Bird and Sugar Boy

by Sofie Laguna

  ‘Boys! Come downstairs, please! Dinner’s on the table!’ When we got downstairs, Mr Hill was there. I’d only had a few dinners with Mr Hill actually there. Sometimes he’d ring up in the middle of dinner and Sue Hill and him would have a quick chat, but I wasn’t used to him actually being there. He asked me questions like, ‘How’s school, James?’ and ‘How’s the footy team doing?’ Then he talked about Sugar Boy’s new school in Broome – what it would be like and how it had a great reputation. After Mr Hill talked about Sugar’s new school, Sue Hill said, in her new, soft voice, ‘You boys will have to write each other letters. That’s what I did when I was apart from my friends when I was a girl – I’d write lovely long letters.’

  The hard thing was that I couldn’t cut my meat. I think Sue Hill gave me the bad knife because my meat wouldn’t go in little pieces like everybody else’s. I was trying so hard to cut it that a carrot flew off my plate and landed on the floor next to Mr Hill’s foot. Madeline laughed and said, ‘Pick it up, Bird!’ but Sue Hill said, ‘Shush, Madeline. Don’t worry about it, James.’

  Dinner took a long time. Maybe it was because I never kicked Sugar Boy under the table and he never said, ‘Can we be excused, Mum?’ so that we could start playing again. For dessert it was green jelly and ice cream. Chris and Madeline’s favourite. I’m glad it wasn’t anything you needed a knife for.

  Every time there was no talking, I could hear Chris’s breathing. Wheezy and raspy – that air really didn’t want to go in. I wanted to say, ‘Chris! Chris! It’s easy, I’ll show you!’ and open my mouth and show him the big throat hole and just suck back, but I’m sure the medical experts already tried that.

  I knew I should’ve been more worried for Chris and been really nice to him and maybe I should have made him a present – something out of wood, maybe with feathers, maybe something for him to keep his Lego in, to take with him to Broome where he would have to spend a lot of time in Broome hospitals with the experts trying to get his air in, but there’s things I should do and there’s all the things I actually do. They seem a long way apart sometimes. When Chris asked me to look at his Lego dinosaur, I said, ‘Sorry, Sugar’s waiting for me.’

  When I was leaving it happened again. I hadn’t looked at Sue Hill all night or gone too near her because of her magic crying touch, but when I was walking out the front door she patted me on my back and said, ‘Take care, Jamie, darling.’ The ball bearings jumped straight up into my throat and this time there were more of them and they were bigger. I didn’t know if I could keep them down. I walked out through that door pretty fast. I didn’t look at Sue Hill or any of the Hills. Probably good I get used to it. Not seeing the Hills, I mean.

  Riding my bike on the way home, I thought about what Sugar’s mum had said about writing letters. Yeah, that’d be good. Instead of going down to the tunnel or putting coins on the tracks or spitting on the trains or fishing or bike riding or playing football or soccer, we could write letters. Good idea, Sue Hill. I also thought about how much I didn’t like organised dinners. Where everybody knew dinner was coming and that you were a special guest and that something special had to happen and, if it didn’t, then the organised dinner hadn’t really gone too well.

  That night I lay in my bed with night thoughts going round in my head. I saw a picture of the map of Australia, the Great Sandy Desert, the words in the Denham Reserve tunnel – Best Friends Forever – and I saw a picture of my mother. I’ve only seen this picture once so it’s not clear in my memory. Dad was looking through his filing cabinet and he chucked this photo on the floor like the photo was the enemy. I picked it up and took a look. It was a black-and-white photo of my mother standing beside a panel van. She had long hair in a high ponytail and she was carrying me wrapped up in a blanket. The photo must have been taken at night without a flash because it’s dark so you can’t see my mother’s face properly. I knew it was her in the photo and I knew it was me wrapped up in the blanket. Some things you know without asking. When Dad turned round and saw me looking at the photo, he said, ‘It’s your mother. Can I put that away now?’

  Sugar Boy was shooting through too, and I’d have more than the smell of wool when it’s wet to miss when he was gone. Why did Sugar’s father need to go to work in Broome? Weren’t there enough bugs in the water here to keep him busy? Maybe I’d ask him next time I saw him, maybe I should ring him up and ask him at work. Or maybe I could go to the Denham water supply and tip a whole bottle of bugs mixed with washing powder into it so that Mr Hill would have to stay in Denham to get all the soapy bugs out.

