Danny Allen Was Here

by Phil Cummings

  Mark was moaning when the brothers knelt at his side. He stirred as Sam moved to look at the gash.

  ‘What? Who?’ Mark mumbled incoherently. He lifted his head. ‘Where is the . . . ? Oh, my head hurts.’

  Danny stuck a hand over Mark’s mouth. ‘Shhh!’

  Sam looked at the gash and screwed up his face. ‘That’s horrible,’ he said.

  Mark’s head fell to the ground with a thud and he groaned again.

  ‘Come on, hurry up and grab his arms,’ said Danny. ‘We’ll have to drag him.’

  Sam grabbed an arm and they began dragging. Mark’s head wobbled and his body left a wide trail. He opened his eyes. ‘What . . . what are you doing?’ he asked dozily. ‘Get off me! I can . . .’

  ‘You can’t do anything!’ hissed Danny. ‘Just shut up!’

  ‘Yeah shut up!’ Sam agreed.

  They dragged Mark into the fort and sat him up. He suddenly remembered what had happened. ‘Oh no! Where is that beast? Where is it?’

  ‘He’s over there,’ said Danny.

  Stanley looked so peaceful and harmless. He occasionally lifted his head and gazed around as he munched.

  The children took the opportunity to slink out of the playground. Danny and Sam supported Mark all the way. At the Mundowie Hall they stopped to sit at the feet of the soldier statue and rest. Sam looked at Mark’s head. It wasn’t as bad as it had first seemed. ‘We’d better get you home. Your mum will have to take you to the hospital in Port Bilton.’

  Danny grinned wryly when he said, ‘You might need stitches.’

  Sam lifted the arm of his shirt to show the scar from the cut he’d got when surfing the Everest Dune. ‘You won’t need nine like me though.’

  Mark bowed his head and buried his face in his hands. ‘No, I won’t need any, I won’t.’ He babbled incoherently. ‘If I do, I’ll need ten at least. But they’re not poking a needle and thread into me.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ said Danny, keen to make Mark as uncomfortable as he’d made Stanley. ‘I watched them do Sam. They push the needle into your skin and when they pull the huge silver needle through,’ (Danny pinched his skin on his arm and stretched it) ‘your skin stretches up and . . .’

  ‘Shut up!’ Mark grumbled. He went suddenly pale and hung his head again. ‘And anyway, my mum’s not home.’

  ‘Where is she?’ asked Vicki, looking up at the soldier and the sky beyond. She hated blood as well.

  ‘She’s in the city.’

  Vicki scrunched up her face and closed one eye to find out if she could see up the nose of the soldier statue. ‘Why?’ she asked matter-of-factly.

  Mark paused. ‘She’s looking for somewhere to live.’

  Vicki opened both eyes and looked quickly at Mark. ‘Are you moving away, Mark Thompson?’

  Mark didn’t respond immediately. Vicki nudged him. ‘Well? Are you?’

  Mark shook his head. ‘No . . . just my mum,’ he answered softly.

  There was silence.

  Vicki fired another innocent question. ‘What about your dad?’

  There was another pause. ‘ . . . Nah, he says he hates the city.’

  ‘But that means they’ll live in different houses, doesn’t it?’

  Sam hit Vicki on the arm. ‘Stop asking so many questions, Vicki. We have to get home.’

  Sam helped Mark to his feet. ‘I tell you what, Thommo, if your dad can’t take you to Port Bilton then my mum or dad will. You have to be checked for concussion at least.’

  Mark didn’t say anything except, ‘Jeez my head hurts.’

  A few days later Danny was at the playground again. Vicki was there as well trying to fly on the swing. Sam had gone with Mark and his mum to get Mark’s four stitches out.

  It was late in the evening. The sky over Mundowie was streaked with a wash of wispy orange clouds. Danny was helping his dad. They were sanding down splintery swing seats and painting them blue. Danny suddenly thought it might be a good time to ask about the extra money and the silver bike.

  But then his father stopped painting and said, ‘With this extra money I can get some work done on the old tractor.’ He looked into the paint tin he was holding. ‘And I’ll tell you what, Danny. We’ll spruce up your bike if there’s any of this paint left over. We’ll make it sparkle, Danny boy, just like new.’

