‘Oh no!’ Danny suddenly cried. ‘I have forgotten something. Don’t go yet. Don’t go.’
With that he took off across the road. Billy took off after him. Yap! Yap! He gave up the chase when he realised he was going to be left behind.
Everyone was puzzled, even Billy, as they watched Danny run off.
‘He’s not running away again, is he?’ said Sam. ‘I can’t wait to get to the city and I want to get there before it’s dark.’
Vicki didn’t like the sound of the city in the dark. She swallowed and said, ‘We will get there before it’s dark, won’t we, Mum?’
‘Not at this rate.’
Sam nudged Vicki. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘The city is brilliant at night. All the lights look like the stars have fallen from the sky.’
Vicki looked up at Sam. ‘Will it be good in the city?’
‘You’ve been there,’ said Sam. ‘Remember all the shops we went to?’
‘Yeah,’ Vicki nodded.
‘We’ll be able to go every day if we want.’
Vicki liked the shops. She had bought her favourite necklace there the last time they went. But then she looked at Sam, tilting her head quizzically to one side, and said, ‘But where will we get tadpoles?’
Sam shook his head. ‘I give up. You’re hopeless.’
Vicki didn’t understand his terse reaction. She thought it was a fair question.
Danny ran across the road and under his lookout tree, past the Mundowie Institute Hall without a salute to the white soldier statue standing guard and off toward the creek. As he flew past the playground he heard a voice calling to him. ‘Danny! Danny Allen. Hey there!’
It was Aunty Jean Wallace. Danny didn’t stop.
He waved to her as he passed. ‘I’ll be back in a minute, Aunty Jean.’
Down toward the creek he ran, racing through shadows, leaping dead logs, stomping with determined footsteps on the crackle-dry grass.
He flew away, leaping down a slope, arms waving like the wild flapping wings of the noisy cockatoos shrieking from the gum trees overhead.
Aunty Jean leant on her fence and smiled as she watched Danny race over a crest, then dip and disappear below a horizon of thick yellow weeds.
At the creek, Danny ran along its banks. As he passed each familiar landmark, he remembered different adventures. First there was the sheep track that they had slid down to go sand-dune surfing, then the drums that they made into a grandstand before they were the sad site of Tippy’s death. Above the drums the lonely tyre hung over the dry creek bed and finally he passed the slope down which the tractor tube flew on muddy days. There were so many things to remember.
Danny didn’t stop to reminisce; there wasn’t time. He kept running until he reached the spot. His secret place.
Puffing hard he dropped to his knees. In he scrambled without fear. After all, the leaping vampire snake was dead now; Tippy had seen to that.
His eyes blinked furiously and fingers of dusty sunlight reached into the darkness. Danny knelt and looked down at his treasures. The tadpole-hunting tin, full of little bits and pieces, sat next to the ram’s skull. Danny scooped everything up and took one last look at his secret place, goosebumps pricking across his shoulders at the memory of his snake encounter. With the tin in his hand and the skull under his arm he scrambled from the half-darkness back into the light. Careful not to drop the tin or the skull he headed back to Mundowie.
Danny jogged up the slope and emerged from the shadows of the creek, and he spied Aunty Jean still at the fence.
Danny hurried over to her.
‘Sorry, Aunty Jean,’ he puffed. ‘I had to get my things.’
Aunty Jean looked at the skull and the tin with a wry smile. She said, ‘I’ve got something else for you. Can you carry one more thing?’
‘What is it?’ asked Danny.
She offered him a parcel wrapped in red crinkled wrapping paper which was obviously second-hand. ‘This is for you,’ she said, tucking it under his arm.
Danny looked at the present. ‘Thanks, Aunty Jean. What is it?’
‘It’s a surprise,’ she said with a wink. ‘But don’t open it until later. Perhaps when you’re driving along.’
Aunty Jean reached out and cuddled Danny, sheep skull and all, and gave him a peck on the cheek. ‘Good luck, Danny Allen.’ Her voice was crackly like a radio not quite tuned in to the station. ‘We’ll see you when you come back to visit. And don’t worry; we’ll take good care of your furniture.’
‘And Mundowie,’ added Danny.
Aunty Jean ruffled Danny’s hair. ‘Oh yes,’ she chuckled. ‘Of course.’
‘Thank you, Aunty Jean,’ Danny said.
Danny turned away and set off to say goodbye to his empty home.
When Danny arrived back everyone was standing in front of the truck. His mum looked at his load, shook her head and said, ‘So have you got everything you need now, Danny?’
Danny looked at his mum and dad, at Sam and Vicki, who had Billy in her arms, at his tin, the skull and the red box being crushed under his arm. After a thoughtful pause he nodded firmly. ‘Yep, I have . . . I think.’
