by Nette Hilton
The door clanged shut.
‘Me. I’d be eating up. Takes too long to starve. Fellers out here’ll do you in no time flat. Bloody CIB blokes. Mad, they are. You’re not getting off this lot, mate!’
The footsteps rang hollow as they drifted further along the walkway. The voice of the guard rang hollow as well as it reassured everyone that the little kiddie-killer’d be theirs soon enough.
It was going to be easy.
In the exercise yard, here he would make sure that he was alone.
45
OCTOBER
‘CHARMAINE’
It was Saturday and on Monday she would be going back to school. There was talk about going for half a day and then working up to full days but Missie was sick of being home, sick of being sick and had decided that she was definitely not going to be home at lunchtime napping like a baby.
Besides, Zill hadn’t gone yet and Jimmy said she’d have to come back to school or old Dulcie’d be after her. They’d been down to visit, some of the teachers from school including the headmaster, Mr Glasson, and he never went anywhere like that, Jimmy said. He saw them all leaving Zill’s house last week.
They saw him, too, he said and they didn’t wave, not even when he’d hollered out ‘g’day’.
‘Not very nice, if you ask me,’ he was saying as they sat in the warmth of the afternoon sun on the steps at the end of the pool. They’d started off lower down near the edge of the water but they had gradually moved up as the sun got lower in the sky. From here they could see the full rectangular shape of the pool, the narrow board that separated it from the river and the small heave of the water as it slurped through the opening below the board and above the submerged rails. You couldn’t see the bottom of the pool, or where it went from shallow to deep. It was all the same thick brown muddy colour.
‘We swim in that,’ Missie said. ‘Pretty yucky, don’t you reckon?’
They’d not spoken about Buster or Max but it was hanging out there, just waiting for the right way to get itself into their conversation. Here, in the sunlight and pale green rush of new leaves on trees, it was hard to imagine sitting so close to Jimmy and sharing such awful secrets.
‘Better than swimming out there.’ Jimmy pointed to the far end, where a diving board jutted out over the river. ‘There’s eels in there. Big uns, too. The old man came down and caught a couple.’
Missie’s face screwed up in disgust. ‘Ew, yuk. What’d he do that for?’
‘To eat ’em!’ Jimmy looked at her. ‘Bloody orright, too.’
Neither of them spoke for a while. The silence was full of Buster and it was making Missie uncomfortable.
‘It was true, what I said,’ she finally stated. ‘ ... The other day.’
‘Never said it wasn’t,’ Jimmy said.
‘Well, say something about it,’ Missie countered.
‘I did the other day.’
‘I want you to say something now.’
Jimmy threw down the twig he was shredding. He picked up a small stone and lobbed it into the pool. ‘Don’t know what to say.’ He collected another stone, a bigger one and watched it plonk wearily into the pool. ‘Won’t make any difference anyway. Max’s not gonna get caught. He’s as slippery as one of them eels.’
They sat long enough for the sun to force them to move to the highest and last step. It’d be time to go home soon and Missie wasn’t sure she wanted to go back without some sort of plan, some way to think about all this so that it could be safely put away and never drawn out again.
‘My old man said that bloke who done it would cop it in jail. I heard him telling Dotty Evans that they get bashed up real bad.’
‘Oleksander Mykola?’
‘Yeah, him.’
Missie tried to make sense of a jail with people getting bashed up. You got put in there to learn how to be good. Not to go around belting people up. It’d be difficult, surely, if they were all locked up in their cells. They had bars on the cages. And Oleksander was so thin. His hands were lovely and his fingers so long they’d snap right off if you grabbed too hard.
How could you bash someone like that?
‘They won’t bash him if he didn’t do it,’ Missie said.
‘They don’t know that though, do they?’
‘They will, though...’
Jimmy turned slowly. He had his hand on his knee and he looked over his arm as he spoke. ‘How?’
Missie thought hard. ‘He was only doing his drawings. I’ll say I saw him and then they’ll know that he never did anything.’
