‘Very kind,’ said Nancy from her recliner lounge. ‘Good tucker for a pair of bankrupts.’
Mum and Dad pretended to be busy with something else in their esky.
‘I’m having sardines from the cupboard,’ muttered Rose, going into the kitchen.
Oliver understood.
‘If you want to stay the night,’ Nancy said to Mum and Dad, ‘you’ll have to bunk down on the floor because we had to sell the spare beds.’
Oliver saw Mum and Dad exchange a glance.
Come on, thought Oliver, how much of a hint do you need?
Dad cleared his throat.
‘Before we eat,’ he said, ‘we have something for you.’
He handed Nancy a bulging envelope.
At last, thought Oliver.
Except the envelope didn’t look big enough. Oliver had never actually seen a million dollars in money, but he was pretty sure it would need a suitcase.
‘It’s twenty-three thousand dollars,’ said Dad to Nancy. ‘Roughly what your investment would have paid you if it had gone as planned. We’re sorry it didn’t, Nancy, for your sake and for your family’s sake.’
‘Deeply sorry,’ said Mum.
She reached over and squeezed Nancy’s hand, and Oliver could see Mum was close to tears.
Except, if they were that sorry, where was the other nine hundred and something thousand?
‘Thank you,’ said Nancy. ‘Now we’ve seen what you bankers have done to the world with your gambling dressed up as big business, I know I’m lucky to get it, and I’m grateful. And don’t try giving me the other nine hundred and seventy-seven thousand, because I won’t accept it.’
She glanced at Oliver, and Oliver was almost certain she gave him a wink. Then she stared up at the hillside for a while.
‘I want to say sorry too,’ she said finally to Mum and Dad. ‘I did some things I’m not proud of. Ask Oliver. But I did them for my family.’
‘Amen to that,’ said Dad.
Oliver had a horrible feeling Dad was going to launch into a speech about how everything he’d done was for his family, including leaving his bank customers penniless.
Mum must have feared that as well, because she hastily interrupted.
‘What are your plans now, Nancy?’
Nancy stared at the envelope.
‘We’ll try and make a go of it here,’ she said. ‘And if we can’t, me and Rose will take a trip.’
‘Somewhere nice?’said Dad. ‘Bali or somewhere?’
Nancy shook her head.
‘A big trip,’ she said. ‘If things don’t work out here, we’ll walk the camels over to a friend of mine’s property in Western Australia.’
Dad stared at her. So did Oliver.
‘Wow,’ said Dad. ‘Across the desert?’
‘No,’ said Rose, coming out from the kitchen. ‘We’re gunna swim round the coast.’
‘Rose,’ said Nancy. ‘Manners.’
Rose muttered something that didn’t sound like sorry to Oliver.
‘Yep,’ said Nancy to Dad. ‘Across the desert.’
‘That must be, what, two thousand kilometres?’ said Dad.
‘Two and a half,’ said Nancy. ‘Take about six months.’
Oliver saw that Dad’s eyes were shining.
‘What an adventure,’ said Dad. ‘If you pulled off a trip like that, they’d be talking about you for years. They’d be talking about you in New York.’
Oliver sighed.
He leaned back in his chair and gazed up at the night sky.
Squillions of stars, every one an opportunity waiting to be grabbed, that’s what Dad used to say when Oliver was little.
Mum used to say something different. Every star was there, she’d say, to shed light on a little step forward in life.
‘I’d definitely be up for an adventure like that,’ Dad was saying to Nancy. ‘If we didn’t have to go to Europe to start a new bank.’
It took Oliver a moment to realise what Dad had said.
He stared at Dad in horror.
A new bank?
Oliver had a vision of everything bad that had happened. He saw it all happening again. Only worse. And in Europe, where he wouldn’t even be able to understand the housekeepers. And where he wouldn’t see Barclay or Rose, or Moo or Nancy.
Ever.
Mum was staring at Dad too.
Oliver hoped she was horrified as well, but she wasn’t.
She just looked very sad.
27
After dinner, Oliver found Mum in the paddock, standing in the moonlight, stroking Moo and some of the other camels.
‘Hello, love,’ she said. ‘Amazing animals, aren’t they? I still can’t get over how Moo got you all here safely.’
‘She was incredible,’ said Oliver. ‘She just kept plodding. She’s really good at little steps forward in life.’
While Mum thought about that, Oliver stepped closer to Moo and put his cheek against Moo’s face.
‘Thank you he whispered. ‘I’ll never forget you.’
Moo’s big puddle eyes glowed.
Oliver turned back to Mum, who was smiling sadly.
‘Plodding,’ she said. ‘I like that. I wish I’d done a bit more plodding in my life.’
Oliver took a deep breath.
‘Mum,’ he said. ‘Do you want to go to Europe?’
Mum stared at the camels for a while.
She shook her head.
‘What I wish,’ she said, ‘is that we could make a new start. As a family. The three of us together. But it’s not going to happen, not while your father has money to play with. Which is why I sometimes wish me and Dad had lost everything.’
Oliver stared at her.
‘Not completely everything,’ said Mum. ‘We’ve got to live. But almost everything.’
