“How ’bout you, Top Gun?” Reggie asked.
Top Gun answered, “Two years, plus some.”
“Yeah, well this dude been on the street fifteen years,” Reggie said.
“That’s bullshit,” Tonto said. “He’s only about that old.”
“Thaz right, dumb-arse,” Reggie said. “He been on the street his whole life.”
“No way,” I heard someone say.
“Church. He and his mum ran away when he was a bubby. He been on the street ever since. How does that stack up?” Reggie asked.
That wasn’t quite true. I’d been living in a forest, not a street, and yet she was right in a way. It was just the colour of the landscape that was different.
Reggie was still going: “That Tonto there, he ain’t even for real. He a part time street-kid. Lives with his olds in a big house. Only comes down here and hangs out with us because he think it cool.”
“That’s true, bro,” I heard someone say.
Junior pushed through the crowd of them and grabbed me by both my arms and lifted me up. Everything hurt when he did it. Everything.
“Think about it, dumb-arses,” Junior said.
Then he helped me walk back through the crowd, who were all completely silent, back to the cave. My legs didn’t seem to be working properly.
“Jack’s in the alley,” I remember saying, over and over.
Thought for the day:
Although that happened a week ago, my writing on this page is really hard to read because my hand keeps shaking.
January 28th
I spent the morning with Mr Kavanagh. My crew were spending the day sniffing because Mohawk had stolen some really strong glue from a construction site.
To the street kids, it seems that Rule #4 (Don’t steal) means don’t steal from other street kids. Everybody else is fair game.
I stayed away because I don’t like to be around when they are sniffing.
Mr K was really worried when he saw me because I am still covered with bruises and half-healed cuts. He asked me how I got them, and I had to tell the truth, so I told him I got attacked by a bunch of street-kids when I tried to stop them attacking a girl.
“Just like Moana,” he said. I don’t know what he means by that.
He thought I should go to the police, but I can’t go anywhere near the police and he knows that too. He said he was proud of me.
I guess I am too. I stuck to the code, despite the fact that I was frightened, and it all worked out kind of okay.
I really enjoy spending time with Mr K. I love listening to his stories. And he loves that I love listening to them.
Things I have learned from Mr Kavanagh:
•He was a pilot in the Australian Navy.
•He flew an aircraft called a Firefly in the Korean War.
•Acacia was his third wife.
•His two sons came from his first wife.
•His second wife died of food poisoning on their honeymoon.
•A Chevrolet Impala is the most beautiful automobile ever built.
•He once owned a Chevrolet Impala.
•Elvis Presley is the greatest singer that ever lived.
•It is true that men landed on the moon. (Moma was right about this!)
When I got back, I checked to see if my crew were still sniffing. They weren’t. They were all just lying around, wasted.
There was a noise at the entrance to the cave and Too Skinny poked his head around the corner.
“Hey Skinny,” Junior said. He got up and walked over and they grasped hands and bumped their right shoulders together. This is some kind of greeting that I have not yet learned. It means that they are friends, which seems strange, because it was only about a week ago that Too Skinny and the others were going to put the bash on Junior and the others.
“Sup,” Mohawk said. He didn’t get up. His eyes were really glazed and his voice wasn’t steady.
Too Skinny had to wait until a really loud truck had finished grinding its way overhead before he could speak.
“Just letting youse know to be careful. Look out for the pigs for the next couple of days,” he said.
“What’s the story?” Junior asked. Little Allan repeated the question, as he often did.
“City Council crackdown on street kids,” Too Skinny said. “Police task force and everything. Tonto heard it from his olds. He’s not allowed out for the next coupla weeks, just in case.”
“We’ll be careful,” Reggie said.
As Too Skinny nodded and disappeared, I said, “Chur bro.”
He stuck his head back around and said, “Sweet as, bro.”
Thought for the day:
I think it’s real stink when my crew sniff glue or drink alcohol. But I never do anything about it. Is it because I don’t think I should interfere in their lives? Or is it because I am a coward?
February 1st
The days seemed to be blending into each other.
I started writing this tonight and realised that I haven’t written anything for three days. Where did those days go?
Each day seems the same. We wake up, go scrounging for food, usually my crew sniff some glue or drink some alcohol and then they lie around doing nothing.
They always offer me some of their drugs but I always say no. I promised Moma.
They listen to music a lot of the time. They all have little music players with earphones, and it’s quite funny sometimes because they can hear the music but I can’t, and they are nodding their heads or tapping their feet and it looks strange because you can’t hear the song that is in their heads.
