‘To spending valuable class time standing on a street corner, littering,’ says Skye.
‘It’s not littering,’ answers Kate.
‘Yes, it is. People throw that stuff on the ground after pretending to read it.’
‘I’m happy to make everyone read it, Sarah,’ suggests Hunter.
‘That’s not necessary. We’ll hand out the leaflets and hope that’s enough. It is a democracy, after all,’ says Sarah.
‘Not for the whales,’ whispers Kate.
‘I’ll pick up all the leaflets that get tossed away, Sarah. So we can recycle,’ I offer.
‘Eeeewwww!’ says Skye.
‘Enough!’ says Sarah. ‘I’ll ask Larry what the school policy is on—’
‘Picking rubbish off the ground,’ interrupts Skye.
‘—on such excursions,’ says Sarah.
At lunchtime, I’m sitting under the wattle tree watching the kindy children play hide-and-seek. Paisley Newbould hides behind a pole and closes her eyes. She thinks if she can’t see anyone, they can’t see her. She’s caught immediately by Rain Barker, who dances around Paisley and giggles saying, ‘Gotcha, gotcha’. Paisley keeps her eyes shut and ignores Rain. Rain stops dancing and stares at Paisley.
For a minute, all is silent.
Then Rain carefully presses a finger into Paisley’s eye and lifts her eyelid.
‘Gotcha,’ she shouts.
Paisley slaps her hand away. Rain’s bottom lip starts to quiver. Paisley yells, ‘You poked me!’
‘Did not!’ says Rain.
‘Did too!’ shouts Paisley.
I know where this is heading, so I pick up my lunch box and walk away. I should help the kids settle their problem, but the last time I tried to help I ended up on detention for smoking. I walk behind Edith, out of sight of the kindy kids, and sit on the bench seat against the mudbrick wall. Kate sees me and walks across to sit down.
‘We did it, Jesse,’ she smiles. ‘Larry came up to me a minute ago and said the teachers had approved our excursion.’
‘No gory pictures,’ I say.
‘Hunter will be disappointed,’ she says. ‘Do you want to come over tonight, to help me get the information Sarah wants?’
‘Sure,’ I say. ‘If I’m allowed.’
‘It’s for a good cause,’ says Kate.
‘My family has had enough good causes lately,’ I say, thinking of Kelifa and our new family budget.
23
HUNTER
‘Smoking stinks,’ says Hunter.
Les leans back on his scooter, his eyes wide and smiling.
‘Don’t tell me you tried.’ He laughs.
‘I couldn’t find a pipe,’ Hunter says, ‘so I borrowed a cigarette from a senior boy.’ Hunter stares across the park to the creek, remembering Jesse discovering him. How he tried to make it look cool, worried that Jesse would see him coughing.
‘Why would you want to be like me?’ Les says. He reaches for his pipe, then thinks better of lighting up, grumbling to himself as he stuffs it back into his pocket.
Hunter leans down for his schoolbag and stands, ready to leave.
‘Wait on, young man.’ Les grips the handlebars of his scooter. ‘I wanted to apologise,’ he says, ‘for the other day, trying to get you to say …’
Hunter shrugs. ‘It’s what adults do.’
The old man smiles. ‘You’re smarter than you seem, young man.’
‘Ha!’
‘What?’ asks Les.
Hunter looks at his shoelaces, not sure how to express what he’s thinking.
‘The easiest way is to start at the beginning,’ says Les, his voice unusually quiet.
‘At school, they think I’m stupid,’ Hunter says. ‘But today, I managed to arrange that everyone misses out on a whole day of schoolwork.’ Hunter laughs, thinking back to how the whole class, except Skye, raised their hand when he led them. A day away from lessons, just hanging out in the city. Too easy.
Hunter and Les watch as the woman and her trainer jog into the park. The woman has a new haircut that bounces as she runs. Hunter notices she’s also wearing lipstick. For exercise? She watches the trainer closely and smiles whenever he looks at her. They do a circuit of the park before stopping for a drink at the fountain. The trainer turns on the tap for the woman.
Les steers his scooter closer to Hunter. He holds out his hand. ‘Help me out of this thing, will you.’
