Bird and Sugar Boy

by Sofie Laguna

  I looked at Craig sitting in front of me. His head was down. He was probably thinking about jumping in the waves of those beautiful Western beaches.

  The map of Australia swirled in front of my eyes. I couldn’t see the difference between Victoria, the Northern Territory and New South Wales. They were all just one swirling mess – green rainforests running into yellow deserts, yellow deserts into blue seas, and rivers into mountain ranges. One thing I could see was a very big desert called the Great Sandy Desert between Denham and Broome. I thought about how hot that desert would be. I wondered if any birds would survive the conditions. I wasn’t sure.

  I hoped that nobody looked at my face when Mrs Naylor was pointing at Broome on the map because my mouth felt like it was twisting up and going tight, my eyes felt like they were stretching or shrinking, I couldn’t tell. For a minute I thought that dumb Jacky Jane was looking at me, but when I turned to check she was looking at the map and Mrs Naylor with her pointing stick.

  It was Friday afternoon. ‘Do you want to come over tomorrow?’ Sugar Boy asked me.

  ‘No. I got stuff to do.’

  ‘What stuff?’ Sugar asked.

  ‘Stuff!’ I didn’t want to see stupid Sugar Boy on Saturday. I didn’t have anything else to do, but I didn’t want to see him.

  ‘Alright. What about Sunday? Do you want to come round on Sunday?’ Sugar had never asked me round on a Sunday before – Sunday was his family day, his early-roast-dinner-with-the-mystery-man day.

  ‘Nah. Dad and me are going fishing.’ Dad hadn’t gone fishing with me for ages. I knew Sugar Boy would know that, but I didn’t care.

  ‘Alright then,’ he said and walked away. The amazing thing was, when I got home Dad asked me if I wanted to go fishing with him the next day! Sometimes it’s like there’s a magic man watching things and doing things to us to give us surprises, like saying Dad was going to take me fishing with him and then coming home and it really happening.

  He was out the front yard mowing the lawn when I got home from school. Our grass is usually the longest on the street, but every so often something comes over my dad and he mows it. ‘Jamie, I was thinking. We could go fishing at the point with Uncle Garry and Carby if you like, tomorrow. Sugar Boy could come too. How about it?’ Dad used to take me to the point years ago. You could catch a shark there if you had enough bait. I don’t know why we didn’t go anymore. Sometimes I think Dad was just too tired from his job. I don’t know.

  Maybe it was because I wasn’t ready for it, but I said no. I said I was going to hang out at Sugar’s place.

  ‘You sure about that, Jamie?’ he asked me again.

  ‘I’m sure, Dad.’

  Dad had a look on his face like he couldn’t understand something and trying to understand was hurting his face. He shook his head, then after a bit he pulled on the chain to get the mower going again. ‘Suit yourself then. Probably a good idea to stick around here anyway. I’ll get some things done around the house,’ he shouted over the top of the mower. ‘We can go fishing another time.’

  When Saturday came around I didn’t know what to do. I thought maybe if I got on my bike something would happen and I’d end up somewhere I didn’t expect. I’d have an adventure and I’d make sure it was an adventure a long way away from 5 Neals Road. I’d probably end up having the best adventure of my life that very day, without Sugar Boy. Then on Monday I’d tell him about it – You should have seen what I did on Saturday!

  As I was riding my bike, I started having bike thoughts. Bike thoughts are different to night thoughts or drawing thoughts or car-driving thoughts. Bike thoughts are faster and they’re not worried – they’re lighter because if they weren’t you might hit gravel and crash or get your tyres caught in a gutter grid. Today I thought about flying. Sometimes riding down Bradley Road feels like flying and maybe that’s what got me thinking about it.

  I’ve never been in an aeroplane before and it’s one of my big dreams to go in one. It wouldn’t be the same as when a bird flies – I wouldn’t just be out there in the air going in any direction I wanted, stopping to call to other birds on the way or taking a drink from a flower I might see or following the stars to chart my way across the world – but it would still be flying, and one day I’d really like to do it.

