Steel Pelicans

by Des Hunt

  His face tightened. ‘But you could have been.’ He shook his head from side to side. ‘Pete, you could have been killed.’

  ‘They’re only made from matches.’

  ‘And other ingredients from what I hear.’ He shook his head again. ‘Anyone who crushes match heads with other things is asking for trouble. It could explode at any time, even without a fuse.’ He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. ‘Look, Pete, I have an honours degree in chemical engineering and yet I wouldn’t mess around with things like that. They’re bombs. Very dangerous bombs.’

  Mum leant over and put her hand on my arm. ‘Pete, please don’t do it anymore,’ she said. ‘We don’t want to lose you.’

  I sat staring at my empty plate.

  ‘Well, if I can’t convince you,’ said Dad, ‘maybe a few pictures can.’ He stood. ‘Come on through to my study, we’re going on the internet.’

  Reluctantly I followed. By the time I was seated he was typing in an address from a piece of paper. After a while, a page of thumbnail images appeared. Dad clicked on one that had a boy sitting in a chair. Only when the bigger image appeared could you see that both legs were artificial. The text below said he’d had them amputated after a sparkler bomb had exploded unexpectedly.

  The next was a blind boy who had lost his sight when making a match-head bomb.

  And on it went. After the fourth one, Dad turned to me and asked, ‘Convinced?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said quietly.

  ‘OK, do you promise not to be involved anymore?’

  Again I said yes.

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Does Dean’s dad know?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes. David and Dean will have had the same conversation we’ve just had.’

  ‘Can I go around and see him?’

  Dad looked at his watch. ‘Yes, but you have to be home by nine o’clock. Not a minute after. We’ll be keeping a much closer check on you from now on.’

  If Dean had been given the same treatment that I’d got, it wasn’t obvious from the way he greeted me at the door. He led me through to his bedroom, grinning as if he were a winner.

  The conversation with his father had been short, mainly because David Steele already knew about the fireworks. He was the one who’d provided the special ingredient used to make the big explosion, so he could hardly tell Dean off for playing around with the things. Instead he just asked for it to stop, claiming it wasn’t good for his image at work when the police got involved.

  Dean had then asked him if he’d talked to my dad about me staying in Australia. No, he hadn’t. That wasn’t going to happen now.

  ‘That’s when I started working on him,’ said Dean. ‘It was just so easy.’

  Dean was very proud of his performance. He’d gone on and on about how much he would miss me, until David Steele suggested that he could come to New Zealand and stay with us during the mid-year holidays. They would just have to rearrange their annual ski trip to Queenstown to fit it in. That was victory number one.

  The second victory was to happen much sooner. It would be a big farewell for me. Well, that’s how Dean described it. The fact that it would be on his fourteenth birthday was purely coincidental.

  The farewell would involve a fireworks display put on by a commercial operator. Dean had already made a long list of the things he wanted to see. When I suggested it would be expensive, Dean simply shrugged and said, ‘He can afford it, can’t he?’

  Of course I was thrilled to hear of the fireworks display. Not only would it be a great night, but it could also be a suitable ending for Dean’s experiments with explosives. Or at least that’s what I thought — until Dean said, ‘But the Steel Pelicans will also have to do something special.’

  ‘What?’ I said, sharply. ‘Not an explosion?’

  He glared at me. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because I told Dad we wouldn’t do them anymore.’

  He shrugged. ‘So what?’

  I shook my head wildly. ‘I’m not doing them.’

  He looked at me angrily, and for a moment I thought he was going to start yelling. But instead he clamped his mouth shut and turned away.

  After a long silence he said, ‘We have to do something, but. The Steel Pelicans have to do something really scary.’

  I should have argued against it, I suppose. But it was almost nine o’clock and I’d have to sprint to get home on time. In the end, the matter of doing ‘something really scary’ was left hanging in the air.

  Chapter 5

  My last three days in Wollongong were a whirl of activity.

