The Spark (White Gates Adventures Book 4)

by Trevor Stubbs

  “Like Dan.”

  “Yeah. And that’s why they call this place Warwick. Only, the first families here were Scots, so why they used the name of an English place I can’t imagine.”

  “And it’s the same for the name of the place you come from. Was that, too, named after somewhere in England?”

  “Not somewhere, someone. Brisbane was the name of the governor. He was Scottish.”

  “Brisbane? But I thought you came from somewhere called Rocky? Is that near Brisbane?”

  “Oh… er… yeah. No. No. Rockhampton is up north… but it’s in Queensland and Brisbane is the state capital.”

  “Oh. I see. So Rockhampton is a person’s name too?”

  “Maybe.”

  Shaun saw the young man colour up. He decided not to continue with this conversation. There was something not quite right. There was no way Dan was nineteen, and he seemed to come from two different cities. He clearly knew far more about Brisbane than Rockhampton.

  “Let’s put that billy on. I could do with some tea,” said Shaun, lightly. “My turn this time.”

  “Yeah. Tea. Fine.”

  By the time they had brewed up, the man in the smoky car came bouncing back over the field.

  “Here,” he shouted. “Steak pie and chips all round.” He passed two paper parcels to Shaun. “Nine dollars. Here’s your change.”

  “But—” began Dan.

  “But, nothing. You can’t have just chips. Warwick is a pie city. Eat it. I know you ain’t flush.”

  “I can’t—”

  “Argue later. Eat it while it’s hot!”

  “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Shaun enjoyed his pie and chips. He made a note to talk to Bandi. He wondered whether they had pie and chips in Persham. It was abundantly clear that Dan was indeed hungry. He ate like someone who hadn’t had a good meal for a week.

  After they had finished, they put the billy back on. Shaun wondered whether to offer a drink to the family but they were engaged in some kind of card game under a lamp – the light was fading. Anyway, his billy wasn’t big enough – nor did he have spare mugs. Then he noticed the beer. They wouldn’t be interested in his tea.

  Dan was also watching them.

  “He’s a kind man.”

  “Yeah.”

  “They seem a happy family.”

  “They drink too much.”

  “You drink?”

  “Me? Nah. Seen what it does.”

  Shaun was about to say, “Your dad?” but thought better of it.

  The sun sank in the west but it wasn’t dark for long. In the east a bright full moon crept above the horizon. At first, it shone through the trees. Shaun watched it, fascinated. It was the same moon as he had seen in the war-torn land but, here, in this peaceful place, it seemed to have a lot more to say.

  “It’s bright,” said Dan nonchalantly.

  “Yes. You can listen to it here… The last time I saw it, you couldn’t hear it for the guns.”

  “The moon. You can’t hear the moon.”

  “Not with your ears. But he’s saying something. He’s telling us that peace will always win. Sometimes he’s sad but mostly he talks of love.”

  “You’re a dreamer.”

  “Yeah. I guess so… My nan likes the moon. She used to tell us a story about him.”

  “What? About how he’s supposed to be made of cheese?”

  “No. About how he learned how important he was. You see, he looked at the sun and Planet Earth and thought he didn’t count for much but then he found out different… You want to hear the story?”

  “Why’d your nan tell you that story?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe because when we were small we used to think we were too small to matter. Listen.

  “One night, after four and a half billion years, Mr Moon,” Shaun gestured to the moon now rising above the trees, “let out a sigh. No-one heard it with their ears because sound can’t travel on the moon as it doesn’t have any atmosphere. Nevertheless, Mr Moon felt it vibrate through his heart. He gazed again at the sun as he had done every day of his long, long life and said to himself: Sister Sun up there is hot and bright and shines with so much power. How wonderful she is and so beautiful. All the planets love her. They encircle her so faithfully. They worship her. She is the centre of everything. The beautiful comets with their long tails hurtle in and swing around her – and even as they leave, they face her with their tails pointing away. Every body from Sister Mercury to the outermost belt of minor planets looks to her and obey her.

