by Andrew Daddo
She took another chip. Then another. ‘I thought you hated fast food,’ I said to her as she stuffed three or four into her mouth at the same time.
‘I do,’ she said, trying not to talk with her mouth full. ‘Sometimes I have to remind myself how much. And I can only do that by eating it. Now give me a bite of that burger so I can remember what I think about them, too.’
11
By the time we got there, it was dark enough for them to have a light on the Natural Spiritual Health and Wellness Centre sign. They didn’t, and that was why Dad said he drove past it and everything else until we were about forty kays away in the wrong direction.
‘We’re going to miss dinner,’ said Mum. She was a bit stressy.
‘That’s a good thing, right?’ I said.
Dad took his left hand off the wheel and tried to low-five me over the back of the seat. ‘Maybe the fact that we can’t find this place is a sign, honey.’
‘That you’re blind, maybe. Honey.’ Mum’s honey wasn’t very sweet.
‘No – that we shouldn’t be going there, I mean. The Spirit of Natural Health and Wellness just doesn’t sound very us, does it?’
‘There. There!’ yelled Kylie, thrusting an arm between Mum and Dad as she pointed at the sign. This time all the lights were on. There were fairy lights in the trees and the sign was floodlit like a prison yard after a break out.
NATURAL SPIRITUAL HEALTH AND WELLNESS CENTRE.
‘Subtle,’ said Dad.
We pulled up in the car park. It was covered in white gravel and very noisy. There were torches burning, but even with all the lights on, the house still looked a bit dark somehow. By the time Dad had cut the engine a massive woman in a kaftan was at the door with a ten-megawatt smile.
‘Welcome,’ she said, with her arms out wide. ‘You must be the Limpids.’
‘Yes,’ said Mum. She got out so quickly a Maccas bag fell out of the car with her. Mum looked embarrassed as she rushed to grab it and stuff it under the seat. ‘Sorry we’re late. Our driver got a bit lost. This is Ashton and Kylie. And Leonard, of course.’ I don’t know why she called him Leonard when she introduced him to people.
‘Lost. Yes, a lot of people come to us looking for direction. We’re used to that. I’m Lotus.’
‘What a beautiful name – don’t you think, kids?’ Mum grinned. She sounded high pitched and nervous.
Kylie and I looked at each other. ‘It’s a flower, right?’ I said.
‘That’s right. A beautiful flower that comes from a dark place. Mud, usually. And that’s me.’ After that, no one really knew what to say. The truth was she didn’t look that beautiful. ‘Or, if you’re into Greek mythology, it’s a fruit that made the people who ate it feel drowsy, but in a good way.’
‘Right,’ said Dad. ‘So when are we going to eat you?’ Everyone laughed a bit too hard. ‘I’ll get the bags. Give us a hand, Ash.’ I was happy to have something to do.
Mum and Kylie followed Lotus into the house. Dad and I took our time with the luggage. He grumbled and I kind of listened. We got inside just as Lotus was finishing her welcome talk. She pointed us towards a corridor, apologised that the chef had had to go, but the mung beans were in our room and were just as delicious cold as they would have been hot. ‘That’s the really great thing about mung beans,’ she said. Mum smiled harder than ever. ‘You all look better just for being here, you know. Until tomorrow, then. As we like to say, “Sleep peacefully. And wellfully”.’ With a sweep of her kaftan she disappeared behind a big velvet curtain.
Mum had the room key and some sort of welcome pack, and she was still smiling. Kylie looked pretty happy, too. ‘They’ve got seventeen different kinds of massage. Even if we had two massages a day we still wouldn’t get all of them. There’s facials and pedicures. Manicures. A sauna. A spa. On Wednesdays they have a hairdresser, who can do anything, and there are all sorts of classes. Look, How New is the New Age – Old Fashioned Remedies for Today. This is going to be the best!’
‘Is there a games room?’ I said.
‘I doubt it,’ said Dad. ‘Read that!’ He pointed at a sign behind the reception desk. It was surrounded by fairies and flowers and the words were written over fluffy white clouds. ‘Welcome to the Natural Spiritual Health and Wellness Centre. Your time here is special to us, and for us to make it just as special for you, we have made the following decisions on your behalf. No mobile phones. No television. No video games. No gameboys. No iPods. No laptop computers. No internet. No alcohol. No smoking. No coffee. And absolutely no food is to be brought into the Wellness Centre. We trust you’ll enjoy your stay. We know you’re in for a fun time.’