  It started on Friday with the end of term — my final day at an Aussie school. It was more emotional than I had expected. I was surprised by the number of people who came up and said farewell, many of them I hardly knew. Some of the girls even wanted to kiss me.

  The following day, Saturday, was Dean’s fourteenth birthday with the fireworks display that night. It was also packing day at our house. I had to spend all morning at home reducing thirteen years of assorted junk down to four boxes. When the packers came in the afternoon I was encouraged to leave. I took one last look around the only home I’d ever known and headed up to Dean’s place.

  He was in great spirits. His presents included the new surfboard that he’d been working on for months and a 3D television. We tossed to find out what to do first: go surfing or watch a 3D movie. The movie won, which suited me because I’d have to use Dean’s old surfing gear, as mine was with the packers.

  We never got to the surfing. The fireworks people arrived halfway through the movie. David Steele yelled out to us, asking if we wanted to give them a hand. What a silly question — of course we did. In thirty seconds flat, the movie was turned off and we were sitting in the van ready to go.

  The display was to be laid out down at the steelworks, on a patch of bare ground behind the education centre.

  While we weren’t allowed to touch the fireworks, we did get a close look at them. Dean walked around the place with a goofy grin, as if he’d landed in some sort of heaven.

  At one stage he looked at me and said, ‘You know, Pelly, imagine if you pulled these fireworks to bits and wrapped all the gunpowder into one humungous bomb. That would give a decent explosion, wouldn’t it?’

  I nodded, not so much in agreement, but hopefully to put an end to the conversation. It seemed to work, for he wandered off again and the next time I saw him it was almost time to go home and get changed.

  The party began with food in the education centre. Several kids from school were there along with a range of Dean’s relatives. My mum and dad had declined their invitation, claiming they were too busy packing.

  The display went off with a bang. There were all the usual effects: star shells, comets, whistlers, waterfalls … When everything quietened and the smoke had cleared, a glowing billboard appeared with the message —

  HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAN

  Then to my surprise this dimmed and changed to —

  AND GOOD LUCK PELLY

  As this slowly faded, a dozen or so star shells simultaneously exploded overhead, deafening everyone. That was my farewell.

  Later, back at the Steeles’ where I was spending the night, Dean and I relived the evening. We agreed that it had been a great birthday party and a good send-off for me.

  ‘But that’s not the end of it,’ said Dean with a smirk on his face. ‘There’s still tomorrow.’

  ‘What’s on tomorrow?’ I asked, warily.

  He grinned. ‘The “something really scary”, of course.’

  ‘Oh,’ I sighed. I’d hoped he’d forgotten about that. ‘And what’s that going to be?’

  ‘I’ve got some detonators we’re going to let off.’

  I stared at him, not believing what I was hearing.

  He didn’t seem to notice my alarm. ‘I stole them out of the fireworks van.’

  This was even worse. ‘No!’ I said. ‘No, Dean, we’re not going to do it.’

  His eyes went wide. ‘Why ever
not!’

  ‘I told you why when you first brought it up: I promised my parents.’

  ‘Oh, promises to parents don’t count. They’re only made to keep them happy.’

  ‘Not me,’ I said. ‘I’m going to keep this one.’

  I glared at him, determined not to give way. This time I was going to win.

  Then his face spread in a big smile. ‘You look so great when you’re angry, Pelly. Red face and ginger hair — very colour co-ordinated.’

  I closed my eyes and breathed deeply. It was infuriating when he tricked me like that.

  When I’d calmed down a little, I said, ‘There are no detonators, are there?’

  He shook his head. ‘Nope, but it would be great to get hold of some.’

  ‘So are we doing anything in the morning or not?’

  ‘Yes. We are going to do the “something really scary”.’

  ‘And this doesn’t involve explosives?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘So what is it?’

  He gave a smug smile. ‘You’ll have to wait until tomorrow for that,’ he said. ‘But we need to get up at about five. If the weather stays like it was tonight, it’ll be perfect.’

