Zoe doesn’t touch me. Not like Ms Colby at school whenever I lose it, grabbing my arm and making me worse so that I’ll hear all those swears come out of my mouth, turning everything upside down. No, Zoe’s not like Ms Colby. Zoe whispers.
‘Gran said so too. I’m sorry, Joel. I made a botch of it all – coming back to see you . . .’
Weird, wouldn’t have thought I’d hear a whisper above the clamour in my head but I do. Zoe sounds so sorry, it’s like a delicate tool defusing a bomb about to explode. If she’d shouted, demanded respect, I would have known what to do, could’ve fought back, but this calmness gets me every time. I start taking deep breaths, slow ones. It’s all up here, Dev would’ve said. You can choose your feelings . . . change the tide. Think something different, Joel.
‘Gran’s my mum, you know.’ It just bursts out all of a sudden; it sounds cruel. I don’t really mean it to.
Zoe barely nods. If she’s expecting something else she doesn’t say. ‘That’s cool.’ Now she’s smiling. ‘And I’ve got a uni course to do, to help keep kids off drugs and . . .‘ here she hesitates, ‘to help kids like you.’
That starts me bristling again. ‘What d’ya mean? Like me?’
Her words come back, soothing but with little question marks all the same. ‘You know? Easily distracted, fly off the handle? Have trouble learning? It must be difficult. All that stuff going on at once in your head? They can fix it now.’ Zoe’s still smiling. The horses are almost gone. Is this what she’s talking about? The horses? How does she know?
‘It has its good points but.’
‘Like what?’
‘I saw you and Scott. Mei wouldn’t have. Her head’s always swept clean; she’s never expecting anything coming.’
Zoe grins. ‘In cavemen days you would’ve been the clan protector. You’d be alert at the slightest noise. You’d stay alive—’
‘Shht!’ I wave my hands at her to stop.
‘Just like Scott – he could hear every—’ Then she hears it too: a rustle, a stone rolling outside on the rocks. Close by I hear the roar of a bike engine. It’s one like Dev’s but it won’t be his. He’ll be in Adelaide by now. The bike stops. So does the rustle in the shrubs. Just like always I can hear every detail. It’s all in my head, even the sea leaping at the rocks, the seabirds crying, too many of them, flapping up and away. Is that important? Which sound should I listen to? It’s always too hard to tell. Then Mei. Is that really Mei? It’s got to be all in my head. The horses are, aren’t they? What if everything is?
That’s when I hear Dev calling. I groan. Now I know it isn’t true. Am I crazy? Is this what Zoe means about kids like me? But Mei’s calling too now; Dev’s saying it’s okay. Dev? I crouch up as high as I can in the confines of the cave. Maybe I should go out there and check, but Zoe’s holding my arm.
‘No! Joel, he might still be in with Scott? We don’t know for sure.’ I can’t stand people hanging onto me when I want to do something. I’m inching to the mouth of the cave. But Zoe hangs on. She’s not calm any more. She’s hissing like a tyre going down after it’s punctured.
‘Joel! Calm down! Listen! When Scott was talking about taking a boat down the coast, he’d have to have someone there. Don’t you see? How would he arrange transport when we beached? He has to have someone in with him? Joel, don’t go!’
I keep quiet and I feel Zoe’s grip loosen. She’s wrong. I know she is. Dev isn’t what she thinks but what can I do? Dev’s walking into a trap. Scott’s out there somewhere, coming this way, if that’s what the rustling is. I understand now what Scott wants me for, Zoe’s made that painfully plain, but Dev’s come back! You know what that means? It proves Zoe’s wrong – about it all. Dev does want me. Now it’s up to me to warn him.
I fling myself away from Zoe and burst out through the boobialla shrubs onto the rocks – right into the back of Scott.
Mei
Dev Eagle actually came back! And here, to me! Kept asking where Joel might have gone – the island, the ruins, any caves. He’d already been to the boatshed. Don’t know why I never thought of it when the police came but when Dev mentioned caves I remembered the space we’d played in last holidays down at Rogue’s Point. Not a real cave or everyone would know about it but we called it a cave. Behind those spiky bushes with the white flowers. Dev got a really weird look on his face when I mentioned Rogue’s Point, like he was remembering something personal.
Dev said he’d had nothing to do with Joel disappearing – that he heard it over the air in the deli at Port Wakefield. He came straight back. But he can’t go to the police yet. He reckons they’d just keep him for questioning and he wants to find Joel.