  Danny looked up at his dad. He was smiling and he was wearing the hat with the broad brim, the brown leather lining and the grease mark on the top that looked like a map of Africa. He tipped it back off his forehead. He looked to the sky. ‘If we can just hang on for another year, things have to come good. The last few years have been tough, so I’d gamble on the next season being a better one. With enough rain and a bumper crop we’ll get a new tractor and a new bike.’ His father ruffled his hair. ‘How would that be, Danny boy?’ he said brightly.

  Danny nodded and smiled. ‘Yeah, that’ll be good, Dad.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said his father distantly, ‘if we can just convince them to let us hang on.’

  ‘Who, Dad?’

  ‘Ah, never mind, Danny, let’s get this playground sparkling.’

  When Danny looked to the sky, he wished for days of thunder and rain just like the day he went on the secret mission of tadpole hunting in the dam. That’s what he was thinking about when the sound of a car caught his attention. Mr Wallace was pulling out of his dusty driveway. He was towing a trailer with high wire sides that made it look like a cage. There was a large animal in the trailer. Danny stared as the trailer came clearly into view. The large animal was Stanley. He was riding in the back. Danny and his dad waved. Mr Wallace tooted his horn and pulled away.

  Stanley was staring out of the back of the trailer. From where Danny was standing, Stanley seemed to be staring right at him. Danny watched him until he was lost in a cloud of dust and the fading light of the closing of another day.

  Danny stopped painting. ‘Where are they taking Stanley, Dad?’

  ‘He’s been sold to another farm for breeding. He’s moving out of Mundowie and on to bigger things.’

  Danny couldn’t imagine moving out of Mundowie.

  ‘Mr Wallace is pretty chuffed about it all actually,’ his dad continued, pushing his hat thoughtfully from his brow again. ‘He got a good price for him. He hadn’t thought Stanley would ever amount to much, but there you go, you can never tell.’

  ‘So Stanley’s done all right for himself, Dad?’

  ‘Yep, he certainly has; and they don’t call him Stanley any more. That name just doesn’t sound important enough for such a proud and stately animal.’

  ‘What do they call him?’

  ‘Solomon.’

  ‘Solomon?’

  ‘Hmm, that’s right, one of the great wise kings of long ago.’

  Danny stood and smiled to himself. He felt good inside. He had helped nurture a great king. A king with the wisdom to attack kids who kicked footballs at him, but not kids who fed him milk when he was little. The more Danny thought about it, the more he became convinced of just how special Stanley really was. Still, deep down inside, where his fondest memories of Stanley the lamb lingered, he had always known it to be true.

  The sun had set and the sky was losing its colour and Venus was twinkling when Danny, Vicki and their dad left the playground.

  At the gateway to the playground Danny found a thick tuft of Stanley’s wool snagged on some wire. Danny pulled it free and tucked it into his pocket. He felt it all the way home. As they walked Danny’s dad talked about fixing the tractor, mending the plough and cleaning Danny’s bike ready for painting.

  When they neared the house Danny looked across the street. The light was on in Mark Thompson’s garage. The chink of tools blended with the echo of the radio. Mark’s dad was alone. He was under the truck fixing something as usual. Danny could only see his legs. There was no car at the front of the house.

  When Danny got inside he followed his dad down the passageway. Tippy was back from his smelling expedition and came
running from the kitchen to greet them. He’d rolled in something revolting. He stunk! They walked into the kitchen with Tippy leaping and springing happily. The radio was loud. Danny noticed that it was on a different station to the one in Mark Thompson’s shed.

  He watched as his dad took his mum and swirled her about. They laughed together.

  Smiling to himself, Danny jumped up onto a stool to sit and watch.

  The radio played and they danced a silly dance. They laughed loudly. Tippy barked and the kitchen was warm.

  4

  Running Away

  The mouth-watering smells of freshly baked cakes and biscuits drew Danny into the kitchen. His mum was having a cooking day. She had her back to Danny and was at the table kneading dough. The radio was on and her hips were swaying. Danny noted that she was wearing the apron she wore the day Vicki went tadpole hunting in the dam. The thought of that day made the hairs on the back of his neck prickle.

  He lifted his nose to the air and took a big breath . . . ahhhh! There was nothing better than the smell of warm cakes, biscuits or freshly baked bread . . . except maybe the smell of rain on a really hot day . . . or the freshly cut wheat when his dad was harvesting.

