Bird and Sugar Boy

by Sofie Laguna

  It was maths with Mrs Naylor. Maths was easy. I liked the way the numbers made patterns and fitted together and I liked the way that you could figure things out and, if you didn’t make a mistake, you’d always get the right answer. And if you didn’t get the right answer it meant you did make a mistake. Maybe it was just the smallest mistake, but if you made it, say, if you put down four instead of five, you wouldn’t get the right answer. You’d have to go back and find out exactly what you did wrong and make it right. That’s different to a lot of other things. With other things you don’t make any mistakes and they still don’t work out. Or you might think you must have made a mistake for the thing not to work out, and you go back over every little thing you did and you still can’t work out where you made the mistake, no matter how hard you look.

  THINGS THAT AREN’T RIGHT EVEN

  THOUGH YOU CAN’T FIND THE MISTAKE

  THAT YOU DID:

  Great Auks being extinct

  Dad being a single parent

  Dad’s own dad’s marbles being lost

  Cats eating wildlife until it becomes rare or

  extinct (birds)

  Sometimes I think about what would happen if I got stuck on a desert island with Mrs Naylor. If she tried to boss me round I’d say, You can’t boss me now, Mrs Naylor, it’s just you and me on this desert island and I can do whatever I want. I’d probably be the one to find fresh water, make smoke signals and kill a rabbit for us to eat. I’d probably be the one to boss her around. I decided that was one of my big dreams – to be stuck on a desert island. Not with Mrs Naylor, maybe with Sugar Boy.

  ‘Books open please. James, concentrate! I said books open.’ We weren’t on a desert island now; we were in Seven D with maths to do. That’s the way things actually are.

  I opened my book and looked at the numbers. ‘If you have a look at the column on the left, you will see that all the numbers are odd. You should also note that …’ Mrs Naylor’s sharp voice talking about the numbers and how they lined up and what they meant went right deep into my head where my bird thoughts were. I looked around the room. Sugar Boy’s head was down in his book. Mrs Naylor had already spoken to me about not disturbing Sugar in class. Jacky Jane was staring out the window.

  ‘Medeep medeep!’ I made two big frog noises at Jacky Jane’s back. Everyone turned round and looked at me. ‘Medeep medeep!’ I did the noises again, even louder. Sugar Boy started to squeak.

  Jacky turned around and looked at me. Her face was burning red. She looked hot and hurt, like I’d let out her secret thing. I hadn’t mean for that to happen – I just wanted to hear laughing and stop Mrs Naylor talking and stop the class from doing maths. Instead I’d let out somebody’s secret thing. I hate dumb girls.

  ‘James Burdell! That’s enough from you. Please stop disturbing the other students in the class.’

  I wished that Mrs Naylor would send me out of the class. I wished that she’d put me on garbage duty for a year. I wished she would say, ‘Go to Mr Brooks for making frog noises at Jacky Jane’s back and letting out her secret thing.’

  ‘Do you want to come over tomorrow and play Play Station?’ Sugar Boy asked me at lunchtime.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. The next day was Saturday and I always went over to Sugar’s on Saturday, but every Friday afternoon he asked me anyway.

  I looked over at the swings. Jacky was sitting on one of them, swinging slowly with her feet dragging on the dirt, and eating an apple. She didn’t see me looking at her.

  Dad and me were watching the news. When the news is on my dad joins in every now and then. He’ll say ‘damn right’ or ‘what do they expect?’ or ‘same old, same old!’ He sounds a bit annoyed a lot of the time when he’s watching the news. Sometimes I don’t know why he watches something that makes him so annoyed, but he never misses it. ‘Let’s see what’s going on in the world,’ he’ll say, before he finds out and gets annoyed.

  The news man was saying how road tolls are going up and Dad was saying, ‘You’ve got to be joking!’ when the phone rang. Dad picked up. ‘Oh g’day, Sugar. Yeah, he’s right here. I’ll put him on.’ He handed the phone to me.

  ‘Hi, Sugar.’

  ‘Hi. Ah, you can’t come over tomorrow.’ Sugar Boy’s voice sounded like he was further away than usual.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Oh, Mum says it’s a bit tricky this weekend.’ I could hear Sue Hill in the background calling out to Sugar Boy to get off the phone. ‘I’ve got to go. I’ll see you on Monday.’

