The sergeant squatted down again. ‘Say fish and chips,’ he said.
‘Fish and chips,’ I said.
‘Nah,’ said the sergeant. ‘He’s a dinkie di Aussie, aren’t you, mate?’
I didn’t know what it meant but I nodded anyway.
After that the secretary left and a policewoman looked after me. Everyone was getting more and more excited. ‘Wait until the papers get a hold of this,’ said the sergeant.
They were looking at an old newspaper. There was a picture of a mangled car. And a picture of five-year-old me standing in front of the water tower.
The sergeant shook his head. ‘A kid goes missing nine years ago,’ he said. ‘Then an identical kid turns up today. He says he lives at the same address. He says he has the same name. He knows all about “Inspector Gadget” which hasn’t been shown here for nine years. He is even wearing the same clothes. This boy is the world’s first time traveller. He has jumped forward nine years.’
There was one thing they didn’t tell me for a long time. I wanted my mum but they couldn’t go and fetch her. She was killed the day I disappeared. A car knocked her down while she was crossing the road to the milk bar.
Talk about a fuss. Everyone wanted to see me. Take my photo. People from the university wanted to study me. Fortune tellers and mystics claimed they had moved me in time. I was on television all over the world.
In the end my grandma came and got me. At first I didn’t recognise her because she was much greyer and had more wrinkles. But as soon as she spoke I knew it was her. ‘You’re coming with me, John Boy,’ she said. There was no arguing with that voice. I ran over and hugged and hugged her until my arms ached.
She tried to stop them taking photos. She tried to keep off the professors and psychics. She tried to give me a normal life. But of course she couldn’t. She was old and she didn’t really want to bring up a child again. ‘Your mother was enough,’ she said. ‘Having a child and looking after it with no father. And now it’s me looking after you.’
So here I am nine years later. An oddity. Grandma is doing her best. But she is old and tired and we are both unhappy. I have no friends. No mother. No father. I’m famous. Everybody knows me. But nobody likes me. Being famous has mucked up my life.
Nine years ago I travelled in time. Today I found out that I can do it again.
4
I was walking along the street in a sort of a daze. There was a lot of traffic. Trucks, cars, motorbikes. The air was full of fumes and noise. I checked the time on my watch. Four o’clock.
A huge petrol tanker was bearing down. I didn’t see it. I just stepped out in front of it without looking. There was a squeal of brakes. Blue smoke and a blaring horn. There was no time to get out of the way.
I knew that I was gone. There was no escape.
Suddenly, ‘poof’.
I was lying on a seat on the other side of the road. An old man sitting next to me looked as if a ghost had just appeared in front of him. He screamed and ran off as fast as he could go.
What had happened? How did I get there?
I looked at my watch. Half past four. Where had that half hour gone?
Suddenly it all fell into place. I was the boy who could travel in time. I must have been run over by the truck and badly injured. Maybe people had carried me over to the bench. I would have wished that I could go back in time to just before the moment I stepped in front of the truck. And that’s what happened. For just a second there would have been two of me on the footpath. The injured me would have grabbed the hand of the other me before he was hit. And wished ourselves half an hour in the future.
But then the injured me would never have been injured. In fact he would have missed those thirty minutes too. So he never did any of it. He never happened. He must have disappeared as soon as I landed on the seat where he had started from.
And the old man saw a boy appearing out of nowhere. I had come from half an hour in the past.
I had gone back in time. And saved myself by bringing me into the future. I could travel in time just by wishing it to happen. There was no doubt about it. Thirty minutes. If I could do thirty minutes I could do eighteen years. I could go back to the time when I was watching ‘Inspector Gadget’. I could stop my mother going to the shop. Then she wouldn’t be killed and I wouldn’t have to live with Grandma. I would be happy growing up with my mother.
But what if it went wrong? What if I made a mistake and arrived too late? Something deep inside was warning me. I felt as if I had been in this situation before. I was cautious. Then it struck me.
I had been there before.
