‘I’m going back,’ she said, trying to push past me.
Again I was surprised at how strong she was.
‘It’s no use,’ I said. ‘He’s gone.’
‘Out of my way!’ she screamed.
‘He’s gone,’ I repeated, but with much less conviction – I didn’t know that.
I went back into the drain, into the water.
‘Brandon!’ I yelled as I crawled, even though I knew there was very little chance he could hear me above the insane gurgling noise.
‘Brandon!’
One more minute, I kept telling myself, looking at my watch. One more minute.
But that minute elapsed and I kept going.
Until there he was.
Improbably, he was on his back, sort of wedged sideways, the water cascading over him: how in the hell had he managed that?
Eyes closed, body still. I’d been right: he was gone.
Better make sure, I told myself, and I dug my fingers into his neck as we’d been taught in the first aid course Coach Sheeds had made us all do.
Nothing: he was dead.
My first dead person, and I felt like I should be having these momentous feelings, but, to tell the truth, I wasn’t feeling much at all.
But suddenly: a pulse.
At first I thought it must be something to do with the gushing water.
But no, it was a pulse, weak but regular.
I grabbed Brandon by the scruff of the neck and yanked as hard as I could.
His T-shirt tore and he remained where he was.
Great!
So I grabbed a handful of his hair instead, squeezing my fingers tight, and again I yanked.
This time he moved.
I shuffled back.
I repeated the process, yanking him towards me.
Now the water was pouring into me, there was no avoiding it, no escaping the water and I copped mouthful after mouthful of it.
It tasted putrid, and I fought to keep it out, but it was no use, water poured down my throat.
I yanked Brandon forward.
Shuffled back.
We were moving, but too slowly, and my energy was rapidly diminishing.
A hand grabbed each of my ankles, sending a bolt of terror through me. I screamed – the biggest ugliest scariest monsters in the world lived in these drains.
‘It’s me,’ said PJ. ‘He’s alive?’
‘Just,’ I said.
‘Okay, how we going to do this?’
It wasn’t something to be explained, we just did it, somehow found a technique, a rhythm: PJ pulling me, me pulling Brandon, like some sort of dislocated caterpillar.
And weirdly enough, the water, the same water that so wanted to drown us, was our biggest ally, because Brandon was almost floating now.
‘I’m here,’ said PJ.
Thank God!
But now we had to get him up the ladder.
There wasn’t much to Brandon, and I was able to push him from behind while PJ pulled him from above.
Eventually we managed to drag him onto the higher level, out of the reach of the rising water.
It was like a room here, with a ceiling high enough to stand up. There was a round entrance at one end, through which I could make out the shapes of bushes.
There was more than just sleeping bags here, I could see foam mattresses as well. And open suitcases with clothes inside. And, surprisingly, a lot of paperbacks.
We put Brandon into the recovery position and I checked his pulse again.
It seemed stronger now, more regular.
‘We still need to get him to hospital,’ I said.
‘It’s okay, he’s better here,’ said PJ, stripping off his wet clothes. ‘Hospitals freak him out too much.’
I checked my watch.
It was past four.
‘I need to get home,’ I said. ‘I have to catch a plane to Italy at nine-thirty this morning.’
‘Skiing, are we?’ said PJ.
‘No, actually I’m running for …’
But I didn’t have the energy for any more words, any more justification.
I had to go.
But when I tried to go, when I tried to get out of there, I just didn’t have the energy for that either.
I collapsed back onto one of the mattresses.
‘Hey, you,’ said PJ, sounding just a bit like my mother, ‘don’t lie on there in those wet things!’
‘But this is all I’ve got,’ I said.
PJ threw me a T-shirt and some jeans that I assumed were Brandon’s.
‘Here, put these on,’ she said.
I hesitated – she was staring right at me.
‘I’m not looking,’ she said, turning to face the other direction.
I stripped off my wet clothes and put on the dry ones.
Punk may have ended about a thousand years ago, but nobody had told Brandon that. So I squeezed into a torn black T-shirt and torn black jeans that were at least one size too small for me. It didn’t matter, though, because they felt so good, so warm.
I opened my backpack, checked ClamTop, my iPhone.
Thank goodness, both of them were dry.
Again I checked my watch: four-twenty. I had to get going. But I couldn’t. I had no energy whatsoever. My eyelids were getting heavier and heavier. I could hear PJ somewhere near me. And I could hear Brandon’s breathing. And I could hear the splash of the water below.
And I had this incredible feeling of wellbeing, of happiness.
I wasn’t going to Rome. So what?
The Debt would come after me. So what?
Tonight I’d helped save another person’s life. And there was nothing at all ‘so what’ about that.
‘Goodnight,’ I said to PJ.
She didn’t answer, but her hand found mine, and she squeezed it.
The very last thought I had before I went to sleep was that there was no way I was going to let go of it.
FRIDAY
TO THE AIRPORT
Somewhere, out there, beyond this sleep that held me in its soft arms, my phone was ringing.
There was nothing I could do about it, though. Not now.
Again my phone was ringing.