  I turned on the light and got out my drawing book. I flicked through Birds: A Field Guide until I got to the masked owl, then I started to draw. Soon I was sitting on my branch looking out at the moon, guarding my nest from dangerous predators and blinking my teardrop eyes.

  In the night I had a dream. Sugar Boy and me were in a land that was made of round rocks. Sugar could fly, but only a few centimetres from the ground. There was an invisible enemy in the rock land that only Sugar Boy could see. It was his job to detect the enemy, but it was my job to hunt it down, even though I didn’t have any weapons or poisonous gases or anything. I had to stay with Sugar or the invisible enemy would get us both and the round rocks would open up and we’d be stuck inside.

  In the morning I decided to ask Sugar Boy to run away with me.

  ‘No.’ Sugar Boy poked a stick into one of the open mouths of a big anthill near the entrance to the tunnel. A bull ant with his pincers waving came charging out. ‘I can’t. Mum’d get too worried.’

  I watched the ant charging this way and that, not knowing what to run at. ‘But if you weren’t there, she’d only have Chris and Madeline to worry about; it would be easier. We could just go away for a while somewhere.’ I knew when I was saying it that it wasn’t even making sense. But the big dream picture I had in my head of Sugar Boy and me on our bikes with our fluro backpacks stuffed with meat pies and cans of cold coke, just us with a map, felt so good. Better than a movie. Maybe we’d ride all the way into the wilderness where I might start building the bird sanctuary. I could tell Sugar Boy that I was building the place for some other reason, and only right at the end when all the birds came flying and flocking into the natural habitat I had made for them, only then would I tell him. By then birds would be sitting on his head and on his shoulders and singing in his ear and he’d love them so much he’d want to help me and A P Davies in the sanctuary too.

  ‘No, Bird. I’ve got to go to Broome with Mum and Dad.’ He stuck his stick into the body of the charging bull ant. The bull ant squirmed away under the end of it – arms, legs and antennae wiggling and waving.

  I’d come to another dead-end of words. I had to think of something and then I had to get away fast. ‘Yeah, you’ll probably love Broome. Maybe you’ll learn how to sweep!’ It was the dumbest joke ever made in the history of jokes. I didn’t even make jokes that bad when I was seven. I turned around, got on my bike and rode home. The joke was so dumb I had to ride really fast to get away from it. I didn’t blame Sugar Boy for going to Broome without me. I’d go there too if I had a best friend who made jokes as bad as that.

  I stayed away from Sugar Boy all day. I didn’t want him asking, ‘You want to do something today?’ or inviting me to any more organised dinners, either. In the afternoon I rode down to the railway tracks by myself. I rode slowly and I thought about the way baby birds are – the way they know how to tip back their heads and stretch their beaks open so wide for their mother as if it was the most important thing in the world, which it was, because if they didn’t get the worm they wouldn’t make it through the day. I thought about the way they knew it was their mother coming to feed them, even with their eyes closed, and I thought about what would happen to the babies if the mother got in some danger on the way back to the nest and never turned up. What would the babies do? How long until they closed their beaks and thought to themselves, She isn’t coming back?

  When I got to the t
racks, I leaned my bike up against the bridge wall. Then I picked up bits of rock and chucked them at nothing. I was practising being without Sugar Boy. I wanted to get used to it as fast as I could.

  The 4.40 express to the city via Glengray would be here soon. If I had some money maybe I’d put it on the tracks, but my pockets were empty. I picked up the gravelly rocks and threw them at the grassy bank that leads up to the tracks, then I went under the bridge. Sugar and me never did that. But today what was stopping me? There was no policeman here. The Prime Minister wasn’t here saying, Listen, Bird, don’t go under the bridge. Don’t throw rocks at trains and don’t go near the tracks – it’s dangerous. Nobody was here. It was the quietest day in the history of Denham. I could do whatever I wanted.

  I picked up a big rock, stood on one of the tracks and threw it against the wall of the tunnel. Smash! I picked up another rock and threw it even harder. Smash! I threw more and more rocks. Smash! Smash! Smash!

