Heni Hani and the Magic Pendant: Part 1 (Heni Hani and the fears of the unknown)
Page 16
‘Will do,’ Brian called back, and then the truth sunk in. ‘Yeah! I get it. I’m the only one that doesn’t stink!’ referring to our cousins, the three Henton brothers.
‘You’re still the best one though!’ responded Jo. That certainly made Brian’s day. He broke a twig from a small gum tree, pulling a leaf off it. Then he sauntered off, making a gum whistle. We followed Brian to the western end of the calcrete ridge. If you look at the map, it’s on the northern side of the house. Jo watched Brian start to climb through the fence and then she turned wandering, daydreaming back towards the house. I stood poking an anthill with a stick, watching the ants move around frantically. They clambered onto the stick. Hearing a loud ripping sound, I looked up to see Brian stuck halfway through the fence.
‘Crikey! I ripped my dacks. Stone the crows! Mother’ll be ticked off about this.’ Brian pulled at the rip in his pants, making it worse.
‘Hey, don’t forget to bring some large chunks of that Rocky-road chocolate your mother makes next time,’ I yelled, grinning at the rip in his backside as he wandered off across the paddock. Five minutes and he’d be home. Poking through the clouds in the west, the sun began its rapid descent. The long shadows of the trees draped down from the calcrete scarp behind me as I stood watching the bright rosy pink sun. I warned you about pink sunsets before, remember? Now, a concerned voice called from the direction of the screen door.
‘Hen! Jo! It is time for tea. Hurry up! Come inside before it gets dark!’ As an afterthought, Mom added: ‘And—, where’s Brian?’ No one answered, so Mom clicked the door shut behind her. Jo creaked the screen door open going in.
‘It’s getting dark. Where’s Brian?’ Mother asked, with some concern.
‘He went home,’ Jo replied.
‘Exactly when did he leave?’ she interrogated Jo.
‘I don’t know — about ten minutes ago,’ Jo replied. ‘Aunt Rosa makes great chocolate Freckles and her Rocky-road is just the best. Mom, I want you to get the recipe?’ Jo added. ‘Mom — Mom—?’ she jumped up and down excitedly, tugging on Mom’s apron. Mother nodded, pushing her away.
‘Yes. I wasn’t born yesterday. And I’m not deaf. I heard you the first time.’ She looked down at Jo’s pleading face. ‘Okay. Okay. Next time I phone Aunt Rosa I promise to ask her for the Rocky-road and Freckles chocolate recipes.’
‘Thanks. You’re a doll.’ Jo jumped up and down again, hugging Mom’s arm.
‘Like a big Barbie doll,’ I added, walking into the kitchen. The wire door slammed shut. I slung the wooden door shut and romped over to the table. ‘Is there any OJ?’ I asked. ‘I’m dying of thirst.’
Mother turned and smiled at me, pouring me a drink of orange juice. ‘Thanks for the compliment Hen. Anyway, it’s not safe outside at night. It’s not safe at all.’ She passed me a full glass, turning to put the orange juice container in the kerosene fridge.
The door opened. Dad walked inside in his dirty, oily, frayed overalls, smelling of oil and grease.
‘Sorry? What’s not safe?’ he asked.
‘What do you mean?’ Mother replied, her eyes glowering, ‘What’s not safe?’ She walked over to the window in an agitated and indignant sort of way. ‘What’s not safe? The dark! — That,’ she said rhetorically, pointing her finger at the window. ‘That, that is what’s not safe!’ Mother looked at Dad then drew the blind down in a jerk, closing out the darkness.
‘Oh — really?’ he replied, stunned. It felt as if he’d just been kicked in the head by a raging bull.
‘Yes. That’s what Brian said,’ I added, astonished, looking up at Mom from the table. ‘I’m starving hungry. What’s for tea?’
Chapter 11: The pendant
The next day, on Cassiopeia Farm: Monday, September 17, 1973
Brian came over after school the next day, wearing the same clothes. The ripped hole had a patch over it.
‘You can’t trust the enemy—,’ Sergeant Brian hollered. ‘They’ll be attacking in droves. If they stand in a line thirty abreast there’re so many that they’ll just keep coming, like forever. These guys breed like flies. We might not beat them for thousands of years—. No, for tens of thousands of years—. No — for millions of years.’
‘For ten trillion years?’ suggested Jo jumping up and down excitedly, trying to be helpful.
