by Tiffiny Hall
‘Wouldn’t be the first time,’ Tyler mutters. Poor Tyler, he is so proud of his invention, but it really is an invitation for kids to mess with him. He won’t give it up, not even now that he’s known at school as ‘Insecto’.
Fleur arranges her bags under the tree, like it’s Christmas. Packages with satin bows, orange boxes and shiny white bags roped with designer ribbons nestle into each other as money floats down around them. Tyler and I lean heavily on our rakes and watch her caress the purchases.
‘So, you going to keep your stuff down here?’ I ask.
‘Perfect place for it,’ she says.
I revisit my mental list of things I want to buy. Why should Fleur have all the fun?
‘This plan?’ Tyler turns to me. ‘How do I fit in?’
Fleur stops playing with her gifts and faces me. ‘Yeah. This better be good.’
I walk a lap of the tree’s trunk and run my palm down the bark. Rippling under the brown coarseness is a current of golden sap. Fleur and Tyler stare at me.
‘When I first discovered this tree, I really wanted to use the money to help our family,’ I say. ‘Mum and Dad have had their old car forever. We must be the only family in Hatbridge sharing a bomb.’
‘You probably are,’ Tyler confirms.
‘Well, I say we buy Mum a new car. What do you think?’
Fleur and Tyler look at each other, then laugh.
‘Impossible!’ Tyler says. ‘It’s going to look suspicious handing over that much cash —’
‘Unless …’ I cut him off.
‘Unless what?’ Fleur asks.
‘We knew someone old enough to apply for a credit card and open up a bank account for us,’ I say.
Fleur looks at Tyler.
‘The Captain,’ he says.
Fleur and I don’t speak after we all agree to rake up the money, bundle the notes into one-thousand-dollar wads with rubber bands, then stack them in bricks to the side of the cellar. As we work, I think that Fleur and I have never said such mean things to each other before. No one has ever called me greedy. Fleur has never been selfish. I remember the first day of school and the croissant she bought me. The fight leaves my stomach double knotted. Whilst I’m feeling guilty, Fleur is busy styling staggered money steps against the wall. Tyler tries to lighten the mood, but stacking the money bricks feels more like a chore and soon we are all sick of money and leave to go upstairs to eat toasted cheese sandwiches.
Later, Tyler and I knock on his big brother’s bedroom door. The nerves are in my toes; they won’t stop wriggling. I know he’s eighteen, a bit of a hermit and will do anything to play computer games.
The door swings open. ‘What?’ asks a stretched-out version of Tyler, tall and lanky and big-nosed but still very handsome. I stare up at him, blinking.
Tyler told me he was christened Captain Dork in primary school but in high school stuck with Captain and now what was uncool has become his signature. Mum tells me this will happen to all of us when we grow up. Uncool will translate to edgy, but it’s hard to believe.
‘Little dudes,’ the Captain says. ‘To what do I owe this pleasure?’
‘We need your help,’ Tyler says. ‘And if you help us, there’s something in it for you.’
‘What could you possibly have that I need?’ the Captain asks. I can’t see past him into the dark cave of his bedroom.
Tyler lifts up a game in front of his face. The Captain lunges for it, but Tyler swipes it out of the way. ‘Easy, tiger,’ he says. Their mum and dad have banned the Captain from playing because it was interfering with his studies.
Tyler pauses, relishing the moment of being in control of his older brother. He stares up into the Captain’s eyes. ‘We can help with the ban if, and only if, you help us to open a bank account and apply for a credit card,’ he says.
The Captain takes a breath to ask questions.
‘Nah nah nah,’ Tyler interjects. ‘No questions. You are on a need-to-know basis. All you need to know is that Maxi is hooked up to all the latest games and can get them for you, and Maxi and I need this bank account to deposit her money for good, not evil.’
Tyler is looking out for me. He’s such a good friend. He’s even running the risk of becoming my best friend.
The Captain nods. He stands aside and we enter his dark room. He leads us over to his laptop.
‘Sign into your online banking,’ Tyler orders as the Captain hunches over his laptop and clicks away. ‘Yep, apply for a credit card. Put it under Julie Edwards, Maxi’s mum.’
