve got to watch them,’ said Uncle Garry.

  ‘Was it the mother or the father magpie?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t know, mate. The mother, I’d say. The father was probably out on his Harley,’ Uncle Garry laughed. ‘Or at the pub.’

  ‘They nearly got my Razz, didn’t they, Razzy?’ Lena played with Razz’s ears.

  ‘But how do you know it’s the mother bird? Do they look different?’

  ‘I’m not sure if they look different. Maybe it was the father bird.’ Dad chucked the frisbee for Razz.

  ‘But, Dad, where are the babies? Who’s looking after them?’

  ‘They’re probably running amuck in the nest,’ said Uncle Garry, ‘raiding the fridge, watching telly, jumping on the beds …’ He stood up. ‘Come on, James, let’s chuck the Frisbee.’ But I didn’t want to chuck the Frisbee.

  ‘Dad, whose job is it to look after the babies – the mother or the father bird?’

  ‘Oh God, I don’t know, Jamie. Just throw the Frisbee!’

  All day, even after we got back home from the park, I kept asking questions about the magpie. ‘Dad, how fast can a magpie fly?’

  ‘I don’t know – fast.’

  ‘Can they fly as fast as a human can run?’

  ‘They’re probably pretty fast.’

  ‘But, Dad, how fast?’

  ‘I dunno – fast.’

  ‘Dad, what is it like for a baby bird being inside the egg? Can it see in there?’

  ‘I think its eyes are closed.’

  ‘But, Dad, what would it see if it did open its eyes?’

  ‘I’m not sure – nothing probably.’

  ‘How do wings work, Dad?’

  ‘They flap.’

  ‘Dad, why do people have arms and not wings?’

  ‘Well humans have arms to do human things, and birds have wings so that they can … do bird things.’

  ‘Dad, why can’t humans have arms that can also be wings? If arms had feathers on them could a human fly then?’

  ‘I don’t know, mate. I don’t think so though.’

  ‘But, Dad, why don’t humans sleep in the trees? Do any humans sleep in trees?’

  ‘None that I know.’

  ‘Dad, would the magpie let you sleep in their tree?’

  ‘I’m not so sure about that, Jamie.’

  ‘Dad, does the magpie have other enemies than just dogs? Who is the enemy of the magpie, Dad? Do you know?’

  ‘Bloody hell, Jamie! Please can we talk about something other than bloody birds now?’

  I went into my room after that. I got my pencil and some paper and I started to draw. The grey lead-pencil marks turned into the magpie swooping, flying, and bobbing along the ground. I didn’t talk to Dad about birds after that. It was my own thing.

  Soon I heard Uncle Garry shouting from the bottom of the stairs. ‘Oi, Jamie! Get down here and give your Uncle Garry a cuddle!’ Uncle Garry’s got a long beard and a tatto
o of a bull’s head that goes all the way across his back. When I was little and we used to go on camping trips, Uncle Garry would put me on his shoulders in the sea and I’d pretend I was riding a bucking bull as we jumped through the waves.

  I wish they’d come round more, but they live an hour’s drive away and Uncle Garry’s almost as stressed as Dad from his job at the tyre factory where he oversees. Lena has her hands full with her grandmother who’s sick a lot and lies in bed and has to be brought soup, and banana sandwiches.

  I went out into the living room to say hello.

  ‘G’day, Jamie!’ Uncle Garry grabbed me and pulled me close to him. ‘How are ya, mate? You good? Let Uncle Garry have a look at you.’ He set me back from him and looked at me. ‘Jeez, you look like my brother. How did that happen?’ Uncle Garry says that pretty much every time he sees me.

  ‘James!’ Lena hugged me. Lena’s the only lady who hugs me. I pretend I hate it if Sugar Boy is around, but really I like it. Lena’s hugs smell like perfume. They’re warm and get round the whole of you.

  Carby and Animal had come with Uncle Garry and Lena – they’re old mates of Dad’s and Uncle Garry’s. Carby got his name from an engine part called a carburettor and Uncle Garry told me it’s because they both make explosive gases. ‘G’day, mate. Keeping that father of yours busy?’ Carby ran a hand through my hair.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said.

  ‘Nice work, son.’ When Carby smiles you can see a big gap on the side where two teeth are missing. He says he lost them opening a beer bottle, but Dad said it was from holes.

  Animal nodded at me. ‘James.’ That’s as friendly as Animal ever gets and he always looks angry, even if he’s not. We all went camping one time and I got bronchitis and it was Animal who drove more than four hundred kilometres on his Triumph to get me medicine. And when Dad said I couldn’t have the master-blaster water-powered pistol because it was a waste of money and more plastic bullshit, it was Animal who went out and bought me one anyway. Even if he ever said, I love you, Bird – you’re a great kid, he’d be looking angry when he said it.