‘New,’ I say. ‘You’re new.’
He doesn’t hesitate. ‘New can be good.’
‘Exceptionally good,’ I say, feeling more daring than I’ve ever felt before.
We’re staring at each other, so our fingers accidentally touch when we both reach for a chip. We don’t instantly pull away. It’s nice.
Our conversation starts up again as easy as it was before, but there’s a cosy warmth to it now, like this café, and I relax into it. I’ve asked the questions that were playing on my mind and now I can recognise his flirting for what it is. With the rain falling outside and us sitting in this tiny room by daytime candlelight, it’s like Melbourne is cupping us in its hands.
Eventually we notice the time and I realise I should probably get going.
We go to the counter to pay, and I empty all the coins I’ve got in my wallet into my hand and tip it into Brodie’s.
‘You don’t have to,’ he says.
‘Just take it.’
He does and pays the bill.
‘Thanks, loves! Don’t get too wet out there.’
We stand under the eaves on the street where we first ran from the rain. We’re standing a little bit closer this time.
‘I need to catch a tram from Bourke Street,’ I say.
‘Same. Let’s cut through all the arcades.’
It’s as if the people who designed Melbourne actually lived here and knew you may well need to get from one end of the CBD to the other undercover. We only have to run across the streets when the lights change. But by the time we’ve reached Bourke Street Mall the rain has eased right off and there are even patches of blue in the sky.
‘Which tram you need?’ Brodie asks.
‘Ninety-six.’
‘Oh my god, same!’
I can’t believe we need the same tram. I start to cross over to the other side of the road but he doesn’t move, so I turn and come back.
‘What?’
‘I’ve got to catch it this way, I live in St Kilda.’
‘Oh, right. I go that way.’ I point in the opposite direction. ‘I’m in East Brunswick.’
He laughs again. It’s truly a sight to see. Today has been full of sights. Matthias with his arm on my shoulder, Brodie’s grin directed at me. My unicorn is frolicking.
‘How epic is it we’re on the same line?’ His eyebrows dance lightly in amusement. He reaches into his bag. ‘Take this.’ He pulls out Each Season. ‘It won’t hurt to read another book.’
I stare at it.
‘I can’t, you haven’t even finished it.’
‘I’ve got a new book to read.’ He places Each Season firmly in my hand. ‘And it’s an excuse to hang out again. Here comes my tram. Message me?’
Like there’s any chance I wouldn’t. ‘Sure. Don’t forget me among all your followers.’
‘Never. I’m not Scott, remember. Call me Toby.’
With that, he’s gone, running for the tram.
Toby’s not necessarily a love interest for Book-Cooper. But he’s a possibility. There’s still the mess to deal with, but there’s life after Scott.
While I wait for my tram, I post the photo of me and Matthias. This time with all the right tags. Then I pull the signed book out of my bag.
Dear Cooper,
To be sure of others, you need to be sure of yourself.
There’s a beauty in you that those around you are sure to
see. Don’t forget to see it yourself.
It was a pleasure to meet you,
Matthias Brown
I was right. I’m crying.
I look back at my phone and Matthias has already liked the photo of us. So has Brodie. My heart flutters and my tears are not tears of grief for the first time this year.
I reread what I wrote.
coopdegrace Today was amazing for so many reasons! Meeting @matthiaswrites was just (a major) one of them. Shout-out to @aboymadeofbooks for the picture… and the chips.
Take a deep breath. Close your eyes, and let it settle all around you. Smell the beery wash of the eucalyptus, and hear the constant buzzing of life from every corner. This is my world now, and it can be yours too, if you like. A place can soak through your skin like sweat, and ooze into your heart and soul. Breathe it in, and let me tell you a story.
This story steamed out of the baked soil and silvery gums and filled me up like a balloon. I’ll breathe it out. You breathe it in.
We moved to Currumbudgee just after my sixteenth birthday—long enough after Dad died for Mum to start noticing me again, but not long enough for her to bear the thought of staying in London without him.
