Pookie Aleera is Not My Boyfriend

by Steven Herrick

  and we can all enjoy the parrots

  and rosellas

  and galahs

  for as long as summer holds.

  RACHEL

  There’s a deserted house on Baxter’s Hill

  with an old grapevine growing on the porch

  and hanging over the front door.

  You can see the house from every part of town.

  Whenever there’s a lightning storm

  most of us kids hope

  that it strikes the house

  and starts a fire

  so the ghost has to find someplace else.

  No one dares go near.

  Mick boasted he walked up to the front gate once

  but not even he’s going inside.

  Mr Baxter died a year ago

  and no one found him for ages.

  They say he was sitting on the lounge,

  his head bowed slightly.

  They buried him on his property

  because that’s what it said in his will

  and no one in town

  had the heart to go against that.

  His grave is on the hill,

  under the she-oaks

  and when the wind blows through the leaves

  it sounds like somebody moaning.

  An old man howling

  for food

  or water

  or help.

  That’s why nobody,

  not even adults,

  goes up to Baxter’s Hill.

  JACOB

  All my family loves peas,

  but we have different ways of eating them.

  Dad scoops them

  carefully

  onto his fork

  and leans in close to the plate

  before gobbling them up.

  Mum rolls her eyes

  and then rolls her peas

  across the plate

  and onto a soup spoon,

  she drinks her peas

  and doesn’t spill a drop!

  Mick uses his fork

  to stab one pea at a time

  but occasionally he just misses

  and the pea shoots across the table

  and onto the floor

  where Skip slurps it up.

  One pea for Mick, one for Skip.

  And me?

  I use the best pea-eating thing

  ever invented . . . my fingers!

  MR KORSKY

  The truth is me and Walter Baxter

  were best mates, all through school and after,

  when we both got married and had kids.

  And pretty soon those kids had children.

  In the blink of an eye and the tip of a hat

  me and Walter were grey-haired old men

  wondering how so many days can go missing.

  Walter’s children moved away

  and mine stayed

  and I didn’t think much of it at the time

  but something got into him,

  losing that part of himself.

  He’d visit me and the wife in the evening.

  We’d sit under the lemon tree

  and have a few drinks,

  watching the honeyeaters in the grevilleas.

  Walter visited for years

  until my grandkids arrived

  and they were always under our feet,

  chasing each other

  giggling and tumbling around on the soft grass.

  Don’t get me wrong,

  I loved it.

  So did the wife.

  But, sometimes, I’d catch Walter

  looking at them as they played

  and I could hear the sigh building

  from deep down.

  No one knows what makes a man

  or what breaks a man.

  Anyway, after his wife died,

  Walter stopped visiting.

  Once a week I’d go up to his place

  and we’d sit in his tatty kitchen

  not saying much.

  Around these parts there’s nothing to talk about

  if it isn’t the weather or family.

  How long can you talk about the heat?

  Or the wind?

  So I went every fortnight instead.

  Just two old blokes

  staring out the window

  listening to blowflies at the screen door.

  The house was falling down

  and Walter was too.

  I did what I could,

  bringing lamingtons the wife had baked,

  helping him fix the shutters against the wind,

  nailing the floorboards

  where age and warp had taken their toll.

  Once a fortnight wasn’t enough.

  I knew it.

  When they found my friend,

  I can’t tell you how that made me feel.

  SELINA

  Cameron swears he saw

  Ms Arthur at the grocery store

  with a man wearing a red T-shirt, black jeans,

  and a ponytail

  and Cameron says

  they were holding hands

  as they walked along the footpath

  and jumped into a green sports car,

  and yes, we know,

  Ms Arthur drives a blue Hyundai to school

  and Cameron

  tried to follow them

  except the sports car

  was faster than his bicycle

  but he guessed

  they were going to Dexter Street

  where Ms Arthur lives,

  so he took the short cut

  across Harpers Paddock

  and arrived just in time

  to see them walking up the stairs

  to her front door

  and he couldn’t resist,

  he yelled,

  ‘POOKIE ALEERA’

  and

  the ponytail man

  looked around

  so Cameron jumped behind a tree.

