Whoo, whoo, whoo. Snap, snap, snap. I feel the flap of wings and snap of beak behind me. My cat-like reflexes kick in and I reach a hand up to the back of my head, trying to grab a wing or a foot. I feel feathers on my fingertips, then a scratch of claw across my hand. I turn, looking into the sky – feathers, branches and sunlight. Panicking, I quickly slide the shed door across, slip inside and close myself in.
I’m panting hard, head thumping. The shed is dark. I can see the outline of machinery and boxes. I can smell petrol. I turn, bumping rakes and brooms that clatter to the ground. For a moment everything is quiet.
I listen.
The bus turns the corner onto Kingsley from Grand Street. There’s no way I’m going to make it to the stop unless I bolt right now. Bird above me, hiding in a dark, creepy shed, still a yard to go, bus coming. This is it. If I miss this bus I won’t be sitting next to Sasha on the way to school. Mum will go mental because I’ll be late and she’ll have to drive me and, worst of all, I will know that I’ve been beaten again. By a bird.
I open the door just a crack and peer up into the tree. The maggie is sitting on the lowest branch, giving me demonic red eyes of death.
‘You feathered FREAK!’ I call to it. But it doesn’t care. It starts doing that yodelling thing that magpies do. Within seconds, four magpies swoop and land in the tree. My heart sinks. The bird keeps yodelling and another three magpies join him. I’ve only just finished counting the eight that are there when five or six more land on nearby branches. This can’t be happening. There is an army of birds, crouched, ready to eat me alive. I read somewhere that magpies can gang up like this when they’re trying to catch a falcon or an owl. I’m so gone.
I do a quick bird-count. Thirteen. Thirteen bloodthirsty ’pies in a tree. Sounds like a nursery rhyme. I make a mental note to write the song if I get out of this alive.
These are my options:
1) Stay in the shed all day.
2) Scream out, ‘Mama,’ and suck my thumb.
3) Invent a magpie catcher out of stuff I find in the shed.
4) Go out and tell a joke: ‘What goes black, white, black, white, black, white, red? A magpie burying it’s beak in my skull.’
5) Dress up as a magpie and try to fool them that I’m their leader.
6) Dig a tunnel from here to the bus stop.
7) Set the shed on fire and wait to be rescued by the fire department.
But none of these things will get me on that bus next to Sasha. I listen carefully. Brakes squeak as the bus pulls in to the stop.
This is it. I have to run. This is the moment I stop being a boy and become a man. I’m ten times bigger than these dudes. All they have are wings and a beak. (Twenty-six wings and thirteen beaks to be exact.) But I’m human. I’m king of the jungle, and if I want to kick some magpie butt and catch a bus I’ll do it.
I feel around on the floor of the shed. I pick up a plastic rake and carefully peel the door open. It squeals on rusty railings. I take a deep breath and pray. I hold the rake above my head and run, screaming as loud as I can. It’s enough to make a magpie’s ears bleed. I don’t look up. I make a beeline for Sasha’s place. The sprinklers are on in her yard but I don’t care. I leap the fence.
The first bird swoops. I swing the rake and it soars away. There’s another one right behind it, a baby bird in training, who snaps its beak like a woodpecker as I land in Sasha’s yard.
I bolt towards the path at the side of her house. The sprinklers soak me as a third bird swoops. Its wing feathers scrape the side of my head. I feel something warm on my shoulder and realise it has pooed on me. I’m running, screaming, waving a rake, wiping poop. I look behind. Five ’pies are bearing down on me. One bumps the side of my head like a shark about to go in for the kill. Another lands on my backpack.
I spin and flick it off.
It flies away.
I have birds all over me. I am Birdman.
I run up the concrete path. There are no sprinklers here. I reach for the top of the chest-high gate at the side of the house and launch myself over. I glance backwards as I land. There are seven magpies ripping towards me, single-file, like planes ready to land at a busy airport. I roll onto my back and bat them away with the rake. If there were such a thing as magpie cricket I’d be the Australian captain.
