The Peacock Detectives

by Carly Nugent

  One of the most important characters in this story is my dad. He is important because he is part of this story, but also because I wouldn’t be able to write this story without him. My dad knows more about books and writing than anyone else I know.

  My dad teaches English and English literature (which is like English, except the books are harder to learn about). He loves reading books and then talking about them, but he doesn’t talk about which character was his favourite or which bit he thought was the best. Instead he talks about Themes, which are ideas that books have in them. Dad says Themes are what books are really about. I don’t know how Dad finds Themes, because when I read books I just find characters and things that happen to characters. Dad says I have to look-beneath-the-surface, but when I look-beneath-the-surface of my books I just see my hands.

  ‘What about Huck Finn,’ Dad asked me, once. ‘What do you think that book’s about?’

  ‘It’s about a boy called Huck,’ I said, ‘having adventures with a man called Jim.’

  ‘Yes,’ Dad said. ‘But it’s really about freedom, and escaping from society.’

  ‘Is it?’ I said. ‘Which chapter?’

  Dad just smiled and told me a story about when he and Mum were at university together and they made posters and went to something called a rally and Dad got arrested for yelling a word at a policeman that I’m not allowed to say until I’m older.

  I’m not sure if this story will have Themes in it. I don’t know if I have to write them or if they will just get in by themselves or if the people reading this will put them in. Dad says not to worry and that when I’m older I will understand. But I still do worry, a bit.

  My dad is also important to this story because a lot of things about me come from him, so if you want to understand me you need to understand my dad, too. For example, I get my hair from my dad. It is dark and thick and curly and whenever there’s a thunderstorm bits of it frizz up and fly around the way normal people’s hair will if you rub a balloon across it for a while. Dad’s hair is short, but you can still see the curls. They sit close to his head, like those little scrub bushes you see by the beach. He has pale skin like mine that is covered in freckles in lots of places, like the tops of his arms and his nose. He is older than my mum and has more wrinkles than she does and in different places. My dad has glasses but he only wears them when he has something serious to read. If it’s Saturday morning and he’s having a nice breakfast with coffee and eggs and reading the newspaper he never puts his glasses on. But if he’s just got our school reports, or if there’s a bill from the gas company in the mail, then he pulls his glasses out of the drawer and puts them on the end of his nose really carefully. He says he can read without his glasses, but he reads better with them. He sees more details, he says, when he has them on. Like without them a tree just looks like a puffy green cloud, but with glasses every leaf is clear.

  About half the time my dad is a serious sort of dad, the kind that puts on glasses and marks essays and wants to be left alone. And about half the time my dad is a fun sort of dad, the kind that tells jokes and ruffles my hair and takes Simon for walks and gives me books to read. My dad used to write stories of his own, but then he became a teacher and had children and got a mortgage and now he says he doesn’t have time to write. He says that’s okay and that he wouldn’t want to change me and Mum and Diana for all the books in the world. But he gets some wrinkles in his forehead when he says this, and I think that somewhere deep down in him he really does still want to write stories. And I think it makes that place deep down a little bit happier when he helps me write mine.

  After school I went looking for the peacocks with Jonas, but I couldn’t concentrate. Partly because Jonas kept telling me interesting facts, but mostly because I was thinking about Rhea Grimm. So when William Shakespeare slunk out from behind a bush I didn’t see him in time, and he got away.

  When I got home I wanted my brain to stop thinking so I went to my room to read for a while. When I want to stop thinking, my favourite kinds of books to read are mysteries, like Sherlock Holmes and Nancy Drew. Dad doesn’t like mysteries. He says they are lollies for your brain and that I should read harder books with Themes in them, like Lord of the Flies. But I think that sometimes it is good to read mysteries because it gives your brain a rest from thinking about things like freedom and society and meaning. Which is important, because if you spend too much time thinking about meaning you start to get quiet and sad and you don’t want to play tennis-on-a-string with your kids anymore.