Jimmy’s eyes squinted up tight as he looked out into the sunlight. ‘If you say that you might as well tell them about Buster and the boy in Saleby and the train. And Judith Mae. And her yellow cardigan.’ He turned to face her. ‘They’re grownups, Missie. They’re not gonna believe you. They never do.’
Missie tried to paint a picture of herself standing in front of Barney Spence and her mother and Aunt Belle saying all of this, saying any of this, and she couldn’t see it. Aunt Belle would shush her just as soon as she got to Max’s name, and Barney Spence’d be really cross when she told about Judith’s little cardie. And her mum’d kill her!
‘We have to do something,’ she said.
Jimmy didn’t answer. The look he gave her before he went back to digging dirt out of the concrete cracks said it all.
‘We’ll set a trap,’ she said.
There were always traps in books. The Famous Five did it all the time. And in Treasure Island. And Dick Tracy.
‘I’ll make them believe me,’ she said. She felt herself grow taller and was pleased Jimmy Johnson had to sit a little straighter to match her new height. ‘We’ll set a trap and they’ll see it all with their very own eyes.’
Jimmy looked at her as if she might have blown a fuse. ‘You’re loony, you are,’ he finally said and twirled his fingers in front of his ears. ‘Nuts!’
Missie sat straight.
She wasn’t nuts.
She wasn’t too sure about the plan or the trap but she definitely wasn’t nuts. This was going to work. Somehow.
When she didn’t move Jimmy looked up at her again and then slowly straightened. ‘You wanna think what Max might do if you try and set a trap for him. He’s cunning. I reckon he’ll smell a rat real fast.’
The sun was drifting further beyond the trees and the air, without the warm blush of spring sunshine, was cooling fast. She’d have to go home soon or else there’d be trouble. She’d have to go home, trouble or not. She wasn’t all that keen on another bout of glandular fever.
‘We have to do something,’ she said quietly.
‘Yeah, well, whatever it is, it’s gonna have to work or else he’ll get us,’ Jimmy said. ‘Struth, Missie. I reckon he’d be onto you like–’
‘Flies on a cow’s bum.’
Jimmy grinned. ‘Yeah. But it’s not me he’s gonna get, is it? He doesn’t even know me much. But he can get you. You only live down the hall.’
Missie stood up. She felt better now that there was going to be a plan. ‘It’ll have to be good, then, won’t it.’
Jimmy wandered after her. They leapt from step to step and finally landed hard on the concrete walkway. The pool slurped and rolled its shadows into oily shapes and Missie instinctively stepped further back.
They wandered around to the narrow stairway and up to the gravel drive that led to the top of their hill and home.
Their footsteps sent small pebbles rattling back down behind them and the way ahead was full of pink sky. It was lovely, this moment. Just like one of her paintings.
‘It’s my birthday party soon,’ Missie suddenly said.
‘Oh yeah.’
‘Yeah. I’m having it now because I got sick for so long.’
‘Who’s coming?’
It was on the tip of her tongue to say Mary and Joannie Melon and Leonie and the girls that she’d so long wanted to have at her very own birthday, but a whole new plan was opening up.
; ‘Zilla,’ she said. ‘And you ... and a couple of others from school. Maybe Mary and Joannie. And Max.’
She paused for a moment. ‘And Buster.’
Jimmy stopped. ‘You’re nuts. What about all that don’t-tell-Max-I-was-in-his-room?’ he mimicked.
Missie stalked off. ‘You just don’t want to do it, Jimmy Johnson. You’re scared.’ She walked backwards. ‘Scaredy-cat scaredy-cat.’
It didn’t make her feel better.
She didn’t even feel angry. It was another feeling that had more to do with the way he’d made fun of her than not helping her make a plan.
She suddenly remembered a rabbit that she’d found in a paddock down near the marsh. She’d held it close and it snuggled into her arms. She soothed it with her fingers and then gently touched its velvety nose and its long whiskers. And it bit her.
Jimmy Johnson was the same as that bloody old rabbit.
‘I’m not frightened, Missie. I could whip Max with one hand tied behind me back.’ He collected the rattletrap.
Missie folded her arms.