I scramble to my feet and run. I reach Sasha’s front yard just as the last kid gets on the bus. The sprinklers are on here, too, so I get soaked a second time as I whirl and spin, scanning the sky for magpies. But they’ve disappeared. I see one sweep high into a tree in the next yard, but that’s it.
The bus starts to pull away.
‘Wa-a-a-a-a-a-i-t!’ I scream, running towards the front gate. I slip on wet grass and land in a puddle, soaking my bottom. I drag myself up and run out onto the footpath.
The bus stops.
Every kid is looking out the window at me. Some are stunned. Others point and laugh, saying things that I can’t hear through the glass. I see Sasha, three seats from the front – white jumper, hair in a ponytail, eyes like blue sky. I stand there, out of breath, soaking wet, in my green camouflage gear, with a dog-bitten leg, a claw-scratched hand, a bird-pooed shoulder, a muddy bottom, still wearing a surgical patch on my forehead and clutching a rake.
But I haven’t been pecked. I’m not bleeding. Thirteen magpies could not take me down. I’ve survived. I smile, hoping that Sasha might see the funny side of this. She looks right at me and writes ‘I U’ on the bus window in lipstick. I’m so happy I want to scream. She loves me, even if I am a little weird.
The bus door hisses open.
My mind flashes with images of the three kids Sasha and I will have and the labradoodle and the house overlooking the ocean with secret passages and revolving bookcases. Sasha starts writing more words on the window. First she writes: ‘Not.’ Then she writes: ‘Loser.’ Her smile is suddenly gone.
‘You’re not gettin’ on my bus like that,’ the driver shouts. I walk towards him, trying to explain, but the door closes on me. The bus starts to pull away. Sasha’s not watching me anymore, but I can still see those words scrawled on the window. A kid screams, ‘Bye-bye freaky bird guy,’ as the bus turns the corner and Sasha disappears from my life.
A magpie flutters down from a tree. It doesn’t swoop. It just lands on the ground in front of me. It’s my magpie. This is the first time I’ve ever had a really good look at him. He has a black head, a white patch on his neck and long, strong legs. His beak seems to take up almost the entire front of his small head but he doesn’t look as nasty as he usually does. And, for some reason, he isn’t attacking me. Maybe things have changed between us. Maybe he respects what I’ve done. It would be hard not to respect a dude who had survived a thirteen-magpie assault.
I look up to make sure that the other birds aren’t about to blitz me but they’re nowhere to be seen. I bend down and say, ‘Hey, fella.’ I make that smooching sound that people make to attract possums and stuff. I move in a little closer, just slowly so I don’t scare him. I get to within about a metre and I say, ‘Friends?’
He watches me curiously and tilts his head to one side. He looks kind of nice, like he’s smiling almost. I reach out and he looks for a moment, then takes a step towards me. It feels like we’re finally going to connect and put this whole thing to rest. Then WHAM! He flaps his wings hard, lands on my chest and drives his beak into my cheek, real deep. I scream. He flits off into the sky. I drop to my knees, clutching my face, blood dripping through my fingers. The bird yodels his victory song from somewhere in a nearby tree.
I lie down on the grass, staring at the sky. It is clear and blue and, in that moment, I am hit by an idea, a plan for tomorrow morning. It involves a cardboard cut-out of me, a length of rope and a pulley. I can see it so clearly in my mind and, even with the pain screaming through my cheek, a smile slowly spreads across my face.
I swear this is the last time I’m going to let this happen. I’m ready to heal my scars, win back my
pride and let Sasha know that I’m made of awesome.
I needed cash, fast. After six long Sashaless months she had finally agreed to go see a movie with me on Boxing Day. So, on Christmas Eve, I started my new job – delivering teeth.
‘Maybe I don’t know enough about teeth?’ I said to Mum in the bathroom that morning.
‘Well, you have some, don’t you? And he’s not offering you a job as a dentist,’ she said, scrubbing her tongue with the rough rubber back of her toothbrush. She’d just started dating a ‘dental prosthetist’ – a false-teeth guy. She’d been brushing her teeth six times a day ever since. ‘Just, whatever you do, try not to mess this up, Tom. Bryce is a nice man and I need you to do a good job. I think he could be “the one”.’