Hunter steps forward and lets Les grip him by the arm, taking the old man’s weight as he pulls himself from the scooter.
‘To the bench seat, if you can,’ Les says.
Hunter shuffles beside Les. He notices the veins on the old man’s hands. Les’s breath sounds hollow, like wind whistling through a metal drain. When they get to the seat, Les steadies himself before sitting. ‘I should buy a walking stick,’ he says.
Hunter sits down beside the old man and waits, wondering why he bothered moving from the padded seat of the scooter. The old man leans away from Hunter and pokes him in the ribs.
‘No sitting for you,’ Les says, tilting his head toward the scooter.
‘What?’ asks Hunter.
‘Can you ride my scooter?’ Les asks. ‘I want to see how foolish I look trundling around the suburb.’
Hunter smiles. Secretly, he’s wondered how fast the scooter would go. He walks toward the scooter and slides easily behind the seat, resting his feet on the platform. He looks down at the handlebars. A key dangles in the ignition. One turn and he’s away.
‘The accelerator is on the right handle grip. Twist it toward yourself. The brake is near your right foot.’
Hunter turns the key. The electric motor starts, barely making a noise. He grips the handlebar and feels the hard rubber of the accelerator. Carefully, he rotates his hand and the scooter springs to life, faster than he expected. Hunter grips tighter with his left hand and releases the accelerator with his right. The scooter slows immediately. He looks down at the platform, eyeing the brake. He presses his foot on the pedal and the scooter stops. A tin of dog food rattles in the basket.
‘Go on,’ calls Les. ‘I’ll time you. One lap of the park. And no cutting corners.’
Hunter looks at the old man and grins. Les holds up his right arm, looking at his wristwatch. ‘On the count of three. One, two …’ Hunter grips the handlebars and leans forward. ‘Three!’ He pulls quickly on the accelerator and feels himself being pushed back in the seat. He concentrates on steering along the concrete path, on the lookout for mothers with prams and wandering dogs. He releases the accelerator when he reaches the far corner, smiling to himself. It’s like riding a bike, only without the effort. The tin of dog food bounces in the basket when he veers off the path to pass a woman power walking.
He can hear the old man laughing from across the grass. Fifty metres to the finish line. He pulls back as far as he can on the accelerator, wishing the machine had a speedo. He leans down behind the handlebars and the grass is a blur beside the path. As he crosses the imaginary line, the old man whoops and Hunter holds up one hand in triumph. He puts his foot on the brake pedal and slows, steering toward Les on the bench seat.
Hunter turns the scooter off and looks at the old man. Both of them are grinning. He reluctantly slides out from the padded seat.
‘It’s—’
‘More fun than you expected,’ Les says.
Hunter nods.
The old man grips the edge of the bench seat and pulls himself upright. Hunter reaches toward him. The old man shakes his head. ‘No thanks, Hunter. I can make it this far,’ says Les as he takes the few steps to the scooter and slowly pulls himself aboard.
‘You weren’t worried about how you looked,’ says Hunter. ‘You just wanted to give me a ride, didn’t you?’
The old man turns the ignition key and settles back in the seat. He winks.
‘Better get the food home for Deefer. Don’t want him to starve.’
Hunter sits on the bench seat and watches the old man trundle away.
The fingers of his right hand twitch, as if they’re still gripping the accelerator.
24
jesse
Kate and I are sitting on a comfy old lounge on her back deck, watching her dog, Misty, chase its tail. Round and round Misty goes, until she gets so tired she falls in a furry bundle on the grass, whining with dizziness.
Kate has a pen in her hand and an exercise book in her lap. She taps the pen on her knee. ‘Come on, Jesse,’ she implores. ‘“Save the whales now!” is a little boring. No-one will read a leaflet like that. We need something catchy.’
‘It would help if we could use pictures,’ I say.
Kate shakes her head. ‘Sarah’s Number One Rule: no gore, no,’ she giggles, ‘rude words.’
I try to imagine what my dad would say. He’s the expert in puns.
A whale of a problem.
Worth blubbering about.
All far too embarrassing to say aloud.
Kate sighs. ‘We should be able to show the truth. No matter how ugly it is. People like Skye need to understand.’
