The Amazing Spencer Gray

by Deb Fitzpatrick

  ‘Sounds nice, Pips. Spence?’

  ‘Aah ... well, I promised I’d go round to Leon’s this morning to help him start building the Falcon.’

  Dad looked blank, so Spencer added, ‘The Millennium Falcon, from Star Wars. The Lego version, that is.’

  ‘Right, the Millennium Falcon ... okay.’

  ‘But maybe I could go to Leon’s this arvo instead?’

  ‘Maybe you could, Spence! Why don’t you_____’

  ‘_____give him a call? Just what I was thinking, Dad. Are we telepathic or what?’

  ‘What, I’d say, mate. I believe in science as a rule, as you know.’

  ‘Nah ... it’s mys terious, Dad. It’s paranormal!’

  ‘Rubbish.’

  ‘You are so easy to wind up, Dad.’

  ‘Just call Leon, will you?’

  Leon had been given the Falcon kit for his birthday the week before by his uncle. It was the king of Lego kits. Twelve hundred pieces and six minifigures, including Han Solo and Luke Skywalker. They had stared at it together in joyful disbelief when Leon unwrapped it on his bed after school. It was probably one of the most collectible Lego Star Wars kits you could get, and had a price tag to match.

  ‘No probs, Spence, this arvo’s fine.’

  ‘I should be home around one. Actually, I’ll get Dad to drop me over on the way back from town, so it’ll be a bit earlier than that.’

  ‘Cool.’

  ‘Don’t do too much of it without me, Leon!’

  ‘Just remind yourself whose kit this is.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, fair enough. Damn. See you later.’ ‘What time will you two be back?’ Mum asked.

  ‘It’s just a morning surgery, so we should be home by half-twelve. I’ll have to make some arrangements with Reg for tomorrow, but how about I take Pips down to the oval later for some soccer practice?’

  Spencer’s ears pricked up. Tomorrow!

  ‘You’re on!’ said Pippa. ‘No fouls remember, Dad!’

  ‘Me?!! Fouls?’

  Pippa’s mouth fell open. ‘Yes you! Yes you foul. And don’t forget,’ she said in a singsong voice, waggling her finger at him, ‘You foul, I get a penalty kick.’

  Mum threw Dad the car keys. ‘On your way, Doctor Gray—we can’t have your patients waiting. And besides, you’re stirring up your daughter.’

  ‘Orright then. Better be off. You ready, Spence?’

  ‘Just grabbing my skateboard!’ he called out. He was keen to get some practice in at the big skatepark on the other side of town, which had some beginner’s slopes as well as the more hardcore steep sections that Leon loved.

  Mum sat down at the table with the weekend papers. ‘Aaaaah, life’s tough,’ she said, leaning back in her chair ever so slowly and flashing Dad a grin as he gathered his things for work.

  ‘You are rotten, Suzie Gray, rotten to the core.’ And, as he and Spencer left, the Doc yelled out happily, ‘House of Slackers!’

  5

  Parking the car behind the surgery, next to the special waste bins, Spencer and Dad noted that the clinic doors were closed and the surgery was dark.

  ‘Sylvie’s not here yet,’ Dad said. ‘That’s unlike her. Okay ... I guess it’s up to me to open up this morning. Spence, reckon you could give me a hand?’

  ‘Sure. What do you have to do first?’ he asked as they approached the reinforced glass doors.

  ‘Remembering the PIN for the alarm would normally be the first thing.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Spencer, not looking at him.

  Dad rummaged through his wallet. ‘I’ve got it written down here somewhere, in case of times like this.’

  Spencer peered in through the glass. He saw the influenza posters on the walls, the brochures for parents—Dealing with Tantrums, Healthy Lunch Boxes, Coughs and Colds, Language Development. There was a laminated sign next to the reception desk that said: Our doctors aim to run on time. Please advise reception staff if you have been waiting for more than 20 minutes. Thank you. Skippers Cove Medical Clinic.

  ‘Six-four-seven-nine. See? Ready for all contingencies.’

  ‘Even if in a slightly ... disorganised ... way.’

  ‘Well, they could have chosen a better PIN. You couldn’t have a number much harder to remember than that,’ Dad grumbled, punching it into the keypad next to the doors.

  ‘It is meant to keep people out, Dad. I think it’s called a security system?’