‘Sounds like a load of codswallop,’ I snorted under my breath. ‘You’ve both been brainwashed!’ I wondered just how gullible they were. ‘Too much Sunday School.’
‘And—, they would still keep coming over the hill thirty abreast.’ Brian focused on his audience intently, slamming his walking cane down into the ground. ‘Forever!’ Actually it was a wattle shoot broken off a tree. And it missed, landing on the side of his leather shoe. He jumped and winced from the self-inflicted pain.’Oo—, Ah—, Oo—,’ he groaned writhing in pain.
I smirked. Jo just couldn’t help herself.
‘Wouldn’t that be a problem—? Sir,’ she asked.
‘A problem—?’ Brian looked perplexed, trying to ignore the pain. ‘Not for us mate. We have enough iron, lead and copper in the ground to keep us safe for a long time to come. And—, no worries, I’m here to protect you.’ Now, that was reassuring. I guessed that he would just run away at the first sign of trouble.
‘Well. What about the pile of dead bodies—? Wouldn’t they stink like warm smelly poo after a while?’ Jo placed her hand over her nose and squirmed.
‘Would we have time to eat lunch? Wouldn’t we all die from hunger?’ I added.
‘And—, what about them? Maybe they would like Mom’s soft, squelchy, cucumber and tomato sandwiches?’ Jo added, screwing up her face. Everyone has eaten those types of soggy, inedible, school lunches before. Wouldn’t it be great if mothers just put the salad in the container and you made your own? Yes, it would. But, they never do. So, we get the soggy version and end up binning half of it. ‘What if we just invited them to lunch and threw a party?’ Jo continued. ‘Mom could cook for them, for all of them.’
‘Yeah! It sure beats shooting anyone,’ I added. ‘After all, they’re just people like you or I—. But Mother would be busy cooking for all of them, especially if they all come for tea at once—. Maybe we can order take-away? — or just invite a few at a time.’
Sergeant Brian Hani laughed, salivating at the thought of food.
‘Don’t worry! When they come — just bend over—. Bend over now Jo. Do as I say!’ he ordered. Jo foolishly bent over. ‘And—, kiss your ass goodbye.’ Brian whacked Jo on the butt with his wattle branch.
‘Ouch! That hurt!’ she cried. ‘You’re a bully Brian.’
‘It never hurt me,’ he said with a smirk. Brian and I both laughed. Well, Brian did, Jo’s Golliwog may have and the dog appeared to bark in agreement. Blackie paddled over next to me and licked my hand.
‘Now shut the bloody hell up if you want to survive in this man’s god-dammed army,’ Brian ordered.
‘Brian, swore Heni. He swore. Brian swore. I’m gonna tell Mom. He said that swear word. Brian did. Really,’ Jo complained, getting all huffy.
‘I bloody well did not!’ Brian retorted, his face turning red.
‘I don’t think so. You did too!’ she replied indignantly. ‘You did it twice now!’
‘Both of you shut the god dammed kangaroo up!’ I replied, wanting to smooth things over. ‘That’s just army talk Jo. So, it’s allowed.’ It seemed to work.
Sergeant Brian made a mental note and flicked his brow with his pencil. He placed it in the gap between his missing front-tooth. Following that, he sucked his thumb, bit a piece of nail off and spat it on the ground, while walking away a few paces.
Spinning back to his left towards the line of sorry soldiers, the two of us, Brian clicked his boots together. Looking at his imaginary note pad with a smirk, and gaining his composure, he then cocked his head at us.
‘Imagine a sniper on top of a building looking for a target. If you look different to anyone else, tal
k differently, look at people differently, wear clothes that stand out from the crowd, or just act differently then you draw attention to yourself and become a target. If you open your mouth at the wrong time, like this dumb kangaroo,’ Brian prodded me with his finger, propelling me backwards. ‘You’re dead meat. Do you get that?’ he snapped. I could imagine it and did.
‘Yes Sir! Dead meat! Sir!’ we nodded at him eagerly as we squirmed on our feet rather uncomfortably.
‘Not just that — you make anyone anywhere near you a bloody fat target as well,’ Brian added. He threw a stick in the air and Blackie chased after it, fetching it for him. Brian took the stick and took aim at the bull’s paddock with a grin.
‘Heni, Brian swore again. He said that swear word. You heard him say that swear word. I know you did. I’m gonna tell Mom,’ Jo complained, throwing her hands in the air and turning to walk towards the house, ‘and—, right now!’
