Mac Slater Coolhunter 2

by Tristan Bancks

  'TV!' I said to Dad. He was back in bed, head under the covers.

  'I didn't know they made TV in America,' he said.

  'Ha ha. If either of my parents had a TV I wouldn't have to come to New York to watch it.'

  Dad pulled the covers off his head and looked for a minute.

  A whole bunch of people in tracksuits were now standing in a park with their arms in the air. They screamed 'You Power', and the ordering details hit the screen. 'Call now and get this limited edition crystal mouse. You'll never see another offer like this!'

  'You've really been missing out,' Dad said, retreating back to his lair.

  'How am I going to have a shower if it's spitting rust all over me?' Paul whined from the bathroom.

  'I dunno, but hurry up,' I said, unzipping my bag and grabbing some pants. 'Imaginator's waiting.'

  Imaginator was a massive invention fest happening at Madison Square Garden. It was pretty much the reason Paul agreed to get on the plane. The fest promised the wildest minds on earth dishing out the latest breakthroughs in tech, cars, flying machines, clothes, phones and everything else. We figured it'd be a one-stop shop for coolhunting and a chance for Paul and me to talk up our flying bike. (We're kind of inventors.)

  'And we've only got seven minutes till coffee and doughnuts is over,' I said.

  'Nuts. Why didn't you say?' Paul said, flicking off the tap and pulling his plane clothes back on.

  Four minutes later we were downstairs wearing icing-sugar moustaches and chowing our second doughnuts, as we gazed out the door onto the street. Hundreds of yellow cabs ripped by. I could see a New York fire hydrant. I was a little disappointed that it wasn't spewing water with kids playing under it like the pic in my book but, still, a real fire hydrant! Millions of people in suits charged by, sucking down coffee or screaming into phones. I tried to think how many times in my life I'd seen someone wearing a suit. Even real estate dudes didn't wear suits in Kings Bay.

  I poured myself a coffee from the percolator. Paul grabbed another doughnut from the basket next to it. I held my nose and tried to force the coffee down my throat, just to feel like a New Yorker. Even with my nose pegged it tasted like ash and dirt. I spat it back into the cup.

  'What do we do now?' Paul asked.

  Speed and Tony from Coolhunters had told us they'd give us an allowance each day to live on. That was how we could afford the trip. My dad was a protestor who ran a lightning farm. Not exactly a credit card kind of guy.

  'Dunno,' I said.

  'My phone won't work, so how're they s'posed to contact us?' Paul asked. 'Maybe we should see if we can change our flights home.'

  'Oh, here we go.' I rolled my eyes.

  'What?'

  'You! You sound like your old lady,' I said.

  It had taken about thirty-seven meetings to persuade Paul's mum to let him come to New York. My ma's only worry was that we wrote off our carbon miles. At one stage it even looked like Paul's mum might chaperone. But there was no way I was having that. I was desperate to hunt cool in NY, but not that desperate.

  'I'm just –'

  'You're just looking for a way to get out of doing new stuff,' I said. 'This is our dream. We've been talking about this forever. Now, we're going upstairs, getting Dad and going to Imaginator, just like we planned.'

  His eyes lit up a little.

  'We'll scope the fest,' I said, 'so when we catch up with Speed and Tony we'll have hunted a ton of cool already.'

  'But –'

  'We'll call home. Speed and Tony will have left a message. We'll rock on over to the real hotel – probably in a stretch Hummer – and everything will be cool beans.'

  Paul stared at me. He didn't believe a word I'd said. Neither did I.

  'Imaginator, man. Let's do it.'

  Dad arrived in the lift, guzzled three black coffees and we hit the streets.

  4

  Lost

  New York hit us like a train. Horns blared. Jackhammers juddered high above. Briefcase people charged, head down, right for us, like we weren't even there. An obese woman pushed past, attempting to walk four gigantic dogs through the crowd. I had my backpack strapped, ready to roll. We were on the corner of 34th Street, with Broadway stretching away from us forever – a long, narrow canyon of concrete and glass shooting up into the sky. It was supposed to be spring but, in the shadow of the 'scrapers, it was freezing.