‘Why don’t we have a picture of a mother whale and a calf?’ I suggest. ‘Nothing yucky, just a happy photo of mother and baby. And then a headline like—’
‘My baby! Eaten by the Japanese!’ says Kate.
‘Maybe something less—’
‘My baby is not a burger!’
I smile. Kate is already scratching the headline across the top of the page.
‘My baby is not a takeaway!’ I suggest.
Kate laughs.
She slowly fills the page with writing. She knows everything about the whales and the Japanese without once checking the iPad on the table in front of us. I watch her as she writes. A slight frown line across her forehead gets deeper as she concentrates. She has the lightest freckles on her nose, as if they’re fading right before my eyes. Her curly hair is tied in a ponytail with a green ribbon to keep it in place.
‘I like green,’ I blurt out without thinking.
‘Pardon?’
‘Green. It’s my favourite colour,’ I stammer, my eyes straying to the ribbon.
Kate sees me looking and smiles. ‘Me too!’ She stretches her legs toward the table and rolls up her pants to show me her socks. Green. ‘My lucky socks,’ she says. Then she blushes and goes back to the whales and Japanese.
‘When I rang Dad, I asked him what else we should do,’ I say, ‘at the protest.’
‘And?’
‘He said we should form a group with Sarah and ask to see the Japanese Ambassador.’
Kate’s eyes sparkle. ‘Great idea, Jesse. Me and you and Sarah, and Eoin with his excellent Japanese.’
‘Not Hunter.’ I giggle, thinking of what Hunter would say. All that swearing wouldn’t be very diplomatic.
Kate reaches for a book and offers it to me. ‘You can borrow it to learn all you need about whales for our meeting.’
‘I don’t know if it’ll be that easy to get inside,’ I say.
‘No worries, I’ll email the embassy, so they know we’re coming.’
‘What if they ignore you?’
‘Mum says I should contact the newspapers and television stations. She says whenever there’s a camera around, people can’t say no.’
As if on cue, Kate’s mum arrives home from work, carrying a briefcase, her high heels clicking on the timber kitchen floor. She waves to us and mimes having a drink. I’m not sure if she’s asking if we’d like a drink, or saying she can’t wait to have one herself, so I just smile.
A minute later she carries a tray of soft drinks and chocolate biscuits out to us.
‘Hi Jesse.’ She smiles. ‘Have you and Kate saved the world yet?’
‘Almost, Mrs Hughes,’ I say.
‘Call me Aristea please,’ she says.
I wonder what that name means.
Mrs Hughes smiles. ‘I bet I know what you’re thinking. It means the best ever.’ She pours Kate and me a glass of lemon drink. ‘When I was Kate’s age, I never told anyone that. I used to come up with fake meanings to avoid embarrassment.’
‘It’s lovely,’ I say.
‘I’ve grown into it, you might say.’ Mrs Hughes points at the biscuits on the tray. ‘Eat them all okay. It’ll be hours before dinner.’ She walks back into the kitchen, humming.
I reach for a biscuit. ‘Aristea, goddess of chocolate biscuits!’
Kate laughs.
I offer her the tray. She shakes her head. ‘The chocolate gets caught in my braces.’ She blushes.
‘That’s okay,’ I say. ‘It means you’ll have the taste of chocolate in your mouth for longer.’
Kate reaches for a biscuit. ‘You always see the positives, don’t you, Jesse?’
My mouth is full of crumbs, so I just nod.
‘Maybe we should take a packet of biscuits to the embassy. To encourage them to eat biscuits, not whales,’ says Kate.
‘Now there’s a slogan,’ I say.
Kate and I both giggle. Kate says, ‘One, two, three,’ and together we shout, ‘Eat biscuits, not whales!’
Misty whines from the garden and starts chasing her tail again.
25
HUNTER
After school on Friday, Hunter enters the phone number of the Salvation Army into his mobile and listens for a ringing tone. He sits on the bed in the spare room, staring at the boxes of his father’s cast-off clothes.
‘Hello,’ a lady’s voice answers.
‘Hi,’ says Hunter. ‘I’ve got lots of clothes.’
There’s silence on the end of the line.
‘I don’t want them,’ Hunter adds. ‘They’re not mine.’ He stands and pushes a box away with his foot.