This time I managed to open my eyes. Brandon was right next to me. For a split second, as I took in his face, so thin and white, I thought he was dead. But I realised that the sound I was hearing, that regular wheeze, was his breathing. No, Brandon was alive. And that lump on my other side must be PJ, I reasoned. I closed my eyes.
The third time I woke it wasn’t to the sound of my phone ringing.
There was a terrible smell.
And I was being shaken.
And somebody was saying, ‘Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light!’
‘Go away,’ I said.
‘Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light!’
I opened my eyes, and it was the most horrible thing, outside of a nightmare, I had ever seen.
Actually, it was the most horrible thing, inside of a nightmare, I had ever seen.
The Preacher, his face centimetres from mine, his toxic breath scorching my face, his hands clawing at my shirt.
I screamed, shuffling back.
‘Go away!’
‘So must thou bear witness also at Rome!’ said the Preacher.
‘What did you say?’ I said, and by this time PJ’s tousled head had appeared from under a sleeping bag.
‘So must thou bear witness also at Rome!’
Was the Preacher telling me I had to catch that plane?
‘So must thou bear witness also at Rome!’ he said for the third time.
‘Okay, already! I heard you,’ I said.
‘What does he want?’ said PJ.
‘He wants me to catch that plane to Rome,’ I said. ‘But how in the hell does he know anything about it?’
‘You better do what he says,’ said PJ. ‘He’s a pretty spo
oky old dude.’
Spooky?
He was terrifying.
I checked my watch.
‘It’s almost six,’ I said. ‘And I have to check in by seven-thirty. There’s no way I can get there on time.’
‘So must thou bear witness also at Rome!’ said the Preacher, one hand digging into the rags he was wearing.
It came out jangling a set of car keys.
‘He wants me to drive there?’ I said. ‘What is he, mad or something?’
Of course he was mad or something.
PJ held out her hand, and for the first time I noticed that her fingernails were painted alternate colours, pink and purple, pink and purple. The Preacher tossed her the keys.
‘Let’s go, then,’ she said.
‘You’re going to drive his car?’ I said.
‘It’s not exactly a car,’ she said. ‘He lets us use it sometimes.’
Like Alice, I’d fallen into a topsy-turvy world where normal rules no longer applied.
‘So must thou bear witness also at Rome!’ said the Preacher, taking a step towards me.
I got quickly to my feet.
‘Okay, let’s go, then. Let’s go bear freaking witness in freaking Rome.’
I realised that I wasn’t wearing shoes, however.
Brandon didn’t seem to have any spare ones, black and torn or otherwise, so I had no choice but to use my old runners.
It was like putting some sort of disgusting bottom-feeding marine creature on each foot.
‘Will he be okay?’ I asked, pointing at Brandon.
‘Sleep’s good,’ she said.
We left the sleeping Brandon and the now-silent Preacher and quickly made our way out of the sump, down that last little piece of drain, and through the park, my feet squelching with every step. It was a really nice morning: the sun was shining, birds were singing, and the rain had made everything look and smell clean and fresh. And despite the night I’d just had, I could feel my spirits lifting. I wondered if this wasn’t more than just meteorological, if it might also have something to do with being around PJ, the anime.
When we came to the turnoff to the path that led out of Preacher’s, PJ kept walking.
‘Isn’t this the way out?’ I said.
‘You trust me or not?’ she said.
She was a street kid, a scam artist, a thief – not the type you usually trusted – but for some reason I did trust her.
We continued along this path before we turned onto an even smaller path.
I looked around for a landmark – who knew, one day I might have to use this route?
There was a gum tree with a split trunk.
That’ll do, I told myself, making a mental note. Turn left at the tree with the split trunk.
This path wended through scrub until it eventually came out at the back of Preacher’s.
I hadn’t been here before and I was sort of glad of that, because it had the look – a couple of burnt-out car shells; the smell – like squashed insects; the feel – totally creepy – of a major Badlands.
‘Lovely place,’ I said.
‘Remember that murder case last year?’ she said. ‘The husband who killed his wife?’
I nodded, though I only had a vague recollection.
‘That’s where they found her,’ she said, pointing to a crop of bushes we were walking past. ‘Or what was left of her.’
‘And the Preacher’s wheels?’
But my question was redundant, because they’d already come into view. The Preacher’s wheels was big and it was black.
‘Wait a minute,’ I said. ‘Isn’t that a hearse?’
PJ nodded.
‘Hop in.’
‘You’re really going to drive?’ I said.
‘Look, do you want to get to Italy or not? No skin off my nose either way.’
It was a pretty good question: did I want to get to Italy or not? And it didn’t take me very long, about a nanosecond, to decide that there were a number of reasons, some of them Debt-related, others not, why my answer had to be yes.
‘Okay, let’s go,’ I said, getting into the front passenger seat.
The hearse had a very strong, very unpleasant smell. And I wondered if maybe there was still a client in the back. A quick inspection revealed nothing coffin-like, however, just a whole lot of rubbish; old newspapers mostly.
PJ pumped the accelerator, twisted the key.
‘Come on, Hearsey,’ she said, in a way that suggested she was quite familiar with driving it.
