Underdogs

by Markus Zusak

  I stopped talking and stood up, because my legs were getting sore from the crouching down. Slowly, I walked toward Octavia Ash, whose bruised shins were now held up by her folded arms.

  "I --"

  Again, I stopped, as I walked to her and crouched down in front of her. I could feel the blood collect again in my legs.

  "What?" she asked. "What is it?"

  For a few seconds I wondered if I should do it or not, but before I allowed myself not to, I reached into the pocket of my jacket and pulled out clumps of paper and held them out to her, as if I were offering her everything I owned. On the paper were the words.

  "These are mine," I said, placing them in her outstretched hand. "Open them and read them. They'll tell you who I am."

  She did as I asked, opening the small piece of writing that was my first. The only thing is, she read only the start of them. She handed the paper back to me and asked, "Would you read them to me, Cameron?"

  My thoughts kneeled down.

  The breeze wandered between us and I sat next to her again and began reading the words I wrote back in Chapter One of this story.

  "The city streets are lined with truth, and I walk through them. Sometimes, they walk through me. ..." I read the page slow and true, exactly how it felt to me, as if it were oozing from me, and I said the last part just a touch louder. "Yes, when that's done, I also want the everything that's her to fill up so much in front of me that it spills and shivers and gives, just like I'm prepared to do myself. But for now, happiness throws stones. It guards itself. I wait."

  When I was finished, a final silence gripped us both and the sound of the paper folding up again sounded like something crashing. A look of feeling clutched at her face, holding it.

  She waited a while, before gently speaking. "You've never touched a girl before?"

  "No."

  "Not till me?"

  "No."

  "Could you do me a favor?" she asked. I nodded, looking at her. "Could you hold my hand?"

  Feeling every part of it, I took Octavia's hand, and she came closer and rested her head on my shoulder. She put her leg over mine and hooked her foot under my ankle, linking us.

  "I never thought I'd show anyone my words," I said quietly.

  "They're beautiful." She spoke softly in my ear. "They make me okay...."

  Soon after, she moved in front of me, crossed her legs, and faced me, making me read everything I'd written so far. When it was over, she moved my hands across her stomach to hold her on her hips.

  She said, "You can drown inside me anytime, Cameron," and she put her lips on mine again and let herself flow through the inside of my mouth. The pages were still in my hands, pressed against her as I held her hips, and I could feel her on top of me, breathing me in.

  After a while, we got up and Octavia turned to me. She asked a serious question.

  She leaned toward me and said, "You feel like getting high?"

  "High?" I asked.

  "Yeah." She smiled in a dangerous, self-mocking way, and I only began to understand why when we headed back toward the middle of the city, to the tower.

  We entered the lift and it took us right to the top, with some English golf pro-looking types, and a family on a Sunday outing. One of the kids kept stepping on my foot.

  "Little bastard," I felt like saying. If I had been with Rube I probably would have, but with Octavia, I only looked at her and implied it. She nodded back as if to say, "Exactly."

  Once up there, we walked around the whole floor and I couldn't help but look for my own house, imagining what was happening there, and hoping, even praying, that everything was going okay. That extended to include everyone down there, as far as I could see, and as I always do when I pray to a God I wouldn't have a clue about, I stood there, lightly beating at my heart, without even thinking.

  Especially this girl, though, I prayed. Let her be okay, God. All right? All right God?

  That was when Octavia noticed my fist lightly touching my heart. There was no answer from God. There was a question from the girl.

  She asked, "What are you doing?" I could feel the curiosity of her eyes on my face. "Cameron?"

  I stayed focused on the city sprawled out beneath us. "Just sort of prayin', y' know?"

  "For what?"

  "Just that things will be okay." I stopped, continued. Almost laughed. "And I haven't been in a church for nearly seven years...."

  We stayed up there for over an hour, walking around to see the whole city from this high up.