I felt a sudden urge to go to the toilet.
It had to be a joke. But even dumb jokes could give you a bit of a grin. ‘Mum? Dad? What are we supposed to do here?’
Dad started jiggling his keys up and down. It was what he did whenever he wanted to leave. ‘Right, you lot. If the keys are jumping, get ready to roll.’
‘Put those away,’ Mum snapped.
Lotus came back out from behind the curtain. ‘Oh, sorry. I nearly forgot. I’ll give you this parcel. It’s self-explanatory, really, and there’s no obligation to do it – you might just want to. Out of interest. And may I have those car keys?’
‘Ah, why?’ Dad was suss.
‘Just in case we need to move your car in the morning. Things can get pretty busy around here. And we’d hate to disturb your experience.’
‘It’s just that I’ve got my little laptop memory stick on here, and there’s information I might need at any time. You understand?’
‘I do. And I know you understand we have a “no laptops” policy, so there’s no problem. You can have your keys back any time.’ She had her hand out, and it wasn’t as if she was asking. When Dad passed them over she scrunched her nose up and smiled. She was trying to look cute. ‘Thanks. Well, as I said we like to say, “Sleep peacefully. And wellfully.” Yoga at six.’ She disappeared again.
‘Kind of weird,’ I said. ‘Is it just me, or is this place a bit creepy?’
‘You’ll be fine, Ash. We’re here to relax; to forget about pressure and school and whether your silly football team wins or loses. It’s a makeover, remember. In a few days, you won’t even recognise yourself.’
‘But what are we going to doooooooooooo?’
Mum started walking down the corridor, but spoke over her shoulder. ‘Help your father bring those bags to the room. That’s the first thing. After that, we’re going to try the cold mung bean salad, and then we’re going to bed. After that, we wake up and we’re going to do yoga. What’s this?’ She stopped to rip the top off the large envelope Lotus had given her.
‘I bet they’re asking for money,’ said Dad. He sounded more matter-of-fact than aggro about it.
‘Mmmmmm, close,’ said Mum. ‘They’re definitely after something, but I don’t think it’s money.’ She held up a plastic container with a yellow lid. ‘There are eight of them,’ she said. ‘Two each, I suppose.’
‘For what?’ said Kylie.
Before Mum had finished reading the letter, she started to laugh. Then she passed it to Kylie.
Kylie read it. ‘Oh, gross. How disgusting. That’s off. Totally!’
‘Are they what I think they are?’ said Dad. Mum nodded. ‘But why two each?’ he said.
‘I’m here as well, you know,’ I said. ‘What’s going on? Kylie hasn’t thought anything was this off since she got stuck with Woddleton in spin-the-bottle and he slipped the tongue in.’
That stopped almost everyone.
‘Don’t remind me! But this is worse. Anyway how do you know about that?’ Kylie’s voice was going up like her eyebrows. ‘I only told my diary, you loser!’ She was going to throw a punch any second.
I grabbed the letter and scanned it. ‘What’s a specimen jar?’ I said. Anything to change the subject.
Mum grabbed one of the plastic containers and held it up to me. ‘This,’ she sa
id. ‘You put your specimen in it.’ Dad shook his head again, as if he was trying to shake something out.
‘Like a rat, or something? For science?’
‘Not really, Ash,’ said Dad. ‘"Your specimen” means number one and number two.’
‘Wee and pooh, you idiot!’ said Kylie. ‘They want to see what’s inside us – or what used to be.’
‘Kyles is right,’ said Dad. ‘This is totally off. I remember my old neighbour and nemesis Clem Harvey once swallowed a ten-cent piece as a bit of a joke. The funny part was that when he told his mum what he’d done, she made him go in a potty for three days until he passed it. She fished through his bits every day, looking for it.’
‘For ten lousy cents?’