  Even though the sun was a long way from rising when we got up on Sunday morning, the clear sky suggested that the weather would, as predicted, be perfect. Although perfect for what, was still not clear when we left the house and headed along empty streets towards the sea.

  I was carrying a three-metre-long pole with a wire hook at one end. Dean had a small backpack and a large, hollow plastic snow man tucked under his arm. When I asked where the snow man had come from, he said that it had once been a Christmas promotion at his mum’s real estate office. He’d simply rescued it from a rubbish skip. Any questions about what we were going to do with it were met with a silent grin.

  Some of the shore near Hill 60 is lined with Norfolk pines. They seemed to be our destination, for Dean slowed and began sizing up the trees. When we got to the tallest he dumped the snow man and took off his backpack.

  ‘This’ll do,’ he said, gazing up to the top of the tree which I reckoned was at least 30 metres above us. ‘What do you think?’

  I looked at him. ‘We’re going to climb that?’

  He nodded. ‘And put Frosty here on top so that he’s staring out towards your new home.’

  ‘How?’

  Dean explained how. He must have given it lots of thought over the past few weeks because he had it all sorted and had even collected the gear we’d need to do it. I was impressed.

  When he’d finished, I asked, ‘So who goes first?’ That was the person who would have to climb to the very top of the tree.

  ‘We’ll toss for it,’ he said, pulling out a coin. ‘The winner gets to choose and it’s your call.’

  ‘Heads.’

  He made the toss. ‘Heads it is.’

  I made out I was thinking for a time, but really there was no choice. Only a wuss would turn down the chance to do the scariest thing. ‘I’ll go first,’ I said quietly.

  ‘OK,’ he said. ‘That’s good, because you’re smaller than me.’ He didn’t seem at all disappointed about losing.

  A couple of minutes later, with a safety-harness around my waist, I was ready to go. A rope tied around Frosty’s neck was connected to the harness so that he would be dragged up the tree behind me. Dean also had a harness and the pole.

  The first four metres were tricky, as the lower branches had been trimmed, possibly to keep people like us off the tree. With Dean pushing and the help of a rope I got to the first branch. After climbing a little higher, I held the rope while Dean climbed up to branch level.

  From there up, the climbing was not difficult. Norfolk pines have a very regular arrangement of branches which meant there were plenty of hand- and footholds. Frosty found it harder than I did. He kept getting his head jammed in the branches, and I would almost have to pull it off to get him free. But he didn’t seem to mind — he kept on grinning, no matter what happened.

  Although the climbing was easy, there was no shortage of things to worry about. The ground was quickly becoming a long way away. In some places there was a clear line from me all the way down: if I fell, there would be no getting up again — not ever.

  Another thing was the size of the branches. In the bottom parts of the tree they were thicker than my legs. Now, halfway up, they were little more than the width of my arms. And glancing upwards I saw that they would soon be a lot thinner.

  As we got higher, the view became spectacular. In one direction, we could see over the industrial area; in the other, we were looking out to sea where an orange glow showed where the sun would appear.

  We kept climbing until the trunk was so narrow that the tree swayed with every movement. I looked up to see that there were still several metres to go, more than the height of our pole.

  ‘This is getting pretty scary,’ I said.

  ‘Hook the safety-harness around the trunk,’ Dean suggested. ‘That’ll hold you.’

  I looked at the narrow trunk. ‘I’m not sure that it will,’ I cried.

  ‘At least it’ll break your fall.’

  ‘Thanks, Dean,’ I mumbled.

  With the safety-harness in place I did feel a little more secure. That was until I reached the next lot of branches. I had to unhook the harness, move it above the branches and then hook it back on. All this caused the tree to move dangerously. And yet, even though every instinct said to stop, I kept on climbing.

  Finally I was within three metres of the top and could use the pole to do the rest. I hauled on the rope to bring Frosty up to my level, while Dean fed the pole into the big hole in the snow man’s base.

  Now all I had to do was push the pole up and lower it down onto the spike at the top of the tree.

