Don't Pat the Wombat!

by Elizabeth Honey

  Softly, Jonah started to talk.

  ‘I was looking forward to canoeing. I’ve never been in a canoe before. Then The Bomb turned up. Everyone picked partners fast and I was left on my own. He hates me, but Mandy who was in charge didn’t know that.’

  ‘Sorry, Jonah,’ I mumbled. He went on as if he didn’t hear me.

  ‘The canoe was in the water and The Bomb quickly got in the back seat. I had no chance. I had to get into the front. I was scared and sweating.

  ‘It was going OK, then we played a game and Chris’s hat fell into the water near us. There was a fair current...you could feel it. I reached out with my paddle for the hat, then — so fast — we shot round the bend.

  ‘I looked behind and The Bomb had his paddle in the air. I thought, if he bashes me there would be no proof. He would say I hit a rock. I was scared stiff. The river got faster and louder. He was paddling hard. The canoe shot along like an arrow. “Will we get that hat. Sonny Jim?” he yelled.

  ‘I tried to steer into the slower part of the river but he was paddling hard against me, splashing me. Then I saw the old railway bridge up ahead.

  ‘"There’s the bridge. Sonny Jim," he yelled. He gave a hard paddle and spun the canoe around and we were flying backwards so fast! And rocking! He didn’t care! I thought, he’s trying to get both of us drowned. I was terrified.

  ‘The river got narrower, and the water was roaring and foaming between big rocks. The canoe half swung round, bumped and bashed about, like things were punching it from under the water. I was trying hard to stay in.

  "Not scared are you. Sonny Jim?" he yelled.

  ‘Then — smash! We hit an underwater rock. The back end of the canoe flicked up, and I was half out. I lost my paddle and the canoe was on its side, then it was straight again...and he wasn’t sitting behind me any more.’

  Jonah stopped, and moved a little. I was shivering, hardly breathing.

  ‘What happened then?’ said Mary carefully, quietly.

  ‘The canoe got jammed by the pounding water between two big rocks, like the middle bar of an H. I jumped like a grasshopper onto a rock. Looking back through a gap, I could just see The Bomb’s leg. I leapt from rock to rock till I could see him properly. He was being pushed by the water into a fallen tree. His head was going under, bobbing up and down. He looked like he was nodding...unconscious.

  ‘I didn’t know what to do. I wedged a stick between the rocks, underneath his head, so his head stopped nodding. It was tipped back, as if he was gazing at the sky. Except his eyes were closed. But he hadn’t gone blue or anything.

  ‘He was so heavy. And the current was strong. I couldn’t move him.

  ‘On the side of the river there was a track and an old ute, with fishing gear. The keys were under the dash. I got a rope around him, started up the ute and dragged him out.

  ‘He was coming and going. I thought he’d had the gong. His eyes would be back in his head, then he’d look like he was asleep. Then I turned and he was watching me.’

  Jonah stopped again. He shifted on the log and tried to clear his throat, as if the words were stuck in it. We sat in fragile silence.

  ‘Jonah, my dear,’ said Mary, ‘if you don’t talk about a problem, it grows. Keep talking. It will help.’

  Jonah took a deep breath. ‘I left him there...crossed the bridge and walked back to camp. I thought... If he lives, he lives, if he dies he dies...Some things have to die, you know,’ he said in a matter-of-fact voice.

  ‘I had a dog,’ he said as if the story went on. ‘She was a kelpie, black with little tan spots over her eyes. When we were leaving the farm I gave her to another farmer, but he had to keep her on the chain because she kept running back. She wouldn’t stay, so the farmer said he didn’t want her. She wouldn’t come to anyone but me.

  ‘The last weekend before we left our farm, I got a lift and took her right out of the valley, a long way away. I took off her collar and let her go beside the road. I was sure somebody would pick her up and keep her, she was so beautiful, so smart. She was too smart. She found her way home before we left for the city.’

  Jonah’s voice went funny. ‘She was my best friend. We had to shoot her.’

  With a little sob he ducked his head, twisted off the log and stumbled into the bush.

  The animals stopped, alert at the sudden movement.

  ‘Poor, poor soul,’ sighed Mary.

  I felt so heavy and sad for him. ‘Will I go and find him, Mary?’

  ‘No, just wait,’ she said.

  A while later, sure enough, we heard snapping sticks, and the dark shape of Jonah came out of the bush.

  He blew his nose on his sleeve. ‘Don’t tell anybody.’