  "I come up here a fair bit," she told me. "I like the height." She even climbed to the carpeted step at the window and stood there, leaning forward onto the glass. "You comin' up?" she asked, and I'll be honest -- I tried, but no matter how much I wanted to lean forward onto that glass, I couldn't. I kept feeling like I was going to fall through.

  So I sat there.

  Only for a few seconds.

  When she came back down she could see I wasn't doing too well.

  "I wanted to," I said. "Don't worry, Cam."

  The thing was, I knew there was something I had to ask, and I did it. I even promised myself that this would be the last time I asked a question like this.

  I said, "Octavia?" I kept hearing her telling me that she came up here all the time. I heard it when I spoke the words, "Did you bring Rube up here too?"

  Slowly, she nodded.

  "But he leaned on the glass," I answered my own question. "Didn't he?"

  Again, she nodded. "Yeah."

  I don't know why, but it seemed important. It was important. I felt like a failure because my older brother leaned on the glass and I couldn't. It made me feel hopeless in some way. Like I wasn't even half the guy he was.

  All because he leaned on glass and I couldn't.

  All because he had the neck and I didn't.

  All because ...

  "That doesn't mean anything." She shot down my thoughts. "Not to me." She thought for a moment and faced me. "He leaned on the window, but he never made me feel like you do. He never stood outside my house. He never gave me any truth, the way you have with your pages there. He never gave me something he couldn't give to anyone else." She struggled not to explain it, but to actually say it. "The few times I've been with you, I feel like I'm kind of outside myself, you know?" She finished me. "I don't want Rube. I don't want anyone else." Her eyes ate me, quietly. "I want you."

  I looked.

  Down.

  At my shoes, then back up, at Octavia Ash. I went to say, "Thanks," but she stopped me by pushing her fingers up to my mouth.

  "Always remember that," she spoke. "All right?"

  I nodded. "Say it."

  "All right," I said, and her cool hands touched me on my neck, my shoulder, my face.

  SOMETIMES YOU GET THE GIRL --

  SOMETIMES THE GIRL GETS YOU

  Inside me, I'm high up, leaning forward onto glass. It cracks.

  It comes apart and falls open. Momentum pushes me out and I'm being dragged to earth at a speed beyond my imagination. I see the width of the world.

  The farther I fall, the faster it turns, and around me, I see visions of everyone and everything I know. There's Rube and Steve, Sarah, Dad and Mrs. Wolfe, Keith and Miffy, and Julia the Scrubber, looking seductive. Even the barber's there, chopping hair that litters down around me.

  I think only one thing.

  Where's Octavia?

  As I get closer to the bottom, I notice that it's water I'm falling into. It's salty-green and smooth, until...

  I'm driven through the surface and go deeper. I'm surrounded.

  I'm drowning, I think. I'm drowning.

  But I'm smiling too.

  CHAPTER 12

  When I got home that Sunday night, Rube and I did the usual deed of walking Miffy. The hound was in even worse shape than usual. The coughing sounded deeper, like it was coming from his lungs.

  When we got back I asked Keith if he was going to take him to the vet.

  "I d
on't think this is fur balls," I said.

  Keith's reply was pretty short and simple. "Yeah, I think I'd better. He looks shockin'."

  "Worse"Ah, he's been like this before," he explained, more out of hope than anything else. "It's never been anything too serious."

  "Well let us know what happens, okay?"

  "Yeah, bye mate."

  I thought for a moment about the dog. Miffy. I guess no matter how much Rube and I complained about him, we knew we'd sort of miss him if something happened to him. It's funny how there are things in this world that do

  nothing but annoy you, but you know you'd miss them when they're gone. Miffy, the Pomeranian wonder-dog, was one such thing.

  Later, when I was sitting in the lounge room with Rube, I missed many opportunities to tell him about Octavia and me.

  Now, I told myself. Now!

  No words ever came out though, and we just sat there.

  The next night I went up and paid Steve a visit. It had been a while since I'd been to see him, and in a way, I missed him. It's hard to pinpoint exactly what it was, but I'd grown to like Steve's company a lot, even though very little was ever said. Sure, we spoke more than we used to, but it still wasn't much.

