by Darren Groth
You’re still hiding, aren’t you. Munro? That’s what you’re doing. Still thinking you’re safe there. But I’m seeking. I’m getting closer. I will find you.
Maybe today?
Seems like the perfect day to bring you out of hiding.
I briefly describe the Living Partner role. I tell them about the Straya Tour (I don’t say it’s named after me) and our field trips—South Bank, Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, Bribie Island, the Glass House Mountains. I introduce my team and their latest news: Bernie’s still considering names for her clothing line, Iggy has completed a third of his Infecto comic, Flo just taught her first self-defense class, the power couple of Blake and Dale are now calling themselves “Blale,” Shah’s still sleeping most of the time. Much of the info is over the heads of my audience, but I don’t care. Just so long as they get that I prefer volunteering at Fair Go to learning cricket.
“Wow, I remember at the start you didn’t want anything to do with the place,” says Ms. Mac. “Now you’re talking like you’re never going to leave.”
“Pay’s good.”
“Funny.”
“I’m not gonna lie. I like it there.”
She opens her mouth to respond but is blindsided by her YOLO sidekick. For the first time in the meeting, Craig’s ’tude is something other than over-the-top cheerleader.
“That’s wicked, Munro, but we don’t want your volunteer gig being a downer or a bummer for everything else at school,” he says, pushing his bumblebee glasses farther up the bridge of his nose. “The sweet zone of a student exchange, as you are aware, is contributing to the host family and school.”
“Do you feel Fair Go is being a downer—or perhaps even a bummer—to everything else?” asks Ms. Mac.
I lean forward and point to one of the stats on my midterm report. “What do you see there, Miss?”
“Your attendance? It’s perfect.”
“That’s right. I haven’t missed a day yet.”
“Just turning up isn’t contributing to the school though.”
“It’s a big improvement from back home. I ditched at DSS. Now I’m a changed man. Do I look like the sort of student who would bail on school? Craig?”
“No student living the true YOLO spirit would dream of such a thing.”
“Word. I am nothing if I am not living the true YOLO spirit.”
This is all the reassurance Craig Varzani needs. After a glance at his watch, he apologizes, says he must get back to the office. He vows to keep in touch.
“You da man, Munro Maddux,” he adds. “I can see great things ahead for you.”
Ms. MacGillivray escorts the coordinator to the door. As it closes behind him, she twists her mouth and puts her hands on her hips. Mother Terrorizer might now be in charge.
“Thanks for not telling him about the other stuff, Miss,” I say. “The scrums. The freak-outs. Did I miss anything?”
The guidance officer scratches her cheek. “I think you covered it.”
“I’ve kept my nose clean the last two weeks though.”
“You have. Indeed, you are…da man, Munro Maddux.” She sits down in her chair and grabs a stress ball from her in-tray. She leans back, tossing it from hand to hand. “You’re getting better, and Fair Go is playing a big part in that for sure. But you can do more than just volunteering and turning up, mate. Don’t be satisfied with better. Go for best.”
I wipe my sweaty right palm on my shorts and nod. “Don’t you mean best-er, Miss?”
Caro waits for me at the lockers.
“How was it?” she asks.
“Fine. How are you for time?”
“Still got about twenty minutes left of lunch. What did they say?”
“Nothing much. YOLO guy was a goof. Ms. Mac thinks I should step up.” I open my locker, remove the math textbook from my bag, replace it with a single thin folder. “Do the trains west go every half hour or every fifteen minutes?”
“Fifteen minutes.”
“Perfect.” I close the locker door. “How long’s it take to get to the station from here if you run?”
“What’s with the questions about the time and the trains, Munro?” Caro’s hair-trigger smile, for once, misfires. Her lips stretch. Her face darkens. “You’re wagging?”
“Is that the same as ditching? If so, yes, I’m wagging.” I hastily add, “But I’ve got a good reason.”
Coward.
I retrieve the folder from my bag, hand it over to Caro. She starts reading the info. “Shah—that’s the guy you’ve been worried about?”
I nod. “We’ve done, like, four field trips now, and I still haven’t been able to get anything out of him. He sleeps when we’re on the bus or the train. When we’re at the place we’re visiting, he wanders around with a scowl on his face, keeping his distance from the group, only speaking when absolutely necessary. The residents are on a rotation for the tour—they decide the places we go. But he won’t choose a place.”
“So you’re going to go see him now?”
“Yeah. He always has Wednesday afternoons off from his work in the residence. I think if I spend some time with him outside of this tour business, that’ll give me a better shot at making some progress.”
Caro closes the folder and hands it back. She’s weighing my rationale, turning it over like an unsolved Rubik’s Cube. Caro is serious about school—I learned that about her right away. She’s real smart, works hard. She wants marks good enough to go to college and study law. Then she’ll practice in human rights or the environment or some other area of standing up to the man—she hasn’t quite decided yet. She wants to help the Shahs of the world.
She wants to help herself too. Put the past behind her, including whatever her mom’s asshole ex did to scar her leg. We’re on the same page, Caro and me. It’s just that our books are different: hers is a school text and mine is…I don’t know what the hell mine is.