  ‘Yeah yeah yeah, Mr Sensible. I think they missed you in the Mr Men books, mate. What’s happened to you kids these days? You’re all too bloody sensible, that’s what! You need to embrace risk,’ he said. ‘I grew up in the sixties ... we knew about risk-taking back then, I can tell you.’

  Spencer shook his head. You had to love how Dad could turn his own brain fade into a lecture about someone else’s failings. No wonder he drove Mum mad. Incompetence in the Doc—if even acknowledged—was rare, and fleeting.

  6

  The Grays hadn’t always lived in this town, where the sea curved around them expansively like one of Mum’s hugs, the Southern Ocean fairly licking at their toes. They’d decided to move when Skippers Cove had begun straight-out begging for GPs. There was a huge shortage of doctors in rural areas, Dad had explained—it was a crisis, he’d said, and there was no one to look after the old people in these towns, or the young families just starting out there. Once he’d made up his mind, Dad couldn’t understand why you wouldn’t go. There was the coast, bushwalks, climbing. And the skies! He spent hours imagining the soaring possibilities—particularly those around the Stirling Ranges—before he turned his thoughts to properly investigating the position at Skippers Cove surgery.

  They’d had a family meeting, the kind where the four of them sat awkwardly at the table waiting for someone to pop whatever the news was, and Dad finally told them about the opportunity to move to Skippers Cove. He talked about the coast with pockets of untouched forest nestled behind it, and beyond that the sudden, undulating skyline of two sets of ranges. Spencer, Pippa and Mum nodded when he talked about being able to take the Drifter out more often; they expected that. But they weren’t ready when he talked about how he felt about what he did every day; how his work as a doctor no longer made him happy.

  ‘Now, it’s almost ... a production line,’ he’d said, shaking his head. ‘Patient in. You have ten minutes to hear about a lifetime of complaints. You print out a script or two, knowing you haven’t even scratched the surface, but it’s all you can do in the_____’ he nearly spat the words, ‘allotted time. You can’t do anything real in ten minutes. Superman can’t do anything real in ten minutes. And the rest of the time it’s coughs and colds, or addicts doctor-shopping.’

  ‘But Rory,’ Mum had said gently, ‘How will things be different in this ... Skippers place?’

  ‘Skippers Cove,’ Spencer helped.

  ‘Fewer people, Suze,’ Dad said. ‘So you can spend more time with each of them, caring for the whole person in a meaningful way.’ That’s what he wanted, he said. To be a doctor in a community.

  Mum nodded, and kneaded her fingers.

  After a long pause, Pippa said, ‘I’ll go if you’re going, Mummy.’

  ‘Oh, Pips.’ Mum’s eyes filled.

  Dad brought over the laptop and showed them some photos of an old green and white weatherboard cottage with a big verandah going right around. Out the back, there was fluoro-green shag-pile lawn leading to smooth round rocks that went beyond the limits of the photo.

  Pippa’s eyes lit up. ‘Is that going to be our house?’

  ‘If we decide to move to Skippers Cove, yes, it would be,’ said Dad.

  Pippa had looked over at Spencer, as if she knew he had a question in him.

  ‘What school will—would—we go to?’ he asked, keeping his eyes low.

  ‘There’s a primary school quite close by,’ Dad said. ‘I’ve spoken to the principal and she said they could fit you both in. It’s small ... only a hundred and fifty kids enrolled.’
<
br />   A hundred and fifty! That’d be a change, Spencer reckoned, from the feeding frenzy at Calandra Primary, with its six hundred and sixty-five kids.

  ‘Let’s sleep on it,’ Mum said. ‘See how we feel in the morning.’

  In the morning, at breakfast, they looked at the photos again, and then went to the website of their new school to see what it looked like. About three months later, their bedrooms packed up in a truck, Spencer and Pippa craned out the car windows for views of Skippers Cove as the Gray family drove into town.

  7

  Leon and Charlie had been good to Spencer right from the word go.

  ‘Are you the new kid?’ Leon said to him as they went into the classroom at Great Southern Primary.

  ‘Yep,’ Spencer said, bracing himself.

  ‘Oh, cool. I’m Leon. Charlie!’ he called, punching another kid on the arm, making his crazy curls bounce. ‘This is the new kid.’

  Charlie grinned. ‘Hi. You’ve met Leon, then.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Spencer laughed. ‘I’m Spencer.’