  “Then he looked down at the Earth below him and said to himself: And Sister Earth, how fine you are! Look at you – the most delicate shade of blue. Your seas gleam in the sunshine. I envy your stunning continents and swathes of green forests under your magnificent rich layer of air. And, oh yes, you have power and heat all of your own. Deep within you, you reach temperatures that are the envy of any planet – but not so high that on your surface you cannot blossom and bloom with life. Your surface is teeming with it – from simple cells to complex organisms that can even think for themselves.

  “But just look at me! I am a mere lump of battered rock. I orbit the Earth, never taking my face from her, as we both encircle Sister Sun. I am her slave, trapped by her attraction. I run at over 1,000 kilometres a second but I cannot escape her. I am doomed to encircle her and admire her for as long as we both live. I am her cold, grey companion, a fraction of her size. How sad is that?!

  “But as he thought this, he was suddenly aware of a small object moving towards him from the direction of Sister Earth. It was tiny but solid. At first he thought it was another meteorite and he braced himself for its impact. Then he saw it glint in the sunshine. Meteorites don’t usually do that. It was shiny and didn’t hit him but swung around him and then headed back to Earth. A month or two later there was a second little object and then a third. This one stayed in orbit around him. In all his life, he had never had anything orbit him quite like this. Then another and another and this time a piece of it broke off – a tiny capsule that swung down to land on his surface. It was the gentlest landing any moon could experience. So gentle he barely felt it – like the brush of a light kiss.

  “He became aware that inside this tiny little capsule were two of the intelligent beings that inhabit Earth in such numbers. They seemed to be in very high spirits. Mr Moon listened in as they spoke to one another. They appeared to think that he was special.

  “‘To think that we are here – on the Moon!’ said one.

  “‘Yeah. When we consider the important influence the moon has had on the development of life on Earth,’ responded the second. ‘Life might not have appeared at all without the tides. Human beings would certainly not have evolved the way that we have without it.’

  “‘Scientists are more and more aware of the influence the moon is having on us,’ mused the first. ‘The forces of the moon make a considerable impact.’

  “‘Not to mention all the nocturnal creatures that depend on moonlight,’ added the second. ‘Ah, under the silvery moon… All those years of moon-gazing. Countless romances, stories and stuff.’

  “The other laughed and began to sing a song called ‘Fly me to the Moon’.

  “‘That’s not bad, Frank Sinatra,’ laughed his colleague. ‘This is the one I remember.’ He sang Edward Leah’s The Owl and the Pussycat ending with: ‘… and they danced by the light of the moon!’

  “‘Hey. You’d better watch it. You may have been selected to be the first person to walk on the moon but, with a voice like that, Mr Moon might not care for it,’ joked his friend.

  “‘I’ll tell him that the best singing voices ever have sung for him – that might cheer him up.’

  “‘Yeah. Mr Moon, if you’re listening, my partner here can’t sing – but we can tell you that you have been the centre of attention for the most gifted human beings for many, many thousands of years and they are all rejoicing that we have managed t
o actually get here and land on you. How’s that?’

  “‘Yeah. If he’s listening, I guess that would do the trick.’

  “The radio crackled. ‘Houston here. Hey, guys, time to get some sleep. You have a big day tomorrow.’

  “The next day, Earth rose in the moon’s black sky, bright and blue and beautiful.

  “‘Wow, take a look at that!’ said the astronaut with the Frank Sinatra voice.

  “‘I guess we live on a very beautiful planet… OK. Time to go moonwalking.’

  “Soon the astronauts were descending the ladder. As the first set foot on the surface of the moon, he said, ‘That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.’

  “A giant leap, thought Mr Moon. I mean that much to them?! Thousands of years wanting to reach me… Life on Sister Earth values me – even depends on me… People get moonstruck! I can’t believe it. Am I that important? I used to think I was just a cold battered lump of dead rock in the thrall of Earth.