  ‘Yeah, alright,’ I said. I didn’t even ask, ‘What about Sunday?’ On Sundays Sugar played with Chris, helped round the house and had a roast dinner with his whole family, even his father, early on Sunday night.

  ‘See ya, Bird.’

  ‘See ya.’ I hung up the phone.

  ‘What was that about?’ Dad asked.

  ‘Sugar’s busy tomorrow.’

  ‘What’s he up to?’

  ‘Dunno.’

  ‘Why don’t you get Tony over or Dean Orbs?’

  ‘Dunno.’ I didn’t really know. I just hung with Sugar Boy. We’re only two, but we’re the whole team. I walked into the kitchen and got myself a juice. I heard the news man talk about the price of petrol and Dad say, ‘Bloody ridiculous!’

  On Saturday I rode my bike to Grenfell River by myself. I climbed across to the willow cave and crawled inside. It was different without Sugar Boy. The sun, the willow leaves, the slow water went right inside me. All the sounds were going right inside me too – the wagtail song, chit chit chit, the swishing of the wind in the leaves, the starling whistling to her babies, coming coming. All those sounds went into where the bird thoughts were. It’s not that they were loud like traffic or shouting or the school bell. They were soft and their softness meant they could go even deeper inside me than traffic or shouting or the school bell – the way water goes into a sponge.

  I sat without moving and watched through the leaves for the silvereye. Come on, Silver. Come on, Silver. The silvereye likes orchards, gardens and rivers and on page 278 of Birds: A Field Guide, A P Davies says, This remarkable bird repeats a high mournful warbling ‘tee-oow tee-oow’.

  Soon I saw a flash of bright green in the branches of a white gum close to the water. I took out my drawing book and my pencil and as I watched I could hear the sounds of the pencil rushing across the page, but my eyes never left the bird as it hopped and flew and called tee-oow tee-oow. Soon I was flying through the branches looking for food for my three babies waiting in my little cup nest made of cobwebs, grass and roots. When at last the bird flew away, I looked down at the page of my drawing book and there she was, the silvereye, looking straight back at me.

  All the way home on my bike I made a mournful warble, teeeee-oooow teeeeee-oooooooow.

  Every day is the same number of hours, so why do some days go so much slower than others? Like Sundays, for example. Saturdays with Sugar Boy go fast; they’re full of bike riding, train racing and plans for the future, like staying in the tunnel and becoming footy/soccer stars.

  But Sundays seem ten years long. They’re slow and flat with only Dad for company. Dad says, ‘Get a friend over, Jamie,’ but Sugar Boy’s busy on a Sunday. It’s better when Uncle Garry comes round with Carby and Animal and they work in the front yard on their cars and motorbikes. Dad lies on the grass with most of his body under our WB – that’s Dad’s ute, which he’s done up. Animal comes on the back of Carby’s motorbike so he helps Carby and drinks beer. Sometimes they swap over and Dad works on Carby’s Triumph while Carby looks at the ute until Dad says, ‘I dunno how you ride these things, fellas,’ and they swap over again.

  Sometimes we make a barbecue and have a game of cricket. There’s a lot of shouting and laughing. It’s funny watching men run who aren’t used to running, having so much fun doing it because they leave it so long in between games.

  When Uncle Garry and me end up in the kitchen by ourselves – like if he’s getting the sausages out of the fridge and
I’ve got the juice or the tomato sauce and we’re taking them outside to the barbecue at the same time – I want to ask him questions about my mother and exactly why she shot through, and was it me? Uncle Garry knew Dad and my mother when they were together. I want to ask him why the smell of wool when its wet? But it’s like some of that wool when it’s wet has got caught in my throat and, even if I wanted to ask the question, that caught wet wool is stopping me.