‘It’s okay Jo. We’re only play acting. It’s not real, so it’s allowed,’ I explained, grabbing her arm to calm her down. She pushed me away savagely and kicked at my leg.
I guess Brian’s point is that you never notice the person who blends into the crowd, the beggar, the person in the plain or unspectacular clothes, even the black and white collie dog sauntering past sniffing the car tires for somewhere to pee on. Blackie found a suitable tractor tire and raised his leg.
‘Okay. You pair of grunts! Come on, hit the deck and give me ten,’ Sergeant Brian ordered pointing at the ground with his stick.
‘I don’t wanna be a pig,’ Jo cried out indignantly. ‘And, I don’t wanna do any push-ups either.’ I didn’t either, so I nodded in agreement.
‘Oh, for crying out loud Jo, shut up. Put a sock in it. Get some color on your face and chuck on some cammy,’[14] Brian said. ‘It’s just a friggin’ game.’
‘Here.’ I passed Jo a tube of vegemite. She began smearing it on, but she ate more than went on the face. Brian snatched the tube from her and sucked on it.
‘Make like a tree and let’s go catch a few Charlies. Stand out from the crowd and you’re dead in this man’s army,’ Sergeant Brian singled me out with a hard thrust of the hand. I stumbled over, clambering back to my feet a bit peeved. ‘You too! Hey Private, that’s you,’ Brian pointed at Jo. ‘You can carry these boxes of grenades.’ Jo picked up a box full of water bombs; balloons filled with water. He sucked the tube dry.
A few minutes later Sergeant Brian tripped whilst climbing between the barbed wire strands of the wire gate. One of the water balloons caught on a loose piece of wire.
The pin slipped out of a hand grenade with a loud click! Actually, it went: splat! Brian, stopped in his tracks, looked down — at his wet pants — dropped the box and bolted. It was too late. The grenades — water bombs — exploded, killing both him and Jo’s Golliwog which sat in the box — well, saturating both of them anyway.
Rip! Partly detached now, the Golliwog’s arm hung dangling from a thread off the barbed wire. Jo picked up the rest of the exploded Golliwog, not in the least bit upset, wanting to take it back to the house to get Mom to sew it back together.
Brian lay on the ground clasping at a gaping imaginary grenade hole in his back. I too imagined blood, entrails and brain oozing out. Unfortunately, for him Brian remained on the other side of the fence. The bull tromped up behind Brian, head down, snorting, stomping the ground in a rage. Roar!
Brian froze in his tracks, his face turning pale. Clambering to his feet now and nearly falling over again, Brian swung around, eyes darting for somewhere to run.
‘Crikey,’ he shouted, edging away from the snorting, bellowing, stomping bull.
Eyeing off its target, snorting and tossing its head, the bull trotted towards Brian.
‘Quick, Heni, help me get through.’
‘Shoo! Shoo!’ I yelled at the stomping angry bull, waving my arms in the air to divert its attention. Jo hurled water bombs at it. That just infuriated it further.
Brian screamed, diving through the barbed wire fence between the razor wire. His pants caught on the barb wire, ripping loudly. He struggled to clear the fence as the bull darted towards him. Bouncing through the fence now, Brian grazed his forehead, making it just in the nick of time with a split second to spare. Genie our black cow, wandered over to see what the fuss was about. Its attention diverted for now, the bull chose to chase her, leaving us alone.
I learnt from that experience that it never pays to stand out from the crowd — especially with a raging bull in the same paddock. That ended our war games.
#
‘That’s the last of your war games!’ Mother insisted as she patched up the graze on Brian’s forehead. And then she sewed up the rip in his pants while he hobbled around embarrassed in his jocks, clasping a cup of a hot Milo. ‘Oh! Just look at Brian! He has blood and bruises from head to foot! Did you do that to him, Hen?’ she accused me in an annoyed voice. Before I replied, she cut in, her finger raised ominously in the air. ‘No! Don’t answer me. I’m just way too angry! No! I don’t want to hear any more excuses. That’s it! You kids need to stop these war games before someone gets hurt. Oh! My goodness! Look at Golliwog. I’ll have to sew him up again. Golliwog belonged to Grans, and Nana, and me, then to Teresa — and now—. Look at him Jo! You’ve all but killed him. I just want to cry!’