I pull out my piece of paper with all the relevant information we will need. As I watch the Captain click ‘accept’ and ‘next’ through the stages of application, that wrong feeling begins to curdle again. Another lie. This time it’s a big one. I remind myself that this is all for something that will make Mum happy. Not to be philosophical about it, but is a wrong action still wrong if it makes someone else happy?
The Captain lifts his hands off the keyboard and turns to us. ‘How’d you get the money? I have to know or I won’t continue.’
Without hesitating, Tyler says, ‘She inherited it from her godmother.’
The Captain buys it. ‘Lucky girl,’ he says.
Chapter 12
‘Have you seen the electricity bill this month? It was on the bench and now it’s disappeared,’ Mum says, pulling the phone away from her ear. ‘No, no, I wasn’t asking you, Mum, I was asking Maxi,’ she tells Nanna on the phone. ‘It’s like there’s a bill fairy or something — the bills have stopped coming. I’ll have to call someone.’
‘Dad probably paid them,’ I suggest, trying to look innocent as I eat cereal at the kitchen table. I scratch my head with the spoon.
Mum pours a glass of water with one hand whilst holding the phone to her ear with the other and — I’m not lying — deliberately throws the whole thing all over me. Then she smiles and starts to laugh into the phone. When my mother laughs, it’s with her whole body, not just her mouth. ‘Maxi is scratching her head with the cutlery again,’ she tells Nanna.
I scowl at her.
‘I wasn’t born yesterday. Your father loves a to-do list, but when it comes to life administration or finding two matching socks in the morning or paying a bill on time, he can be hopeless,’ she says to both me and Nanna at the same time.
She and Nanna laugh on the phone. I use a tea towel to dry myself off, simultaneously patting off the water and patting myself on the back for cunningly stealing the mail every day. I take the bills and pay them at the post office in cash. The lady knows me now and it’s never questioned that a kid is carrying around enough cash to pay bills — a bit of small-change pocket money in a place like Hatbridge. I wonder where that credit card is. We ordered it to arrive by express post.
‘And every time I go to my wallet I find a fresh fifty,’ Mum continues to Nanna. ‘Yesterday I spent it on perfume at work. I would never! But it was there, same as the day before when I bought a lovely leg of lamb for dinner. It’s so nice to have the PhD all done and Chris back at work like this.’
I smile to myself.
‘Yes, yes, I’ll pick you up for decoupage … No, I can collect Jean too. We’ll go together,’ Mum says into the phone. ‘Yes and aquatic therapy next week, it’s in the diary. I’ll have to fix the physio up when I can …’
Nanna’s been really sick recently so Mum’s days have been lost in waiting rooms. Any time away from doctors and her two jobs has been dedicated to decoupaging keepsake boxes and serving trays to keep Nanna’s spirits up. I know me paying the bills helps Mum to pay for Nanna’s medical expenses with her own money. I smile to myself again. I’m like the Robin Hood of Hatbridge.
School sucks. I’m watching the clock tick, counting down to lunchtime as Mrs Halfbottom drones on. I try to imagine her outside the classroom habitat: going for a run, shopping at the supermarket, laughing with a friend over coffee. Teachers don’t seem to exist in the real world for most kids. I’ve seen students bump into my dad
on the street when he’s wearing a sun visor instead of his tweed jacket and they can’t handle it.
‘Are you ready for the Chinese test?’ Josie asks me.
‘What test?’
‘We have a test on everything we’ve learnt so far, don’t you know? It’s a new regular Thursday thing that counts for eighty per cent of our marks this term. Last period.’ Josie looks to Stacey and they nod at each other.
I elbow Tyler sitting next to me. ‘You know about this?’
‘Nup,’ he says as worry shades his face pink. ‘I need to do well in Chinese if I’m going to do it as an elective next year.’
The bell rings and we hurry across the yard to the library, running into Dad. ‘Everything okay?’ he asks. He is carrying an armload of test papers from the senior students. Honestly, how can he look so happy at school? Stress is invading my body, starting with a hammering headache.
‘We have a Chinese test and we’re not prepared,’ I say quickly.
‘Remember both success and failure are fraudulent,’ Dad says.