Then he was telling me if I didn’t hear anything for two hours, to go to the police and tell them I saw him. I suddenly thought what Joel would do. I mean, good old Mei always sits close to home, doesn’t do much that’s exciting. I’ve had jack of it. And I told him I’d come too. He wasn’t pleased, not until I said with no passenger he’d stick out like a red chilli in the middle of a dish of rice. With me he’d look just like the other bikers giving tourists rides.
He just fiddled with his goatee a moment, staring at me, and then he tipped his head at his bike and I knew it was on!
23
‘What the—?’ When Scott swings round, the dangerous smile of before is replaced with something much more frightening. ‘You friggin’ little brat. Where’s Zoe? I knew you were somewhere.’ Blood’s already drying on his forehead and he reaches out to grab me. Oww! That hurts but I don’t dare cause any trouble, not here on the rocks. At least Scott hasn’t worked out where I came from exactly and even if he puts the heavy on me to tell him, I should be able to play for a bit of time. As long as Zoe stays put. I twist a bit, trying to see if Mei is really there. Scott’s watching the road along the cliff, above my head, so he must have heard them too. Suddenly his tone changes, sort of wheedling. It’s almost worse than his tiger smile. ‘I just came back so we could be a family again. I missed you while I was inside.’
I wipe off the sneer that’s forming on my face. Maybe I would have fallen for crap like that a month ago, but not now, not since Dev. And then I see him. Dev, moving between rocks, behind Scott. How he manages it in those black boots I can’t think, and maybe my eyes flicker my concern, for Scott suddenly narrows his gaze. He sure is sharp. He swings round as though he’s had radar fitted. Dev’s close then. I’m forgotten; Scott faces his adversary. Scott would see Dev as a worthwhile opponent. I mean, Dev looks truly mean, but I know I’ll have to help. Dev’s bigger but it’s obvious who the better fighter’s going to be and, when the crunch comes, would Dev even fight? And you know what else? I have no thought of ‘hey, Scott’s my dad’. Scott’s just a Skinhead, a threat to my world that needs taking care of . . .
Then all at once the whole world becomes as noisy as it gets inside my head sometimes. Mei’s flying down the cliff, screeching. Mei screeching? I check again just to be sure. Zoe bursts out from the cave like spores from a powder puff, the joy-ride helicopter hovers low, scattering water onto the rocks, over my sneakers, blowing Scott back from Dev. The Gala Day loudspeaker is in the hands of the police: ‘Police. Do not move. I repeat . . .’
A police van I’ve never seen before arrives on top of the cliff, squealing rubber, with its siren blaring, and there’s Mr Houser and Shawn looking very important, gesturing at Rogue’s Point as policemen clamber down to the rocks.
Dev actually has Scott with his hands behind his back by the time I turn back to them. I never saw how he did it. Zoe’s looking totally impressed and Dev grins at me.
‘So, mate. You all right?’ That sounds so good, I can only nod. All that noise and stuff going on, it’s even too much for me.
I don’t get to say anything to Dev; the police take him with them. It’s not until much later, round Gran’s table, that we all get to talk. Dev had to be checked out.
‘I was clean, of course.’ This with a wink at me.
Zoe manages to look embarrassed. Apparently Scott had jumped his parole and wasn’t even supposed to leave Adelaide. ‘We won’t be seeing him for a while,’ Zoe informs us, sounding like someone who’s rescued the Holy Grail from hellfire. It must be the absence of fear that makes her more relaxed than I’ve ever seen her. Not so many question marks.
Gran hasn’t lost all the shadows behind her eyes though. I know her. She’ll be thinking about the next time. But I’ll be bigger then. No problem. I’ll tell her later not to worry.
Zoe’s talking to Dev, all apologetic. ‘You weren’t in with Scott? You weren’t a cop either?’ Dev’s shaking his head, smiling. ‘When I saw you front up to Scott I wondered, you know . . .’
I pricked up my ears. So did I wonder, actually. Would Dev have fought if he had to?
‘Would’ve you though? If you had to. Fight?’ I’ve said it out loud.
Dev puts his coffee down. ‘When I was in Port Wakefield and I heard the news, mate, there was something I remembered about eagles.’
‘What’s that?’
‘They don’t turn tail and run. They fly into the storm. And revel in it. Once in a blue moon, I reckon, something’s worth standing up for.’ Yeah, I guess, in his own way, Dev has fought for me. And just maybe if that helicopter hadn’t come . . .
‘I never knew Scott. Never even heard of your family before.’ Dev looks straight at me as he says the next bit. He says it real slow. ‘I came here for purely personal reasons.’
He doesn’t spell it out and I know it won’t ever be spelt out but I feel it in the air between us like I can hold it, a warm and forever kind of tingle. Zoe and Gran do too, because they don’t say another thing for a long time and all I can hear is the thump in my chest and the ticking of Grandad’s clock.
