‘Take a chill pill,’ Rick said, slapping Aaron on the back. ‘Won’t be doing nothing illegal, eh Marty?’
Marty tipped back on his rear wheels and bounced over the curb onto the road. ‘Nah, nothing strictly illegal. We’ll just get in the ice-cream man’s face a bit.’
Aaron knew he should leave right then, but the thought of heading home, back to Steve’s taunts, not to mention working in the shop, was enough to make him follow Marty and Rick. Besides, for the first time in ages he felt he had friends.
Marty and Rick stopped at the end of the street and waited for Aaron.
‘See, he’s turning into Marigold Crescent,’ Rick said. ‘If we cut through the laneway we can catch him on the other side.’
‘And do what?’ Aaron said.
‘We’ll tail him for a bit, see what happens,’ Marty said.
That didn’t sound too dangerous, Aaron decided. Many of Mountain View’s streets ended in cul-de- sacs that were linked by pedestrian laneways. These lanes made it easy for the boys to stay one step ahead
of the ice-cream van.
They waited for the ice-cream man on Petunia Street, standing in the middle of the road, forcing him to slow down. As soon as he did they bolted into another laneway and then onto the next street, ready to lie in wait for him again. They continued in this way for several blocks, doing every stupid thing they could think of. Rick dropped his shorts at the end of Daffodil Court and flashed his bare backside, Marty hung onto the back of the van and was towed for the length of Wattle Road and all three pelted the van with palm seeds on Orchid Drive. Before long, the ice-cream man sped up rather than slowed down whenever he saw them.
‘Reckon we need a new plan,’ Rick said, crouching behind a brick fence. ‘Reckon you’re up for a slam- jump, Marty?’
‘You read my mind,’ Marty said.
‘What’s a slam-jump?’ Aaron said, knowing in his heart he wouldn’t like it.
‘You’ll see,’ Rick said. ‘Now, I reckon he’ll be heading along Sunflower Street before long. I’m pretty sure he’ll keep going till he gets to Wisteria.’
Marty nodded.
‘So, remember that lane that leads down to Sunflower? It’s pretty steep ’cause Sunflower’s on the other side of the hill.’ Rick added the last part for Aaron’s benefit.
A slow grin spread across Marty’s flushed face.
‘Yeah, real steep. And the way the path rises at the end where they cemented round that manhole cover will make a wicked launching pad.’
Steep hills and launching pads? What were they planning? They’d already done enough to the ice- cream man to get them into trouble. As soon as Aaron saw the lane he understood. ‘No way. You guys can’t be serious.’
‘Sure we are,’ Marty said. He centred his chair at the top of the lane. ‘Don’t worry, Aaron, I’ve done this before.’
‘You have?’
‘Yeah,’ Rick said, ‘nearly gave a bus driver a heart attack, eh Marty?’
Marty laughed. ‘Sure did. Almost rolled the bus.’
‘And remember the garbo?’ Rick said. Marty laughed harder.
‘Geez, it’s a miracle you didn’t kill yourself,’ Aaron said, feeling nauseous.
‘Nah. It was all under control. Timing’s the key, right Rick?’
‘Yup.’
‘But you said before at the ramp you couldn’t get the timing right,’ Aaron said.
‘That’s the ramp,’ Marty said. ‘It’s heaps steeper. This’ll be a piece of cake.’
Aaron swallowed. ‘Er, look, I think I’d better go.’
‘Sure. Whatever.’ Rick shrugged. ‘I’ll just go down the end of the lane and see where our target is, okay, Marty?’
Aaron watched him jog down the path. Judging by the noise, the ice-cream man was coming their way.
‘Look, thanks for letting me hang out with you guys and all,’ Aaron said, looking down at Marty.
‘No worries.’ Marty flexed his fingers, knuckles popping. ‘Hey, why don’t you hang a bit longer? No one’s going to get hurt. There won’t be any trouble, I promise. I’ll just give the ice-cream man a good scare, then we can get out of here.’
Aaron turned his attention to Rick standing at the end of the lane, staring into the street beyond. He wiped his slick cheeks. It was so hot. The sooner he let them have their fun the sooner they could all get out of here. Marty was going to do this whether Aaron hung around or not. So what would it hurt if he was there? He’d only be a bystander, right? He wouldn’t be doing anything wrong.