Sam and Vicki were going in the car with Billy. Danny wasn’t going in the car. He’d won the right, after a hotly contested tournament of paper, scissors, rock, for the first ride in the truck.
He sat between his dad and Mr Thompson.
Danny looked out the window when he heard Mark Thompson calling from across the road.
‘Hey boys! Yo!’
Danny leant forward to peer past his dad. Mark was at the side of the Mundowie Institute Hall.
The Thompsons were staying in Mundowie for the time being.
‘Hey Danny!’ Mark yelled. ‘Remember the ten.’
Danny beamed. He leant across his dad and stuck his head out the window. ‘Yeah!’
‘Watch this,’ Mark called. ‘Watch.’
Danny gazed out of the open window with his eyes peeled on Mark.
Mark Thompson spun round, took his footy from under his arm and kicked it at the Mundowie Hall. Danny watched, expecting to see it sail over the top, but it didn’t. In fact, it didn’t even go close. It hit the gutter and bounced back.
Mark jumped and caught the ball in his hands. He tucked it under his arm. ‘One day I’ll get it over,’ he called.
Danny shook his head. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I’ve never done it, Danny Allen.’ He laughed. ‘Never!’
Danny was shocked. ‘What?’
With a crunch of gears, the truck slowly drew away from the house. Danny looked back and watched Mark try again and again to kick the ball over the Mundowie Hall. He couldn’t even get it onto the roof. Danny watched Mark until he was lost in the dust.
Then Danny sat silent in the truck and looked to his dad. He wasn’t wearing his farming hat, the one with the oil stain that looked like a tiny map of Africa.
Danny’s dad looked down at the big tin with the wire handle that was sitting in Danny’s lap.
‘Why are you holding onto that, Danny?’ he asked.
Danny lifted the tin. ‘This is the tin we used for tadpole hunting.’
‘Tadpole hunting?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Where? Not at the dam?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Your mum didn’t tell me about that. And I thought I had made it perfectly clear that you weren’t . . .’ He stopped in mid sentence and sighed. ‘Ah, what does it matter now? And anyway, I bet I don’t know half the things you kids get up to.’
Danny smiled at his dad and thought about what he’d said. Then Danny thought back to his dad’s bank visits, the bad seasons on the farm and the evenings his dad sat poring over the financial folders obviously in desperate trouble, but he didn’t let on. And Danny thought, Well, I don’t know half the things you get up to either, Dad.
Danny’s dad leant over and peered into the tin. ‘What have you got in there now? I know there aren’t any tadpoles.�
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Danny took things out one by one, starting with Tippy’s collar. Danny held the collar and shook it gently to make it jingle.
Then he held up his baked head that his mum had cooked for him. Danny didn’t need to explain that one, his dad knew all about it. He had varnished it to keep it preserved.
At the bottom of the tin were flaky remnants of the snakeskin he’d found in rocks near the old Miller homestead the day Sam had surfed the Everest Dune. Danny didn’t lift them as they would have dissolved in his fingers.
When he held up the tuft of wool belonging to Stanley the ram Danny told his dad the story of Mark Thompson, Sam and the ram race to the playground.
His dad laughed.
Danny went on to show some teeth from his ram’s skull. He wasn’t allowed to keep the whole skull so he had broken some teeth off and put them in.
When Danny finished showing his treasures, his dad patted his knee firmly. ‘That’s a great tin, son. Don’t lose it, will you?’
Danny shook his head firmly. ‘I won’t ever, Dad.’ Then he bent over and reached down to his feet. He held up the red box that Aunty Jean had given him. When he tore it open he was happy with what he found.
He offered the box to his dad. ‘Aunty Jean’s Anzac biscuit, Dad?’
‘Wow! Cheers, mate.’
Mr Thompson took two.
The truck gathered speed and rumbled quickly along. Into the shadows of the creek it roared and rattled up the other side.
Danny munched on his biscuits and stared out of the window wondering what tomorrow would bring. A song came on the radio. It was the Beatles’ Let It Be. Danny’s dad suddenly burst into song, like Danny’s mother in the kitchen.
Danny was surprised by his dad’s jocularity. Mr Thompson joined in and despite the sadly out of tune singing, Danny enjoyed the performance. Not wanting to be left out, he tried to whistle along – Mark Thompson had taught him how to whistle ages ago.
Whistling as badly as his dad was singing, Danny clung to his tin and looked to the road ahead. The truck, and everything in it, bounced in rhythm.
Danny Allen was city bound.
Danny Allen Was Here Page 13