  ‘You’re holding a lot of secrets, aren’t you, Jonah?’ said Mary quietly.

  Jonah nodded.

  In the first soft light of morning we walked back to camp.

  All Bad Things Come to an End

  ‘Hey guys! Hey guys! HEY GUYS!’ Azza pounded up the hill.

  ‘Are we in trouble?’ goes Wormz.

  ‘HEY GUYS! You won’t believe it! THE BOMB‘S GONE!’

  What happened last night? Or was it morning? I saw one of my shoes by the tent flap, then Jonah’s story rushed into my head.

  It was true. Mr Brian The Bomb’ Cromwell was gone. The little hut was empty. The car with the scratch gone.

  There was a strange feeling about the place. Something mysterious had happened.

  The lovely Miss Cappelli was snappy. She was on the phone to school, telling them about the peculiar situation. I wonder if she told them about Jonah’s song. Naomi said it was the Convicts who caused it. But the strangeness didn’t last for long.

  ‘The Bomb has gone!’ said Nicko. ‘Get real!’

  He ripped off Jonah’s hat and threw it high in the air.

  ‘Whaleman,’ grinned Mitch, ‘this is the first day of the rest of your life!’

  Re-entry

  We packed up, shoving all our stuff and everybody else’s, wet, dry, clean and dirty, into our bags. Chook held up various disgusting wet objects from a pile of lost property a metre high. Lisa and Edwina swapped addresses. We took last photos.

  ‘On behalf of grade 5/6 I’d like to thank you, Mary, for showing us how the pioneers lived and how you help animals get back to the wild again, and Helmut for helping us with the activities, and Edwina for the fantastic food. We had a really great time,’ said Faith Williamson.

  ‘Three cheers for Gumbinya!’ yelled Lisa.

  ‘Hip, hip HOORAY!!!!!!!

  ‘Hip, hip HOOORAAAAAAAAY!!!!!

  ‘Hip, hip HOOOOORAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!!

  Mary gave a big smile. ‘One thing I know I’m going to miss is this hat!’ And she whipped Jonah’s hat off his head and tried it on. Then she pulled a face, as if to say, it doesn’t suit me. As she put it back on his head she gave him a quick little hug and whispered something. Not that anybody else would notice. But for Jonah and me it had meaning.

  Nicko saved us good seats at the back of the bus.

  ‘I just want to have fish and chips and watch TV,’ said Wormz, flopping down in his seat.

  Mitch was last on. He tossed a plastic bag of wet clothes at Jonah. You left them in the showers.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Jonah.

  ‘That’s OK,’ said Mitch. You just have to be eternally grateful.’

  Waving goodbye and looking back from the bus, I saw Mary standing alone. I mean, Helmut and Edwina were there, but she seemed to be by herself. I thought about her life. Everybody came to Mary and then they left. The animals went back to the bush, the kids went home, Helmut and Edwina would go back to their countries. Did Mary get lonely? Did she have someone to hang onto? I suppose she had Mintie and Little Petal. Well, Little Petal would be a good friend, but I wouldn’t bank on Mintie.

  I tried to imagine Mary in a house in the city. No way!

  I thought of her in the early morning, taking the wombats home to the creek bed. I
looked at Jonah and I suddenly felt sure Jonah would go back to the bush, too. In a way, by her quiet questions, Mary was easing Jonah back to his place, just like the wombats. I don’t think Jonah would have told his story to anybody else. And after all The Bomb did to him, I never, never, never saw him cry before.

  Most people float around, stay a while here, stay a while there. Does it matter if you don’t have a place? What’s my place? I thought.

  Sitting on the bus I felt fragile, like an eggshell with no egg inside it. I was keeping the biggest secret I’d ever kept.

  Did The Bomb really try to kill Jonah?

  Watching the trees and the fences and the posts and the road, my eyes were looking at them but my mind wasn’t. Sitting next to Jonah. He didn’t say a thing. Just stared out of the window, too.

  It was hard knowing something that everybody else didn’t know. Especially when they were all talking about it, and guessing, and their guesses were wrong.

  There was so much I wondered about. I remembered Mary asking him, You’re holding a lot of secrets, aren’t you?’ and Jonah nodding. The story of his dog made me cry whenever I thought of it. So I had to be careful not to think of it. If ever I’m an actor in the movies and I have to cry, it will be easy. I’ll just think of Jonah and his dog.

  What other secrets did Jonah have locked inside him?