‘All right, I’ll hang around a bit longer.’
Marty punched Aaron’s arm. ‘Good man. Now get down there with Rick so you won’t miss anything. And stand back.’
Aaron jogged to the end of the lane and squatted with his back against the fence. Rick stood against the fence on the other side of the path, watching the road with one arm raised to alert Marty. The plan was simple: on Rick’s signal Marty would race down the lane as fast as he could and shoot onto the road, slam-jumping into the path of the ice-cream van. The ice-cream man would get the shock of his life.
Licking his lips, Aaron glanced from Marty, perched at the top of the slope, hunched low in his chair, to Rick. A strange feeling of unreality washed over him. Despite the sweltering heat, goose bumps prickled his skin.
The ice-cream man’s jangling tune was beating a tattoo inside Aaron’s skull, ringing out like the world’s biggest music box.
‘Half a pound of tuppenny rice; half a pound of treacle; that’s the way the money goes. Pop! goes the weasel,’ Aaron sang.
Rick’s head snapped around. ‘What are you on about?’
‘“Pop! Goes the Weasel”. That’s what the ice- cream man’s music is.’
‘I don’t give a flying fart what it is. Shut up, will ya?’
Aaron was vaguely aware that somewhere a dog was barking, and of the clackety-clack of a skateboard, and of his blood roaring in his ears. Relentlessly the sun beat down, setting the top of his head on fire. His breath caught in his throat, swelling it like a bladder about to burst.
And then Rick’s arm fell and it took every drop of strength Aaron had to turn his head in Marty’s direction.
Marty shot down the lane, teeth bared, arms moving so fast they were a blur.
Pop! Goes the Weasel filled the world.
Aaron’s head snapped towards the road and he was momentarily blinded by the sun reflecting off the ice-cream van’s split windscreen. Reflexively he squeezed his eyes shut just as Marty flew past. What if Rick had left it too late? With sudden certainty he knew the next thing he would see was Marty broken and bleeding on the road.
But Marty made it, rocketing past the ice-cream man’s line of vision a second before the van reached him. With a thud that should have burst his tyres, he hit the road and skidded to a stop in the gutter.
The van screamed to a halt, stopping in front of the lane with its nose angled slightly to the right.
Rick darted around it and ran to the other side of the street, whooping as he went. He gave Marty an enthusiastic high five. ‘That’ll teach ya to mess with us!’ he yelled at the van. He and Marty turned their backs and moved away, disappearing from view.
It took several long seconds before Aaron’s legs would unlock. He edged over to the other side of the lane, trying to see the ice-cream man through the windscreen. He wasn’t about to follow Rick if the man was going to fly into a rage and leap out at him.
But all he could see was the sun-bright windscreen, glowing like dragon eyes. And all he could think as he stared at it was that some demonic monster had clawed its way out of the earth and was poised, ready to strike.
Aaron shook his head. What was wrong with him?
Maybe he was suffering from sunstroke.
‘Come on, Aaron,’ Marty called.
Why wasn’t the ice-cream man yelling at them? The van just sat there, motor running with that idiotic music playing over and over. Aaron licked his lips, but couldn’t
summon any spit. Had the man had a heart attack? Was he slumped over the steering wheel gasping his last breath as Aaron stood at the end of the lane doing nothing? If he was, would they all be charged with manslaughter? Why couldn’t Marty and Rick see something weird was going on?
Impossibly, the music got louder. Aaron pressed his hands to his ears but it made no difference:
Half a pound of tuppenny rice; half a pound of treacle; that’s the way the money goes. Pop! goes the weasel.
His mouth was drier than cotton and he couldn’t seem to get enough air into his lungs. Home. He had to go home. No, first he had to look inside that frigging van and make sure the guy wasn’t dying, otherwise he’d never sleep again. All he had to do was walk past and take a quick look through the side window. No drama.
Aaron lowered his hands and took a step closer to the van. Flames. He hadn’t noticed before, but there were flames painted across the bottom of the van! What kind of person painted flames on an ice-cream van? Apart from that it looked normal: an ice-creamy pink and white with pictures of cones all over it. All perfectly innocent. Almost.