  I know flying costs a lot of money and we don’t have a lot of that because of Dad being a single parent. He sometimes says, ‘The world’s not made for single parents,’ and his eyes shrink and he gets his straight-line mouth. Some fathers, like Sugar’s, get to spend a lot of time at work making money while Sue Hill stays home and makes sure Chris gets his air in and Madeline gets to ballet lessons, but my dad has to be home more of the time because of me. ‘That’s the lot of the single parent,’ he sometimes says. It means there’s no extra money for flying round the world to where some rare and maybe undiscovered birds might be.

  My bike didn’t end up taking me very far. Only down to Grenfell River and the starlings. Starlings don’t just do their own songs, they mimic the songs of other birds too. It’s so they can trick enemy predators into thinking they’re bigger, more dangerous birds than they actually are, to defend their territory.

  ‘Hello, starlings,’ I whispered. There was no one else to talk to. You might think starlings are black, but if you watch them long enough – in the shade as well as in the sunlight – you can see that they’re not black at all, they’re a shiny deep green. Soon a shiny deep-green starling began to draw herself across the page of my book. It wasn’t long before I was twittering to my mate, and searching the earth for worms with the rest of the flock. I probably would’ve stayed like that all day if I hadn’t been interrupted.

  Someone was walking along the river. I stuffed my drawing book into my backpack. It was Jacky Jane! What was she doing here? I’d never seen her down here before. I shuffled back on the rock so I was hidden behind the branches and I watched her walking along. She was carrying a bucket and as she walked she trailed a stick through the water. Every so often she bent down to look really close up at something. I don’t know what she thought she’d find – maybe she liked looking at brown mud. Who knows what girls like to look at? Not me. And not Dad, either. ‘Women are a mystery, Jamie. Don’t even try and work them out.’ Maybe if Dad had worked them out my mother wouldn’t have shot through. Who knows?

  Soon Jacky Jane disappeared round the bend. I wanted to ask her what she bought the bucket along for. What would a girl carry a bucket for? She didn’t have any fishing gear with her – she wasn’t fishing – so why? Who cares why, because she’s a dumb girl, that’s why.

  Today was geography. I wish Mrs Naylor knew a bit more about the birds in Scandinavia and not just what the population in the major cities is – looking at the pictures of the natural environment I reckon those mountain ranges would be full of birds. I don’t think Mrs Naylor has any interest in birds – she likes statistics about roads and buildings.

  I was sitting there with her voice going on and on and then I started thinking about the future. The future is something you don’t know, it’s a mystery. You can guess, you can fill it with big dreams, maybe you could even see a fortune teller, but it’s still going to be a mystery. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like a mystery, though, sometimes it just feels like bad news. When I imagined the future right then, I didn’t imagine winning the lottery or discovering rare birds or flying in a plane to South America, I just imagined the future with no Sugar Boy in it. Would the 4.40 express still come round the bend after he was gone? Would the tunnel still be there with the graffiti and our collection? Would Mrs Naylor still be here talking about fractions and the climate in Denmark? I put up my hand.

  ‘What is it, James?’

  ‘Mrs Naylor?’

  ‘Yes, James?’

  ‘Have you ever been to Scandinavia?’

  Mrs Naylor looked at me, then at the ground, then at two other kids. ‘No, no, I haven’t.’ She turned to the whole class again. ‘Now if you go to page twenty-one of
your books –’

  ‘You can’t really know about a place until you’ve been there, I reckon. Yeah, I think maybe you should just be teaching us about Denham – or have you been to Tasmania? Maybe you could teach us about Tasmania.’

  Mrs Naylor looked at me. Nobody laughed or even turned round. It was like being in a new land where you can’t turn back because you’ve already seen what there is to see and its nothing. You have to go further. ‘Have you been to Tasmania, Mrs Naylor?’ I asked her again.

  ‘No, James, I haven’t. End of subject. Now please look in your textbooks –’

  ‘You should go to Tasmania then.’

  ‘Excuse me, James?’

  ‘Go to Tasmania.’

  It was quiet until Mrs Naylor said, ‘Leave the room, please, James. Wait outside for me in the corridor until class is finished.’

  Sugar Boy was looking at me, but he wasn’t laughing. Everybody watched as I walked out of the room. I was the only one moving or making a sound. Every step I made was loud in my ears. When I got out of the classroom I sat on the floor in the corridor with my back against the wall.