  ‘Can you really drive a car?’ I asked.

  Jonah nodded. ‘And tractor, and truck.’

  He told me about their farm. Their house was a long way from the road where he had to catch the school bus, so his dad fixed up an old VW. He welded some metal to make the pedals longer, so Jonah’s legs could reach them, and he extended the gear lever. Jonah drove himself to the road every morning and home every night.

  The bus was pretty quiet. Nobody was singing. They were staring out the window. Thinking. Dreaming. Wondering. Asleep. Hard to believe it was only five days since camp began. Rocking smoothly along in the warm bus, with the steady drone of the engine. Looking at the rows and rows of pine forest through the window. So tired.

  I woke up with Rebecca yelling, ‘Hey, that’s the street where my auntie lives!’

  We were not far from school, back to shops and houses, streets, rubbish bins, milk bars, traffic lights, cars, supermarkets, families...

  We were home again.

  I was so tired.

  After the Holidays

  The holidays began straight after camp.

  We never saw The Bomb again.

  We heard he was working in a hardware shop in Bendigo.

  We heard he was in King’s Cross in Sydney, working in one of those Adults Only shops.

  We heard he got a job on a boat going to Singapore.

  Someone said they saw him at Camberwell Trash and Treasure Market.

  He didn’t even go back to school to collect his stuff, not that he had much anyway. And our project on the planets, that he’d had for over six weeks, was given back without him even looking at them.

  When it was officially announced at assembly that Mr Cromwell had left the staff, Mitch yelled out ‘Hallelujah!’ and it spread, until for a crazy minute all the kids were yelling ‘HALLELUJAH!!!!!!’

  And Adrian got a new teacher — Mrs Beagley. We were worried at first, because she said things like, ‘I’m mean and I’m nasty and I’ve told you ninety-seven times’, but she turned out funny. Nearly as good as Miss Cappelli.

  At the end of the holidays I rummaged for my Mambo pencil case in the junk from camp that I’d dumped in the corner of my room. There was something wrapped around the pencil case — a friendship band made out of Mintie’s wool, jonah had finished it off with a neat sliding knot, and put it there for me.

  I wasn’t surprised to hear that Jonah had gone, too. He left our school as suddenly as he arrived. We heard that his family went back to work on his uncle’s farm. I hope so. The name Tubbut meant Jonah for me. It sounded like a hard stubborn nut. Well, he was a Coconut for a while.

  ‘It’s a funny thing,’ said Nicko. You wouldn’t think you’d miss anybody who didn’t say much or do anything, would you?’

  ‘What was the last thing Jonah said to us?’ goes Wormz.

  ‘"Thanks,"’ said Mitch.

  ‘Could have been more interesting than that, don’t you reckon?’ said Azza.

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Something more important...like...’

  ‘Like?’

  ‘I dunno.’

  But that wasn’t quite the end.

  The first morning back at school, I had to take the lunch orders down. Heather in the office was pounding away at the computer. She glanced up, over her glasses.

  ‘Ah, Mark, just the one I want to see,’ she said, still pounding away. ‘What’s Jonah’s new address?’

  ‘Don’t know. Sorry.’

  ‘No matter. I thought he might have told you. We’ll send it to his old address and they’ll forward it on.’

  Then I noticed a long brown packet lying on her desk, addressed to Jonah. I picked it up. It had ‘DO NOT BEND’ written on it.

  I looked closer. It was The Bomb’s writing, I’m sure. I could feel a long piece of cardboard and on top of it I could feel something else.

  I swear it was a feather.

  Look out for other great books by Elizabeth Honey:

  45 & 47 Stella Street and everything that happened

  What do you think, Feezal?

  Fiddle-back

  Remote Man

  Honey Sandwich

  Mongrel Doggerel

  Not a Nibble!

  The Cherry Dress

  Princess Beatrice and the Rotten Robber

  The Moon in the Man

  About the author

  Elizabeth Honey grew up on a farm, went to art college, travelled, and worked at all kinds of jobs before she became an illustrator. For years she drew pictures for other people’s books, then she started writing and illustrating her own. Her books are lasting favourites, they win literary awards chosen by kids as well as adults, and are published in Germany, Italy, Korea, the USA, the UK and Canada.

  Elizabeth lives in Melbourne with her husband, two teenagers and a small hairy mutt. She’s keen on travelling, bushwalking, cycling, re-cycling, reading, singing and films. Her dream is to see one of her stories on the big screen.