‘It wasn’t for the money; Mrs Harvey wanted to make sure it came out. I was at his place when she found it and she carried on as if she’d found the golden ticket. She had her sleeves rolled up and was wearing rubber gloves. There was a bit of a shriek first, then she came out of the bathroom, holding this coin. And you know the weird bit? It was clean and she hadn’t washed it. Weird, huh? I thought it would have been –’
‘Thanks, Len,’ said Mum.
‘Every time his mum pulled on the rubber gloves to do the washing up, we’d start cacking ourselves. We called her the Pooh Inspecter after that.’ Dad laughed. I did, too. ‘But not to her face.’
‘How are we supposed to go in these little jars?’ said Kylie. It seemed like a fair question. They weren’t that big and we were going to need expert aim for one, and cut-off, for two. But what if I couldn’t cut it off? I’d get it on my hand. Gross!
‘We don’t have to, right?’ I said.
Dad snatched the letter from me while I was sizing up one of the jars. ‘It says “no obligation”,’ he said. ‘So no. That’s good. I was wondering about the technique, myself.’
‘You’re being ridiculous,’ said Mum. ‘And you’re right. It’s off,’ she said, grabbing a jar and heading for our room. She’d lost it.
‘Don’t worry, buddy. We’re going to break out,’ whispered Dad. ‘You’ll see.’
12
I was fishing by a river. It was weird, because that’s all there was. Just me, standing on nothing, next to a river in the middle of nowhere. It was bubbling away quietly. There were no fish. Sometimes the river would pop or crackle the way water does when you lob a rock into it.
Then a bird squawked, and l looked up and saw it wheeling in the sky. It was joined by another, then another one. They were getting noisy. So was the river. More bubbling and popping. The river was getting higher, too. So I stepped back, further onto the nothing to escape it. I thought I’d fall, but I didn’t. More birds turned up. They sat in trees that hadn’t been there a second ago. Then under my feet there was grass that grew really quickly and once the wind got into it, it became very noisy too. Like the water, which was now up to my knees and rising. Why hadn’t I noticed that?
I wanted to pee in the water, but now there was a sign to stop you peeing. It actually said, ‘NO PEEING’ under a little dotted line coming from a picture of me standing in the water with a big red slash through it – like those ‘NO SMOKING’ signs. Most of the pee went into a little container; the rest fell away into the nothing.
Everything was getting louder: the birds, the wind, the water. My ears were hurting.
I heard Dad say, ‘What the heck is that?’ but I couldn’t see him. Another voice started up, but I didn’t recognise it; it was strangely soothing. It said over and over, ‘Wake up. It’s time to wake up.’
‘What the heck is that?’ said Dad again. But now he was louder than all the other sounds.
I woke up. The big light was on and Dad was on his feet, looking at the ceiling. ‘What the heck is that?’
‘It’s the alarm. Don’t you love it?’ said Mum.
‘Not at ten to six in the morning, I don’t.’
The noise faded until it sounded as if it was outside, but I could still hear it.
‘Oh, don’t be such a killjoy. It’s beautiful.’ Mum stretched. ‘And there’s a different one every day. That must have been the “bubbling brook”. Wasn’t it great? It’s supposed to make you dream yourself awake. What did you dream?’
‘I dreamt I nearly wet the stupid bed,’ said Dad.
‘Me, too.’ I laughed.
‘Me, three. Too weird,’ said Kylie before she stuffed her pillow on top of her head.
‘Oh, I love this place already.’ Mum clapped. ‘Okay. Skates on. We’ve got yoga in ten minutes. Come on, Kylie. Hop to it.’ There was a groan from the pillow. Dad was back on the bed, face down.
‘What do we wear to yoga?’ I said.
Mum said, ‘Shorts and a t-shirt, I think. Now grab a mat and let’s go. We don’t want to be late on our first day. And we get to meet the others.’
‘The others?’
‘You don’t think we’ve got this place to ourselves, do you?’
‘You’d be the Limpids,’ said a blonde lady with impossibly orange skin. ‘Welcome. I’m Hannah. I teach yoga, do a little massage and help with the cooking. How were the mung beans last night? Don’t answer. They’re terrible cold. You’ll like this, though. We have one every morning. It’s imported carrot and orange juice with a little zing to get you firing.’
We all took one. It looked better than it tasted.
‘I have one every morning, and look what it’s done for me.’ She put hands on her hips and posed. She was muscular in that wiry way, like Madonna.