  Suddenly the 4.40 express to the city via Glengray was racing towards the tunnel. It was a train monster zooming towards me, coming to get me. Its two headlights were two bright white eyes hunting me out. Roarrrrrrrrrrrr! I pressed back against the wall of the tunnel as the monster raced past. My heart was pounding. I saw faces staring out from the carriages, but they didn’t see me. Roarrrrrrrrr! If I had been standing any closer to the tracks …

  Riding home, I felt like I could do anything; it was as if all the rules inside me that said what I could or couldn’t do got caught up in the air that rushed around the train as it sped along.

  ‘Today we’re going to start talking about the theory of evolution. If you get to understand this theory so much about nature will become clear to you.’ It was science with Mr Kemp and a week before Sugar Boy shot through. ‘It was this theory that changed the way humans understood the world.’ Usually I liked the way Mr Kemp talked – like there was a story to everything – but today his voice seemed sharper than Mrs Naylor’s.

  Sugar Boy was sitting at the front of the room, far away from me. In science we got to choose a different seat every time. Sugar Boy didn’t want to sit next to me anymore; he didn’t even want to look at me. If he did, he would have chosen a place closer. Maybe he wanted to practise getting used to not seeing Bird too.

  I should’ve known he was going to leave. I should’ve been ready. Suddenly all my times with Sugar Boy looked like a stupid mistake.

  I took my metal ruler out of my pencil case and I started digging into the desk. I looked at Sugar Boy’s back while I dug and hated him even more than I hated the town of Broome.

  Mr Kemp was telling his story. ‘The man who came up with this theory is known as Charles Darwin and I’m sure it’s a name you will hear many times throughout the course of your lives, whether you maintain an interest in science or not.’ He wasn’t looking at me digging holes in the new orange lab desk. Mandy Allen was, though.

  She shook her head. I was digging so hard I was making the whole desk wobble. ‘Stop it, James,’ she whispered, but I kept going. Tony and Sam were looking at me now too. They weren’t laughing or anything. That was because everyone likes Mr Kemp’s stories because he shows you how good things that actually are, can be.

  ‘James! Stop it!’ Mandy hissed at me. I kept digging harder. The metal ruler made a loud scrunching sound as it gouged into the desk. I could see the picture I was making now. ‘James! Stop it! You’re making the whole desk shake,’ Mandy said, loud enough for everyone to hear. Still I didn’t stop. The picture was getting clearer.

  ‘What’s going on there? James, what are you doing?’ Mr Kemp walked down the aisle to my desk at the back of the room. I kept digging – my hand moving faster and faster across the table. All of a sudden a big man’s hand pressed down on mine, covering it, stopping it from moving. Mr Kemp must have had the same magic crying touch as Sue Hill because the ball bearings jumped straight back up to my throat as soon as I felt his hand – warm and strong – on top of mine. He took my hand with the ruler in it, away from the desk. I saw a pair of wings outstretched.

  Mr Kemp said, ‘Class, read pages three to six and meet Charles Darwin. Be polite because you will be in the presence of greatness. James, come with me.’ I followed Mr Kemp out of the class. He took me outside – not just into the corridor where Mrs Naylor takes me when she wants to talk about my behaviour – but right outside into the playground. It was raining. We sat on the lunch bench under the shelter and watched the rain falling. The leaves bounced up and down with the big drops. I could’ve stayed sitting there and I think Mr Kemp could have too. He seemed tired. When he talked to me it was like he knew he had to be mad because I’d done a bad thing, but really he just wanted to sit and watch the rain falling on the leaves and the way it made them bounce up and down.

  ‘You’re really good at science, James. I want you to learn. I don’t want you to get in trouble. What’s going on?’ he asked me. The rain was turning the playground into puddles. It looked different without kids rushing round screaming, skipping ropes, throwing balls and hanging off the monkey bars. I’d never noticed before, how empty and grey it looked without screaming, running, skipping kids in it. ‘James,’ Mr Kemp looked right in my eyes. ‘Your father is going to have to know about this and so is Mr Brooks. There’s nothing I can do about that.’ He shook his head. ‘It’s really important to me that you enjoy my classes. You’ve got a natural curiosity, James. That’s the most important ingredient when it comes to science and it’s a rare gift. Save whatever’s going on for somewhere else. Concentrate in my classes, please, James.’