  In Birds: A Field Guide, A P Davies says, Birds can never really be reduced to numbers in a spreadsheet, and you will always find a need to do a little diagram or sketch. I had that need right now. I had it badly. I sat in the corridor on the floor and drew a graceful honeyeater in the back of my geography book.

  I drew the graceful honeyeater over and over with her yellow cheeks, her olive-green crown and her long bill. I drew and drew until it was morning, just before the sun came up, and I could hear the song of the graceful honeyeater, and then I drew more and I was the graceful honeyeater myself. It was me drinking honey, singing my morning song and coming back to my basket nest held together with spider webs.

  After the bell went I stayed sitting on the floor watching all the legs push past, and waited for Mrs Naylor to come and speak with me.

  ‘Come inside, please, James.’ I followed her inside and stood at her desk. She sat behind it. ‘What are we going to do about your behaviour?’ she asked me. I looked down at the legs on her desk. They had bits missing. I’d never noticed before – it was as if they’d been chewed by a small dog, but I couldn’t remember seeing any dogs in Denham Public School. You weren’t allowed to bring any in. It was against school rules. ‘James, are you listening? I can’t have you speaking to me like that in class.’ Jeremy Shadrow’s brother had a pit bull and he wore a collar with studs. Sugar and me used to see Jeremy Shadrow’s brother walking round Denham shops with the black pit bull pulling on his lead. The lead had a leather shield on the front that covered the pit bull’s chest. ‘James! Your behaviour in class is not acceptable. I am giving you the opportunity to talk with me about it now before I have to do something more serious. Do you understand me?’ I didn’t mind that we didn’t have a dog. I’d never want a pit bull, especially. I wouldn’t want a cat, either. On page 102 of Birds: A Field Guide, A P Davies says cats make a significant impact on the native bird population of Australia. That made me hate them. He says they are a threat. ‘James, look at me, please. This is your last chance in my class. I don’t want to lose you as a student – I wouldn’t want to see that happen. But I insist on harmony and you can’t disrupt my class like that anymore.’

  I looked up at Mrs Naylor. Her dark eyes peeled back my skin and looked right underneath. ‘Yes, Mrs Naylor.’ I didn’t even know what I was saying yes to.

  Mrs Naylor shook her head as though she was sorry for something, then she looked at her watch. ‘It’s your last chance, James. I don’t even need to point out what you’re doing wrong and that you’re going too far. You’re quite clear about that, I’m sure. I’ll see you tomorrow.’ I wonder if she checked her watch to decide how long to give me before I went too far again.

  When I came home from school, Dad was stressed. He was banging things around in the kitchen looking for something.

  I threw my bag down onto the living-room couch and turned the television on with my foot. At least Dad got to work his own hours; I had to be at school from nine till three-thirty every day and sit and listen to Mrs Naylor. I couldn’t choose. Kid Quiz was on. It’s this show where kids guess the answers to questions like, What is the capital of China? and if they get them right they win prizes, like a new computer or a trip to Uluru in a bus. I hate that show. I turned it up louder.

  ‘Oi!’ my dad called from the kitchen. ‘Turn that rubbish off. You ask if you want to watch television – you know the rules!’

  After Dad called out from the kitchen I didn’t do anything. I didn’t get up off the big chair and turn off the television. I just sat there watching the man on Kid Quiz ask Steven from Subiaco (wherever that was, maybe somewhere near Broome, maybe Steven and Sugar Boy could become best friends) to spell the word substantial. My mouth felt tight.

  ‘Didn’t you hear me, James? I said turn it off.’ Dad came in carrying the mayonnaise jar and a tomato. He stood in the living room waiting for me to get up and do what I was told. I didn’t move. Don’t ask me why – if my dad, Guy Burdell, asked you to do something, you’d do it. He’s big and he knows how to fix a radiator, tune an engine and clear a fan belt. He can get anything going; no matter how busted up a car is, he can get it going. ‘James, turn off the television now.’

  I turned round and I looked at him while Kid Quiz blasted away in the background. Who is the current President of the United States? What do you get if you subtract three thousand and two from one hundred and ninety-nine thousand and ninety? What is the longest river in Africa?