‘I’m tellin’ you. If you take Buster and he finds out, he’ll have you, Missie. And you know it. That’s why you didn’t want him to know about you being in his room.’
Missie thought about her mother saying she was silly.
‘He probably knows anyway,’ she said. ‘And he hasn’t done anything about it.’ She shrugged and looked away.
‘Inside, Missie!’ her mother called through the front door. ‘You’d better get yourself off home, Jimmy Johnson. It’s getting late. Come around to the kitchen door before you go.’
‘S’orright, Mrs Missinger. I’m off to Dotty Evans’s. She’s ’specting me to do a bit of a cleanup and then we’re having tea.’
Missie started to wander up the driveway to the front door. She’d have to go around the back though. Aunt Belle said the front door was only for the guests but there was no-one looking.
‘Leave it, Missie.’ Jimmy caught up to her. ‘Won’t make any difference.’
It was making her want to cry. Her mind was full of Max and bloody Buster and how Jimmy had picked on her, and now here was Jimmy not doing anything at all about it.
‘It’s just not fair.’ Tears prickled at her eyes. Her nose’d be going red. ‘Go home, Jimmy Johnson.’
Then he did the most amazing thing. He put his arm around her shoulder and didn’t really give her a hug exactly ... but left it there for a second as if he was waiting to see what it might do. Then he took it away and hurried back to his bike.
He turned back before he planted his foot on the pedal ready to heave his other leg over the bar. He got halfway down the drive, then turned and looked up.
‘He’s watching,’ he said and lifted his hand in a girly wave. ‘Hello Max,’ he called sweetly. ‘You’re a bloody drongo.’
Missie giggled. She looked up as well but didn’t wave.
Max did. He waved back to Jimmy and then, as soon as Jimmy had scooted off around the corner, let his hand close and simply gazed down at Missie.
She looked away and wandered up the steps and across the porch. She’d almost reached the hydrangeas when she heard the front door open and saw Max step out into the square of light thrown from the hallway.
‘Children aren’t allowed to use that door,’ Missie said. She made sure her way was clear up the side and into the kitchen. She didn’t want to talk to Max. Not at all. Not about anything.
‘I own this house. I can use any door I like.’
Missie turned to leave. It wasn’t Max on the front porch that scared her. It was the other one, the Max in the shadow of a tall tree, or hidden on the other side of a wall or bush. Max was a choice between a lion attacking you or a snake. And you’d maybe be able to get out of the way of a lion, or have giant bandages to show everyone where he’d tried to tear your arms off. But a snake ... nothing to see or hear and nothing, when it was finished, to even show. Just two invisible little marks full of poison.
‘Stop when I’m talking to you.’
Missie stopped. She slowly turned around, her hand on the corner and the quickest way down the steps already decided. ‘What?’
‘What were you talking about?’
Her face was going to give her away. It was already heating up. And her collar was suddenly too tight. Like the top button had managed to get done up all by itself.
‘None of your business.’ She turned to go, holding on to the corner to give herself a quick getaway.
‘I saw you,’ he said. ‘Down at the pool, sitting there hugging and kissing.’
Missie spun around. ‘I was not!’
‘Were too.’ Max rested his hands in his pockets. ‘Bet your mum doesn’t know that.’
Missie started towards him. Her hand balled into a fist and she was going to let him have it if he didn’t shut it.
‘Mum!’ Max called. And backed up a little. ‘Hey Mum!’
Aunt Belle’s voice and footsteps could be heard coming along the corridor. ‘For goodness sake, Max, lower your voice and come in and close the door.’ Her face appeared around the corner. ‘Whatever’s the matter?’ She noticed Missie, who’d quickly uncurled her hand. ‘And you, Missie. I heard your mother calling you twenty minutes ago. Inside now, both of you.’
She disappeared back into the house and Max waited until her footsteps faded. ‘What’d you tell him?’
Before she could move, Max grabbed her arm above the elbow. His fingers slid around so the softest part of her arm was gripped tight and then he squeezed. ‘You’d better tell me.’