  Danny wandered the kitchen like an archaeologist searching for treasures inside a pharaoh’s tomb. There was a tray of biscuits cooling on top of the cupboard near the fridge, well out of reach.

  Small cupcakes were rising in the oven and the dough his mum was kneading was for bread. She always made the tall loaves with round, light brown crusty tops. Everywhere Danny looked, he saw dirty dishes and mixing bowls stacked in leaning towers. They reminded him of the ruins of an ancient city.

  He wandered past the ancient city of bowls and plates, peeping between the towers into small alleyways. Large spoons dripped with stalactites of cake mix. Eyeing his mother shiftily, Danny scraped some mixture off a spoon with his finger and popped it in his mouth.

  ‘Grubby fingers out, Danny Allen!’ his mother scolded.

  Danny jumped. Astonished, he looked at her. She still had her back turned. How did she see him do that? Danny should’ve known better, that’s what his mum always said when he did something stupid, like riding a bike down the slide in the playground. It seemed no matter what he did and no matter how good a secret he thought he had, she found out, somehow.

  ‘Tastes good, Mum,’ he said, walking over to the table.

  Danny’s mum was singing the Beatles’ song Love Me Do quietly as she kneaded and swayed in time with the music.

  She looked up, stopped singing and smiled. She widened her eyes. ‘We’ll have a feast of warm bread, butter, honey and jam later.’

  She was good at making the simplest things sound exciting. Danny couldn’t wait.

  He leant his elbows on the table and with his face cupped in his hands he gazed up at her. She had flour in her hair around her temples. Like grey hair – it made her look old. Danny didn’t mention it.

  Danny found himself mesmerised by the nimble movement of his mum’s thin fingers writhing through the dough. She tugged at it and it stretched like elastic. Danny thought of Mark Thompson’s skin when he had to go to the hospital in Port Bilton to get stitches in his head.

  He smiled reflectively at the thought. He wished he’d been there. Sam said it was brilliant. One of the most spectacular things he’d ever seen. Amazingly, Mark didn’t faint. But he did throw up all over the doctor, on his white coat and his suede shoes, everywhere – carrots, peas and chunks of mince, everything. Sam’s description of the contents was very graphic. Danny blocked the thought for fear of it putting him off the feast he had been promised.

  Danny’s mum suddenly pulled a small piece of dough into her hands and began rolling it in her palms. She shaped it to the size of a tennis ball and bowled it slowly across the table to Danny, who stopped it with a flat hand.

  ‘What’s this for, Mum?’

  ‘Why don’t you make something?’ she suggested, pushing hair from her forehead with the back of her hand. ‘I’ll bake it for you.’

  Danny took the dough in his hands and frowned curiously. ‘What should I make?’ he asked.

  ‘If you make a head with a face and hair it will look funny when it’s baked.’ She made a weird face by puffing up her cheeks and making her sparkling eyes bulge. ‘Everything will puff up,’ she said, pushing her funny face close to Danny’s.

  Danny chuckled. ‘Okay then,’ he said. ‘I will make a head.’

  Danny set to work. He shaped the head and gave it a long chin. Then he moulded a pointy nose and bulging eyes. For the hair he rolled thin strands like spaghetti.

  Danny had nearly finished his head when the phone in the hall rang. Sam and Vicki, who were both watching TV, raced to answer it.

  The sounds of bodies being pushed against walls and their feet thumping on the wooden floors as they bustled for position reverberated through the house.

  Sam won. The sound of Vicki’s whining made Danny smile. ‘That’s not fair. You shouldn’t push me, Sam. I’ll tell Mum you pushed.’

  The next voice Danny heard was Sam’s. ‘Muuum,’ he called down the passageway. ‘It’s for you.’

  Danny’s mother wiped her hands on a tea towel. ‘Who is it?’

  Sam walked into the kitchen. ‘It’s the guy from the bank.’

  Danny caught the tea towel that his mother threw across the table. Her lips tightened around clenched teeth as she muttered something angrily under her breath. She made her hand into a fist and thumped her mountain of dough. She marched out of the kitchen.

  Sam walked over to Danny. ‘What are you doing?’