‘I never did that. Brian blew him up. Not me,’ claimed Jo belligerently.
‘It was an accident,’ I said, fooled by Mom’s fake crocodile tears.
‘Yes. I’m sorry. We all are,’ said Brian humbly. ‘But, it was the bull’s fault.’
‘Yes! Sorry Mom,’ Jo quipped in with a sad little voice, almost in tears. Like, as if Jo were ever sorry for anything? ‘The bull stomped on the Golliwog, killing him.’
‘Yeah — sure,’ I saw the answer plastered all over Mom’s silent face.
‘Well, why don’t you all go into the other room and play with your little dolls,’ Mother eventually spat at us in sarcasm. Tossing Brian his sewn up pants, her crocodile tears vanished.
‘Yuk! Mom, Brian and I’re not sissies,’ I said with disgust in my voice.
‘No way!’ agreed Brian, backing away. He pulled his as new trousers on.
‘Then go play cards or do something quiet. Oh, that’s right — boys don’t know how to play quietly. I forgot,’ Mother said, flicking her hand at us in dismissal.
‘We’re not all boys, neither!’ added Jo, stomping her foot on the vinyl floor.
‘Well, just go do something then. Go outside and play—.’ Then as an afterthought, ‘and—, try to stay out of trouble, for once! Just — go—!’ Mother spat, in a frustrated voice. She pointed with a limp finger as if drained of energy. Then, lifting the lid off the saucepan, she turned back to her cooking, opening the oven door. The sweet aroma of custard flooded the room. With Mom’s back turned, I stuck my finger in the saucepan of custard and then licked it off. It tasted thick, hot and sweet. Brian copied me. Jo slipped a sly glance at Mom before sneaking a custard taste. We slunk out the door, quietly.
‘Disgusting, I saw that — you little monsters!’ Mother yelled behind us as we slammed the door and ran like the wind. ‘And—, don’t come back,’ she paused. Rubbing at her rounded pregnant stomach, she arched her back to relieve the pain. Then she completed the sentence with a silent smile, ‘until supper!’ She wasn’t born yesterday.
Through our bedroom window Mother watched us high-tailing it to the safety of the barn, chuckling quietly to herself. She picked Jo’s pajama pants up off the floor folding them up. And then, after placing them neatly on Jo’s pillow, she turned and wandered back into the kitchen once more. Meanwhile, we clambered up onto the top of the haystack via the ladder. And then Brian and I did what boys do best. We stood tossing stones and water bombs towards the fence near the bull on the other side of the Morten Bay Fig tree. It stood watching us, snorting. Jo spat on a few passing chooks. Brian focused on dropping water bombs on the ground to annoy the roosters.
‘Hoo! Hoo!’
‘I got one too! Two points! Give me five. Hoo! Hoo!’ I cried out.
‘I got one too,’ said Jo. ‘Hang ten. Give me five! Hoo! Hoo!’
‘You did not,’ I countered.
‘I did too! Look. You can still see the big green slag I laid on the roosters back?’
Brian and I both squinted down at it.
‘Crikey, you did too!’ Brian said. ‘That must be worth ten points at least.’
‘Oo, Yuk! How vomiting is that,’ I replied. Just then, Brian butted in.
‘Can you do it again?’ he asked Jo.
‘It’s a synch,’ she replied. And she did. Hawk! Spit!
‘Oh, how gross,’ Brian and I both yelled simultaneously. We faked belching.
‘I ran out of stones,’ I said. ‘Be back in a jiffy.’ I climbed down the side of the ladder, leant against the side of the haystack and started fossicking for small stones. We used them to hit fence posts and barn doors.
‘Why don’t we water bomb him, Brian?’ Jo said. ‘I’m gonna do it anyway,’
‘Yeah, what a great idea,’ he agreed with a broad grin on his face, displaying both his dimples and the large gap between his front teeth. Splat!
‘Hey! You two,’ I yelled as a water bomb crash-landed just behind me, water splashing on my legs. ‘Cut it out! That’s not funny!’
Jo giggled and lobbed another one down. I dodged it. Splat!
It splattered a hen foraging nearby. The hen squawked in fright and took off.
‘Hey! What’s this thing-a-me-jig?’ I picked up a small shiny bronze coin-like medallion from off the ground and fiddling with it held it up to the sunlight for closer inspection. I noted a hole in its middle. The object reminded me of a ten cent coin, just twice the diameter and considerably thicker.