  When I got there only Sal was home.

  "He should be here any minute," she said, in a not-too-thrilled voice. "You want something to eat? Drink?"

  "Nah, I'll be right."

  She didn't make me feel too welcome that night, like she just wasn't up to tolerating me this time around. Her expression seemed to throw words down to me. Words like:

  Loser.

  Dirty little bastard.

  I'm sure that at some point, a while ago, before Steve and I gathered an understanding of each other, he probably told Sal what a couple of loserous bastards he was the brother of. He'd always looked down on Rube and me when we all lived together. We did stupid things, I admit it: stealing road signs, fighting, gambling at the dog track ... It wasn't quite Steve's scene.

  When he came in, about ten minutes later, he actually smiled and said, "Hey, I haven't seen you for a while!" For a moment, I smiled back and thought he was talking to me, before realizing it was Sal he was talking to. She'd been doing a lot of interstate work lately. He walked over and kissed her. Then he noticed his brother sitting on the couch.

  "Hey Cam."

  "Hi Steve."

  I could see they wanted to be alone, so I waited a few seconds and stood up. The kitchen light surrounded them in the dimly lit lounge room.

  "Hey, I'll come back some other time," I said too fast. I made sure to get the hell out of there. was giving me the best piss off look I'd ever seen.

  "No."

  I was just about out the door when the word booted itself into my back. I turned around and Steve was standing behind me. His face was serious as he spoke the rest of the words.

  "You don't have to go, Cam."

  All I did was look at my brother and say, "Don't worry," and I turned and left without thinking too much about it. I had other places to go now anyway.

  It was still fairly early, so I decided to run to the station and get a train down to Hurstville. In the train's window I saw my reflection -- my hair was getting longer again and standing up wild and rough. It was black. Pitch-black in the window, and for the first time, I kind of liked it. Swaying with the train, I looked inside me.

  Octavia's street was wrapped in darkness. The lights from the houses were like torchlights. If I closed my eyes tight and opened them again, it looked like the houses were stumbling around in the dark, finding their way. At any moment I expected them to fade. Sometimes human shadows crossed through them, as I waited, just outside her front gate.

  For a while, I imagined myself walking to the front door and knocking, but I stayed patient. For some reason, it didn't seem right to go in. Not yet. I was dying for her to come out, make no mistake about that. Yet I knew that if I had to leave again without even a glimpse of her, I would. If I could do it for a girl who cared nothing for me, I could do it for Octavia.

  In that one stolen second, I considered the Glebe girl. She entered my mind like a burglar, then vanished again, taking nothing. It was like the humiliation of the past had been taken instantly from my back and left somewhere on the ground. I wondered for a moment how I could stand outside her house so many times. I even laughed. At myself. She was erased completely a few minutes later when Octavia moved the kitchen curtain aside, and came out to meet me.

  The first thing I noticed, before any words hit the air, was the shell. It was tied to a piece of string and was hanging around her neck.

  "It looks good," I nodded, and I reached out and held it in my right hand. "It does," she agreed.

  We went to the same park as the first night I came, but this time we didn't sit on the splintered bench. This time we walked over the dewy grass and ended up stopping by an old tree.

  "Here," I said, and I gave Octavia the words I wrote the previous night in bed. "They're yours."

  She read them and kissed the paper and held on to me for quite a while. I told her I loved the howling sound of her harmonica. That seemed to be the limit of my courage that night. I had to get back home, so I couldn't stay too long. It was just nice to see her and touch her and give her the words.

  When we made it back to the gate, I kissed her hand and left.

  "e you this weekend?" she asked. "Definitely."

  "I'll call you," she said, and I was on my way.

  At my place, when I returned, I was shocked to find Steve on our front porch, waiting for me.

  "I was wondering how long I'd have to sit here," he fired when I showed up. "I've been here an hour."