  Sometimes I wish I lived in a bird sanctuary. I’ve read about bird sanctuaries, they’re big parks for birds only. Maybe insects too, for the birds to eat, but no cats, humans or pollution. A big dream of mine would be to start one. I would have birds flying round me all day, sitting on my shoulders and head and singing songs in my ear. They’d know me and I’d be their one human friend. Maybe A P Davies could be there too. He would be their other human friend. He’d be there to talk to at nights and show my drawings to. We’d discuss our plans for the sanctuary – how big we wanted it to be and what species we’d like to introduce.

  Maybe I’d discover a rare, nearly extinct bird and I’d protect it. I’d be like Steve Irwin, only for birds, and I would never hunt them, I’d breed them until planet Earth had more birds in it than people. Birds would cover the whole world and it would look different because it would be shining with the colour of the birds, and if you ever went for a bike ride the whole world would be full of the singing and calling and twittering of birds. The world would look different from outer space – it would glow from the shine of all the feathers. We’d be living in a bird world.

  Right at the end of Sunday, it’s time for the eight-thirty movie that I’m allowed to watch half of, before it’s time for bed. And I’m glad because by Sunday night it’s nearly Monday, when I’ll be seeing Sugar Boy again.

  When I’m lying in my bed with the light off, there’s time for even more thoughts – night thoughts, which are different to day thoughts. Maybe it’s because it’s dark and everything’s quiet except for the muffled sound of the rest of the eight-thirty movie that Dad is watching in the living room. I can hear it through the wall so all the pictures and light are in my own mind. Night thoughts are more picture thoughts. And I never know which pictures are going to come.

  Tonight I saw a fast train, Sugar Boy, Ern Tippy, Bird Sugar Boy Best Friends Forever, Jacky and Sandy Best Friends Forever, and the white-tailed tropicbird as it took off over the water into Monday morning.

  Even though Sugar Boy was standing there in front of me, he still seemed much further away. ‘What did you do on Saturday?’ I asked him at recess.

  ‘Nothing much. Just helped Mum round the house. Hung around. Nothing.’

  ‘Oh … want to go fishing this afternoon?’

  ‘Um … Dad wants me home.’

  ‘Your dad wants you home? What for?’ What was the mystery man going to be doing at home at four o’clock? I didn’t think the water at 5 Neals Road would have any bugs in it.

  ‘I don’t know, maybe just to help with Chris.’

  ‘How are you going to help with Chris?’

  ‘I don’t know. Let’s play footy.’ Sugar Boy never wanted to play footy, only soccer.

  ‘Yeah, alright.’ We kicked the footy around a bit, but I kept kicking off the side of my boot. I couldn’t kick right.

  The bell rang to go into class. Mr Kemp was teaching us about photosynthesis – that’s how plants eat. I’m interested in photosynthesis because it’s got a lot to do with birds, since the birds eat from the trees and sometimes when I draw birds I put in leaves and trees too, to show the natural habitat. With photosynthesis the plant traps light in its green parts, and changes the light into food. That sounds like a very hard and interesting thing to do, but I wasn’t interested today. I just wanted to hang with Sugar Boy. I flicked bits of rubber at the window with my ruler every time Mr Kemp turned his back on the class. I was doing it so that Sugar Boy would turn round and I’d mouth the word ‘trains’ and he’d know I meant let’s go and hang around on the tracks and maybe put some money down to add to the squashed-flat collection. Tony Torucci turned round, so did Sam Henderson, but not Sugar, so I stopped flicking, but I only half-listened about the chlorophyll and why leaves are green.

  We were standing at the school gates with everybody rushing out to catch the buses home or meet their parents waiting in cars, when he told me: ‘We’re moving to Broome.’ Sugar Boy squinted his eyes in the sun.

  There was always a lot of shouting and laughing and calling out about that time in front of the school gates. Maybe I hadn’t heard him right. ‘What?’ I asked him.

  ‘We’re moving to Broome.’

  ‘Where’s Broome?’ I was thinking he’d say up the road. I was thinking Broome must be a town in Denham Shire so small that I’d never heard of it.

  ‘Western Australia. We’re moving there in four weeks.’

  There was shouting and laughing coming from all the other kids as they ran past us, but the world between Sugar and me had gone very quiet.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Dad got an offer for a better job there. He can make a lot more money. Chris can get better looked after, because of the extra money.’ Suddenly I didn’t even know where Western Australia was. I tried to imagine the map of Australia but I still couldn’t see any Western Australia. I felt like I had to look normal in front of Sugar Boy even though I felt weird. ‘How far is Western Australia?’