  I fed a bunch of quarters into a payphone and punched Speed's digits. Then Tony's. Both went to message so I called home. We didn't have a phone in the bus. Mr Kim, the owner of the Arts Estate where we lived, always had to run down from the office with his walkabout phone. It was nearly midnight in Australia.

  The phone rang. And rang. I looked around me. There was an old guy sitting on a box playing blues guitar. He had a harmonica on a neck-stand. There were a couple of uni student-looking chicks filming a mime artist who was painted red from head to toe. The phone kept ringing. A super-hairy dude wearing three watches and a court jester's hat walked by, sucking a metre-long licorice strap into his mouth. I was about to hang up when I heard a voice.

  'Mr Kim? ... Yeah, it's Mac ... Yeah, good ... Thanks. Thanks.'

  A bunch of quarters dropped, Dad gave me another handful and I fed them into the phone as quick as I could. A few minutes later I heard my mum's voice.

  'Ma,' I said.

  Paul's ears pricked up.

  'Sort of,' I said. 'I mean, yeah, everything's cool, but we sort of can't find the Coolhunters guys. They haven't called, have they?'

  Paul stared at me hard, waiting for a response.

  A massive truck groaned by. 'Sorry, Ma, what'd you say?'

  Paul strained to hear, mouth open.

  'Oh, right,' I said when she told me. I shook my head at Paul.

  'This sucks!' he said. 'These guys are a joke.'

  My dad looked semi-stressed, in his own laid-back way. He pulled at his beard. I could tell he wanted to be home with his dogs. He was so not New York.

  'No, we'll be okay. We'll find them. I'm sure –'

  My last quarter dropped and the phone went dead.

  'I knew they were scammers,' Paul said.

  'Oh, poor you. You're lost in New York. I feel so sorry for you, man.'

  Paul shoved me in the chest.

  'These guys paid for our flights, didn't they?' I said.

  'Yeah, on the worst airline in the history of Earth, making us stop seventeen times on the way,' Paul yelled at me over the roar of a bus.

  'Why would they pay for our fares and then just strand us here? It doesn't make sense. We'll be fine. Relax.'

  'Well, I hope you've got plenty of money,' my dad said. "Cos I don't. Everything was going to be laid on, wasn't it? I've got about a hundred dollars left in my wallet. What have you got?'

  I did some quick calculations in my head.

  'Nothing,' I said.

  'So what do we do?' Paul asked.

  'Mug someone?' I offered. 'Recycle some cans? I read somewhere there's a good soup kitchen down on 9th Avenue ...'

  Dad and Paul didn't seem to jump at my ideas.

  'Let's just go to Imaginator,' I said. 'We'll think of something.'

  They both snorted and shook their heads like I was a meatbrain. As the light changed and we followed the crowd across 34th Street, I sent out a prayer that these freaks wouldn't make us go home early.

  I needed to come up with a solution, fast.

  5

  Imaginator

  Paul and I bolted the last fifty metres up 33rd Street, dodging through the crowd. Dad lumbered along behind.

  An Imaginator banner hung from the side of Madison Square Garden, next to a digital New York Knicks sign. The banner read: 'Imaginator Festival of Inventions and Creativity. 13–15 March.' Today was 14 March.

  I joined Paul at the back of the short queue at a temporary box office booth out front of 'The Garden'.

  'I can't believe we're actually here.'

  'Check that,' Paul said,
pointing.

  There was a girl standing nearby, back against the wall. She was short with dark hair and eyes. She looked like her parents must've been from someplace interesting.

  'Yeah, she's pretty cute,' I said.

  'No, look what she's doing,' Paul said, annoyed.

  She was typing into a black glove on her left hand, then she put her hand up to her ear and started talking into it.

  'What is that, like, a glove phone?' I asked, as we shuffled forward in line.

  'Maybe you can get them here.'

  'Check the skates,' I said.

  On her feet, she had these giant wheels. Or they were more like bowling balls set into the bottom of a pair of boots. Like one-wheel rollerskates. Rollerballs, maybe.

  'How do you balance on those things?' Paul asked. We'd been working on a two-wheel skateboard for a couple of years and now we were trying to develop a one-wheel board. The balance thing was a killer.

  'I could film her on your phone. Why don't you go ask her for a demo?' I said.