“You know Maeve’s auditioning for The Addams Family today,” she says. “We can still catch it.”
“She doesn’t care if I’m there or not.”
“You could help her care if you showed up. Might help with Digger and Renee too.”
I scrunch up my face. “You saying I’m the one who needs to patch things up?”
“Wouldn’t hurt.”
I check my watch. “Look, I’ve got better things to do than suck up to those guys. Like practicing chess. That’s what Kelvin Yow said I should try with Shah. I’m gonna play some chess with him.”
Caro sighs, adjusts her wristbands. “You do remember they take roll in the afternoon, don’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“So you’ll be marked absent.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And they’ll contact Rowan’s fam about it.”
“Yeah, they send an automated message.”
Caro looks down her nose. “It’ll take more than your cute accent to talk your way out of that.”
“I have a plan.”
A group of younger students, probably ninth-graders, swarm the lockers nearby. In voices louder than intended, they’re whining about the end of lunch and the start of an English class that isn’t “keepin’ it real.” One boy, a walking goalpost in a droopy uniform and a worn pair of work boots, wonders how reading Oliver Twist can possibly help him get his “sparky ticket,” whatever that is.
“I should go,” I say. “Don’t suppose you want to come with me?”
Caro scoffs at the unvitation and squeezes my elbow. “You better run if you’re going to catch the 12:57.”
Caro sees through you.
She’s a good person. She knows when people are really doing something to help others and when they’re only doing it to help themselves. She knows what you’re up to.
You can’t hide, Munro.
Not today.
I settle back into the thin-cushioned seat of the 12:57 train and put my feet up opposite.
A long line of freight cars fills the window, each one covered in graffiti
tags: NEXST, SNAFU, DOOM, TRAGIC, GEKO! One detailed work features a hooded figure walking a tightrope. The pole they’re carrying for balance has a globe on one end and a miniature of the hooded person on the other. The caption underneath reads You Decide.
You haven’t answered me for days, Munro. Did Ollie tell you to do that? She’s stupid if she did. You can’t ignore me. I’m the Coyote.
You can’t ignore the people at school either. You think you can run away and no one will find out? They will—of course they will. Then what will you say? Will you tell them why you’re running to Fair Go? How you’re terrified of the voice in your head? Especially today?
Are you going to tell them?
Answer me, Munro!
ANSWER ME!
It’s around 1:50 PM when I ring the bell on the reception desk. Kelvin wanders out from the back room, stapler in hand. We ask the same question of each other in stereo: “What are you doing here?”
Kelvin responds first. “I’m covering the front desk for Laura while she’s on lunch. And you? You here for more hours?”
“No.” I lower my bag to the scuffed floor, wipe my hands down the front of my Sussex High shirt. “I’m here for school.”
“Shouldn’t you be in school?”
“I am. We have to do a series of interviews with a person of migrant background as part of our diversity project. I thought I would ask you if it’s okay to talk to Shah.”
Kelvin puts the stapler on the desk, readies a thin stack of paper, smacks the stapler like he’s playing whack-a-mole. “Diversity project.”
“Yes.”
“That would be in…Social Studies?”
“Modern History, actually.”
“And you have to interview someone of a different race or ethnicity?”
“Yes.”
“Not a gay person? Or an elderly person? Or someone living in poverty?”
“No.”
“Not someone with a disability?”
“I guess it’s two for one with Shah. But yeah, the question was pretty specific.”
Kelvin starts complaining about “hierarchies of difference.” I nod at the end of each sentence. This is going well. Kelvin’s on a rant that doesn’t include the crime of ditching school. I’m glad I didn’t go with the extra-hours angle.
“So it’s okay if I talk to Shah then?” I ask at the end of the speech, after a suitable respectful pause.
“You should know by now, Munro: it’s not my permission you need.”
Kelvin picks up the front-desk phone, dials a short number. He waits and waits. And waits. He starts singing the theme song to The Big Bang Theory. After at least a full minute, he says, “Hi, Shah, sorry to wake you… You have a visitor…Munro Maddux…Munro, your Living Partner…Well, he’s sixteen—I wouldn’t call him a ‘boy’…Yes, he’s here…Yes, it’s Wednesday…Yes, it’s not the usual time…He wants to do an interview with you… An interview…For school…” Kelvin holds his hand over the phone. “He’s thinking about it.”
I bend forward, rest my elbows on the counter. Not going quite as well now. The idea that Shah might not want to play ball—I didn’t really factor that in. How could he turn this down? Just the two of us, hanging out at home, no tourism in the way?
“Tell him we could play chess too,” I say. “If he wants.”
“Munro says you and him could play chess…You don’t want to play chess?…You hate chess?…You want to play checkers instead.”
“We can do that.”
Kelvin says “uh-huh” four times in quick succession, then hangs up the phone. “He says you can visit provided you don’t try and pretend you know anything about football.”
“I think I can manage that.”