‘You can bring them into the store, if you wish,’ the lady says. ‘Ask for Margaret.’
Hunter looks at the three boxes in the corner. It’s too many to carry.
‘Um, okay,’ he says. Three trips to the shops just to get rid of a bunch of rags.
‘I’ll be here until five today,’ Margaret says, before hanging up.
Hunter sighs and tosses his phone onto the bed. He lifts the top box in both hands. It doesn’t weigh much, but he can’t carry all three to the shops in one go. Maybe he should just leave them on the footpath and hope someone will take them away.
He walks into his bedroom and looks out the window. Mrs Betts is wheeling the rubbish bin out to the gutter. He looks down the street. Everyone’s bin is on the footpath, like a sentry line of smelly soldiers. Hunter imagines himself under cover of darkness, running up and down either side of the street, dumping his father’s clothes into each bin. A shirt here, a jacket there. He giggles. He could set the stopwatch on his phone. How long would it take to remove all traces of his father?
He thinks of all the homeless people who could use the clothes. Kate and Jesse would definitely take them to the Salvos. Maybe he should phone Bleakboy. He’s such a do-gooder, he’d come round and help carry the boxes to the shops.
‘Ha!’
He walks downstairs to where the rubbish bin stands beside the garden shed. He tilts the bin, opens the side gate and pulls it onto the footpath. He checks his watch. Still an hour until Mum gets home from work. He walks around the back but before going inside, he spies his old skateboard next to the shed.
Hunter picks it up and spins the wheels. A little squeaky, but they still roll. He carries it upstairs to the spare room and puts it on the floor beside the boxes. Carefully, he lifts a carton and balances it on the skateboard. He stacks a second box on top. Then a third. The pile looks cumbersome and awkward. Hunter stands behind the boxes and pushes them across the bedroom floor. The skateboard trundles along.
‘Ha!’
Hunter lifts the top box from the pile and carries it downstairs and out to the footpath. He races back upstairs for the next box. Soon enough, Hunter and his dad’s clothes are rumbling down the footpath toward the shops. When he gets to the bottom of the street, he slowly turns the wide load and it clatters across th
e road. A woman in a four-wheel drive smiles as she waits for Hunter to get to the other side.
The gutter looms in front of him. Normally, there’s a flat section for cyclists, but not here. Hunter pushes the skateboard into the gutter and unloads one box at a time. He kick-flips the skateboard onto the footpath and reloads the boxes. He’s sweating with effort when he reaches the Salvation Army store three doors down from the Berliner Cafe. He remembers his mum and the man at the cafe. His mum smiling as she held the rose.
A woman wearing a black-and-white chequered dress with white stockings comes out of the Salvos and, when she sees Hunter’s load, holds the door open for him. He wheels the skateboard through the doorway.
‘Men’s or women’s clothes?’ the woman asks.
‘My dad’s,’ Hunter answers.
‘Oh well,’ the woman says, before walking away.
Hunter hears the bell above the door tinkle as it shuts behind him. He pushes the boxes along the lino floor toward the counter.
A woman wearing glasses with a purple scarf covering her hair walks out from the rear of the store.
‘So, what have we here, young man? A year’s supply of comics? Broken toys and a video game from the dark ages?’
‘Are you Margaret?’ Hunter asks.
The lady tilts her glasses and looks at Hunter. ‘One and the same,’ she says. ‘Did you ring earlier about clothes?’
Hunter nods.
‘Well, bless me, finally we may have a donation that doesn’t go straight to the tip.’ She opens the top box and pulls out one of Hunter’s dad’s work shirts, nodding approvingly. She lifts a few more shirts from the box, holding each one up to the light, inspecting the collars and the stitching along the sides.
‘Excellent quality, young man,’ she says. ‘I won’t even bother checking the other two boxes. You have a trustworthy face.’
No-one has ever said that before, Hunter thinks.
‘May I ask whose clothes they are?’ Margaret says.
‘My dad’s.’
Margaret removes her glasses.
‘And he’s?’ She bites her lip and waits for Hunter to finish the sentence.
It occurs to Hunter that she thinks his dad is dead.
Bleakboy and Hunter Stand Out in the Rain Page 9