  Except it didn’t work like that. Although the last lot of branches were only centimetres long, they wouldn’t fit into the hole. Dean had thought that this might happen, and had fitted a wire hook to the other end of the pole, so that I could pull Frosty down. The problem was that when I tried that, the wire straightened and became useless.

  ‘It’s no good,’ I said. ‘We’ll have to leave him like that.’

  Dean looked up. ‘You can’t! He’s got to look out to sea. He looks stupid like that.’

  He did, too, flopped to one side. When the first breeze came, he’d be gone.

  ‘Take this,’ I said feeding the pole down to Dean. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

  I never want to repeat the feelings I had over the next couple of minutes. I was terrified. I was so frightened that I couldn’t think. Probably just as well or I would never have done it.

  Yet, despite the top of the tree tilting over at a crazy angle, I did do it. Somehow I got high enough to pull on Frosty’s feet, and the branches bent enough to slip into the hole. I then climbed down a bit, wrapped my arms around the trunk, and stayed there until my body stopped shaking and I could think sensibly again.

  After that, the climb down was dead easy. Dean was waiting for me as I slid down the base of the trunk onto solid ground. Before I’d even regained my balance he was hugging me. And I was hugging him back. We were laughing and yelling with the joy of it, dancing around in circles.

  When we’d calmed down, Dean pointed out to sea. A slice of the sun was visible above the horizon. We sat and watched.

  As more of the orange globe rose out of the sea, a golden path formed on the smooth sea.

  In my mind the sunbeams reflecting off the water led all the way to New Zealand. They were a link between two lands — the one that I called home, and the one where I would soon be living.

  Dean must have felt something, too, because without turning away from the horizon he said softly, ‘I’ll miss you, Pelly. I’m going to miss you heaps.’

  ‘Me, too,’ I replied in little more than a whisper.

  And for the first time ever, Dean let me have the last say.

  Part Two

  Manukau


  Chapter 6

  Manukau Harbour is part of Auckland. On a fine day from Nana’s place you can look across the harbour to see the Sky Tower in the middle of the city. It’s thirty clicks away in a straight line; double that distance by road.

  You couldn’t see the tower on the afternoon we drove through the gate onto the little farm. As I’d come to expect from past visits, it was raining. The condition of the farm didn’t brighten my spirits either. It was a mess, with thistles and other weeds growing everywhere. The coloured sheep and alpacas that were Nana’s pride and joy were looking uncomfortable in their shaggy wool, which was long past shearing length.

  It got no better as we went down the drive towards the house. The gardens were overgrown, with branches and leaves littering the un-mown lawn. I was beginning to realize the impact of Nana’s stroke; why Dad had felt so strongly about making the move.

  Nana looked just as broken-down as the farm. She limped towards me, smiling crookedly. When she spoke, only one side of her mouth moved. Still her one-armed hug was as warm as usual, and when we separated I saw a twinkle in her eye that told me that not everything had changed.

  ‘You’ve grown,’ she said.

  I nodded.

  ‘Bet you aren’t too happy about the shift.’

  I gave a little shrug.

  ‘No, you won’t be. It’s never easy leaving friends.’

  ‘Things will sort themselves out,’ said Mum.

  ‘Well, I’ve given “things” a little help,’ said Nana. ‘Take my arm, Pete. There’s something I want to show you in the shed.’

  The shed was a large building at the back of the house. When Granddad was alive, he used it to do up trucks and old farm machinery. There were still a few implements scattered around the floor. I’d seen them all before, but not the shiny quad bike sitting to one side. Nearby were a trailer and mower to hitch onto the back.

  Nana led me over to them. ‘I figured we might need a bit of mechanical help if we’re going to get this place back into shape,’ she said. ‘So I bought us a quad bike.’ She gave a little chuckle. ‘Your grandfather will be turning in his grave at the thought of buying something that didn’t need fixing, but that’s what I did. So, what do you think? Can you drive this thing?’