‘So how are you?’ the loblolly boy asked as neutrally as possible.
‘What’s it to you?’
The loblolly boy paused, considering how to answer that. ‘Well, it’s like, I did have a connection with the life you’ve got now.’
This time Benjy did look up at him. ‘It’s crap,’ he said. ‘This place is a dump. The school’s an even bigger dump with dropkick teachers and dipstick kids. Be pleased you’re out of it. Be very pleased.’
The loblolly boy felt a slight glimmer of hope.
‘What about home?’
Benjy shrugged. ‘Janice is okay, I guess, except she can’t cook. The takeaway kid, I call her. At least she laughs. Your father’s so wet, though. How’d you ever stand it? He’s never off my bloody back. Do this. Do that. Don’t do this. Don’t do that. I wish he’d just get over it and chill out a bit. He’s such a no-fun guy. I can’t believe Janice ever saw anything in him.’
The loblolly boy considered this. When he’d been there, it was Janice who’d given him a hard time, and given him a hard time all the time. Janice was the ogre. His father had been the peacemaker, the one who was at least reasonable. What had happened?
There was another long, awkward silence.
‘I hear you’ve been in a bit of trouble?’ the loblolly boy asked carefully.
Benjy looked up at him suspiciously.
‘Who told you that?’ he asked. ‘That little mole, I suppose.’
The loblolly boy didn’t reply.
‘It’s all rubbish. Something that got blown out of all proportion.’
Another silence.
‘I thought I saw Dad the other day. In a coffee shop …’ said the loblolly boy.
He didn’t add that he’d followed his father down the street to try to find their home.
‘So? He stays away a lot now. Good thing too. He and Janice just fight all the time when he’s home, or rather they do when he’s not bitching at me.’
The loblolly boy again saw his father in the coffee shop, his lined face and thinning hair, the way he stared sightlessly into the middle distance. No wonder he looked so depressed, he thought.
‘So it’s not all a bed of roses?’
The boy Benjy bent over the bench and spat on the grass.
‘Bed of roses? A bed of bloody nails would be more comfortable.’
There was yet another long pause.
‘Have you had enough of it, then?’ asked the loblolly boy softly.
Benjy looked up again and then, as if hearing the full implication of what the loblolly boy was suggesting, started a little.
‘You mean?’ he asked.
The word Exchange had not been mentioned, but both knew that this was the suggestion.
The loblolly boy nodded.
For a long time Benjy did not reply. He stared away as if thinking it carefully through. Finally he turned back to the loblolly boy.
‘I might,’ he said.
4
‘Tell you what,’ said Benjy suddenly. ‘Follow me home. I’m going to take a bus. You can fly or you could …’
‘I’ll fly,’ said the loblolly boy.
As long as Benjy was on the bus he’d be able to keep track of him. Besides, he felt that a couple of hundred metres was close enough to cope with for the time being. The more he was in the guy’s company, the more he could understand his father’s depression. No wonder he had got on with Janice. What was it the Captain had suggested? Birds of a feather.
Benjy stood up and they walked together towards the wrought iron gates of the park.
‘The school’s not far from where I get off,’ said Benjy with a hint of bitterness. ‘For what it’s worth, I’ll show you round before we head home.’
‘That’ll be good,’ said the loblolly boy.
From Benjy’s tone he wasn’t at all sure that it would be that good.
‘Don’t count on it,’ said Benjy. ‘I wouldn’t let a rat loose in it.’
This worried the loblolly boy, until he realised that Benjy was referring to the school.
Thereafter they walked in silence through the gates and down the main road a few metres to a bus stop. A few minutes later, Benjy was climbing the steps of a big red bus. He didn’t turn and farewell the loblolly boy, nor did he even look at him from the window. As the bus pulled away, the loblolly boy rose into the air and followed its route firstly down the main road and then its somewhat tortured pathway through the suburbs. Every time the bus pulled up he paused in mid-flight to check that Benjy hadn’t got off.