3.30 pm. I stood in front of a wonky wooden house with a sign that read: ‘Fensham, Smith and Barrett. Denture Clinic.’ Mum was dating Smith. Bryce Smith. A smarmy character with rotten, yellow teeth, strangely enough. I thought about running, but then I thought about Sasha. I thought about sitting next to her in the movies. I’d never been to the movies with a girl before. I said a prayer and shoved open the waiting-room door.
‘Hello, do you have an appointment?’ asked the receptionist, a youngish woman with a large mole, like a blueberry, at the base of her nose.
‘No, I’m ah …’
‘Thomas!’ boomed a voice from down the hall.
I turned and there was Bryce, grinning and flashing those yellow, zigzag babies at me. He grabbed my hand and shook it firmly.
‘I’ll be taking care of you this afternoon!’ He was so excited. I felt like I’d won something. I guess he wanted to impress me so I’d tell Mum what an awesome guy he was.
‘Come on’ he said, bouncing off down the hall. ‘Let’s do this.’
He led me into a back room where there were rows and rows of teeth, all lined up in plastic containers. They looked pretty creepy without mouths.
‘Now,’ said Smith, ‘you need to deliver the dentures on this rack before 5.30. Being Christmas, it’s of utmost importance that we distribute them this afternoon or our patients will be toothless under the tinsel and quite cranky about it.’
‘How will I carry them?’ I asked. ‘There are, like, 30 sets of teeth.’
‘Ah, the delivery vehicle.’ He pointed to an ancient pink bike in the corner. It was pink! Behind it was a two-wheeled trailer, a metre long and about as high as the bike seat. Smith flicked open little doors on either side of the trailer, revealing four racks.
‘Slot the containers into the racks, and remember to close the doors carefully. We don’t want teeth flying out, do we?’ he said, wiggling his wild black-and-silver eyebrows. ‘Report back to me once you’re done – and ride safely!’ He gave me a threatening wink before poopsnaggling off down the hall to brush teeth.
At 4.00 pm I delivered my first set to Mr. Puttock. His house smelt like old people’s dinner.
‘Oh, lovely. Thank you, boy. And, here, take some money.’
He pressed a 20-cent piece into my hand and closed my fingers around it. ‘Buy yourself an ice-cream,’ he said.
I forced a smile and pocketed the 20, not having the heart to tell him what year it was.
I took off down the hill on my bike, dashing all over town, top speed, delivering teeth like they were newspapers. I could get off the bike, knock, deliver and be back onboard faster than a paper dude could chuck the Echo onto the lawn. Almost, anyway. That old bike hadn’t been so fast in the 90 years since it came off the production line. With the speed I was doing I deserved double pay. Smith would have to make more dentures just to keep up with my deliveries. I was the Lance Armstrong of the tooth delivery world. In two days’ time Sasha would be surrounded by large popcorns, slushees and choc tops. And, at top speed, I think the bike looked less pink. It almost looked red.
But even at that electrifying pace I found myself with just 15 minutes left and 12 sets undelivered. I calculated that I had one minute and 15 seconds to deliver each set of teeth. Easy. I took a shortcut down Compton Lane and whipped across the empty block. I sped down through the narrow, winding road behind the quarry. I must have been doing 50 kilometres an hour, trailer rattling along happily behind, when something moved at the corner of my eye. A garbage truck was pulling out of the council depot. My cat-like reflexes kicked in and I swerved onto the wrong side of the road. A car was tearing towards me from the opposite direction. I slammed the brakes and shredded a tyre, which made the tooth trailer wobble violently behind. I thought I had it under control but then the trailer flipped, snapping the bar that connected it to the bike. I stopped but the trailer kept screaming down the road, shooting sparks and rolling directly towards the garbage truck that was pulling out in front of me. The truck driver saw it at the last second before impact. The trailer slammed into a silver drum on the side of his truck, burst open and came to rest beneath the back wheels.
‘Watch where you’re goin’, you goose,’ yelled the tattooed driver with missing front teeth as he looked down to see if there was any damage. I jumped off the bike, dumped it beside the road and ran towards the trailer but, before I got there, the driver hit the accelerator and drove right over it. He crushed it into the road like a soft-drink can. I looked for the truck’s numberplate but it was covered in garbage juice, dripping from the back of the truck.