We exit reception and follow the winding walkway that is Fair Go’s main artery. Flowers of many colors line the path. One looks like a red hairbrush and is attractive to the local bees. The path cuts through what Kelvin calls the business district: the Creative Arts Precinct, the Recycling Depot, the Digital Media Center. Looking in the windows of the buildings, I hope to see glimpses of my team in action. I’m disappointed. The beating heart of Fair Go is still a mystery to me. I got a sense of it at my interview and on my orientation, but it’s been all bus rides and Brisbane sights since then. Ironic, I think. I’m touring the city and beyond, but the place I’d really like to see remains under wraps.
“So you’re missing a class to be here, correct?” asks Kelvin as we approach the boxy, red-brick townhouses.
“Yeah.”
“Generous of Sussex to allow you to do that. Are there other students getting this deal too?”
“I don’t know.”
He checks his watch. “Is there a form I need to sign? Or someone I need to call? You know, to confirm that you turned up and weren’t wagging?”
“There’s no form.”
We enter the Living Precinct and walk along the pavers-on-gravel path to the front door of House 4. Kelvin knocks, then cups his ear against the door. The welcome mat at our feet is turned over. We wait for ages, then finally hear footsteps. Locks are released. The door opens slowly, revealing Shah’s retreating figure. Before he disappears, I get a look at the back of his head. He’s had a haircut—a hair chop, in fact. The close shave highlights the dent in the lower part of his skull. It’s pink and stark and impossible to ignore. It’s like an unblinking eye.
Kelvin extends an open hand toward the inside of House 4.
“Best of luck with the interview, Munro.”
Shah and I sit on either side of a small table, chessboard set up for play.
“You don’t want to play checkers after all, Shah, eh?”
“Yes. I do.”
“Oh. Do you have the right pieces?”
“These here, they are good.”
“You want to play checkers with chess pieces?”
“Yes. You have problem with that?”
“No, no…not at all. Do you want to get started?”
“I am not ready.”
“Okay, cool. No probs.”
I look around the living space. It’s quite the pad, everything a young resident could want: TV, sound system, couch and chairs. There’s even a foldaway treadmill in one corner. The contrast between here and what I’ve seen in the worker areas is glaring. The staff residences are pretty basic. The fridge in the break room has a loose handle. The furniture in Kelvin’s office—I’d bet on most of it being secondhand. The phone in reception is one of those bricks they were making before I was born.
“Sweet setup you have here, Shah. You must like having all this good stuff.”
“These things…they are not mine.”
“Well, okay, you didn’t buy them. But you live here. This is your home.”
“This is not my home.”
I look around again, this time recognizing what’s not here. The meaningful, nonmaterial things. Photos, artwork, maybe a small flag or some cultural knickknacks. There is a colourful mat—I’m guessing for prayer—spread out beside the armchair.
“Do you always feel that way?” I ask.
“Is this the interview for your school now?”
“Um, sort of. More just a chat at this point.”
“You want to know why I like to sleep very much?”
“Sorry?”
“For interview. You want to know why I like to sleep very much?”
I shrug. “If you want to tell me, sure.”
Shah takes the white queen in a pincer grip and begins twisting the piece this way and that. His Adam’s apple shifts in his throat.
“When I am awake, I think about my family. Are they hopeful? Are they sad? Are they even still alive? Were they killed because they help me to escape civil war and the camp? I think about them when I am awake in the back of truck that take me out of city and across Pakistan border. On the boat crossing ocean from Indonesia. In detention on Nauru. In Australia after I finally processed as proper refugee after ten months. And I think about them today, when I
am here at Fair Go.”
He releases the white queen, aims and flicks the piece with his middle finger. It skitters across the board, falls over and rolls through a couple of black pawns. It comes to a stop beside one of the black bishops.
“When I sleep,” he continues, “I don’t think about my family—I am with my family. We are together. I talk to them. They talk to me. And everything is good, everything is correct…until I am awake again.”
I let Shah’s words take as much air as they need. For a while after Evie died, it was the opposite for me. I didn’t want to sleep. I would replay the whole scene in my dreams—the collapse, the panic, the compressions, the numb nausea as the paramedics took her away. There was always something different in the replay, some awful alteration of the facts. It might be her eyes being open or her lips being yellow or her chest disintegrating under the weight of my hands. One time, we exchanged places. It was the only dream where I woke up sweating instead of the usual shivering.
Sleep got a bit better when the decision was made to come to Australia. Waking hours? They’re still hard, but the Fair Go effect is spreading. To twist Shah’s words, more and more I am without the Coyote. We aren’t together. I don’t talk to it. It doesn’t talk to me. And everything is good, everything is correct.
Never thought I’d feel that way, today of all days. March 8.
I place the white queen in the palm of my hand and offer it to Shah. “I don’t want to stay too long. I want to let you get back to sleep. But before I go, let’s play some checkers, eh?”
Our eyes lock—for how long, I’m not sure. Then he reaches out, grasps the queen, returns it to its proper place on the board.
“I knew how to play chess before I am in detention center,” he says. “I cannot remember anything about game now. It is too hard.”
We begin playing checkers. Diagonal shifts, one space at a time, an occasional jump, staying true to our team squares. We’re about a dozen moves in when I flip the script and use one of my knights to capture a white pawn two spaces across and one down. Shah gives a short, sharp shake of the head, like he just chugged some foul medicine.