  ‘Charlie.’

  ‘So ... what’s the teacher like?’

  ‘Ms Hutchenson?’ Leon screwed up his nose. ‘Aah, she’s all right. Better than Oggers last year.’

  ‘Oggers?’

  ‘Mr Ogden,’ Charlie explained. ‘Leon and he ... well, they didn’t get along so well, put it that way.’

  ‘He’s a turkey, that’s why.’

  Spencer laughed, and sat down at a desk. He wasn’t sure that the kids at his old school—including him—would have been so friendly to a new kid so fast. He was grateful, and felt his heart slow down a bit as he settled in for the day.

  At dinner that first night, Mum reached to the end of the table for something long and thin, and settled for one of Pippa’s paintbrushes.

  ‘I don’t want to do the talking stick,’ Pippa moaned.

  ‘I’ll start,’ said Mum, holding the paintbrush upright.

  ‘I’ve already told you about my day, in the car,’ Pippa grumbled.

  ‘Shh! Don’t forget: she who holds the talking stick commands total silence from the flock!’

  Spencer rolled his eyes. ‘Mum...’

  ‘Come on, guys, can we just get on with it?’ said Dad.

  ‘Right,’ Mum said, clearing her throat. ‘Today. Today was my first day here at our new house in Skippers Cove without any of you.’

  ‘A-ha,’ Dad nodded.

  ‘Shh!’ Pippa hissed.

  ‘I unpacked a lot of boxes, and thought about each of you a lot. I wondered how Spence and Pips were going in their new classes, and I thought about what it would be like for Dad getting used to new staff, new patients, and all of that. I went for a walk around our neighbouring streets and noticed that there are a lot of hills here. A lot of hills. It hurt my thighs. Should be good for our fitness! So be careful on your bikes, kids.’

  Spencer nodded.

  ‘Finished?’ Dad said.

  ‘Yep. Who’s next?’

  ‘I’ll go next,’ said Spencer, reaching for the paintbrush and tucking it behind his ear like it was a pencil. ‘Today was actually ... okay. My teacher is Ms Hutchenson and she seems not too bad. I met a couple of kids, Leon and Charlie. Leon’s kind of cheeky—nice cheeky—and quick, and Charlie has this crazy white curly hair. I saw Pippa at lunch—how were you, Pips?’ he asked, passing her the stick.

  ‘As I told Mum in the car on the way home, my teacher seems nice. Mr Wharton. He’s quite funny. But there’s mainly boys in my year, and only a few girls. I didn’t really ... make any friends or anything.’

  ‘Yet,’ Dad said.

  The others nodded.

  ‘Umm. I don’t have anything else to say. Your turn, Dad.’

  Dad took the paintbrush. ‘I guess it’s harder for small schools to have an equal number of boys and girls—if they’ve only got one class of Year 5 kids they’ve got to bung them all in and hope for the best.’

  ‘Well it’s not fair,’ Pippa said. ‘At home it was always fifty-fifty.’

  Mum reached over and gave her a squeeze. ‘It’ll get better, my love. This is just the first day, that’s all.’

  ‘Do you mind?’ interrupted Dad. ‘Am I not holding the sacred stick?’

  ‘Sorry,’ smiled Mum. ‘It’s your turn.’

  ‘Merci. Now. Where do I begin?’

  ‘D-a-a-d,’ said Spencer, propping up his forehead with his fingers. ‘Can you hurry this up?’

  ‘Aaah, yes, at the beginning, that’s right.’ He looked at Spencer. ‘No: at the very beginning.’

  The Gray family groaned collectively.

  8

  There was no special equipment he had to wear: no goggles, no footwear, no helmet, even. Just headphones and the safety harness, which was a seatbelt with straps over both shoulders and a buckle that came up between your legs like in a baby seat.

  He’d sat in the Drifter heaps of times before, when he was waiting to watch Dad fly, but sitting in it before he was about to fly felt completely weird. The glider’s wings stretched away either side of him, disproportionately long.

  ‘This is quite rare now, this design of glider,’ Dad said, ‘with the seats side by side like this. Most of the gliders these days are tandem, with the two seats one behind the other.’ Dad put his hands on his seat and said, ‘But this is so much more fun, I reckon, because we can see each other during the flight.’

  Spencer nodded, and then furrowed his brow. ‘Does that mean this glider is quite ... old?’