  ‘Can’t you see I’m watching something, Dad? Can’t you see that?’ Dad stood there looking at me. The minute between us went on for a long time. I thought he was going to hit me – then he shook his head and said, ‘Like father, like son, hey?’ He went over and turned off the television himself. ‘Go and do your homework, James,’ he said, quietly.

  I wanted to shout at him, ‘Dad! Dad! Sugar Boy is shooting through! He’s shooting through! He’s going to Broome! It’s an eight thousand kilometre bike ride through the Great Sandy Desert where not even birds survive! What am I going to do? You tell me what!?’ But my dad, he’d say, ‘Don’t be a dreamer. Stick with reality – it’s the way things are.’ I couldn’t shout anything. I stood up, got my bag and went to my room.

  I was going round for dinner at Sugar Boy’s the next night. Sue Hill rang up and she got Dad. ‘Jamie, it’s Sue on the phone. She’s invited you for dinner on Wednesday.’ I shook my head and whispered no, but Dad said, ‘Sue, he’d love to come round.’

  ‘See you at dinner,’ Sugar said to me at school on Wednesday. He was smiling a new sort of smile – one with more teeth.

  I’d never had an organised dinner with Sugar before. Usually we just hung out at his house out the back with the footy or in the computer room until we heard Sue Hill shout, ‘How many times do I have to call you boys? Are you deaf? Dinner’s ready!” Then we’d go inside, eat as fast as we could; Sue Hill’d say, ‘Don’t eat your food so fast – have you heard of chewing?’ and then, when our plates were empty, I’d kick Sugar under the table and he’d say, ‘Can we be excused, Mum?’ She’d sigh, roll her eyes and say, ‘Alright then.’ We’d go back outside, and that’s dinner at the Hills.

  But this was an organised dinner. I had to be there at six-thirty.

  On Wednesday evening I knocked on the Hills’ door. Sue Hill answered. ‘Come in, James,’ she said. When I got in the house I saw boxes everywhere. All the books and lamps and the special glasses from the special-glass cabinet and Mr Hill’s golf trophy and the painting of Sugar’s grandmother and the family photographs had been packed up. The wall looked whiter where the paintings and photos had been. There was only half the couch left. ‘Sorry about the mess. We’re really in the middle of things here.’ Sue Hill smiled at me and then she ran her fingers through my hair and said, ‘How are you going with all this, Jamie, sweetheart?’ She’d never done that before so it took
me by surprise. As soon as I felt her fingers in my hair and heard her voice, softer than usual, asking me that question, it felt like some of the metal ball bearings that Dad keeps in his garage for making wheels go round, were stuck in my throat. It hurt when I tried to swallow.

  I haven’t cried in ages. I cried when I was seven and Dad said I couldn’t get a master-blaster water-powered pistol because they were too expensive and being a single parent wasn’t a walk in the park. I remember crying when I was nearly eight and I had a toothache and I said, ‘Where’s Mum?’ even though Mum had shot through years before that, and Dad said, ‘I’ll get you a Panadol,’ and left the room. And I cried when I was nine when I fell off my bike at Tannam Park Way and had to get four stitches on my chin, but that was all ages ago. I haven’t cried in a long time.

  No one cried much at our place. I’d never seen my Dad cry. I’d never seen Uncle Garry cry, either. Lena cries every time she watches the eight-thirty movie, even if it’s a happy one. Carby and Animal have probably never cried in their whole lives.

  When Sue Hill said, ‘How are you going with all this, Jamie, sweetheart?’ I wanted to say, ‘I’ll get you a Panadol,’ and walk straight out of her living room. I can’t remember what I did say, but I know Sue Hill was watching me with her arms folded and her head to one side as I walked up the stairs to find Sugar.

  Because we’ve been doing things together since Grade Three we knew what to do to keep doing things. We did the same things, but it wasn’t the same. Sugar Boy was half packed up in boxes too. We played Death Rider and Mega Strike Ten and Force 16: the Final Battle on the computer. I destroyed a lot of men. I destroyed more Black Mutants in Force 16 than I ever had before, but the whole time I was killing them I really wanted to go home to my bedroom and draw the flame robin.

  On page 302, AP Davies says, The flame robin perches low in cover, motionless and silent for much of the time. She has a red throat and when she does sing it’s a high dee-di-di-di.