I remember me at age five watching ‘Inspector Gadget’. It was just as the closing credits were rolling. The end of the show. A big boy had just appeared out of nowhere. He was upset. He was searching around the house calling out ‘Mum’. He looked out of the window. There was a policeman coming up the drive.
Suddenly I realised what had happened all those years ago. The fourteen-year-old me had gone back nine years in time. But I had arrived too late. ‘Inspector Gadget’ was over. My mother was dead. A policeman was coming up the drive to tell the five-year-old me that his mother was dead. I wouldn’t have let that happen. I wouldn’t have left him to live all those years with an old grandma who didn’t want him. That’s when I would have panicked. When I didn’t think clearly.
I must have grabbed my hand. The big me must have grabbed the hand of the little me. And wished us nine years into the future. I wanted to take the five-year-old into the future and look after him.
‘Poof.’ The five-year-old me landed nine years into the future. The fourteen-year-old me just vanished. By taking his five-year-old self nine years into the future he ceased to exist. He had missed all those nine years and hadn’t grown up. He was the boy who never was.
Suddenly a five-year-old child landed in the future. On his own. He didn’t know how he got there. And neither did anyone else.
That’s what I think happened anyway. That’s my explanation of how I jumped nine years.
5
I went home and sat in my room. Grandma was taking a rest. She was tired. Much too tired to be worried about me.
What if I went back again? What if I was really careful? What if I went back to the front gate just as my mother reached it? At the beginning of ‘Inspector Gadget’. I could tell her not to go to the milk bar. Then she would not be run over.
I closed my eyes and wished myself back.
Mrs Booth closed the exercise book and stood up. She could hear the strident voices of ‘Inspector Gadget’ floating through the window. She looked at the fourteen-year-old boy carefully. She was sure that she had seen him before. But she was a little cross. ‘Why have you picked on our family?’ she said. ‘You have described me and my mother and my child. You’ve been snooping around. Why didn’t you do your assignment on your own family?’
The fourteen-year-old boy was crying. ‘You are my own family, Mum,’ he said.
She still gripped the exercise book tightly in her hand. Her mind was in a spin. The boy was crying real tears.
‘Your story doesn’t make sense,’ she said. ‘If I go back inside, obviously I won’t get run over. And none of what you have written will happen.’
‘That’s right,’ he said.
‘And you will never have been here.’
The boys lips trembled just a little. ‘That’s what I want,’ he said.
Mrs Booth turned and walked back to the house. When she reached the door she turned and looked back. She felt as if she had been talking to someone.
But there was no one there.
Pubic Hare
Why couldn’t I be called Peter Smith or Peter Jones? Or even Peter Rabbit? Why did it have to be Peter Hare? Why oh why oh why?
1
‘Okay, boys,’ says the Phys. Ed. teacher. ‘Take off all your clothes and hang them on your peg. Then make your way to the showers.’
What? With nothing on? On the first
day at a new school? In front of everyone? Waltz across the changing room in the nude? Just like walking down the street as if everything is normal? I can’t do it. I just can’t.
The other boys all start to undress. They don’t seem to care about being in the nuddy. They just drop their pants and hang them up without a thought. Some of them have started to head towards the showers already.
‘Right, boys,’ says the Phys. Ed. teacher. ‘There are five showers. All line up in front of the first one. When I blow the whistle you move to the next shower. Each shower is a little cooler than the one before it. The last shower has no hot water at all. That will freshen you up a bit.’
The kids all start to moan and groan. ‘Torture,’ says Simons, the first boy in line.
‘No wimps here,’ says the Phys. Ed. teacher. ‘And hurry up, all you stragglers.’
The line waiting for the showers grows longer and longer. Nearly all the boys are standing there, as naked as the day they were born. But I can’t do it. I just can’t. I take off one shoe, slowly. Then I pull off the other. Now I am the only boy still dressed. The others are all lined up, laughing and joking. In the raw.