  At the moment I am reading a mystery book called The Hound of the Baskervilles, which is a Sherlock Holmes story about a huge dog that goes around at night on a moor and frightens and hurts and even kills people. It’s a really good story and after I had been reading it for a little while my brain stopped thinking about Rhea Grimm and started thinking about detective work and creepy old houses and Dr Watson. I was up to the part where Dr Watson goes to stay at the house on the moor and writes letters to Sherlock Holmes about all the things he notices. And it made me think about my own mystery (which was the mystery of why the peacocks had run away and where they were now) and about how writing things down can help when you are stuck. So I got out my Notebook for Noticing and started to write a To Do List.

  To Do Lists are important because they help you remember things. Mum has lots of To Do Lists but they are not about investigating. Most of her To Do Lists she sticks on the fridge and those are lists of things like ‘buy carrots’ or ‘get the fan in the bathroom fixed’. She’s got other To Do Lists that she keeps in a book in a drawer next to her side of the bed. She doesn’t show those To Do Lists to anyone. Not even Dad.

  My To Do List looked like this:

  1) Fill Jonas in on the things I already know about the peacocks.

  2) Check out places where Virginia and William Shakespeare might be hiding.

  3) Interview people who might know important details about the peacocks.

  4) Do maths homework. (This wasn’t part of my investigation but it was still something I had to do.)

  5) Find out what Buddhism is. (This was also not part of finding the peacocks, but it was part of me trying to understand fourteen-turning-fifteen Diana. I decided to make it a Long-Term Goal, like when Mum writes in her book that she wants to ‘learn Spanish’ or ‘take a break’.)

  After I had finished writing my To Do List I looked at it and tried to decide what I should do first. I couldn’t talk to Jonas until school tomorrow, and I couldn’t check out The Other Side of Town (where I suspected the peacocks might be hiding) because it was too close to dinnertime. I couldn’t do my maths homework because I didn’t want to, and finding out about Buddhism was a Long-Term Goal that needed the Internet, which I’m not allowed to have until I’m thirteen. So the only thing on my To Do List that I could actually do was interview people. I drew a circle around number 3 and closed my notebook.

  Mum was in the kitchen doing her homework. In January Mum started taking night classes at TAFE to learn more about cooking, and her homework was always chopping or baking or frying something. Today she was poking into a pot of pasta with a fork. The bench was covered in recipe books and notepaper and splotches of what looked like yoghurt. Everything smelled like spaghetti and meatballs, only sort of bittersweet. Before she started night classes Mum’s cooking was always delicious, but it was not so complicated.

  ‘Mum?’ I said.

  ‘Yep.’ She was looking at the pot of pasta like it was a bomb about to explode.

  ‘Can I interview you?’

  ‘Just a second,’ she said, and then she counted under her breath ‘three, two, one’ and lifted the pot off the stove.

  ‘That was three seconds,’ I said, while she was draining the boiling water into the sink.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Can I interview you?’

  ‘All right, I suppose so.’ She handed me something that looked like a cross between an orange and a turnip. ‘Can you peel that?’

>   I stuck my thumbnail under the pointy end. ‘How long have you been friends with Mrs Hudson?’

  Mum got the Kitchen Wizz out of the cupboard. ‘Polly? Gosh, I don’t know. Since we moved here. Six, seven years.’

  I pulled the weirdly smooth skin all the way down. ‘And how long—’ The inside of the orange-turnip was full of little pale pink pebbly things. ‘What is this?’

  ‘A pomegranate,’ Mum said. ‘Here, pass me some of those seeds.’

  I gave her a handful of the pebbles and she put them in the Kitchen Wizz. ‘How long have Mr and Mrs Hudson had the peacocks?’

  ‘Quite a while,’ Mum said. ‘Five years or so.’ Then she pressed start on the Kitchen Wizz, so I had to pause the interview.

  While the interview was on pause I looked carefully at my mum. My mum is not tall, but not short. She is not fat, but not skinny, either. She has tanned skin and freckles all the way from the tops of her arms to her shoulders. She has really dark brown hair that she keeps cut just long enough so she can tuck the ends behind her ears. I’ve seen photos from when Mum was at university and her hair was so long it went all the way down to her bum. When I asked her once why she doesn’t have long hair anymore she just laughed and said she’s too old. My mum is thirty-nine. If you’re standing far away from her you can’t really tell, but up close you can see lines around her eyes and her mouth.