Aaron took a shuddery breath and approached the vehicle. Cupping his hands to the sides of his face, he peered through the side window.
Nothing.
He let out his breath in a rush. For a second his head spun and fairy lights distorted his vision. Where was the driver? Aaron pressed his face to the glass and looked again. No, he wasn’t slumped across the seats. That meant only one thing; he had to be in the back. But how did he end up in there?
Aaron stared at Marty and Rick who were now framed in the driver’s side window. With a thumb he gestured at the rear of the van. Whether or not they understood, he couldn’t tell. If the ice-cream man was hiding in the back of the van waiting to pounce, he hoped they’d have the sense to move fast.
He reached the serving window in two strides and looked in before he lost his nerve. All he could see was a white counter containing racks of cones and jars of sprinkles and choc buds. On the far side of the van was what appeared to be an upright freezer, another counter, and below that, cupboards.
‘Whatta ya doing?’ Rick whispered in Aaron’s ear.
Aaron’s heart ka-thunked so hard it made him gasp. ‘Omigod, don’t do that!’
‘What are you playing at?’ Marty said from behind the van.
‘I don’t think he’s in there,’ Aaron hissed. ‘Did you guys see him get out?’
‘No.’ Marty cast a nervous glance at Rick. ‘But we weren’t exactly looking. We figured you were hanging round apologising to him, or something.’
Aaron wiped his mouth. ‘When he didn’t drive off, or yell at us, I figured maybe he’d had a heart attack and thought I’d better, you know, have a look. But I’m telling you there’s no one in there.’ Aaron’s voice had become shrill. He was losing it big time. First priority was to get out of here. ‘Look, something totally weird is going on and I don’t want any part of it.’ He grabbed Rick by the sleeve and tried to drag him away from the van.
‘Hey, lemme go.’
‘Quick, we’ve gotta move.’ Panic nipped at Aaron’s heels. Blindly, he reached for Marty. ‘Something bad’s going to happen. I can feel it.’
Marty and Rick exchanged a look.
‘Geez, can’t you feel it too? The ice-cream man just disappeared. That can’t be good. And haven’t you guys noticed there hasn’t been one car come past the whole time we’ve been here? Don’t you think all of that’s just a bit freaky?’
Aaron didn’t wait for a reply. The tide of panic had reached a crescendo and before he had even made a conscious decision to move, his feet were slapping the bitumen in time with his galloping heart.
4
Marty opened his mouth to agree with Aaron, but he was already gone. For someone who had to be ninety kilograms if he was a gram, he sure could move fast when he wanted to.
‘Geez, doesn’t take much to get him going,’ Rick said, shaking his head.
‘Aaron’s right, the ice-cream man’s up to something. I don’t know about you, but I’m not hanging around to find out what.’
Now that Marty had time to think about it, there had been something screwy about this from the start. When he’d shot past the van’s windscreen and onto the road he’d had an impression of something hulking and dark behind the glass, but the sun’s blazing reflection had prevented him seeing the driver in any detail. In fact he hadn’t got a decent look at him the whole time they’d been chasing the van from one end of Mountain View to the other. Had the ice-cream man deliberately stayed hidden from sight all along? And if he had, what did it mean?
Deciding that now wasn’t the time to think about it, Marty grabbed his wheel rims and steered himself around the back of the van and into the road. The sound of Rick’s footfalls behind him sparked an almost primal fear in his belly. The bad feeling Aaron had gone on about was now in him, too. Logic took a back seat. He spun the wheels as hard as he could, forcing every drop of strength he had into forward motion. He had to get away from the ice-cream van, had to get that creepy music out of his skull before his eardrums burst.
‘Hey, Marty, wait up,’ Rick called.
Marty didn’t slow until he’d crossed into the next street, and even then he didn’t want to. While the mind-numbing jangling music had dropped in volume, it was still loud enough to raise hairs on the back of his neck. Aaron had spooked him. He needed to calm down. He needed to think.
Rick caught up and jogged alongside. ‘So, whatta ya reckon that was all about?’ he said, noisily sucking in air.