Land is cheap in Australia, if you don’t mind living in the middle of nowhere. These properties stretched out in all directions: vast sprawling forests of khaki and green, tangled with undergrowth and, at the heart of it all, a shimmering creek that never seemed to moisten the soil or feed the land. Occasionally, a rainbow lorikeet or a king parrot would flash by, like an accidental splash of colour. We fell asleep to the sounds of green frogs and cicadas, and we woke to kookaburras and whipbirds.
Mum had always dreamed of travel. When I was younger, we spent summer evenings lying on oversized towels on the back lawn, waiting for the sky to darken. You don’t see too many stars in London—the city lights kill it all—but we would look for the brightest star, the one that couldn’t be dimmed, and Mum would squeeze my hand.
‘That’s our star, Mina,’ she’d say. ‘See it up there?’
‘Do you think it’s lonely?’ I asked once.
‘No!’ She found that funny. ‘It’s actually surrounded by millions of friends, but we just can’t see them here.’ She propped herself up on her elbow and stared at me. ‘One day, I’ll take you somewhere we can see them. We just have to persuade Dad to come too.’
Dad never wanted to travel.
‘It’s a waste of money,’ he would say. ‘Everything we need is here.’
When he died, Mum and I moved to Australia—the land of stars. On our first night, we sat on the deck, gazing up, tears on both our faces as we pointed out the Milky Way and all the other constellations. I had never seen anything like it.
‘I feel like I’m on a spaceship,’ Mum whispered. ‘How can there be so many stars?’
‘Which one’s ours?’ I asked.
We both stared for a long time, before Mum answered, ‘I don’t know.’
It was Mum who introduced me to Talia. Mum was determined to meet all our new neighbours, and right here—right next door to us—found someone just for me. Maybe Talia’s parents were running from something too, as she was also new to the area. It’s possible the whole town was made up of grieving or lost souls. It felt our sadness—it drew us to it, I’m sure of it.
‘She’s from Sydney!’ Mum exclaimed. ‘She’s the same age as you, and her mum said she doesn’t know anyone here either. You’ll be going to the same school next month!’
Talia was invited to come to our house for an afternoon.
I wasn’t looking forward to it—those things always feel forced—but then in she walked, and I had to just stop and stare.
Talia was beautiful. She had silvery-white hair, loose around her shoulders despite the heat. Her face was small and pale, with light blue eyes that seemed almost metallic as the light caught them. I felt like a mess in the humidity, with my hair piled up and my shirt stuck to my back. She looked like an elf.
‘I’m Mina,’ I said, my words feeling clumsy.
‘Talia,’ she replied.
There was a long silence.
‘Something to drink?’ I said. ‘Lemonade? Water?’
‘No, thank you.’ Talia walked straight to the window.
‘Oh, do you want to go outside?’ I hoped not. It was hot out there.
‘I want to hear the creek,’ she said.
‘Okay,’ I looked sideways at her, but she smiled back, so I opened the sliding doors that led outside.
She stopped me as we got to the deck
, grabbing my arm, her other hand at her lips to make me quiet.
‘Can you hear it?’ she whispered. I must have looked blank, as she sighed and dropped my arm. ‘Me neither. Not now. It gets exhausting.’
She sat on the steps of our deck, which led down to the woods—the bush—and the creek below. People owned a lot of land here, but no one looked after it. The land and all it contained just sprawled around and did what it wanted. I guess it’s easier to control smaller gardens, but it also seemed to me that Australian land might not like being controlled.
‘What’s exhausting?’ I stared down at the yard below, trying to see what she was looking at.
She glanced up at me suddenly with her intense blue eyes, and I shifted back.
‘I’ll tell you another time,’ she said. ‘When you hear it too.’
‘Okay.’ I wasn’t sure what to say to this, so I let it be.
We sat there for some time, chatting about our old schools and what it was like to live here. It wasn’t really chatting. I asked a lot of questions, and Talia gave me bland answers that didn’t reveal anything.
‘Have you always lived in Australia?’ I said, finally, running out of things to talk about. ‘It’s a real change from England. I mean, it’s lovely,’ I added quickly in case I offended her, ‘but it’s a very young country. It’s still developing. It doesn’t have the history and the culture that we do.’