It must have been close to the end of the route when the bus came to a halt at a stop near to the grounds of what looked to be a large school. This time Benjy did get off, and this time he did peer up into the sky, shading his eyes against the sun. Seeing the figure hovering high above, he waved and gestured for him to come down.
‘This is it,’ he said, pointing across the playing fields to a cluster of classrooms.
To the loblolly boy it looked like any other suburban school. A collection of single-storey classrooms, a larger auditorium or assembly hall, a flagstaff and some stunted trees and raggedy flowerbeds.
‘Should we go in?’ asked the loblolly boy, thinking Benjy might show him his classroom.
Benjy’s reply was a little unexpected.
‘I can’t really,’ he said.
‘Why not?’ The loblolly boy looked around. There seemed to be no physical reason. No walls. No locked gates.
‘I’m not allowed on to the school grounds,’ said Benjy.
‘Why ever not?’
‘I’ve been suspended,’ said Benjy simply. ‘I told you the place was full of dropkicks.’
There did not seem to be a logical connection between the two statements. The loblolly boy stared at Benjy. ‘But why were you suspended?’ he asked. ‘What did you do?’
‘Nothing really,’ said Benjy. ‘There was a whole bunch of things they blamed me for. Little things.’
‘They shouldn’t have suspended you for that.’
‘They didn’t,’ said Benjy. ‘It was a big thing.’
‘Which was?’
‘They accused me of vandalising a car.’
‘A car?’
‘Yeah, a teacher’s car.’
‘Oh my …’ said the loblolly boy.
‘It wasn’t with a sledge hammer or anything,’ added Benjy.
‘Sheesh,’ whispered the loblolly boy.
‘Only a little coin. And anyway, why the hell would I coin a teacher’s car?’
The loblolly boy didn’t know the answer to that. In any case, he didn’t think it was the real question.
‘But, did you?’ he asked.
‘They can’t prove it,’ said Benjy.
The loblolly boy didn’t think that answered the question either.
5
Not long after, they arrived at a low single-storeyed house in a tree-lined terrace.
‘Here we are,’ announced Benjy. ‘Home bloody home.’
A little two-door car was in the drive. It was red. It was shiny-new and looked as if it could go very fast.
‘Janice is home already,’ said Benjy.
The loblolly boy nodded expressionlessly. So it was Janice’s car. It looked the sort of car Janice would drive: a loud look-at-me car. Now that he was so close, memories of how terrible it had been with Janice came flooding back — how Janice had poisoned everything. Now, walking up the drive, he found himself slowing, allowing Benjy to move ahead.
As if sensing this, Benjy turned and grinned, ‘What’s the matter? Getting cold feet?’
The loblolly boy shook his head.
All the same his mind was racing in confused directions. Janice was only a few metres away. It had been because she’d made his life so awful he’d been pleased to Exchange when the opportunity came. He hadn’t, in fact, thought twice. One flash. One leap into the freedom of the sky and Janice was gone forever. Then followed the exhilaration of flight, the freedom of invisibility, the wo
nder of being a loblolly boy.
But how soon that exhilaration faded. How soon came the discovery that there was only one loblolly boy and millions of people, but that only a tiny handful of all those millions could communicate with him in any way; and that many of those who could see him had evil designs and meant him harm.
It was wonderful, too, for a while not to feel things physically, never to feel cold for instance; but then he soon missed the touch of the sun, the taste of ice-cream, the bite of chilli, the salty greasiness of fish and chips. It didn’t take much of this before he was even longing for the shiver of cold again.
No, bad as life with Janice was, life as a loblolly boy was worse; far, far worse.
Somehow he’d accommodate Janice. He’d have to. He had no other choice. It would only be for a few years anyway. If this Benjy was right she and his father were fighting. She could possibly move out, take off, she could drive her nippy little red muscle-car into the sunset. Or he could persuade his father to let him go to a boarding school and then he’d only have to suffer Janice in the holidays.