‘He’s either passed out from a heart attack like
Aaron reckoned, or he’s hiding,’ Marty said.
‘Aaron said he definitely wasn’t in there.’
‘I guess that means he got out and hid when we weren’t looking then, doesn’t it?’
‘That’s bull, mate. If he’d been hiding then why didn’t he jump out and try to scare us, or something, eh? I mean, that’s what you’d hide for, isn’t it?’
Marty stopped and swung around. ‘How would I know? Maybe the guy’s totally whacked. Geez, maybe some spaceship beamed him up and he’s not even on the planet anymore. You feel like going back and having another look?’
Rick wiped the sweat off his forehead with an arm. ‘No way.’
Marty rolled away from Rick, letting his wheel rims slide through his fingers. Then he pulled his chair to a stop and looked over his shoulder. ‘He got out fast, right after the jump,’ he said, almost to himself.
‘Huh?’
Marty looked up at Rick. ‘He was watching us the whole time. Must think he’s real clever.’
Rick’s forehead crumpled in concentration. ‘Yeah, but where’d he go?’ Realisation dawned. Rick’s eyes widened. ‘He was hiding under the van!’
Marty nodded. ‘Exactly. But the question is, why would he do that and not show himself ? Like you said, you’d hide so you can jump out and scare someone. Since he didn’t do that it had to be because he didn’t want us to see him. But why? I didn’t get a good look at him the whole time we were chasing him round the streets. Did you?’
Rick shook his head. ‘Not really. When he was up at the lagoon I saw he had a blue cap on. He was wearing sunglasses, too. Hey, Marty, hear that?’
‘Hear what?’
‘The music. It stopped.’
Marty’s ears ached with the sudden silence. He swallowed in an effort to calm his rising panic. What was wrong with him? It wasn’t his style to get spooked like this. ‘I don’t like it. The freak’s really screwing with our heads.’ Marty took off down the road at warp speed, the bitumen whirring beneath his wheels. He revelled in the sound of it, and in the hot afternoon breeze running its fingers though his sweat-soaked hair, and in the ache in his shoulders as he urged his chair on.
It hadn’t been long ago that Marty had been forced to use a walker, one of those clunky metal- framed horrors old people use. He wouldn’t have stood a chance outrunning the i
ce-cream man with that. He’d learnt at an early age that physiotherapists would do almost anything to get kids with cerebral palsy to walk, no matter how much it hurt, or how long it took. Marty hated physios more than anything
– even more than the bone doctors who would cut you open as soon as look at you. Physiotherapists never let you forget how ‘special’ you were. They were a constant reminder of just how much you couldn’t do. Marty knew his assessment of these people was unfair, but right or wrong it was how he felt.
Marty headed for the one place that always made him feel better when his head was so crammed with stuff he couldn’t think straight – the basketball court at the Police Citizen’s Youth Club.
Rick turned up a short while later cursing Marty for abandoning him and bitching about a pulled muscle in his calf. Marty challenged him to a game of one on one and proceeded to wipe the floor with him. Marty had been a pretty good player until his mother had put a stop to his regular games with the Sporting Wheelies. She’d said there was enough stress in her life without having to worry about her only son splitting his head open on a basketball court.
It was getting on for five o’clock when Marty farewelled Rick and headed home. He was thoroughly exhausted and in no mood for aggravation.
‘Martin, where have you been? You know how much I worry.’
Marty closed the front door. He studied his mother blocking the hallway in standard attack mode: arms folded, chin raised, eyes loaded. Man, he so didn’t need this.
‘Good lord! Come here and show me that knee. And look at the state of your arms. You’re covered in scratches.’
Marty winced as she prodded his skinned knee.
‘It’s nothing, Mum. Really.’
She gave him the hairy eyeball. ‘It is certainly not nothing, Martin. What if it gets infected? What if you’ve damaged it inside? You know how easily they dislocate. If you’ve dislocated it, Doctor Stephenson will want to operate and then . . .’
Marty tuned out, as he always did when she started going on about all the surgical procedures he was inflicting on himself by daring to go out and have fun. If he didn’t tune out he’d end up as paranoid as she was. She always imagined the worst, expected
The Ice-cream Man Page 3