The Phys. Ed. teacher looks at me. ‘Come on, Hare. Hurry up. What are you waiting for?’ he says.
Everyone looks at me. Every single boy. I can feel my face burning.
‘No need to be embarrassed,’ says the Phys. Ed. teacher. ‘We’re all the same. No one has anything that the others don’t.’
If only this was true. But it isn’t. I am different to all of them. Slowly I take off my clothes. I am standing there in my jocks. All alone. I lower my underpants and try to hide my nakedness with my hand. But it doesn’t work. Everyone can see my shame.
Not one other boy is like me. I am the only one with hair. No one else has it. Not where I do. I am not talking about hair on the head. We all have that. But hair in other places – if you know what I mean.
I hold my hands over my private parts. A couple of boys are sniggering. They have seen. Oh, the shame of it. ‘Pubic Hare,’ says Simons. Everyone laughs. Even the teacher thinks it is funny although he tries to cover it up. Why did I have to be called Peter Hare?
‘Check out the legs,’ says someone else.
I have skinny, hairy legs. I have skinny arms. I have ribs that stick out. I am a total wreck. I am a physical wimp. An embarrassed bag of bones. The Phys. Ed. teacher blows the whistle and we all move forward.
How I wish I was hairless. And big and handsome. Like Simons and all the others. But I am just a little wimp. I am all alone. And the only boy in Year Seven with pubic hair. My face is so red you could warm your hands on it.
2
When I arrive home Mum gives me her usual lecture. ‘Why don’t you go out and play with the other children, dear?’
I give a smile. ‘I have to go and concentrate,’ I say.
‘Concentrate,’ she shouts. ‘You just sit in your room staring at the wall. You will never get friends like that. Go out and play,’ she says.
‘Kids my age don’t play,’ I say.
‘What do they do then?’ she asks.
I think for a bit. ‘Muck around,’ I say.
Mum gets really cross at this point. ‘Well, for heaven’s sake go out and muck around.’
Mum will never understand. The other kids will just mock someone with pubic hair. Especially Simons. He will just give me heaps if I show my face. Or anything else for that matter. I head off to my room to stare at the wall.
Actually, staring at the wall is what I do best. But I also stare at other things. I have been staring at a leaf, a pin and a pen. Nothing has happened yet but I am sure it will. See, my idea is this. I reckon that it is possible to make things move by willpower. If you concentrate hard enough.
A wise man called Riah Devahs is teaching me this skill. He says that anyone can move things with their mind if they try hard enough. You just stare at something and think about it moving.
Riah Devahs can’t actually show me how to do it. ‘Everyone has to find their own path,’ he says. He can do it himself. But he is not allowed to actually show me how.
‘Mind over matter’, it is called. You can do all sorts of things just by concentrating. Riah Devahs says that you should start with simple things. Like making a bit of hair float up into the air. Or moving pins. Then you can move on to bigger and better projects. I know that everyone will admire me if I can move things with my mind. Once I can do it I will be popular. You bet.
I stare at a pin on my desk. Then I start to think. ‘Move pin. Move pin. Move pin.’ That is all I am allowed to have in my mind. If any other thoughts creep into my brain then it won’t work. ‘Move pin. Move pin. Move pin. I wish I could stick this pin into Simons’ bare backside. That would teach him to laugh at me for having pubic hair.’ Oh no. I am thinking about Simons. I have let another thought creep in. I have to concentrate. Don’t let other thoughts creep in.
I start again. ‘Move pin. Move pin. Move pin.’ My brain is just about busting. I have never concentrated so hard in my life. Not even the time when I subtracted four hundred and sixty-seven point five from seven hundred and two point one without even writing it down. Rats. I have done it again. I have stopped concentrating on the pin. I am thinking about sums. This will never work.
I will give it one more go. I close my eyes and screw up my eyelids. ‘Move pin. Move pin. Move pin.’
I open my eyes and look at the pin. Look for the pin I should say. It has gone. It is not on the desk any more. It is on the floor. Did I move it with my mind? Or did I brush it with my arm? I am not quite sure. Nah, it was just my imagination.