  Cameron swears that proves

  Pookie Aleera is Ms Arthur’s boyfriend!

  But, just as we all agree,

  Rachel asks,

  ‘Cameron, when you yelled out,

  did Ms Arthur look around too?’

  And Cameron says,

  ‘Sure. I yelled so loud

  everyone in the street turned around,

  even Mr Hobbs the postman.’

  And we all groan.

  RACHEL

  All morning on the Smart Board

  Ms Arthur showed us paintings

  of wheatfields

  and churches

  and cafés

  and starry swirling nights

  and bowls of fruit

  and lots of paintings of the artist

  because

  Ms said

  he was so poor he couldn’t afford models

  and fruit was cheap

  and wheatfields were free

  and Ms said

  you pronounced his name, Van Gogh,

  like Fen Hoch

  not Van Goff or Van Go

  and she told us he cut off his ear

  and went to a place

  where people with mental illness go

  and Mick said,

  ‘You mean the pub?’

  and everyone laughed

  even though

  cutting off your ear didn’t so
und very funny

  and we voted twenty-eight to nil

  in favour of his paintings

  and Ms said she’d seen the real paintings

  in art galleries

  and they were

  ‘explosions of colour’

  and

  ‘the work of a genius’

  and I thought maybe

  he cut off his ear

  because those explosions

  had come out of his tortured mind

  and landed on a canvas

  and maybe

  if he was really poor

  and the people in the hospital

  wouldn’t let him paint

  wouldn’t let him do what he had to do

  it made him mad enough

  and angry enough

  to hurt someone

  and he couldn’t hurt someone else

  so he hurt himself.

  I stared at his paintings for ages

  and wondered what it would be like

  to have all that going on inside your head.

  CAMERON

  The score was eight–eight

  in our lunchtime soccer game

  and Mick was doing his best

  to win it for our team

  dribbling down the wing

  beating two defenders easily

  before crossing it perfectly

  for me

  to take the biggest air swing in my life

  and land flat on my back

  in the dirt

  and no one laughed

  but no one cheered either

  because the ball went out for a goal kick

  and by the look on Mick’s face

  (even though he tried to hide it)

  I was sure I’d lost the game

  there and then.

  There’s only one minute and

  (quick check of my watch)

  twenty-two seconds

  before the bell rings

  for the end of lunch

  and suddenly

  I know just what to do.

  I look across and see Rachel, the bell-ringer,

  is checking her watch as well

  when Mick gets the ball on the halfway line

  so I run

  not towards goal,

  no air swings this time,

  I sprint to the school verandah

  as fast as my legs can go

  and I leap the stairs two at a time

  and peek into the staffroom

  to check no one is leaving

  then I reach for the school bell

  and lift it carefully

  holding the bell steady to stop it clanging

  and I hide between the banksia hedge

  and the office building

  when Rachel runs towards the verandah

  as Mick dribbles past Pete and Alex

  and Rachel reaches the desk

  where the bell should be

  ready to ring it for the end of lunchtime

  and that’s when Mick beats the last defender

  and curls a beautiful shot

  into the top corner of the goal

  for the winner

  and everyone races to congratulate him

  while I stand up from behind the hedge

  and call to Rachel

  that I’ve found the bell,

  someone must have hidden it

  to make lunchtime even longer

  and who’d do something like that?

  Rachel giggles and rings it

  as loud as she can

  while I run back to the oval

  with Mick saying,

  ‘Did you see it, did you see it?’

  over and over again.

  LAURA

  You’d think everyone would know about it,

  but each day it’s the same.

  All of Class 6A walk past the bushes,

  talking and laughing on the way back from lunch.

  I always wait to be last in line,

  so I can rub my hands, just lightly,

  along the top of the lavender,

  purple thick with flowers.

  Mr Korsky told me about it one morning

  when Mum dropped me at school too early

  and there was nobody else there.

  He even let me trim some of the plants

  with his clippers.

  I think he still has a bad back

  after saving Jacob’s life.