As the engine noise became a distant groan I walked slowly over to the mangled wreck.
It reminded me of my hopes and dreams of having Sasha fall in love with me. This is what I would look like, too, once Mum heard that I had blown the job.
The trailer doors were open and teeth had leapt from their containers. A few sets had tyre prints across the gums. They were pressed into the bitumen like roadkill. Most were scattered across the road but still okay – top teeth without bottoms, bottoms without tops. It was like a big tooth-and-gum omelette cooking on the road. Flies had already arrived on the scene.
The way I saw it, I had three choices:
1) Tell Mum and Bryce Smith that I screwed up.
2) Bury the teeth and leave town.
3) Lie and –
My mobile rang. I ripped it out of my pocket, staring at the screen. 5.19 pm. This would be Smith, checking in. But I didn’t want it to be him. I thought about throwing the phone somewhere. Somewhere far, far away. Like into the quarry. The phone kept barking. I couldn’t take it anymore so I stabbed the green button, but I didn’t say anything.
‘Tom?’
I could still hang up or make out like I was in a bad mobile area.
‘Tom?’
Seconds ticked like hours.
‘Thomas!’
‘Yes!’ I said sharply.
‘Oh, you are there. How’s it going?’ said Smith.
‘Um … good,’ I said, looking at the contents of my trailer mashed into the road. A car came round the corner and I stepped aside. It weaved around the accident but squished one random set of teeth.
‘You okay?’ the driver asked. He was wearing reindeer antlers on his head.
I waved and nodded. The car kept moving.
‘What was that?’ Bryce asked.
‘Nothing,’ I said, an idea coming to me. ‘It was nothing. Look, I might be a little late. Could you give me till six?’
‘Indeedley doodley,’ said Smith. ‘I’ve got tools to polish. But no later. We don’t want to be awake when Santa Claus arrives, do we?’
I pressed ‘End’ and leaned down, grabbing an empty case. Then I did the only thing I could do, the only thing that would allow me to get paid, stay alive until Boxing Day and show Sasha what a guy I was. I paired up sets of teeth and jammed them together. I didn’t know which tops went with which bottoms, but I didn’t have time for petty details. I slipped teeth into containers and stuffed them into my pockets. I dragged the trailer off the road, dumped it behind a hedge and jumped onto Pinky, the one-tyred bike.
Here comes Santa Claus. Here comes Santa Claus. That was the song running through my head as
I pedalled. Next stop: J. Larstead.
‘Thank you, dear,’ she said. ‘Merry Christmas.’
‘Um, would you mind just trying them on for me?’ I asked.
She looked at me a little funny but opened the container and shoved the toppies in.
‘Well, they feel a wee bit big,’ she said.
‘Right,’ I said, pulling another slightly cracked container out of my pocket. ‘Well, try these.’
She frowned as she attempted to push the new set in.
‘No, they feel a bit small.’
After just three or four sets we had a pair that almost matched.
‘Merry Christmas!’ I called as I bolted across the lawn, wiping the old lady’s spit off the teeth she’d tried.
I checked my list and headed off to my next address.
Next day, Christmas, Smith showed up at our house around nine. I was in the garage desperately trying to beat the trailer back into shape. When I heard him arrive I threw an old paint sheet over it and ran inside. My mum was kissing him. And this was no peck on the cheek.
When they were done he handed me a small present. I ripped open the wrapping. It was a watch, a super-nice one.
‘Thanks,’ I said. I took it into the lounge room. Mum headed for the kitchen to fix Bryce a drink, and he came and sat next to me on the couch.
‘How do you like it? Look, it’s just like mine.’ He showed me his wrist with the exact same watch.
‘It’s awesome,’ I said. I was just about to ask him when he might pay me for yesterday’s work when he looked around and lowered his voice. ‘Listen, I had a call from a patient last night. She said that she had found some small pieces of gravel in her teeth. You don’t know anything about that, do you?’
My Life and Other Stuff I Made Up Page 6
