Neville the Less

by Robert Nicholls

  * * *

  She didn’t believe him, at first. Not even that he’d have the courage to try. But she was quickly mesmerised by his self-encouraging explanation of how their problems would melt away. If the Things had Ava (he said) it would be just the help she needed to break free. And if the War Things were gone the Quiet Man would also be free. Which would mean that Home Country would be back to normal! After which they (Neville and Ava and ‘Soon, with the help of the Quiet Man, who would be a Hero again) could turn their minds properly to Shoomba and the Duke and the pirates and the Folly and Anosh.

  By the time he’d finished, ‘Soon’s old animation was almost restored. So much so that she’d allowed, even encouraged Beau’s joining in to help make a plan. The first obstacle, for example, to ‘getting amongst’ the Things was that it had to be at night, because after dark was the time they liked to come out.

  “Spotlights!” Beau boomed. “I can get ‘em! And guns! Real guns, if ye like!”

  ‘Soon looked at him darkly and Neville, with his recent promise still ringing in his ears, knocked the offers firmly back.

  “No. They won’t come out if there are lights. Or guns. The big problem,” he said, “is that it might get very noisy. I mean noisy enough for Mum to hear. And if she does, she’ll come to see and fetch me upstairs and the Things’ll hide ‘til she’s gone. And then it won’t have worked!”

  It was the basic practicality of that thought that finally convinced ‘Soon of his determination.

  “What if Beau and me were there, waiting in the darkness? When she comes to fetch you, we could take your place. First me, then Beau, one after the other. So if the second one fails, the third one might be enough to chase them!”

  To Beau’s great relief, Neville was unsure.

  “I don’t know if they’d stay for you. They don’t know you. It’s me and the Quiet Man they know. I bet I could take the magic cyclone bolt though! ‘Cause it belongs to the house so maybe they won’t recognise it!” (He would, he thought, have to get home very soon and hide that bolt before Shoomba returned to claim it.) “The real problem is to think of a way to get Mum to go out! But she won’t. Not at night. Not without leaving someone to watch us - ‘specially after me going off other times in the Lightning Bug.”

  “Hayl’s!” Beau exclaimed. “We need Hayl’s! She’s cunning as a rat! Wait here!”

  In short order he’d fetched his sister from the Boogerville house, the four of them had shifted into the bus and, true to Beau’s promise, Hayley was demonstrating just how dexterous rat-cunning could be.

  7. A Penny for Your Medal

  The good news when Neville got home was that Mum was back in the house. The bad news was that so too was Shoomba and together they were standing in the hall, discussing the ruins of the picture frame.

  “Cryin’ shame, Love,” Shoomba was saying. “You workin’ like a navvy here! Keepin’ life ‘n’ limb together. An’ here’s your thanks, eh! Here’s your thanks.”

  “I don’t know, Dennis. Maybe it just fell!”

  “Yeah, yeah - course it did. Maybe that nail jumped outta it’s hole an’ straight back in again. Or maybe that hangin’ wire crawled up an’ threw itself off. Or might be one o’ them ‘Underpants Things’ young fella goes on about got wind of a Hero on the premise an’ decided to make comment.”

  Even Neville could hear the implied ridicule and was glad to hear the warning note rise in Mum’s voice.

  “Dennis . . . !”

  The tone was one Neville knew well but Shoomba, sensing the coming-apartness of Home Country, had grown recklessly confident.

  “Now now!” he boomed. “Truth between friends, Love, ‘at’s all I’m sayin’! Better to hit them ol’facts face on than have ‘em creepin’ around behind ya, ye know what I mean? Bad ‘nough your older bloke’s at the bottom of his game without young fella goin’ off his rails too. ‘At’s all I’m sayin’. Ye deserve better, Love. ‘At’s all I’m sayin’.”

  On another day, Nev’ would’ve shipped out straight away - gone off to hide his shame at being ‘off the rails’. But not today. Today he wasn’t ashamed. Nor was he off the rails. Today he was a boy with new clarity and a new strategy that had those rails right firmly under his feet. It was a day which would see the end of either himself or the foul beings that stood between the Quiet Man and his journey home, and neither Shoomba nor Mum nor any level of shame they could press on him would be enough to daunt him.