  ‘It is old, but it passes all the same strict safety checks that the most modern aircraft do, mate. I have total confidence in her.’

  Around him, the fibreglass cockpit was close, and the sun beat onto his skin. He could see why Dad was so full-on about wearing sunscreen and a hat when he went up. As Reg’s plane began taxiing, Spencer felt his bum must be nearly scraping the tarmac the seats were so low to the ground.

  Spencer sucked a slow ribbon of air through his nose, and tried to relax as Reg towed them along the gravel runway, the wind catching and buffeting lightly under the Drifter’s wings. As they rose, it felt like the plane was being lifted from its own weight, somehow. Like being in an elevator.

  ‘It’s easier than driving a car, most pilots reckon,’ Dad said, but Spencer looked at the equipment and controls all around them and couldn’t believe that being in charge of this or any plane could be easy.

  They went up and up and up, hanging from Reg’s plane like a baby on an umbilical cord.

  ‘Okay, we’re at about two thousand feet now,’ Dad said. ‘I’m going to release us from the tow plane,’ and Spencer saw the metal cable whipping away like a cut snake.

  Once they’d been on their own for a few minutes Dad said, ‘Look around us, Spence. What do you see?’

  ‘Uhhh ... sky. A couple of birds. Clouds.’

  ‘Yep. Anything else?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  And it was true. Apart from the hard splats of insects as the void between them and the ground grew, there was nothing else up here. In the distance Spencer could see another small plane-like thing, but it was a wedge-tailed eagle, circling the scrub, making perfect, silent spirals.

  ‘The wedgies always hang at the top of the thermals,’ said Dad. ‘It’s their spot.’

  They were up high now, and it was cold outside—the air was fogging the edges of the windscreen—but in the cockpit they were sealed in, snug, silent. The silence is like something pressing on you, Spencer thought, and it’s almost ... loud. Up here, it felt like he had bat’s ears: sonic radar detectors, picking up every little squeak, every shushhhh, every bend in the wind as the Drifter cut through, dipped down, yearned upwards.

  Dad looked over, lifted his headphones off one ear. ‘What do you reckon?’

  Spencer’s face was full of amazement. He tried to find words.

  Dad nodded, smiled. ‘I know, mate, I know. Just enjoy it. Keep the headphones off for a while. There’s nothin
g like it.’

  You could call his dad a fanatic. Mum did. ‘Fanatic’s a bit harsh,’ Dad said in his own defence on one occasion.

  ‘Is it? It’s fanaticism, or hobby-obsession at the very least. The Drifter takes up a lot of your in-your-head time, put it that way.’

  ‘I love how scientific you are about these things, Suze.’

  Mum’d roll her eyes. ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘I know. I do love it,’ he sighed. ‘I love it when I’m up there and I love it when I’m down here, thinking about being up there.’

  ‘Just so long as there’s a bit of us up there with you—and a lot of you down here with us.’

  ‘There is,’ he looked at her. ‘There always is.’ He paused. ‘I wish you’d still come up with me, Suze. I miss our flights together.’

  Mum shook her head, but didn’t meet his gaze. ‘Not now. Not now we’ve got these two. Imagine if something were to_____’

  ‘More chance of us being killed in a car crash, you know that.’

  She shook her head but quietly said, ‘I know. I know.’

  The year before they moved down to Skippers Cove they’d had a rough patch, the Gray family. Spencer and Pippa had watched as their parents orbited one another like unfriendly planets, with more than the occasional fiery collision. The tension got to Spencer, and he found himself blowing up at things at school that wouldn’t normally bother him. He’d even got upset with his oldest mate, Stew, when they were partnered up on the climate change project. Stew hadn’t believed him when Spencer wrote down cling wrap on their list of the things you can put in the recycling bin.

  ‘Nah, you can’t put that stuff in the recycling.’

  ‘You can! It’s plastic.’

  ‘Yeah, but it’s a different kind of plastic from OJ bottles and stuff. Look, my mum’s a total nutter about this and she’s actually got the list of what can go in the yellow bin stuck up on the fridge. She downloaded it from the Council website. I’m telling you, she’s a psycho about recycling—and she hates that you can’t recycle cling wrap!’

  Spencer had let out a kind of animal roar of frustration at that and Mrs Lewis asked Spencer in her shocked voice to leave the classroom until he felt calmer.