  Danny showed his little head proudly. The smile on its face mirrored Danny’s. ‘I’m making a head,’ he announced. ‘Mum’s going to bake it and it will puff up and look weird.’

  Sam looked envious. He walked toward Danny. ‘ I want to make something.’

  Danny turned away from him, protecting his dough head. ‘This is my dough, you get your own.’

  ‘I will,’ Sam retorted. ‘But I’m not making a silly head.’

  Danny didn’t care. He liked his head.

  Sam wandered over to the mountain of dough. He gazed at an impression of his mother’s fist before he pulled a clump of dough into his hands.

  Sam loved war games. He was always making bows and arrows with the bamboos near the big creek. Once he even made a catapult using a flexible tree branch, a hessian sack and Vicki’s skipping rope. Sam tied the sack across the fork of the bent branch, making a nice little hammock. Then he would sit rocks in the small hammock, pull the branch down to breaking point then let go of the rope. Some of the rocks flew right across the big creek.

  They spent hours catapulting rocks. It was spectacular when the bigger rocks hit the far bank. Clods of dry red soil exploded from the cliff face and into the air. The small avalanche was followed by a shower of fine dirt and a cloud of drifting dust. Sometimes, if the catapulted rock was large enough and hit just in the right place, large chunks of the bank broke away in slabs and tumbled to the creek bed, shattering on impact. There was a lot of jumping up and down and cheering when that happened, especially from Vicki.

  Sam must have been thinking about war-like activity as he moulded his dough. Danny didn’t notice the wicked smile that lifted one side of his brother’s face as Sam rolled, squeezed and patted his dough blob. He was making something better than a head. He had decided to make a missile. When Sam completed his missile he stopped. He looked at Danny, who was engrossed in his sculpturing, then back at his missile. Danny had no idea what went through his brother’s mind at that time but it must’ve been something like, Missile . . . Danny . . . missile kill Danny!

  With the dough nicely smoothed into a missile shape, complete with tail fins, he took aim and threw it. Hard!

  Danny didn’t see it coming. He was suddenly struck a fierce, head-wrenching blow . . . just below the left ear. Thoop! ‘Ow!’ The force of the blow threw his head back. The dough missile, now with an im
pression of Danny’s earlobe on its nose, spun to the floor. Ploop.

  Sam pointed and laughed. ‘Ha, ha, ha, I told you I’d make something better than a head.’

  Danny ground his teeth angrily. ‘I’ll get you for that!’ he said.

  Chuckling, Sam wriggled a beckoning finger. ‘Come on then,’ he teased. ‘Come and get me.’

  The chase was on. Sam ran. Danny set off after him. Around and around the table they went. Sam was finding it hard to keep on his feet he was laughing so much.

  ‘You should’ve seen your face when the missile hit,’ he mocked. ‘Your hair flicked really hard. I bet you’ve got whiplash. I bet it hurt. Come on; admit it, it really hurt, didn’t it?’

  Danny made a sharp movement to his right; he trod on the missile and nearly fell backwards. ‘Whoa!’

  Only a wild wave of his arms above his head saved him.

  Sam laughed louder. ‘Ha, ha, ha,’ he cried, buckling at the knees. ‘My missile nearly killed you twice!’

  Danny was furious and red-faced. He lifted his little dough head ready to throw. Sam stopped, facing him on the far side of the table. Laughing tears were rolling down his cheeks. He continued to duck and sway. Danny tried desperately to track his movements.

  ‘No chance, Danny boy,’ Sam teased. ‘You can’t hit a moving target.’ Sam stuck his tongue out. ‘Come on, hit me,’ he taunted, rocking sharply from side to side. ‘Come on, take a shot.’

  Danny was determined. He ground his teeth and eyed his brother keenly. He drew his arm back and waited for just the right moment. Sam ducked under the table. Danny waited. He knew Sam would appear again. It was just a matter of patience. Waiting . . . waiting . . . waiting.

  Then, sure enough, Sam’s devious face rose cautiously above the horizon of the table like a cheeky glove puppet.

  Danny’s face looked like Tippy when he snarled and he hurled the dough as hard as he could. Sam flicked his head to one side. ‘Nah, nah, you missed!’ He felt the breeze of the smiling dough head as it flew past and . . . clatter! . . . struck a tower in the ancient city of stacked bowls.