They dance a lot too. Mohawk is the best dancer I think, but little Allan can do some really cool stuff called ‘popping and locking’. Reggie sometimes does ‘krumping’ but I told her she looks like she’s having a fit. She didn’t appreciate that and wouldn’t talk to me for half a day after I said it. But Mohawk and Junior laughed heaps and Junior gave me a high five.
I sometimes just go wandering around the city with Jack. Exploring, I suppose, although I think in the back of my mind I have this fantasy where I will see Moma walking down the other side of the street.
I know that can’t happen. It’s a really big city, and she might not even be here. Maybe she went back to the West Coast of the South Island, where she grew up.
If I could afford a plane ticket I would fly to the West Coast and look for her, but a return ticket is over $500 and I don’t have that much left.
I could buy a one-way ticket, but then, if she wasn’t there, I’d have no way to get back. And, let’s be honest, this now is my home.
Often at night after Reggie has cuddled little Allan to sleep she will come over and sit with me. Often we fall asleep like that.
Thought for the day:
Reggie is my new favourite thing.
Another thought for the day:
Does this mean we are sleeping together?
February 2nd
I went to the DOC office today. June shook her head like always, but I waited in line anyway.
She was busy with a Japanese couple and I had to let other people go ahead of me when some of the other counters came free.
Eventually the couple left, holding a few brochures.
“Still nothing from J.T.,” June said. “I’ve left lots of messages.”
“I figured that,” I said. “I just wanted to know if there had been any news about your husband.”
She gave me a big smile. “There has,” she said. “I spoke to David’s doctors last week. They say the swelling on the spinal cord has reduced, and he has definite feeling in his toes. He’ll need a lot of physio, but they expect him to make a full – or nearly full – recovery.”
“That’s awesome!” I said.
“It is, and thank you so much,” she sa
id.
I couldn’t understand why she was thanking me. I didn’t do anything. It should have been her doctors she was thanking.
Thought for the day:
This is my life.
It’s okay.
February 3rd
Some facts:
•I am in hospital.
•There is a policeman sitting on a chair outside the door.
•I have borrowed some paper and a pen from the nurse to write this.
•The paper has the name of the hospital in the top corner.
•I am really stupid.
The police came this morning, just after five o’clock.
They were searching under all the motorway bridges and on-ramps, I think.
Allan woke up and saw the lights and we all just started running.
Jack was running along at my heels. He brought his bunny. Strange dog.
But I guess he’s smarter than me because I left my rucksack behind with all my stuff in it, what’s left of my money, my diary, my crossbow, everything!
I followed the others because they seemed to know what to do. But I wasn’t quite as fast as they were, because I was still injured and limping.
They ran up a bank and climbed over a fence and, before I really thought about what I was doing, I climbed over after them.
Then I realised that Jack was stuck on the other side of the fence. The police and their flashlights were coming up the embankment behind him and there was no time to do anything, so I gave him the run and hide sign. That’s a special sign we had in the forest in case there were hunters or someone chasing us.
For a situation just like this, I guess.
He disappeared, still with bunny in his mouth, and I turned to follow the others. They had jumped across a concrete barrier wall and were running across the motorway, dodging cars.
There were horns and screeches of brakes and people shouting stuff.
I clambered over the same barrier – I still wasn’t fit enough for jumping – and ran after them.
I am really, really stupid.
They have grown up in a city. They understand roads and cars and what to do.
I know how to find water in the forest in a drought, and how to smoke pork and which forest birds make the best eating.
I don’t know cars.
I remember a huge screeching sound and strange smoky smell and then I was rolling up over the bonnet of a car and flying through the air and hitting the ground hard on the other side.
Then there was another screeching sound and a big truck wheel stopped just centimetres from my face.
I tried to get up, but one of my legs wasn’t working and I kept falling down.
Then there were lots of flashing lights around me … and the next thing I remember I was here.
There is a plaster cast on my leg to keep it straight, because one of the bones is broken. The small one, not the big one, according to the doctor, which is better than the other way around.
But now I am in hospital. I haven’t told the police anything. Not even my name. But I can’t move far and as soon as the police read my diary they will know who I am and everything about me, and they will get my father.
Stink.
February 4th
I want to be a writer, but I don’t even know where to start writing about today.
I want to write it as a story, but I don’t know what style to use. For now, I think I will just write down what happened. What I saw, and what Reggie told me afterwards.
It started just after breakfast.
The police were going to come in and question me again, and I think they were going to move me to prison, or to some special prison for young people. I am confused about that part.
Breakfast was a kind of cereal called corn flakes, which taste nice, but are very dry. Fortunately I was also given a little cup of milk so I poured that on the corn flakes and it made them much easier to eat. I wonder why nobody ever thought of that before.