Tyler looks up at him. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Kipling says you should treat great success and great failure as just the same, because life has a way of evening out. So don’t get a big head if you do really well on an exam and don’t think the world’s over and be discouraged if your Chinese test doesn’t go your way.’
‘I’d rather a big head than a dumb head,’ Tyler says.
Dad shrugs.
‘Gotta go study. See ya later, Mr Edwards,’ I say, interrupting them. Can’t risk too much Dad-time in the playground — kids will start talking.
Tyler has practically broken out in a stress rash. My heart is pounding; I’ve never failed a test before. We skip lunch and study instead, then study more on the sly all through English. We walk into Chinese, exhausted and ravaged by nerves. We take our seats and pull out our pencils.
I put up my hand. ‘Excuse me, miss. How long do we have?’
‘Settle down,’ the teacher calls to the class who are buzzing after a lunchtime game of soccer. Even if I didn’t have to study, I wouldn’t have played anyway. Santa cheerleads by beating a trash-can lid with an old plastic doll, the drumming whipping the kids into a frenzy, but I’m against domestic toy violence.
‘For what?’ the teacher asks me.
‘The test,’ Tyler says. His face is burning up.
The teacher turns to the whiteboard and starts to write characters with a squeaky faded marker. ‘There’s no test today,’ she says, between more ‘settle downs’.
Tyler and I spin around to face Josie and Stacey who burst out laughing. The whole class cracks up. Stacey has convinced everyone to be in on it? We sink into our seats and glare at her. She opens her pencil case and a Simon runs out across her desk. I can’t help but giggle.
‘Someone needs an exterminator,’ I whisper to Tyler. Stacey hears me. Her eyes narrow. She looks like she could cry.
Stacey tries to squish the cockroach, but it slides over her arm and she screams, causing the teacher to order her out of the classroom with an ‘I won’t tolerate drama queens’.
‘What are you looking at?’ Stacey sneers as she walks past. ‘And stop checking out my cousin. Santa said you’re creeping him out. You couldn’t get a boyfriend if you were the last fatty left on the planet,’ she hisses.
The words are knives, every letter cuts. Don’t. Don’t do it. I order my cheeks to remain neutral and my eyes to stay dry. Think cool moss, chilled icy water, Antarctica. I don’t even want a boyfriend right now, but my future hope for one loses to a blood blush and my eyeballs drown. I see in Stacey’s face the joy of knowing I’m hurting. I have to turn away.
‘Can’t believe we fell for that,’ Tyler mutters. ‘I hate pranks.’
‘She still has a thousand Simons to get rid of,’ I whisper. ‘I think we won with the heavier prank, wouldn’t you say?’
‘Only annoying aspect of this, I guess, is that I hate knowing more Chinese than I absolutely have to. It clogs up my brain. This day sucks,’ Tyler says, then passes me a note: You ready to take your leaves for a spin?
I shrug, a bit nervous, then sit up straight in my chair. Okay, I’ve got to step up now; isn’t it time I’m the hero in the adventure and not the boring killjoy? I scrunch up the note and reply in Chinese: Yes!
After school Tyler rings the Captain and we meet him at the car dealership. He turns up wearing his glasses, a shirt and a tie, as instructed. He scrubs up really well, channelling a junior real-estate agent or accountant. We’re lucky he’s one of those dudes who look five years older than their actual age. Puberty was kind to him, kinder than what it will be to poor Tyler, who is already struggling with pimples, his skin raw and peeling from the acne treatment he uses, and red whiskers that shine in smatterings across his muzzle when his chin dips in the sun. His voice keeps squeaking and he’s growing too fast, his neck way too long for his body.
Tyler and I are waiting next to the blue four-wheel drive. It has sat nav, driving assistance, TVs in the back seats, air conditioning and real leather upholstery. The front seats are referred to as ‘the cockpit’ by the car dealer. This car is worth more than Dad’s entire year’s salary, I bet, but only cost a few hours of pruning the tree.
‘I’ve test-driven the car at another dealership. I would like to finalise the paperwork today,’ the Captain says. ‘I have the finance.’
The car dealer is shiny all through; his hair, skin, teeth, even his suit has a plastic sheen to it. He’s used to rich kids buying their own cars in this neighbourhood.