  Paul just looked at me, rolling his eyes – his 'don't be an idiot' look. We both knew by now that Paul wasn't the kind of guy who just went up and talked to humans. Especially girls.

  She finished her call.

  'I'm gonna go ask her,' I said. 'Those skates are hot.'

  'Next!' said a voice.

  A round, grey-faced woman peered at us through the box office window. Imagine someone photoshopped the head of a bulldog onto the body of a rhinoceros and locked it in a ticket booth. That was her.

  I took a last look at Rollergirl, hoping she wouldn't take off.

  'Um, yeah, two tickets, thanks.'

  The bulldog stared at me. 'Really?' she asked. 'You two want tickets?'

  Paul had his usual, chronic bedhead and I looked a little rough in my lost-and-found-box threads, but surely we could still go inside?

  'Yeah. Two tix please,' I said.

  'Okay. Seven-fifty each for a two-day pass. Show finishes tomorrow,' she grunted.

  I rustled around in my pocket for the cash Dad had given me. I tossed a ten and a five onto the counter. The woman stared at the notes, then up at me.

  'It's seven hundred and fifty dollars each,' she said.

  'Are you kidding?' I said. 'We don't want to buy the festival.'

  'Imaginator is not a public exhibition. It's a major industry conference and festival for international delegates. Now, would you like a ticket, sir? If not, please step off the line.'

  Paul began moving away but I held my ground. I didn't want to have to pull this card, but ...

  'We're from Coolhunters,' I said. 'The website.'

  She gave me that same bitter, bulldog stare.

  If she were a real dog I'd have started backing up real slow.

  'Good for you,' she said. 'Now step aside.'

  I wanted to chuck her a treat and say 'Chew on this'. But I didn't. I moved off.

  'Why didn't you know this?' Paul asked.

  'Me?'

  'Yeah, you. You're the one who lured me here for this,' he said.

  'As if. What, you don't have the web? You couldn't have looked at the site?'

  'You were, like, in charge. You kept on talking about it. I figured you might have looked at the prices!' he said.

  If we were at home in our workshop I'd have wrestled him to the ground and sat on him but there was a security dude nearby who looked like he might deport us.

  'That ticket chick's pretty special, huh?' said a voice.

  It was Rollergirl, standing on her skates, gently rolling back and forth.

  'Yeah,' I said. 'I mean not really. Can't you get in either?'

  'Nope. I'm Melody,' she said.

  'Hey. Good to meet you.'

  'You have a name?'

  'Mac. Sorry. And Paul.'

  Paul's eyes were fixed on her glove. Mine drifted to her skates.

  'I heard your accents,' she said. 'You guys Australian?'

  I liked the way she said Australian. It sounded like 'Aw-stralian'.

  'Yeah,' I said.

  'Get outta here. I love Australia.'

  'Really?' I said.

  'Absolutely. I've heard Melbourne is the coolest city in the world right now.'

  'Yeah, I dunno. Never been.'

  'Okay,' she said, the conversation kind of dying. 'Bummer about the fest. I even tried flirting with the security guy but he's unbreakable.'

  'There's gotta be some way in,' I said. 'We came thousands of kilometres for this.'

  'Yeah, well, bonne chance,' she said, and started rolling away.

  'Hey, can I have a look at your glove ... thing,' Paul said.

  He must've really dug the glove to be game enough to speak to her.

  She stopped and turned back.

  'Um, sure,' she said, not looking so certain.

  'What does it do?' Paul asked.

  'It's a kind of ... laptop, I guess. I call it a handtop. And it's a phone and internet device. It's whatever you want it to be.'

  'Where did you get it?' I asked.

  'I kind of made it myself.'

  Paul and I looked at her.

  'No way,' Paul said.

  'Yeah way.'

  'We're inventors, too,' I said. 'Are you gonna sell these or ...'

  She started rolling backwards again.

  'Not really. Look, I gotta go. Nice to meet you, boys.'

  She gave us a peace sign and skated off.

  'Can you tell me about your skates?' I called.

  'I'm late,' she said above the noise of traffic and crowd. People were crisscrossing between us now. But I couldn't let her go. She was a coolhunter's dream.