  “And then something happened. It was a kind of thought that seemed to have been put there from outside. It was as if the Creator, Himself, was saying to him, ‘So now you know different, Mr Moon. Everything I make has influence, everything and everyone makes a difference. All things count. All things matter.’

  “Wow! reflected Mr Moon, to think I have been running myself down all these years. ‘Thank you, my Creator. Thank you for sending me a message via these tiny creatures. I’m sorry I have been bound up in my own thoughts so long, it never occurred to me to wonder what others were thinking.’

  “‘OK,’ said the Creator. ‘Now, just remember that you are loved – and everything else will work out just fine – forever.’”

  Dan lay still for a moment and then said, “Your nan told you that?”

  “Yeah.”

  “She make it up?”

  “I guess so. She didn’t attribute it to anyone else… The first people from Earth to land on the moon did it in her lifetime. She was around.”

  “Makes you think.”

  “All my family make me think.”

  “You have a great family.”

  Shaun told him about his parents – how his dad was blind and his mum loved bees. How Kakko was as straight as they came – and brutal with it – and how Bandi was living in England studying philosophy. He told him about Yeka and how she favoured him.

  “I’ll be in trouble with her for being away,” he said with a smile.

  “You’re the luckiest man on earth. And you have a girl, too… What you doing here on your own?”

  Shaun explained about the white gates. He ended, “So you see, I’m not really the luckiest man on Earth. And I never thought of myself as lucky like that – but I guess I am… Wennai’s mum died when she was thirteen…”

  “But now she’s got you. And you don’t drink.”

  Suddenly the family man gave a huge burp – the gas from the four X beer. The children had quietened down. His wife scolded him. He just laughed.

  “No. I don’t drink,” said Shaun. “Not like that, anyway.”

  They were both quite tired so, after a wander across to the facilities to clean their teeth, they said goodnight and turned in. Despite the cicadas, Shaun went straight to sleep.

  ***

  Sunday was another fine day. Shaun awoke to the sounds of snores coming from the family tent. He had made up his mind that he was going to take up the invitation to attend the ten o’clock service but the thought of walking all the way that morning was not appealing. He didn’t know what the time was anyway and it occurred to him that he may not have time to walk. He decided to go to the office and ask them if there was a bus or a taxi or some other way of getting a lift. He passed Dan on his way back from the sanitary block. He grunted a “Mornin’” which made him sound more asleep than awake.

  In contrast, the man in the office was wide awake, greeting another man in his forties who had just got out of a clean bright-red utility truck.

  “Bruce! Great to see ya, mate,” he said enthusiastically.

  Bruce appeared to be equally animated. “Yeah, you old dodo.” He slapped him across the shoulders.

  “Enough of that. I might be twenty years your senior but I ain’t extinct yet.”

  “I brought you that straw you asked for.”

  “Hey. You didn’t have to come all that way with just three bails of straw.”

  “Nah. But I wanted to give my new wagon a run. Only got it last Thursday.”

  “Smart. Clean. Run OK?”

  “Fine. It’s got more power than the last one but uses half the fuel. Should have changed it years ago…”

  “So how’s that lad of yours?”

  “Aw, he’s fine. Passed all his exams – so he’s off. Got a place in UQ to start in January.”

  “That’s good. You must be proud of him.”

  “We are. But it ain’t good news for the farm. I’m making him help me with the top fence before he goes. It’s a three-man job. When he’s gone it’ll only leave Max – and he ain’t getting any younger.”

  “Can you find a young hand to help you? There must be someone who would snap your hand off to live out there near the rabbit fence – get out of the human drudge and the overcrowded sprawl you get today. Give me the outdoors any day.”

  “You would think so. But, like my son, they want the crowds. I met my Marge in Inglewood, didn’t I? That was a long way when I was young. There was a bevy of girls my age there – at least twenty. Thought I was spoiled for choice. Not these days. My son, he can’t wait to get into the city. Won’t even look at a local girl. Ryan in Pratten, he’s got two fine girls there but my boy hardly even notices them beyond a how-do-ya-do at the church once a month.”