Missie could feel it burning. She could feel how close her skin was to splitting as he twisted her flesh. But it was a lion attack and she could see his face. ‘I told him about Judith’s cardigan.’ She felt his fingers ease and snatched her arm away. ‘So there.’
‘What?’ he said. ‘You told him how you hid it so you wouldn’t get caught by your mother’s fancy copper man?’
Missie lunged. She shoved and clawed her hands at his face but he was too quick. He ducked back behind the door and held it in front of him, like a shield, his face smirking at her efforts to push it open.
‘I told him how you hid it!’ Missie yelled into his face, wanting to see the smile disappear. ‘I told him how you hid it and then you took it down to Oleks’s room.’
‘Ooooh.’ He wiggled his hips about and rolled his eyes. ‘Oli, Oli, Oli.’
The door was flung open. ‘Upstairs, Max.’ Aunt Belle stood aside for him to leave. ‘I don’t know what’s got into you. Or where your manners are. And you, little miss. How dare you stand on the porch and scream and carry on like a common fishwife.’ She took Missie by the shoulder. ‘Marcie. Can you please control this child!’
Now her mother appeared, wiping her hands on her apron and looking from Aunt Belle to Missie and then back again.
Before she knew it she’d copped a quick, stinging slap to the backs of her legs and there wasn’t even time to bellow. Her mouth had barely opened and she was in the kitchen and stood in the corner.
‘Don’t you dare move, miss,’ her mother said quietly. ‘I don’t know what’s got into you.’
‘That’s what Aunt Belle said.’
Another slap, one that wasn’t quite so hard.
‘Don’t talk back,’ her mother said. ‘It doesn’t suit you, Missie. You’re much too smart to carry on like that.’
A chair was placed behind her. ‘Straight into bed after dinner tonight. And if this carries on there’ll be no Saturday matinee for you, my girl, you mark my words.’
Missie looked over her shoulder. She didn’t care if she never went to a Saturday matinee or not. They were dumb anyway, and the serials never really matched up. Not like they would have if they’d been on the radio.
Missie looked back to the corner. Her neck was hurting, her arm was throbbing and her legs burned with the leftover itch of hard slaps.
‘I don’t know what I’m going to do with you, miss Missie Missinger.
’ A warm drink was passed over her shoulder. ‘Don’t you dare carry on like that ever again!’
Missie sipped her drink. It soothed her and the heat went out of her face, and her body settled into its new aches and pains more comfortably. She let her mind drift back over this afternoon with Jimmy Johnson and felt warm all over again when she remembered his arm across her shoulder.
He wanted to protect her, just like Julian in the Famous Five was always protecting Fanny. George didn’t need protecting. She was a bit of a tomboy. Lois Lane needed protecting...
Missie dreamed on. She made up stories with herself as Lois and Jimmy as Superman. Sometimes she was Maid Marian and Jimmy was Robin Hood. She drifted back to this afternoon and tried to find a moment when he was acting like a hero.
There didn’t seem to be one.
She thought of the afternoon sun and the water and the river and their voices. And she shuddered so violently her mother paused as she was passing through the kitchen door to touch her.
‘Are you all right?’
Missie nodded. It wouldn’t make any difference, that’s what Jimmy had said. So she didn’t bother trying to explain how the thought of Max hidden in the long grass watching them, and listening, sent a chill though her veins.
Like a snake.
Missie waited until the tea soothed her again. She imagined it spreading its milky warmth out along her arms and fingers and into her legs.
Snakes got shot.
If she’d had a gun she’d shoot Max right up the arse. She entertained herself with new stories of Max hurting her and twisting her arm and she, suddenly, grabbing her hidden gun and holding it to his head and then, when he turned to run, bang! It was a sudden way to end a story and she had to keep starting again to try and make them longer.
She didn’t have a gun, though.
And Max would go unpunished. He’d be there to listen and watch and hide and dob for as long as he wanted.
He had her right where he wanted her. He slithered off and hid and struck out whenever it pleased him.
A tiny secret smile warmed right through her insides.
Until now she always jumped clear.