  'Is there someplace we can catch up? Or can we get your number?' I asked, walking towards her as she rolled backwards. Then she called out something like 'HogBender. 17464.'

  'What?' I yelled.

  But she was gone, skating off down 7th Avenue. It wasn't like regular skating. She just kept her feet together, leaned forward and the balls drove her along the path.

  'What the hell is Hog Bender 167646?' I asked Paul.

  'Not Hog Bender. Dog Bender. And she said 17464.'

  'Yeah, well, what's that?' I said, unzipping my bag to grab a pen.

  'I dunno. Maybe it's a street,' he said.

  'Yeah, right. Dog Bender Street. Is that off Cat Twister Avenue?'

  I wrote 'Dog Bender 17464' on my hand.

  'You're not falling in love again, are you?' Paul asked.

  'Shut up,' I said. He always accused me of falling in love with any girl we met. I think it was because he was hot on them but he didn't have the guts to do anything about it. 'She's gone anyway. Let's go check messages, see if Speed and Tony have sent us anything.'

  'Yeah, right,' Paul said. 'Like we'll ever hear from those idiots again.'

  6

  Where R U?

  I punched in my password. Paul and Dad were looking over my shoulder, bated breath. We were at Times Square, in the world's biggest internet cafe. Like, officially, the world's biggest. It looked like central command for a space shuttle launch, thousands of computers sprawled across a giant room. It was weird seeing my dad in a place like this. He still thought email was cutting-edge technology.

  My Coolhunters page came up. Coolhunters was a major social networking site where you registered and shared your cool finds with tens of thousands of other hunters. But there were only six featured hunters on the site, including Paul and me. The six of us were profiled on the home page and we'd all been invited to New York. There were areas of my Coolhunters world the public could access, and then there was the private side where I talked to friends and did Coolhunters business stuff.

  I scanned my messages. A few from Jewels back in Kings Bay. (I was still trying to work out if she was my girlfriend or not. I'd known her since we were kids but, in the past few weeks, things had been getting a little weird. Good weird. I think.) I had a bunch of messages from African businessmen offering me large amounts of cash if I'd just
send them my bank account details. One from Denson, my kitesk8ing mate. Nothing from Speed or Tony.

  'Where'd you say that soup kitchen was?' Dad asked, standing behind me, reading over my shoulder.

  'Don't say that,' I said.

  'It's true. I have no money. We're stuffed.'

  'I'll IM them,' I said 'And there're phones on the wall over there. You go call them one last time.'

  I handed Paul my little NY book. 'Numbers are on the inside back cover.'

  'It's not worth it,' Paul said.

  'Just go.'

  'Whatever, Mac,' he said as he began snaking his way towards the exit.

  My dad followed him. 'I'll be out the front. Don't be long. I want to return this hire car,' he barked over his shoulder. My dad was a CDS sufferer. Cranky Dad Syndrome. Suffered by fathers everywhere, but my dad's case was chronic.

  I quickly punched a subject heading 'where r u?' and asked Speed to contact us ASAP. Then I logged into my blog site. I still kept a private blog alongside my Coolhunters one. I started flowing:

  new york is so good i want to vomit. we're officially lost. and it's cool. maybe cooler than being found. this city goes blam right in my face. i feel like i'm on the back of something wild and i've got to hold on tight if i don't want to get chucked to the floor. i always half thought new york was a pretend place that i dreamed up. i can't believe somewhere as cool as this actually exists. but it's here. it's real. it's outside my window and in my veins. i want to film everything, only i don't have a camera. and how are you supposed to find cool in a place where everything's cool? how do you decide what's not cool? the fire hydrants and the people and the storefronts and the concrete. the steam coming from gutters. everyone speaking a million different languages all at once. serious looks on their faces and places to go. and the buildings man. they punch through clouds and make you feel like an ant. it's the maddest place on earth. everywhere else is standing still compared to here. i reckon mexico city or london must feel like ghost towns against new york. i want to see it from above and go down into the sewers and check if there really are alligators down there. i never want to go home. maybe i can stow away here or something, send a postcard to people at home every couple of years, let em know how i'm getting on. tell em about a new invention i've created or a new book i've put out or a movie i've made. maybe i'll disappear into the crowd by myself right now and become a new yorker.