Mei
The school term’s started. A lot’s happened. Joel’s my friend again. Said he wasn’t sore at me any more. I wish there was more but I guess I can wait a bit. Joel’s calmer somehow. Zoe and Mrs Billings took him to a doctor in Adelaide and he doesn’t get in so much trouble at school now. He’s learning his tables again at home. I had no idea he didn’t even know three times.
Dev Eagle’s moved in with Joel and his gran. Mrs Houser reckons Mrs Billings is setting up a regular boarding house. Mum reckons Mrs Houser’s awful but I haven’t worked out why yet. Zoe went back to uni in Adelaide. Joel reckons she’ll be back in the holidays. It must be so weird to find out you had a mum after all but Joel says his gran’s his real mum. Guess I can understand that.
Turns out Dev’s related to French royalty (three or four generations back). No big deal, Mum says. Dev’s short for Devereux. (With an x!) You never know about people, do you?
Shawn Houser doesn’t seem to pick on Joel so much any more. I mean, who can help having a father in jail? It’s not Joel’s fault and the kids at school think Dev’s so cool. He picks Joel up some days on his bike when he’s home. Me too. I love the way the noise shakes through me right down to my toes and then there’s the wind in my hair . . .
Dev’s got a job now on Dad’s trawler. Dad really likes him. He says Joel’s a lucky kid to catch a dad like Dev Eagle.
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to the following for their interest, tips and favourite fishing stories:
Peter and Trent Bartram; Mac Hayes; Matthew Heaven; Colin Moulden; Gary and Rob Penner; students from St Peter’s Grammar School, Glenelg; students from Cummins and Lock Area Schools; and Writers’ Ink, from Tyndale Christian School.
Glossary
berley hookless bait
dropping in a line/drop-in to put a line in to fish
gaff big long-handled hook for retrieving larger fish from the water
ganged hooks three to four hooks linked together for baiting small whole fish
gar garfish
gent a maggot used for bait
gutter deeper water between areas of shallow water
half-blood knot a simple, strong knot used in attaching hooks and swivel to the line
keeper a fish worth keeping
lure artificial bait with hooks attached that attract fish
nanny a red snapper
old salt someone who’s been fishing or boating for many years
on the bite when the fish are hungry, biting well
pick the anchor
pillies pilchard bait
playing the fish angling the fish to land or to a boat
pump and wind the action used to catch a fish with a rod and reel
reading the beach checking the beach for good fishing possibilities
rig assembled terminal tackle
set when the hook is firmly stuck in the fish
spool line storage area on a reel
strike moving your rod sharply to hook a fish
swell long rolling waves in the ocean that don’t break
swivel small figure-of-eight-shaped pieces that connect a fishing line so it’s free to rotate
tackle equipment used for fishing – e.g. rods, line, net
terminal tackle bits and pieces used on the end of the line – e.g. hooks, bait, sinkers, swivels
tern small seabird
tinnie small aluminium fishing boat
tommy tommy ruff – small edible fish usually caught near jetties
troll to fish with a moving line
wet a line to go fishing
Also in this series by Rosanne Hawke
SAILMAKER
Join Joel Billings and his best friend, Mei, and solve a new mystery far more terrifying and dangerous than a ghost!
ISBN 978 0 7022 4972 3
KILLER UTE
Buckle up for a wild ride as Joel and his foster dad, Dev, face off against a killer ute in a sleepy beachside town.
ISBN 978 0 7022 4960 0
First published 2000 by Lothian Children’s Books,
an imprint of Hachette Australia
This edition first published 2013 by University of Queensland Press
PO Box 6042, St Lucia, Queensland 4067 Australia
www.uqp.com.au
© Rosanne Hawke 2000
This book is copyright. Except for private study, research, criticism or reviews, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission. Enquiries should be made to the publisher.
Typeset in 11.5/16.5 pt Rotis Semi Sans by Post Pre-press Group, Brisbane
Printed in Australia by McPherson’s Printing Group
Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
National Library of Australia
Hawke, Rosanne.
The keeper / Rosanne Hawke.
For primary school age.
Families – Juvenile fiction
Yorke Peninsula (S. Aust.) – Juvenile fiction.
A823.3
ISBN (pbk) 978 0 7022 4973 0
ISBN (epdf) 978 0 7022 5131 3
ISBN (epub) 978 0 7022 5132 0
ISBN (kindle) 978 0 7022 5133 7
University of Queensland Press uses papers that are natural, renewable and recyclable products made from wood grown in sustainable forests. The logging and manufacturing processes conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.
filter: grayscale(100%); " class="sharethis-inline-share-buttons">share
The Keeper Page 9