  “You advertising?”

  “What? For a girl for my boy?”

  “No!” His mate fell into laughter. “A hand for your farm.”

  “Oh. No. Not yet. I’ll wait ’til after Christmas. College doesn’t start before January.”

  “I wish you luck. You never know.”

  “Never thought I would be losing both my boys to the city. You know we’re the fourth generation on the farm – we go back a hundred years. Our great-grandfather.”

  “Yeah. There were three times as many people living out there in our grandparents’ day. Now there are just you and a few other families. You enough to keep that church of yours going?”

  “That’s another worry. It’s getting hard to pay our way. Population’s a fraction of what it was. Congregation ain’t getting no bigger and with our second one gone… It’ll be Ryan’s girls next…”

  “I can’t understand it.”

  “It’s not just the lure of the city, there ain’t the call for as many hands. The machines we have today can do the work of a gang. Take this new postholer – line it up, press the button and you’ve got a perfect hole in three minutes. Back when I was young it took a whole day for a gang of half a dozen men to do fifty yards of fencing.”

  “Yards, eh? It was yards in those days.”

  “It still is for me and Marge. That boy of ours – he comes in saying he’s 175 centimetres tall and weighs 66 kilos. Makes him sound like some kind of giant…” And so the conversation went on.

  Shaun was just wondering if he should interrupt – neither of the men appeared to have noticed him – when a police car drove in through the entrance and pulled up beside the office.

  The policeman rolled down his window and leaned out to address the site owner.

  “Hi, Greg, mind if I use your facilities? Ate some-ut I shouldn’t have, I reckon. Having a job to hold on.” He produced a wry smile.

  “No problem, mate,” said the owner. “Just drive on through. You know where to go?”

  “Yeah. Thanks.”

  The policeman continued onto the site and made his way to the toilet block.

  Shaun was just asking Greg and his brother about the best way of getting into town, when Dan came running round the corner and jumped into the
new ute. Bruce turned but Dan had already started the engine. Greg instinctively held his brother back as Dan swung the vehicle onto the track and then accelerated through the gateway, turning left down the highway.

  “Well, damn me. Only had the thing for three days and some young whippersnapper’s gone and flogged it from under my nose!” He took his hat off and threw it on the ground in anger.

  Instinctively, Shaun ran to the end of the drive but the utility truck had disappeared from view along the smooth, straight highway. He returned to report as the police car reappeared.

  “Thought you were supposed to stop crime!” exclaimed Greg. “A young fella has just flogged my brother’s new ute – just as we was standing here.”

  “Calm down, Greg. Explain what’s happened.”

  Greg described the incident as Bruce retrieved his hat and knocked the dust off it on a fence post.

  “You’d better get after him,” said Bruce sternly.

  “Doubt if you’ll catch him,” put in Shaun meekly. “He was out of sight before I got to the road.”

  “He’s right,” said the officer. “I’ll radio it in. He won’t get far.” He picked up his phone and reported the theft to his controller. “The reg is…” he looked up to Bruce who repeated it. “You got that? Yeah. New bright-red Toyota ute with three bails of hay… Yep, shouldn’t be a problem.” He leaned out of his car. “OK. They’ll have it covered in Stanthorpe and Killarney – he’ll not get over the border into New South anyway, not with straw aboard. I’m going to take up a position on the other side of the highway, just in case he decides to double back.”

  “What if he goes back up through the town via Dragon Street or McEvoy? He could get lost in the town.”

  “I doubt he will stay in town. I’ll get them to stake out the Cunningham Highway on the other side. My guess is that he’ll try and put distance between us and him – but we’ll get him. He won’t get far.” The policeman drove out onto the highway.

  “You, son, you met this lad. What do you reckon he’s playing at?”

  Shaun started to tell them what he could.

  “Come inside, out of the sun,” said Greg. “I’ll make us a mug of tea.”