  ‘Eight thousand kilometres, Dad reckons,’ said Sugar Boy, looking at the ground.

  I looked down too, as if something interesting might be down there instead of dust, our four feet in black scuffed school shoes and a few ants. Eight thousand kilometres. How long would that take on a bike? That’s what I started to think about, and then I wanted to be anywhere else but standing there in the dust looking at our four feet in black scuffed school shoes and thinking about an eight thousand kilometre bike ride. ‘Oh,’ I said. When I lifted up my head the sun was too bright in my eyes. It was burning right through my skin and showing my messy guts to the world.

  ‘Maybe we could go fishing tomorrow,’ Sugar said.

  ‘Yeah, maybe,’ I said. ‘Well, I better go. Dad wants me home.’ That wasn’t true because it was Dad’s late day back, and Sugar knew that. I turned away from him then, to get my bike from the bike rack. I knew he was still standing there, but I had to get my bike that very minute. It was important. ‘See ya later,’ I called out as I was riding away.

  I didn’t know what to do when I got home so I turned on the television. Cartoons for little kids were on. I watched a blue teddy bear getting lost and scared in the forest until he met a purple baby dinosaur and they became friends, even though at first the blue teddy bear was scared of the purple dinosaur. Together they found their way out of the forest and back to the blue teddy bear’s house where the blue teddy’s mother made them cake and lemonade and they all sang this song about how nice it was to be home and make a new friend and how nice the cake tasted.

  ‘G’day, Jamie. Where’s Sugar?’ Dad asked me as he came into the living room.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I answered.

  ‘What’s wrong with you?’

  ‘Nothing,’ I said, and went to my room. I got out my drawing book and drew a white-tailed tropicbird. I kept drawing until I was flying over a wide lake looking for fish to feed my three babies waiting for me in the reeds.

  Only a week after I found out about Sugar Boy going to Broome, the whole class found out. On Tuesday, Sugar and me went to Grenfell River and went for a fish. The wagtail was there, the thrushes were there and so was the butcherbird. Ern Tippy was there too, but we didn’t steal his bait or his flies. We just watched him fish, and smoke and sip from his can of rum and coke.

  On Thursday we rode our bikes to the tracks. The train came by, but instead of racing it we stood beside the tracks with our bikes leaning against the insides of our legs as the world filled with the roar of the engine. We didn’t even give the passengers staring out the window an up yours
. We just watched the train getting smaller and smaller until it was only a tiny black square far away in the distance.

  After it was gone we ran out of words. We’d used up all the words for the day and now there weren’t any left. Not a single word left in the world to say. I took a quick look at Sugar Boy at the same time that he took a quick look at me.

  We rode back to our houses and we didn’t race and Sugar didn’t stand up on his pedals and I didn’t yell, And James Birdy Burdell wins again!

  It was geography but instead of Mrs Naylor talking to us about Denmark and the city of Copenhagen, she was talking to us about Broome. ‘Who can tell me where Broome is?’ Mrs Naylor smiled as she looked around the class. ‘And Craig, please let someone else answer the question. We know you know where you’re going! Jacky, can you tell us where Broome is?’

  ‘Western Australia,’ Jacky answered.

  ‘Good girl. That’s right.’ Mrs Naylor pulled down the Australia map that was rolled up above the whiteboard. Down it came with a sudden whoosh. ‘The other side of the country and about as far away as you could get from Denham, isn’t it, Craig? What an adventure! We are here,’ Mrs Naylor pointed to where Denham was, ‘and Craig is moving all the way … here!’ She pointed at somewhere on the other side of Australia. ‘Craig, would you like to tell us about the climate in Broome?’ Craig said something, but he didn’t open his mouth properly to say it so the climate in Broome got caught somewhere between his teeth and tongue.

  ‘Mandy? The climate in Western Australia?’

  ‘Hot?’

  ‘Yes, very hot. Craig, I hope you’re a good swimmer. You’ll need to cool off on those beautiful Western beaches.’ Mrs Naylor laughed.