There were answers.
The most pressing problem was to try and persuade this Benjy to Exchange. Surely he would have had no desire to be the loblolly boy again? He’d been the loblolly boy before and couldn’t wait to escape it. He’d been more than willing to Exchange with him that night at the motel.
This Benjy though, he guessed, had few scruples.
If he were sick of being Benjy he could Exchange and then all he’d need to do was find some other unsuspecting Sensitive and Exchange back again. Exchange with someone somewhere far away from all the trouble he’d managed to get into.
The thought of this trouble reminded the loblolly boy of the difficulties ahead. Oh god, he thought, when, or if, we Exchange I’ll be Ben again and I’ll not only have to deal with Janice, but also with being suspended from school and all the other ghastly messes this guy’s got himself into.
What had Mel called him? A real bad dude.
All the same, as he stood behind Benjy as he slipped his key into the front door, the loblolly boy crossed his fingers behind his back.
Let him Exchange, he prayed. Let him Exchange.
6
Janice was standing at the bench in the kitchen dipping her fingers into a brightly striped cardboard carton of fried chicken.
‘Help yourself,’ she said, waving a greasy finger at Benjy.
‘Come and eat some of this stuff. I shouldn’t eat any more. It’ll make me fat.’
‘Is that why you eat it so often then?’ asked Benjy.
Janice ignored the sarcasm.
‘Where’ve you been?’ she asked, licking her fingers.
‘Skateboard park,’ said Benjy.
While they were in the hall, Benjy had whispered to the loblolly boy. ‘For god’s sake don’t talk to me while anyone else is about. I’m in deep enough already without letting them think I’m bananas as well.’
The loblolly boy nodded. The arrangement suited him fine. It meant that he could be a fly on the wall as he got his head around the possibility of living in the same house with Janice and his father again.
Janice seemed not to have changed in any way. Her hair was a slightly different colour, but then it had usually changed every six weeks. Right now it was a sort of a blonde with darker streaks of greyish fawn. She was wearing jeans and a striped shirt with a pattern not unlike the one on the fried chicken carton.
The loblolly boy never really knew who the real Janice was. She had a different personality depending on whoever she was with. When he’d been home, she was usually kind of lively and cheerful with his father. However, there were times when she was stressed that she’d show a nasty side. That had happened much more often as the shift approached.
With him she was different. He soon realised that as far as Janice was concerned he didn’t count with her so she rarely bothered. He was most often ignored or treated as something of a nuisance and a burden.
What was surprising was that with this Benjy, she seemed quite different again. It was as though Benjy were a kid brother or something. The business of asking him to help himself with the fried chicken. That wouldn’t have happened when he’d been home. Then again, she actually asked him where he’d been and, more, she sounded kind of interested. That wouldn’t have happened either.
‘Where’s the old man?’ asked Benjy.
Janice took a finger out of her mouth. She shrugged. ‘No idea,’ she said.
It sounded as though she didn’t care one way or the other.
‘Has he said anything?’ Benjy asked.
‘No. He doesn’t tell me much any more.’
Benjy grinned. ‘That’s because you give him such a hard time.’
‘Who wouldn’t?’
Benjy reached for a piece of fried chicken and pushed it into his mouth. Then he said, ‘Tit for tat. He’s always on my back so it’s okay by me if you give him some of his own. Only fair, really.’
Janice grinned at him. ‘He’s always on your back because you deserve it, you little rat.’
‘Takes a rat to know one,’ said Benjy.
‘Cheeky!’ said Janice. But she didn’t seem to take offence.
Then she opened the fridge and took out a half-full bottle of Coke. She took a glass down from a cupboard and poured herself a drink.
‘You know, I can’t quite understand it. You used to be such a nerdy little wet. Shifting up here has changed you completely.’
‘I reckon,’ said Benjy.