  I walked closer. "And? Why'd you come?"

  "Come on," he said, standing up. "Let's go back up to my place."

  "I'll just go in and --"

  "I already told 'em."

  Steve's car was parked farther along the street, and after getting in, there were very few words spoken in the car. I turned the radio up but don't remember the song.

  "So what's this all about?" I asked. I looked at him but Steve's eyes were firmly on the road. For a while I was wondering if he'd even heard my question. He let his eyes examine me for a second or two, but he said nothing. He was still waiting.

  When we got out of the car, he said, "I want you to meet someone." He slammed the door. "Or actually, I want her to meet you."

  We walked up the stairs and into his apartment. It was empty.

  "Looks like she's in the shower," he mentioned. He stood and made coffee and put a cup down in front of me. It still swirled, taking my reflection with it. Taking me down.

  For a moment, I thought we were about to go through our usual routine of questions and answers about everyone back at home, but I could see him deciding not to do it. He'd been at our place earlier and found out for himself. It wasn't in Steve's nature to manufacture conversation.

  I hadn't been to watch him at football for a while, so I asked how it was going. He was in the middle of explaining it when Sal came out of the bathroom, still drying her hair.

  "Hey," she said to me.

  I nodded, giving her half a smile.

  That was when Steve stood up and looked at me, then at her. I knew right then that at some point, like I'd suspected, he did tell her about Rube and me. I'd imagined it on the park bench in Hurstville for some reason, and I could hear the quiet tone of Steve's intense voice practically disowning his brothers. Now he was rewriting it, or at least trying to make it right.

  "Stand up," he told me.

  I did.

  He said, "Sal." She looked at me. I looked at her, as Steve kept talking. "This is my brother Cameron." We s hands. My boyish, rough hand.

  Her smooth and clean hand, which smelled of perfumed soap. Soap I imagined you'd get in hotel rooms I'd never get to visit.

  She recognized me through the eyes and I was Cameron now, not just that loser brother of Steve.

  On the way back home sometime a
fter that, Steve and I talked a while, but only about small things. In the middle of it, I cut him short. I said, with knifelike words, "When you first told Sal about Rube and me you said we were losers. You told her you were ashamed of us, didn't you?" My voice was still calm and not even the slightest bit accusing, though I was trying as hard as I could.

  "No." He denied it when the car came to a stop outside our house.

  "No?" I could see the shame in his eyes, and for the first time ever, I could see it was shame he held for himself.

  "No," he confirmed, and he looked at me with something that resembled anger now, almost like he couldn't stomach it. "Not you and Rube," he explained, and his face looked injured. "Just you."

  God.

  God, I thought, and my mouth was open. It was as if Steve had reached into me and pulled out my pulse. My heart was in his hands, and he was staring down at it, as if he too, could see it.

  Beating.

  Thrusting itself down, then standing up again. Almost bleeding down his forearms.

  I said nothing about the truth Steve had just let loose.

  All I did was undo my seat belt, take my heart, and get out of that car as fast as I could.

  Steve followed but it was too late. I heard his footsteps coming after me when I was walking onto our porch. Words fell down between his feet.

  "Cam!" he called out. "Cameron!" I was nearly inside when I heard his voice cry out. "I'm sorry. I was ..." He made his voice go louder. "Cam, I was wrong!"

  I got behind the door and shut it, then turned to look back out.

  Steve's figure was shadowed onto the front window. It was silent and still, plastered to the light.

  "I was wrong."

  He said it again, though this time his voice was weaker.

  A minute shuddered past. I broke.

  Walking slowly to the front door, I opened it and saw my brother on the other side of the flyscreen.

  I waited, then, "Forget about it," I said. "It doesn't matter."

  I was still hurt, but like I said, it d matter. I'd been hurt before and I'd be hurt again. Steve must have wished he'd never tried showing Sal that I wasn't the loser she thought I was. All he'd succeeded in doing was proving that not only had he once thought I was a lost cause, but that I was the only one.