  I never really think about my mum being beautiful. I think this is because I see her every day, and I have seen her every day since I was born. Usually when I look at her I don’t see her hair and her skin and her eyes, and I don’t remember that she has a Master’s in History and does other things like working in the public library and writing letters to her mum and dad who live in Perth (which is so far away it is in a different time zone). I just see my mum, who is the person who buys me clothes and packs my lunch and gets annoyed at me when I am being a nuisance. Maybe if I went away for a while and then came back I would notice how beautiful she is. I know a lot of people think my mum is beautiful. Like my dad. I can tell by the way he looks at her sometimes when he thinks nobody else is watching. He gets this sort of half-smile and his eyes go faraway, the way Simon’s do when he is staring at someone cooking chops on the barbecue. When Dad looks at Mum it seems like he is remembering something really, really lovely.

  Mum stopped the Kitchen Wizz and held out her hand. I passed her some more pomegranate pebbles. ‘Are you and Mrs Hudson best friends?’

  ‘We’re good friends,’ Mum said. She put the pomegranate pebbles in the Kitchen Wizz.

  ‘So you talk a lot?’ I asked this question quickly, before Mum could turn the Kitchen Wizz on again. I knew Mum and Mrs Hudson talked a lot because Mrs Hudson is always coming over for a cuppa, and I thought she might have told Mum a secret about the peacocks that she hadn’t told me. But I didn’t want Mum to know I knew, because then she might get suspicious and not tell me anything.

  ‘I suppose so.’ Mum’s finger was hovering over the ON switch.

  ‘Do you tell each other everything?’

  ‘We tell each other a lot of things.’

  ‘Secrets?’

  ‘Now and then.’

  ‘Secrets you don’t tell to anyone else? Not even me?’

  ‘Cassandra, what does this have to do with—’

  ‘Not even Dad?’

  Mum moved her hand away from the ON switch. For a moment it seemed like she didn’t know where to put it. Then she put both her hands on her hips.

  ‘All right, that’s enough. I’m busy, and you’ve got maths homework to do.’

  ‘But I was just—’

  ‘Off you go.’

  Mum pressed ON before I could say anything else. She stared at the churning pomegranate pebbles and for a minute her cheeks were the same colour as the pink mush. I knew the interview was over. I put the unpeeled part of the pomegranate on the bench. For the third time since my peacock investigation began, I felt like I was close to knowing something. But I still seemed to know nothing at all.

  From Tuesday to Thursday nothing interesting happened, but today was Grandpa’s birthday so we went to The Very Nice Restaurant for tea. The Very Nice Restaurant is Very Nice because you have to walk up steps to get to it (so it is a little bit higher than all the other restaurants and shops on the street) and it has its own garden with perfectly short grass and white rose bushes that are mostly thorns. It also has white tablecloths and a coat room, and it doesn’t have a kids’ menu. The Very Nice Restaurant is actually Mum’s favourite restaurant. Grandpa’s favourite restaurant is staying home and watching cricket and eating fish and chips. But even though it was Grandpa’s birthday (and even though he is Dad’s dad, not Mum’s), Mum still got to choose because she is the person in our family who is in charge of Special Occasions.

  When we got to The Very Nice Restaurant, Roger opened the door for us. Roger is the head waiter. He has black hair that always looks wet and red hands from carrying hot plates and washing dishes. Mum knows Roger from night classes. Sometimes he gives her a lift home and sometimes she gives him things in Tupperware containers, like peanut butter brownies or leftover roast dinner. ‘He’s all on his own,’ Mum says. ‘It’s hard cooking for one.’

  ‘Have you tried the coconut friands yet?’ Roger said to Mum while he was taking our coats.

  ‘Yes, amazing!’ Mum said. ‘Have you tackled the jus?’

  ‘Not yet,’ Roger said. ‘I’m waiting for some tips from the master.’