‘You’re quite a little rascal now,’ said Janice, appraising him as she took a sip.
‘So?’
‘Your father’s not too fussed on the change though.’
‘So?’
Janice looked thoughtful. ‘You’ve changed. He’s changed.’
Benjy looked at her. ‘What about you? You’ve changed too?’
Janice didn’t reply. She looked at Benjy for a while, a half smile playing about her mouth. Then she lifted her glass as if toasting him, and took another sip.
7
The loblolly boy looked from Janice to Benjy with disquiet. He didn’t like the tone of this conversation. Some of the meaning of it, he could only guess at. He especially didn’t like the way the two talked about his father. They were ganging up on him.
‘You all set for tomorrow?’ Janice asked.
Benjy nodded.
‘Want me to come?’
Benjy shook his head. ‘Nah. He wouldn’t let you anyway.’
‘Probably not. Want a Coke?’
Benjy nodded and she crossed to the fridge and took out the bottle again. She passed it to him.
‘How’re you going to handle it?’ asked Janice.
‘It’ll be all right,’ said Benjy. ‘I reckon I’ve got it sussed.’
‘I hope so.’
The loblolly boy heard the sound of a car in the drive. Janice apparently heard it too. She glanced out of the kitchen window. ‘Here’s trouble,’ she said. ‘Your father’s home.’
The loblolly boy crossed the room and looked out of the window himself. There was now a car parked alongside Janice’s little red one. This was the Toyota he remembered. He watched as his father began to climb out of the driver’s seat. Then his father leaned back again, reached across and grabbed his briefcase. Finally, he stood, closed the car door and turned around.
The loblolly boy felt someone at his side.
It was Benjy.
The boy who had stolen his life leaned over and whispered in his ear.
‘Follow me! Hurry!’
CHAPTER SIX
1
The loblolly boy followed Benjy out of the kitchen. There was an urgency in Benjy that was suddenly exciting. The boy had all but broken into a run. Clearly he had come to a decision. Hardly able to contain his hopes as to what this might be, the loblolly boy pursued Benjy through the living room and then into the lounge beyond.
There Benjy stopped.
He turned t
o the loblolly boy. He was quite agitated.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘You really want to?’
The loblolly boy nodded.
In the distance they could hear the front door open.
‘OK,’ muttered Benjy. ‘Welcome to this garbage dump! I’m out of here!’
He thrust out his hand, and the loblolly boy seized it immediately. He squeezed his eyes shut just in time to avoid the blue flash which suddenly filled the lounge.
2
Ben opened his eyes and shook his head furiously as if shaking out of a dream. He rubbed at his hair and found it unfamiliar, spiky with gel.
The loblolly boy stood there, grinning.
‘Well, you’ve got what you want now,’ he laughed. He seemed strangely elated. ‘You know, you’re a bigger fool than I gave you credit for!’
Then he spun on his heel and raced out of the double doors, through the living room and all at once he was gone.
Ben stood there, quite disoriented. It would be all right, he reassured himself. It would have to be all right.
All the same, the full weight of what he had just done fell upon him like a great bale. It was as though he’d woken up from a long period of amnesia. In between time, he’d changed towns, changed houses, changed schools, even — he glanced down at the baggy jeans — changed appearance. So many things in this new life were unfamiliar, would need to be adjusted to. He glanced at his dark reflection in the glass door and gave a wry smile. He didn’t even know where the bathroom was in this house, or his bedroom.
He gave himself a little wave.
It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered.
At least he had a reflection again.
3
Then he heard his father’s voice. ‘Where’s Ben?’
Janice answered. ‘I don’t know. He heard you coming and raced out of here.’
His father grunted. ‘Are you drinking?’
‘It’s a coke,’ snapped Janice. ‘And if it wasn’t, so what? I’m old enough. At least I was last time I checked.’
The Loblolly Boy and the Sorcerer Page 9