Nothing is going right for me. Basically I am hopeless. I go and stare in the mirror. Look at me. Just look at me. Freckles everywhere. What a face. There should be somewhere you can go to get a new one. I would go down there and trade mine in. They probably wouldn’t give me much for the old one, though. I can just hear the man in the face shop. ‘Not much demand for turned-up noses, pointy ears and the first signs of a moustache,’ he would say. ‘I’ll give you ten cents for it.’
I undo my belt and look down inside my underpants. The hair is still there. Ugly pubic hair. There seems to be more there every time I look.
I am looking down my pants. And Mum is looking at me. How embarrassing. ‘What on earth are you doing?’ she says with a funny look on her face.
‘Just a bit of staring,’ I say.
I stare into the mirror again to make things seem a bit more normal. ‘I’m ugly,’ I say as I look at my reflection.
‘No you’re not, dear,’ says Mum. ‘You look just like your father.’
‘That’s what I mean,’ I mumble under my breath.
Dad is a great bloke, but let’s face it – he’s no oil painting.
Mum is slowly getting mad. ‘If you’re not going to go out and play you can come and do the washing-up,’ she says.
3
I decide to go out for a walk. Mothers can be so sneaky sometimes.
I will go and see Riah Devahs. That’s what I will do. I have been a bit busy lately. I haven’t seen him for about six weeks. He will be thinking I have forgotten all about him. He is a great bloke, is Riah Devahs. He wears a long green robe. He has a bald head and fifteen earrings.
He never leaves his little hut in the forest. He just sits there on the dirt floor with his eyes closed and his legs crossed. ‘Og,’ he says to himself. ‘Og. Og. Og.’ Over and over, he says it in his mind. This is his mantra. His special word. It is how he makes things move. He just thinks about his special word and he can move mountains. That’s what he says anyway.
I am not allowed to use his special word. Everyone has to have their own. One day I will get mine.
I walk on through the bush. There are probably birds singing but I don’t hear anything. I wander along concentrating on something else. ‘Pubic hair vanish. Pubic hair vanish.’ I say it over and over and over. Then I stop for a check. I look inside my jeans but the hair has no
t disappeared. If anything there is more than before. What a life. Geeze, it is tough to be a person sometimes.
When I get my own mantra – my own special word – I will be able to move things. Riah Devahs says that he will give me a mantra one day. ‘When the time is right.’ For the time being I will have to make do with ‘Pubic hair vanish’. Even though it doesn’t work.
I hurry on through the bush. Maybe Riah Devahs will give me my mantra today. Maybe the time is right. Maybe I will get the word that will help me to move things with my mind. I grin. I feel very lucky all of a sudden.
Finally I reach the hut. But something is wrong. There is chanting coming from inside. There are a lot of voices. Riah Devahs is not alone. There has never been anyone else but him in the hut before. Except for me.
I tiptoe up to the open door and look inside. My eyes grow wide at what I see. There are five holy men sitting in a circle. They all wear green robes and fifteen earrings. They are all bald. They are staring at an urn in the middle of the circle and chanting in deep voices.
Riah Devahs is not there. But I remember what he taught me. I must not interrupt the chanting. I stand on my head in the doorway. This is to show that I come in peace.
The chanting goes on and on. No one looks at me standing there on my head. The blood starts to run to my brain. To be perfectly honest I am not very good at standing on my head. My ears start to throb. Then my nose. I feel as if all of my blood is inside my head. I am sure that my skull is going to explode at any minute.
I can’t last any longer. Crash. I collapse in a heap on the dirt floor. No one looks up. The holy men just keep chanting.
‘Sorry,’ I say. Talk about embarrassing. All the blood is still in my head. My face is so red that you could warm your feet on it. The holy men go on chanting. Nothing can stop them.
Finally they are finished. Silence falls over the hut. I say nothing. I just sit and wait.
Uncovered! Page 9