  A rare gift… The whooping crane was rare. In the wild, whooping cranes used to mate for life, which lasted about twenty-four years, but now they keep colliding into power lines because they like to fly low, and there’s not many left. I read about them in Birds at Risk.

  A P Davies talked about curiosity too. He said people who like birds tend to have a curious nature. I wanted to ask Mr Kemp if he knew about A P and his bird work. I bet if he ever got to meet him they’d be friends. On the inside cover of Birds: A Field Guide, it says, When not travelling abroad, A P Davies lives in the Blue Mountains with his family, where he continues to study birds. I wanted to talk to Mr Kemp about what AP’s job in the Blue Mountains might be like.

  ‘I’m disappointed in you today, James. I don’t want this behaviour to continue in class. Do you understand?’ The rain was making dot shapes in a big puddle close to our feet. Mr Kemp was wearing boots that were muddy round the edges, as if he’d been for long walks in them.

  ‘Okay,’ I said.

  Later, Mr Brooks took me into his office and sat me down opposite his desk in the hard chair with Denham Public School: A Community of Learning Since 1981 written on it. ‘This is a very serious matter, James,’ he said. ‘Your father will have to know about it, of course. You can’t damage property like that. In the end, it’s against the law. I’ve spoken to Mr Kemp and he says you are a good student and he wants me to give you another chance, so I’m giving you a warning.’ I had to have a lunchtime detention and go on rubbish duty every day for a week.

  Mr Kemp said I had to write two pages on Why Charles Darwin’s Theory Was Important. He said, ‘Get on the net, look around, and read this,’ and he gave me a book called Evolution. The book didn’t look too bad – not as good as Birds: A Field Guide. There was an ape on the cover and next to the ape was a man in a suit carrying a briefcase and they looked almost the same.

  Dad wasn’t so interested in my natural curiosity. ‘I don’t go to work all day at the bloody garage so you can sit at school and destroy things! What the hell’s gotten in to you?’

  ‘Nothing.’ I looked at a piece of onionskin and some tomato seeds gone dry, caught between the floorboards of the kitchen floor.

  ‘A whole desk has to be replaced.’ I stayed quiet. ‘What the hell were you doing?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘What do you mean nothing, James? I don’t understand.’

&nb
sp; I looked up at him. ‘Nothing’s gotten into me. Nothing!’

  ‘Well, you’re going to have to pay for the nothing that you did today. You can start by helping me clean out the back shed on the weekend.’

  The back shed hasn’t been cleaned out in a long time. It’s like the drawer in our kitchen where everything goes that has no real home, like batteries, empty lighters, rubber bands, old teaspoons and keys that don’t open anything. The back shed was one very big kitchen drawer.

  The next day was football training with Mr Rogers. Mr Rogers never talks, he only shouts. It’s because of all the years he’s spent on the field. He used to be a professional football player until he slipped a disc in his back. Now he coaches and he has to shout all the time because he can’t run across the field with the slipped disc.

  I kicked the ball hard, not caring where it went. Mr Rogers shouted, ‘Hit the cones, James! Follow instructions!’ Tony Torucci had the ball and I ran after him. I saw his wide back in his A Community of Learning Since 1981 T-shirt, and I ran faster. I heard Mr Rogers shouting from somewhere far far away, ‘Back to the drill, boys! Jamie, hit the cones! Hit the cones, lad!’ I was so close to Tony’s big back I could’ve reached out and touched it. I ran faster and then I jumped. I had lift-off for a second before I landed on Tony, hard. We both fell to the ground and then the football field reached up and punched me – slam – in the guts and the word ‘mum’ jumped out of me in a mouthful of air. For a minute the world turned black, and then Tony, Sam and Dean were on top of me laughing and shouting, ‘Hit the cones, lad. Hit the cones!’ I opened my eyes and I could see the sky now, bright blue with no clouds, above their laughing heads. But even the sky didn’t look the way it should have.

  For the rest of the week the house was quieter because Dad and me were talking less than usual, but at the same time it was louder, as if there was a shout between Dad and me that was going on and on. It was worse than a real shout because a real shout is short and fast and when it’s over you can hear other things again, like laughing and talking and birds outside. But this silent shout was long; this shout didn’t stop. Even with the telly on, even with me doing homework and Dad reading Auto Weekly, even when the phone rang or the radio played a song, the shout was there.