I don’t know why I said it. It was stuff I’d heard Mum say to her friends. I didn’t care about history or culture, except it got annoying when English friends asked if I would use a knife and fork in Australia, or if they ‘even have theatre’ there. I was just trying to fill the silence.
‘You’re wrong.’ Talia stood up, her white cheeks flushed. ‘That’s an ignorant thing to say.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I just meant it doesn’t have the centuries of history that we do in England. Everything is new here. But I don’t mean it as a bad thing.’
‘Australia is ancient,’ she said. ‘Our history stretches back thousands of years—farther back than the modern England you’re referring to. There are things here you don’t understand—’ She broke off suddenly.
‘Oh, I know,’ I said, keen to keep her talking. ‘I know it’s an old country really. Just that—’ I kicked at the ground. I was insulting my first Australian friend within minutes of meeting her.
‘I don’t know what I’m saying,’ I admitted, glancing up at her. ‘I’m sorry—it’s not coming across right. I can hear how awful and condescending I sound. I didn’t mean to offend you. I was just making conversation. Bad conversation.’ I looked down again.
‘You’re new here.’ Talia caught my eye and smiled briefly. ‘There are a lot of things you will learn.’ She suddenly leant forward and took my hand. ‘Australia has the oldest and most dangerous animal in the world. Do you know what it is?’
‘A kind of shark?’ I guessed.
She shook her head. ‘A story. Let me know if you ever hear what I’m talking about.’
She was gone before I could say any more, leaving me sitting on the deck steps craning my ears for anything other than the sounds of the birds and the insects.
Later, Mum asked what I’d thought of Talia.
‘She’s nice,’ I said carefully, ‘but she’s very different.’
Mum nodded, as if she had expected me to say that.
‘She’s had a troubled time of things,’ Mum said, which told me nothing. I waited for her to go on.
‘Her mum said they had to move from Sydney because Talia was having a few issues there,’ Mum continued. ‘I’m trusting that you won’t say anything to her—’ I nodded ‘—but it seems she got a bit obsessed with the history of the place, and she started seeing ghosts.’
Mum must have caught my expression then, because she waved a hand dismissively. ‘Not real ones, obviously, but she started fixating on it. She would walk down the street and think she saw a gold miner, or a battle taking place. She started to go a bit crazy. Her mum said they had family not far from here, so she thought it made sense to move her away from the city—a new start.’
‘Australia’s not new,’ I said, taking Talia’s position automatically. ‘It’s ancient.’
‘Well, yes, but you know what I mean,’ Mum said. ‘She’s a lovely girl, and her mum’s hoping she’ll leave that behind her now.’
‘Has she?’ I asked. ‘Left that behind her?’
Mum paused. ‘Her mum said she’s not settling as well as they hoped. Maybe you can be a good friend to her. It’s lovely having someone your own age next door.’
‘Sure.’ I nodded, slightly more enthusiastically than I felt at that point, and I tried to ignore the feeling that, despite the heat, something cold had lodged in my chest.
I woke that night, sticky with sweat, and threw myself out of bed before I even knew I was conscious.
Heart pounding, I clutched at the window ledge and looked around my room with confusion. I could hear Mum’s soft snores from down the hallway, and I crept out of my room to look in at her, feeling my heart rate slow to match the rhythm of her breathing as I reassured myself that everything was normal.
I was heading back into my room when I saw her through the window.
Like a silver puddle of light in the backyard, Talia trickled down the hill towards the creek. I could just make out her hair, flashing in the moonlight between the trees as she walked.
‘Talia!’ I hissed, banging at the window, but she couldn’t hear me. I pulled on my trainers and ran to the back door, hoping Mum wouldn’t stir from her sleep.
Easing the door closed behind me, I ran out into the night.
‘Talia!’ I hissed it as loudly as I dared, and she stopped immediately.
Branches scratched at my ankles as I made my way down to her. I could just see the dark water of the creek below.