‘Brother and sister?’ he asks, pointing to me and Tyler.
‘None of your beeswax,’ Tyler says.
The Captain and salesman exchange a ‘kids, you can’t win’ look.
‘Brother,’ the shiny guy confirms. ‘I’ll organise the paperwork.’
One hour later the car is ours, or the Captain’s, but ours. The Captain drives us to the mall to celebrate. It feels like we float there on our own little cushy cloud of comfort. The car smells so new; I’ve never smelt anything so new before in my life. I pester the Captain to drive around and around the mall carpark, looking for the perfect car space, so I can soak up the luxury and stay inside the car for as long as possible. When the others pile out, I’m still busy inhaling.
‘We need to buy the Captain a blue shirt and a red tie,’ I call from the spacious back seat that is more comfortable than my bed at home.
The Captain smiles. ‘And you can’t tell me what this is all about, little dudes?’
‘We’ll double your allowance, triple it, if you never ask that question again,’ Tyler says.
The Captain shoves his hands into his pockets. He’s an easy-going guy who must really love his gaming. He locks the car once I finally get out and it beeps at us.
‘Do it again,’ I implore. The Captain looks at me funny, but presses the button for a second time and the car chirps ‘beep beep’. I close my eyes. I never thought I’d ever hear that sound in my lifetime coming from a key that I could hold in my hand. After school all the cars chime their ‘beep beeps’ as keys are pressed. Mum has to put the key in the actual door to open our car. But not for long.
‘We’ll buy you that game after we find the shirt and tie,’ I tell him.
We walk through the vast parking lot. Tyler’s face turns green then red as we pass under the overhanging lights that indicate free and taken car spaces. I feel like I’m taking an eye test. ‘Green or red?’ our optometrist would ask, waving his hand in front of the weird goggles like a conductor. ‘Red or green?’
Tyler definitely looks clearer in green light, more handsome.
‘What about my PlayStation upgrade?’ the Captain asks as we head inside the mall.
‘As promised. But you need to look the part, chew gum, make us believe you work at the supermarket, okay?’ Tyler says.
The Captain shrugs. I wonder why he hasn’t got a girlfriend. He’s tall, looks like a man not a teena
ge boy, seems pretty nice and is probably a category-one genius like Tyler. Isn’t there a girl out there who loves playing video games too?
In the men’s department, I repeat myself for the fourth time. ‘It’s the wrong blue,’ I tell Tyler, who is holding up shirts to the Captain’s neck. ‘It has to be worn-out blue, less “businessman”. They’re all too expensive-looking.’
Tyler hunts around the shop.
‘So what’s your story?’ the Captain asks me.
I mostly have the money tree and Stacey on my mind, so it surprises me when I say, ‘I breed lizards. My female is about to have another clutch. The eggs could hatch any day now. I’ve been incubating the eggs for ninety days. I’ve increased the heat to accelerate the incubation. I hope all sixty babies hatch. A one hundred per cent hatch rate for my first clutch would be awesome. I’m going to film the birth and put it online.’
He gives me a once-over. ‘Keep that as Plan B, little dude,’ he says.
‘What’s Plan A?’ I ask.
‘Play it cool. No lizard talk out in the open. It won’t rate at school.’
‘My dad would classify that as a low self-esteem answer,’ I say. ‘Isn’t it important to be honest about who you are?’
‘Not in Year Six,’ he says. ‘Take it from me. Be what they want you to be and leave being yourself until you get to high school or, even better, uni. That’s how I played it.’
‘And how’s that working out for you?’
He ignores me and leaves an awkward silence that I fill with thoughts about my two-faced life, trying to be honest about who I am amongst my web of lies. I’ve even entangled the Captain. Could he get into trouble?
Tyler returns to the dressing room. ‘Jackpot,’ he says and flings a shirt the colour of dead lavender over the Captain’s shoulder, followed by a ketchup-red tie. They clash sensationally well.
‘Perfect!’ I clap.
The Captain agrees to take the car back to his place and hide it there until I’m ready to surprise my parents. I’m out-of-my-mind excited that we are so close to pulling this off, but dishonesty lurks beneath the shining joy. And it now has more added features than our new car.