She put her arm round Oliver and went back to gazing at the camels.
After a while, Oliver kissed Mum on the cheek and told her he was going to say goodbye to Rose and Barclay.
‘Don’t stay up too late,’ said Mum. ‘We have to leave very early in the morning to get to the airport.’
‘I won’t,’ said Oliver.
He meant it. He was feeling too tired for a late night. And too sad.
Rose was in the feed shed, sweeping up the last wisps of camel feed.
She looked at Oliver as he came in. She didn’t smile, but at least she didn’t mutter anything.
In the dusty haze of the shed, lit by a single bare light globe, Oliver had the crazy thought that her hair looked even more like camel feed than camel feed.
Barclay came bounding over from sniffing a rat hole and jumped into Oliver’s arms.
Rose looked at them.
‘Thanks for lending me Barclay,’ she said.
Oliver looked at her, puzzled.
Didn’t she understand?
Barclay was hers now.
‘You were kind,’ said Rose. ‘But he’s yours. You need him more than I do.’
Oliver wondered if camel-feed dust could muddle a person’s thinking.
‘I’m going to Europe tomorrow,’ he said miserably. ‘I can’t take a dog.’
Barclay started licking Oliver’s face.
Oliver wished Barclay would stop. Any more of this and he’d be crying in front of a girl. Which he didn’t want to do, not even a special girl like Rose.
‘Do you want to go to Europe?’ said Rose. ‘Do you want to hang out in some flash joint over there?’
Oliver shook his head.
‘Then do something about it,’ she said.
They looked at each other.
‘Sometimes,’ said Rose, ‘you lose things and you can’t do anything about it. But sometimes you can.’
Oliver thought about what it would be like to live in a normal house with a normal garden. A garden with Barclay in it. And a spare bedroom so Rose could come and visit. Or even just a pull-out sofa.
He also thought about what it would be like to walk to West
ern Australia with Rose and Nancy and the camels and Barclay and Mum and Dad.
One day.
Maybe.
And suddenly Oliver knew exactly what he could do.
For a moment he had trouble speaking.
‘Thanks,’ he said finally.
He wanted to give Rose a grateful hug, but without any injured camels around he thought that might be pushing it for now.
28
Even after his late night, Oliver got up early with everyone else.
While Mum and Dad took the bags to the car, and discovered they had four punctures, Oliver waited on the verandah with Nancy.
‘Desert roads,’ Nancy called to Mum and Dad from her recliner. ‘Murder on city tyres. You’ll find a repair kit in the kitchen dresser.’
Dad swore for a while, then went inside.
Oliver tried not to look guilty.
Nancy’s face, he saw, was completely free of all guilt. And the big kitchen knife was out of sight under her recliner.
‘You’d better go and see Brendan now Nancy said to Oliver, pointing.
Rose and Barclay were over by the water-storage tank. Rose was giving money to the driver of a water truck, which had a trailer behind it stacked with camel feed.
‘He’s a quick unloader, is Brendan,’ said Nancy.
Oliver hurried over to the water truck. This bit he didn’t feel guilty about at all.
Brendan had already started winding the hose back onto the truck. Rose glanced at Oliver, then carried a bale of feed into the shed.
‘Excuse me, Brendan,’ said Oliver. ‘Could you post a letter for me?’
He took an envelope from his back pocket and held it out to Brendan.
Brendan took it and looked at the address.
‘Canberra,’ he said. ‘Australian Securities and Investment Commission. Is it important?’
Oliver decided to be completely honest.
It was what Nancy and Rose had advised him to do when they helped him print the photo late last night. Tell Brendan the truth so he wouldn’t think this was some kind of kid’s prank.
‘It’s a bank statement,’ said Oliver. ‘From a Swiss bank account that belongs to my parents. I’m sending it to the authorities so the customers of my parents’ failed investment bank can get some of their money back.’
Brendan looked at the envelope.
He nodded gravely.
‘Important then,’ he said. ‘I’ll make sure it gets off today.’
When Oliver went back to the verandah, Nancy gave him a nod. Well done, the nod said.
A black-and-white streak, yelping with joy, hurtled across from the water tank and leaped onto Oliver’s chest and wagged mud all over him and made his face wet with love.
Oliver hugged Barclay for a moment.
Then, cheeks still wet, he looked across at the shed. Rose was standing in the doorway, watching him. She gave him a grin and a thumbs up.
Oliver grinned back.
There wasn’t anything he wanted more than this.
OK, one thing.
The thing he had to do now.
Show Mum and Dad that if you’re prepared to take the right sort of risk, the world can be a sweet and perfect place.
Oliver took a deep breath and walked over to tell Mum her wish had come true.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Morris Gleitzman grew up in England and came to Australia when he was sixteen. He was a frozen-chicken thawer, sugar-mill rolling-stock unhooker, fashion-industry trainee, student, department-store Santa, TV producer, newspaper columnist and screenwriter. Then he had a wonderful experience. He wrote a novel for young people. Now he’s one of Australia’s most popular children’s authors. Too Small To Fail is his thirty-second book.
Visit Morris at his website: morrisgleitzman.com
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ISBN: 978-0-14-330642-9
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