  He says he rubs his hands on the plants

  first thing every morning

  and before he goes home at night.

  He says whenever he’s upset,

  or worried,

  he just lifts his hands close to his nose

  and lets the perfect aroma

  take his troubles away.

  I spend all afternoon in class

  my chin in my hands

  enjoying the smell

  not worrying about a thing.

  SELINA

  It’s a stinking hot day

  and everyone is exhausted after lunch

  and we’re all slouched at our desks

  while Ms Arthur

  fans herself with a magazine

  and no one wants to do school work

  so Ms Arthur says

  we’ll have one super-quick

  maths competition

  and then we can all read

  whatever we like

  for the rest of the afternoon.

  Ms Arthur says,

  ‘Tell me the total of

  six plus

  five plus

  eight plus

  two plus

  four plus . . .’

  and Cameron

  raises his hand

  and says, ‘Twenty-five!’

  before Ms Arthur has asked him

  and she says,

  ‘I haven’t finished yet, Cameron.’

  A book is sitting on Cameron’s desk, waiting.

  Ms Arthur says,

  ‘Right, nine plus

  four plus

  ten plus

  three plus

  seven plus . . .’

  and Cameron

  raises his hand

  and says, ‘Fifty-eight!’

  and everyone groans

  because we all know he’s correct

  but Ms Arthur hasn’t finished

  so she ignores the answer

  and keeps going,

  ‘. . . six plus

  eleven plus

  eight plus

  two plus . . .’

  Cameron says, ‘Eighty-five!’

  ‘. . . nine plus

  twelve plus

  three plus . . .’

  Cameron says, ‘One hundred and nine!’

  ‘. . . two plus

  ten plus

  eleventy-seven plus . . .’

  Ms Arthur smiles,

  ‘. . . two trillion plus

  one plus . . .’

  and Cameron says,

  ‘Two trillion, one hundred and twenty-two

  and eleventy-seven, Ms!’

  And, finally,

  Ms Arthur says, ‘Correct’

  and tells us all

  to spend the rest of the afternoon

  reading.

  ALEX

  Me and Rachel wait until the weathervane

  a
t school

  is turning so fast

  Mr Korsky has to take it down from the verandah.

  Rachel winks at me in class and I nod.

  After school we both ride our bikes

  up to the Gap, just outside of town,

  where the main road cuts between Baxter’s Hill

  and the abandoned apple orchard.

  No one could grow fruit this far out

  without irrigation

  but legend has it, they tried for years

  and one day after a huge dust storm,

  the owners packed everything into their truck

  and left town, never to return.

  They say all the kids raced out here

  and collected what was left of the shrivelled fruit

  and the town had apple pies for weeks after.

  Now there’s nothing but a few withered trees

  and a barn with half the roof missing.

  Me and Rachel leave our bikes at the fence

  and climb the rusty gate,

  running into the breeze to the top of the rise,

  opposite Baxter’s Hill.

  There are two huge granite boulders here

  that shelter you from the wind.

  We lean against the warm rocks

  our heads tilting back to the sky

  and spend all afternoon counting the clouds.

  We don’t say much

  the wind is howling around us

  and we’re too busy keeping count.

  I like the feel of Rachel’s hand next to mine

  but I don’t tell her that.

  LAURA

  Every night, I open my diary

  and write a few words before bed.

  A self portrait –

  crooked teeth jumbled hair

  wears dresses, long and billowing, bright orange.

  Eats sandwiches of salami, tomato sauce and pepper

  washed down with juice

  that Mum blends every morning

  grinding carrots, beetroot, ginger and apple,

  I sing loud over the noise.

  A freckle under my T-shirt

  near my bellybutton

  like a friend, keeping me company.

  Or sometimes I make a list of wishes –

  a pony, black with a white blaze

  or

  a bicycle, with streamers

  and a carry basket up front

  for my cat . . .

  which I don’t have,

  another wish.

  An iPad

  with my Facebook site

  visited by friends

  leaving me messages

  and invites

  and photos

  and jokes