Hearsey responded with a couple of barks and then the throaty roar of an internal combustion engine. I was about to say something like, ‘So you’re okay to drive this beast?’ but I managed to bite my tongue before the words were out. Of course she was okay to drive this beast, otherwise she wouldn’t be driving this beast, would she?
We rumbled through the Badlands and then onto a main road. I guess if I was a minor illegally driving a car I would probably choose something a little less conspicuous than a hearse. A Barina maybe. Or a Ford Festiva. But weirdly enough, nobody gave us a second look. Admittedly there weren’t many people around, but those that were didn’t seem that intrigued or interested as we passed.
I needed to ring a few people, but my phone had run out of juice.
‘Does your phone have any charge?’ I asked PJ.
‘A bit,’ she said.
‘Can I borrow it?’
‘Sure,’ she said, extracting a Nokia from her front pocket.
Mom?
Or Dad?
Neither.
I rang Gus instead.
He was concerned but surprisingly calm.
‘You’re okay?’ he said.
‘I’m fine,’ I said. ‘I’m on my way to the airport.’
‘You are?’ he said.
‘Yes, can you bring my stuff? It’s all in my room.’
‘Your passport?’
‘It’s in the shoulder bag. The orange one.’
‘Okay, I’ll meet you at check-in.’
‘And Gus?’
‘Yes.’
‘Can you tell Mom and Dad that I’m okay?’
‘Will do,’ he said.
Well, that was surprisingly straightforward, I thought.
We’d turned onto the freeway and were heading north to Brisbane.
‘How long from here, do you reckon?’ I said.
‘About an hour,’ said PJ.
I checked my watch: we were on track. Just.
The hearse was barrelling along, PJ was driving well, and again I had that crazy feeling of wellbeing, that the world wasn’t such a evil, rotten place after all. And again I wondered if it had something to do with her, with this street kid.
‘So how did you end up on the streets anyway?’ I asked.
‘That’s a highly original question,’ she snapped.
‘I was just trying to make conversation,’ I said, trying to keep the hurt from my voice.
‘I get that,’ she said. ‘But what if I asked you how you ended up as rich kid?’
‘Then I’d probably attempt to give you a civil answer. Maybe something like “because I got born to rich parents”.’
‘Yeah, well we didn’t,’ she said. ‘And that’s how we ended up on the streets.’
As far as explanations went, it wasn’t much of one, but I got the idea that it was all I was going to get.
‘Has anything, like, really bad happened to you?’ I said.
‘Crap!’ said PJ.
At first I thought it was an answer to my question, as in ‘crap’ had happened to her, but then I realised it had more to do with what was up ahead. There were flashing lights and barricades, a couple of ambulances, two smashed-up cars and a tow truck. And there were police, police cars and police officers. Crap, indeed. A baguette full of it.
‘We’re done,’ I said, and I could see Italy fading from view.
‘You didn’t give up that easily last night,’ said PJ as we pulled up at the back of the line o
f cars.
‘That was different,’ I said. ‘Brandon could’ve died.’
‘And this Rome thing isn’t important?’
‘Of course it’s important!’ I said. ‘It’s the most important thing that’s ever happened to me.’
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘That’s all I needed to know.’
The cars moved slowly forward.
‘Do you think they’re checking registrations?’ I said, wondering if the hearse was up to date.
‘No, they’re just making sure everybody takes it nice and slow while they clean up the mess.’
If that was the case, then we did have some chance of getting through.
We rolled slowly forward. I checked my watch: we had twenty-five minutes to get there. I could see two uniformed cops directing the traffic. The car in front of us, a grey Toyota Kluger, passed through, and it was our turn.
The cop was looking straight at us. Surely he must see us. Surely. But then something occurred to me: the sun that was rising in front of us must be glinting off the windscreen, obscuring his view.
As long as we kept going the way we were we’d be right.
Keep coming, beckoned the copper. PJ took her foot off the clutch and the hearse stalled. She turned the key, the engine sputtered, but that’s all it did. I checked the fuel gauge: the needle was on empty.
‘There’s no fuel,’ I said.
‘The gauge doesn’t work,’ said PJ, pumping the accelerator.
The car behind us beeped. The policeman was still making the beckoning motion, but he was walking towards us now as well. The engine sputtered, there was another beep from the moron behind, the policeman still beckoned, still walked, and the sun went behind a cloud.
I could see the expression on the policeman’s face change from one of slight annoyance to one of surprise and then shock. There’s a bloody kid driving the hearse! The beckoning gesture became a stop gesture as he yelled something to his colleagues.
The hearse’s engine kicked into life.
‘It’s up to you,’ said PJ, revving the engine.
I had no time to think; there seemed to be police converging on us from all directions.
‘Rome,’ I said.
PJ dropped the clutch, rubber gripped bitumen, and the hearse seemed to rear up like a wild horse before we shunted forward.
A couple of the cops had to jump out of the way, a barricade went flying, but we were away.
A very loud ‘Jesus!’ was all I could come up with.
Fetch the Treasure Hunter Page 6