I had to use the toilet after that. A nice orderly took me in a wheelchair. I have a pair of crutches but I haven’t quite got the hang of them.
The policeman outside my door (a different policeman from last night) had to follow me to the bathroom and stay outside the door until I was finished, then follow me back to bed.
We got back to the room and I got up out of the wheelchair and had just hopped back across to the bed when there was all this yelling and screaming from down the corridor.
The policeman looked startled and started talking into his radio, which was hanging from his collar. Then he told me to stay where I was, and told the orderly to take away the wheelchair and the crutches so I couldn’t go anywhere, and he went running off down the corridor.
The orderly did what he was told and I was left alone in the room.
Next thing, the door burst open and Junior and Mohawk were there.
“Come on, you egg,” Mohawk said, and when I pointed to the cast on my leg, he and Junior came over and joined their hands to make like a seat, and I sat on their hands and they carried me all the way down the corridor.
When I looked back down the corridor I saw street kids running everywhere. Kids I had never seen before in my life, but I knew they were street kids. They all had that look.
Reggie was standing by a door labelled ‘Fire Exit’, holding it open. It was making an alarm sound.
“What’s going on?” I asked her.
“Number eight,” she said. “Look after your brothers and sisters.” (I guess that is what number eight is all about, really.)
I saw the policeman who was supposed to be guarding me. He was trying to force his way back down the corridor, but all the street kids had linked arms and blocked it up. Too Skinny and Top Gun were at the front of the crowd.
Then we were through the door and down and out through another door that little Allan was holding open.
Reggie told me later that by the time police reinforcements got to the hospital, all the street kids had scattered like cockroaches.
Those were her words. Like cockroaches.
There were police cars cruising everywhere after that, but street kids really are like cockroaches. They have hundreds of little hiding holes they can disappear into.
Junior and Mohawk carried me along little side streets and back alleys until we got to the old building where I had rescued Reggie from Tonto.
They had already found some cardboard boxes and laid out a sleeping area for us on an upper level of the building.
Jack was tied up to a door handle. He started jumping up and licking when I was carried past him. Mohawk had found him wandering around the streets near the motorway cave. It needed Allan to bring him here though; he wouldn’t come for anyone else.
Then came the biggest surprise.
Little Allan lifted up his shirt and pulled out a tattered old exercise book. My diary!
I had fallen asleep writing, so it wasn’t in my rucksack. He was quick thinking enough to gather it up even while he was running for his life. (Well not quite for his life, I guess.)
I tried to give him a hug because I was so grateful, but he pulled away when I went to touch him.
He doesn’t like to be touched. Unless it is Reggie, when he is trying to sleep.
Final score for the day:
Police:
1 rucksack
1 crossbow
1 knife
Some dirty old clothes
About $400 in cash
1 copy of the Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe
1 paint set
Egan:
My diary!
My dog! (and his bunny!)
My freedom!
I win!!!!
Thought for the day:
I really must stop using so many exclamation marks.
February 5th
Today my crew brought me a pile of clothes, because all I had were my hospital pyjamas.
I was really worried that they had stolen them, but they said no. They were all donated by some of the street kids.
Reggie had taken them to the apartment and washed them in the electrical clothes washing machine, because she said some of them were a bit smelly.
I also now have crutches and am learning to use them. They belong to Tonto’s brother, who broke his leg skiing. I have to return them when my leg is better.
February 9th
Have not been writing much in my diary. Sorry diary. Not much to say. One day is just like the next.
Until last night.
Reggie and I stayed overnight in the apartment. We bought a blanket from the discount shop to spread over the bed so we wouldn’t get their fancy sheets dirty.
I still have a cast on my leg, which made some things a little awkward.
That’s all I am going to write about last night.
It’s too private for a diary that other people might read.
Instead I am going to write a love poem for Reggie. I once read one by Robert Burns. I might try to write something like that.
Thought for the day:
I am sure I love Reggie. She really is ‘da bomb’. I want to spend all my time with her. I think about her all the time.
I am sure hope this is true love.
Another thought for the day:
I have a new favourite thing!
February 13th
I had pretty much given up on ever hearing from J.T., but today I happened to walk past the DOC office. When I say ‘walk’, it is more of a hobble with my broken leg, although I am getting pretty good at using the crutches.
Anyway, as I was passing the DOC office, June saw me and waved frantically.
I went to stand at the back of the queue, which was especially long today, but she waved again to make me come up to the counter.
“Please excuse me,” she said to a large lady who was standing at the counter in front of her, “but this is urgent.”
Shooting Stars Page 13