‘What are you doing?’ I grabbed her shoulder and she turned to me—pale eyes dark and blank.
I remembered reading that you should never wake a sleepwalker. I gently steered Talia back up to the deck. As I sat her down, she seemed to startle.
‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘You were sleepwalking. I was worried you might go straight into the water. Are you okay?’
‘I wasn’t sleeping,’ she said.
‘Then what were you doing?’ I sat next to her.
She stared at me for a long time.
‘It’s okay,’ I said. ‘You can tell me. I’m good at keeping secrets.’
‘Are you really?’ she asked, and I nodded vigorously. ‘I wish I was.’ She gave a laugh. ‘Maybe we’d still be in Sydney if I’d kept my mouth shut.’
‘I know a few things,’ I offered, hesitantly. ‘You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. I know you—saw some things in Sydney.’
It felt like a timeless moment then—the heat, the buzz of mosquitoes, and the moon shining down on this other-worldly girl. In the middle of the night, anything is possible.
‘If I tell you,’ she said slowly, ‘you might die.’
‘If you tell me you have to kill me?’ I said, with a small laugh so she didn’t think I was making fun of her.
‘If I tell you, then you might tell someone else, and it will just keep getting bigger and bigger. Stories can kill, you know.’
‘Like a chain letter?’ I asked. I had read stories about those. Pass it on or you die. Pass it on and everyone dies.
‘Like a chain letter,’ she repeated.
‘But you have to tell someone,’ I said. ‘Everyone needs a friend.’
She almost laughed at that, before saying, ‘I have never had a friend.’
‘Talia,’ I grabbed her hand, as she had mine before, ‘what happened?’
‘It’s calling to me,’ she whispered, looking down at the creek. ‘Once you hear it, it means it’s coming for you.’ There were tears in her eyes.
‘Hear what?’ I was getting frustrated.
Talia tucked her feet up and fac
ed me.
‘I had visions in Sydney. If I closed my eyes, I saw everything that had happened in a place. I would see people murdering each other, as well as mundane things—people dying of old age, people shopping, people being hit by cars. I saw it all.’ She closed her eyes then, as if remembering the sensation. ‘It used to be something I could do when I wanted to, and I could stop it by opening my eyes, but then it started happening without me controlling it. I started to go a bit mad.’ She opened her eyes suddenly. ‘Well, you would, wouldn’t you?’
‘Yes, of course,’ I said.
‘Mum thought maybe stories about Sydney had crept into my head, and that if I was in a different environment I wouldn’t be so crazy. She thought it was my imagination gone wild. You probably do too.’
‘No, I don’t,’ I said, though I wasn’t quite sure.
‘So we moved here,’ she said, waving an arm with a flourish. ‘Past the black stump, as we say. Nowhere. She was right—the visions all stopped. Currumbudgee was so new and shiny and different that I couldn’t possibly have crazy hallucinations here.’
We both looked out at the dark land beneath us. Nothing looked new or shiny.
‘But you’re still seeing things?’ I asked.
‘No.’ Talia stopped for a moment, and pressed her hand against her mouth. ‘It’s worse. I can feel something waiting for me here. Something old and sleeping. Older than anything I ever saw in Sydney. A man who was working on our yard told me a story. He gave it to me, and now I’m giving it to you. Like some kind of disease, I guess.’ She tried to laugh, but it came out as a sob. ‘I’m sorry, Mina. I don’t know if I should be happy you haven’t heard it, or frightened it’s only me.’
‘You’re not giving me anything,’ I said firmly. ‘What story did this man tell you?’
‘It was a story he’d been told,’ she said, ‘about the bunyip that lives in Currumbudgee Creek.’ She gestured to the bottom of the yard. ‘Our creek. Your creek. It’s a monster.’ She leant closer. ‘It’s huge, with a head like a crocodile, feathers on its body, and walrus tusks. It winds through the creek like a snake, and it has a horse’s tail. It’s always hungry, and always looking for food. It eats humans, and if you ever hear it howl then it is coming for you.’
Underdog Page 3