  “Neville!” Mum’s rant began the moment he stepped into the room. “Where’ve you been? And what on earth has happened here? Did you do this? This frame . . . it cost me nearly a hundred dollars to get this picture framed! And now look at it! It’s ruined! And the medal! I can’t find the medal anywhere! Your father risked his life for that medal, mister, and you better pray it’s not lost! You . . . who’s supposed to be in bed, recovering! From a second smack to the head! Not sneaking off on your silly fantasy adventures! Not wandering the neighbourhood! There’s to be no more of that, d’you understand? Not in the daytime, not in the night time! Not anytime, ever again! Not unless I specifically tell you to go! Understand? What if you had a concussion and collapsed somewhere and I couldn’t find you? Or you fell out’ve a tree? Or you collapsed in Rahimi’s pond and drowned? Eh? Did you think of any of that? Did you think what would happen then?”

  She paused for breath and Shoomba jumped in. “Only stepped out for a minute meself! Get some neighbourly precautions under way! Wouldna let him go if I’d been here. No way! No sir! Wouldna got past me!”

  And then Mum again. “D’you hear that, Neville? Mister Shoomba was kind enough to give up part of his day to sit with you - after finding you again in his yard, in that silly boat, in the middle of the night!”

  “Now now, Love,” Shoomba interjected again, patting her arm. “Toldja I’d keep an eye out, an’ I did. Man’s no better’n his word, ‘at’s what I always say. No need for thanks.”

  “D’you hear that? ‘No better than his word!’ That’s what a man is, Neville! Not someone who says one thing then goes off and does the opposite! You gave me your word not to go off, didn’t you! Yes you did, don’t deny it! And I believed I could count on you, but no! Just half an hour, I’m gone! Half an hour that I should be spending here, looking after your father, but instead I’m out trying to tee-up the neighbours to also keep an eye out for you! And what do you do? You let me down! You take advantage! You sneak off . . . again! It’s too much, Neville! I can’t deal with you turning crazy on me! Not on top of everything else! Do you hear me? I can’t deal with it! It’s got to stop!”

  Tears tumbled from her eyes then and, with a last flutter of her hands, she fled to her bedroom, leaving Nev’ alone with the hulking neighbour, the brooding Quiet Man, the broken glass and the absence of the medal. And every one of her questions unanswered. Shoomba stared after her. Then swung his shifty attention, first to the shattered frame and then to Neville the Less.

  “Medals,” he said.

  “I don’t think I gave my word,” Neville mumbled.

  “Coulda had a trunk load of ‘em meself,” Shoomba boasted. “Over the years, ye know? Services rendered. But did I wan’ ‘em? No sir! ‘Cause whadda they mean, eh? All stuffed wi’ them foreign sayin’s: ‘Bona Fide Inertia,’ ‘Post Mortem Per Capitum’. Whatever. Run ‘em off by the hundredweight, they do. Thousands - outta leftover bits o’ aluminium foil! Didja know that? Not worth a pea in a pod! No sir! Keep your medals, says I. Let me be a no-medal man who stays on his feet an’ keeps his word, that’s what I say. Stays on his feet an’ keeps his word. That’s the true measure.”

  A sly, self-satisfied smirk had parked itself on his face like a smear of butter. He pushed his wig back an inch, the better to show his bobbing eyebrows, and gesturing toward the Quiet Man, said, “See there what I mean? Flat out an’ not a word at all, let alone one worth keepin’! Some’s up to it, ye see, an’ some jus’ burns out! Medal don’t save ye if yer one o�
� them! Eh? Uh? You bet! I seen hundreds fall by the wayside, mate, jus’ like your ol’ man. Not me though.” He waggled his toes, openly pleased with himself. “Still on me feet, me. Still dancin’.”

  He started toward the door but turned at the last minute. “Oh, an’ speakin’ o’ dancin’. I’m expectin’ to see me iron bar danced back to me pretty smartly, eh? An’ don’ leave it too long, neither. Wouldn’ wanna burden yer ma with tales o’ stealin’, would we!”