‘Wow,’ said Kylie and Mum. There wasn’t much more to say.
‘Impressive,’ said Dad. Hannah took some drinks to another couple who had just arrived. ‘And it turns you orange.’
There were about ten other people in the yoga class. It seemed early to be burning candles, but nobody else seemed to mind, so I didn’t say anything.
Hannah had us unroll our mats on the floor and go through some basic stretching exercises. We arched from front to back and back to front, touched our toes (or tried to) and slid our hands down the outside of each thigh in an attempt to stretch the opposite side. The room was warm, people were sweating – Mum especially. And we’d hardly even started.
‘Okay,’ said Hannah. ‘Now we’ve warmed up, let’s get serious. Everyone move into the Downward-facing Dog. Yeah, that’s it.’ I watched as she made a basic ‘A’ with her body. She had her hands and feet about a metre apart and flat on the floor, with her bottom sticking straight up in the air. She looked nothing like a downward-facing dog. She needed a tail for a start – one that was wagging. Because if a dog is looking down it’s either found something, which makes it happy, or it’s about to bury something, and that makes it happy, too. Or it’s following some scent and it’s about to take off – and that makes a dog extremely happy. No one in the class looked like that.
Anyway, most dogs faced downwards unless they had their legs in the air.
‘Okay, funsters,’ said Hannah. ‘Can you feel the Downward-facing Dog stretching you deeply? Feel how it opens your chest? Mmmmm? Building your upper body strength?’
‘I can feel it hurting,’ said Dad. But his dog wasn’t a lot like anyone else’s. The rest of us looked as if we were ready to get stuck into a game of tunnel ball. Dad just looked stuck. ‘And it makes me want to – Brrrrrrrrrrp! Oh, God. Was that as loud as it sounded?’
‘It’s no problem, Mr Limpid. If yoga’s going to do any good, you have to let go. I see you’ve learnt to let go sooner than some others. Flatulations.’ Everyone kind of laughed. ‘That’s a little yoga joke. I mean, congratulations. Oooookaaaaay. Let’s move into the Extended Triangle pose. Good. Yeeesssss!’ And we stuck our bums even higher into the air.
Hannah tried to have me put my body into positions it wasn’t comfortable with. The half-poses were bad enough to make me never want to do the full ones. I fell over in the Half-moon, I cried in the Half-lord of the Fishes and when it felt as if I couldn’t go any further, Hannah said we should do the
Corpse. We were supposed to lie on our stomachs as if we were dead. I didn’t have to try. It came naturally; the way singing into a hairbrush in front of the mirror came to Kylie. Dad was dead too, and so were Kylie and Mum.
‘Breathe,’ said Hannah. ‘In and out. In and out.’
As if there was another way, I wanted to say. Side to side. Backwards and forwards. But I didn’t. I’m funnier in my head than when the words come out of my mouth.
Besides, I’d had it. Somewhere between the Plank and the Crocodile, after the Cat-cow, but before the Thunderbolt, my body had wanted to quit. I was hot, I was sore, and only had the energy to think smart-mouth comments; not actually say them.
‘That’s great, guys. Well done. What a great session! See you this afternoon. Anyone for another zinger juice?’
13
We were marched into breakfast and given the choice of rhubarb or bran-enhanced porridge. I hate porridge. I looked round for the mini-packets of cereal. Sometimes we have those on holidays and Kylie and I always fight over the Coco Pops and the Fruit Loops. There were none. There weren’t even any Weet-Bix, or boring old Corn Flakes.
Just brown or pink mush. And fruit.
There was a massive bowl of lawn on the table. Half of it was mown; the other half was long and lush. It reminded me of that bit of a golf course where the fairway meets the rough. I’ve seen players on TV have to hit from it, and the commentators always say what a difficult shot it is, because the club head can get caught in the long stuff, which turns the club over. But then, the golfers always seem to manage.
A man came to the table with a blender and four glasses. ‘And a happy, healthy, wellness welcome to you all.’ He beamed. His teeth were so white. He had an apron on with a picture of Buddha, and from the pocket, where Buddha’s mouth was, he pulled a pair of long silver scissors. ‘I’m Zac. How’d we all sleep?’