  ‘Oh. Well,’ Mum said (which is what she always says when she is embarrassed and doesn’t know what to say).

  Roger showed us our table, and when we sat down he unfolded our white cloth serviettes and put them on our laps for us. Then he went away so we could think about the wine list. A lot of people must have been celebrating Special Occasions today, because The Very Nice Restaurant was busy and noisy, which wasn’t good for Grandpa because he can’t hear very well in busy and noisy places. When Dad asked, ‘What would you like to drink, Dad?’ Grandpa yelled back, ‘Very nice, thank you, Mark,’ and the Special Occasion wasn’t off to a good start.

  We were still waiting for our food when Grandpa almost-yelled at Diana for not going to church on Sunday. He couldn’t all-the-way-yell at her for two reasons. First, we were in The Very Nice Restaurant, where even old people have to be on their best behaviour. And second, Grandpa had a bad cough that kept interrupting his sentences. Every time Grandpa coughed Dad looked at Mum, and Mum looked at Diana, and Diana looked at the tablecloth. No one looked at me, which I thought was pretty rude. I felt bad for Diana, though. Grandpa is hardly ever angry with anyone, and if he is he never yells (or even almost-yells) at them.

  ‘What are you going to do without church?’ Grandpa cleared his throat. ‘You’ve got to believe in something.’

  ‘I do,’ Diana said in a calm, clear voice that didn’t shake at all. ‘I believe in Buddhism.’

  Grandpa’s lips let out a sound that was a bit like a fart and a bit like a car breaking down. ‘Buddhism! What sort of thing is that to believe in?’

  ‘It’s about thinking,’ I said, because nobody else was saying anything. (Mum was talking to Roger about the best way to stir soup and Dad was staring deep into his glass of wine like he was expecting to see something swimming in there.) But Grandpa didn’t hear me.

  ‘It’s just as good as believing in church,’ Diana said quietly.

  ‘No, it bloody well isn’t!’ This was very unlike Grandpa, because usually he swears even less than he yells. He coughed and Diana passed him a glass of water. Dad looked at Mum. Mum looked at Diana. Diana looked at the tablecloth.

  ‘I don’t want to fight with you, Grandpa,’ Diana said. This was really surprising because Diana (especially fourteen-turning-fifteen Diana) will fight with anyone if she thinks she’s right. Even adults. I couldn’t tell if it was the Buddhism, or The Very Nice Restaurant, or something else altogether, but Diana and Grandpa were definitely acting weird.

  Then
our food came and for the rest of Grandpa’s birthday everyone talked about boring things like where Dad bought his shirts and how Mum could never find any fresh lemongrass in the supermarket. And the only other interesting thing that happened was that when it was time to pay, Dad whispered something to Grandpa and Grandpa gave his credit card to Roger. This was interesting because usually Mum is very strict about the person whose Special Occasion it is not paying.

  Every time I looked at Grandpa after his almost-fight with Diana I got a heavy feeling in my stomach, like I had swallowed one of the shot-puts we use on athletics days at school. I thought that Grandpa almost-yelling at Diana about Buddhism was not fair, since he didn’t really know what Buddhism was. And usually my grandpa is really fair. My grandpa is the kind of person who helps people with their gardens and gives money to soup kitchens and lets me pass him tools when he is fixing the car. And I’m worried that when you read this chapter you will think my Grandpa is not a nice character because he almost-yelled at Diana. What you don’t know is that he is the kind of person you could love so much that you feel like you might burst. And that will mean I’m not good at writing stories, because I haven’t given you all the information you need to understand.

  Writing a story is sometimes like being a detective. When you are being a detective you have to collect a lot of information. Some of the pieces of information will turn out to be clues, and some of them will turn out to be Red Herrings. A Red Herring is something that seems important but actually isn’t. It is also a kind of fish. At the start of your investigation it’s hard to tell which things are clues and which are fish so you have to collect everything. But later, when you have done a lot of detecting and you start to see which direction your investigation is going in, it’s easier to tell the clues from the Red Herrings. Then you can throw away the fish and solve the mystery.