‘Oh, great!’ said Connor.
‘So where do you want to go, Detective Connor?’ said Damon.
‘I went to the church on Sunday and there wasn’t anything there. One place I haven’t been is the primary school.’
Damon looked at me with a knowing grin. ‘Might be worth a look. What do you reckon, Aaron?’
I’d been signalling no to him like crazy. ‘There won’t be anything there,’ I said.
Connor raised an eyebrow. ‘Aaron, honestly. You can come along, but just don’t say anything.’
I sighed. ‘Fine.’
As we made our way there Damon said, ‘How’s the investigation coming along?’
‘Well, let’s think about it logically,’ said Connor. ‘Someone took rosary beads from a church. What’s the motive? Money.’
‘Maybe people wanted them for devil worship,’ said Damon.
‘Could be,’ said Connor.
‘Or it could be church people who need them to pray with,’ said Damon. ‘’Cause they lost their own rosary beads.’
‘And you know I found that religious medallion thing. And in the paper it said, ‘a number of items’ were stolen. I bet you a billion bucks that medallion was one of the ‘items’. And you know what else the paper said? Two boys. So. We’re looking for two boys.’ ‘Two devil-worshipper boys,’ said Damon.
‘That’s right,’ said Connor, seeing that Damon was being funny and playing along. ‘Two devil-worshipper boys with no money who live near Shoe Street.’
‘Why Shoe Street?’ Damon asked.
‘That’s where I found the medallion,’ Connor replied.
Damon shrugged.
By this stage we were at the primary school in the courtyard. ‘We should split up—it’ll make our search quicker,’ said Connor. ‘Aaron you check the front playground. Damon and me’ll check round here.’
We split up. I spent ten minutes sitting on the front playground monkey bars, then went back to the courtyard.
‘Find anything?’ asked Connor.
‘Nah.’
‘Hey!’ said Damon, with a shocked look on his face. ‘I just got this weird feeling. You didn’t check the top classrooms, did you, Aaron? Well, I just got this premonition there might be something there. Should we check it out?’
‘Okay,’ said Connor.
When I tried to get Damon’s attention to find out what the hell he was thinking, he just grinned like it was some kind of big game and he’d just made the smartest move ever.
He led the way, straight to my old classroom, and there, just as we’d left it, was the scattered broken glass of the smashed louvre.
Connor was stunned. ‘Holy hell, you were right. Someone tried to break in here, too.’
‘Sometimes I’m a bit psychic. Every now and then I get these really strong feelings,’ said Damon.
Connor said, ‘It’s gotta be the thief! This is your old classroom, Aaron, right? Maybe it’s someone in your class. Don’t touch anything, you might stuff up the clues.’ He pulled his mini plastic magnifying glass from his pocket and began to examine the jagged pieces of louvre glass.
‘What are you looking for?’ asked Damon, barely able to keep the laugh out of his voice.
‘Bits of cloth or something from the thieves’ clothes,’ Connor replied.
After a while he stood up. ‘Nothing. They’re cleverer than I thought.’
At this Damon actually cough-laughed.
Connor didn’t notice. ‘So this was their first place to rob, and when they didn’t find anything in here worth taking they went for the church,’ he said.
‘Nice theory,’ said Damon.
‘Maybe we should go check the church again,’ said Connor.
But Damon, just like that, had lost interest. He stretched, yawned, and said, ‘Nah. Let’s go back to my place and watch videos.’
‘Okay,’ said Connor brightly, though I knew him well enough to know he was disappointed.
As we walked back, Connor seemed to be doing some heavy thinking. He kept looking at me. ‘Who else lives round here who’s in your class?’
‘Jane Singleton?’
‘I mean boys, of course.’
‘Coldy?’
Connor nodded to himself. ‘Coldy.’
‘Oliver West?’ I tried.
‘He’s away on holiday, remember? I don’t know about you sometimes, Aaron.’
And then Stevie Harmison rode past on his bike. No helmet. He wasn’t even holding the handlebars; his arms were folded in front of his chest. He was pretending he hadn’t seen us. He wasn’t wobbling at all, but if even a pebble had been in his path he’d have face-planted, and if a car’d come, him and his shiny smug BMX would’ve been as flat as toads. But of course, there were never any pebbles in Stevie Harmison’s path.
‘I can do that,’ said Connor, which was not even almost true. He could let go of the handlebars for a microsecond, while going really slow. (We had one rickety girl’s bike between us that I hardly ever rode. Technically it was Mum’s.)
‘I always ride like that,’ said Damon. ‘Still would if my bike was here.’
I said, ‘What about Stevie Harmison? He lives on Shoe Street and he goes to the high school…and he’s crazy.’
‘Think he just went to the top of my suspects list,’ said Connor.
‘I’m going home,’ said Damon, ‘Coming, Connor?’
‘Yep,’ Connor replied, and then he turned to me. ‘You should go home, Aaron. I’m going over to Damon’s and we’re going to do big-kid stuff.’
‘I’m coming,’ I said.
‘Well, you are not invited,’ said Connor, speaking slowly like he was trying to get through to an idiot.
They started off without me.
‘That’s not fair,’ I mumbled and I started walking home. ‘I’m telling Mum,’ I called over my shoulder.
‘She’s at work.’
I ignored him and kept walking, red faced, thinking, Then I’ll tell Peter.
Peter had moved into our house the day before—that was the huge event.
Mum had told us over breakfast. She just came out with it. ‘Guess what?’
She said he was going to stay ‘for a while—it depends.’ Like she’d hardly considered it. Between mouthfuls of cereal and sips of coffee. ‘It’ll be good to have a man around. They can fix things. I think he’ll be a big help. What do you think, Connor?’
Connor shrugged. He was reading The Lord of the Rings.
‘How about you, Aaron?’
‘I mean…I think…’ I’d stammered. It was impossible to say straight away; we’d only met him once, after all. It would take some serious pondering.
I was still pondering at the kitchen table forty minutes later, with a soggy half-eaten Weetbix in front of me, when Peter appeared at the back door, with his bags at his feet and an uncertain smile on his face.
‘Mum,’ I called.
Peter looked down the hall and called, ‘Trace.’
All he’d brought was one old-fashioned suitcase and a string bag full of clothes. I sat on Mum’s bed and watched him unpack.
‘That bag’s called a bilum. Got that in Papua New Guinea one time when we made land there,’ he said.
The first thing he took out of the suitcase was a ball of newspaper. He began peeling layers off it, finally revealing a bronze-coloured metal urn.
He carefully placed it on Mum’s make-up table, where it settled in comfortably among her perfume bottles.
‘What’s that?’ I asked.
‘That,’ said Peter, ‘is the ashes of the first boat I ever went to sea on.’
‘What happened to it?’
‘It sank. It burned first—there was a fire on board. Then it sank. I was on shore. I went back the next day and the only thing left was a bit of the mast washed up on the beach, so I burned it. And I had this lying round not doing anything, so I emptied it out and put the mast ashes in it.’
‘But why do you carry it around with you?’
; Peter thought about it for a second. ‘It’s to remind me that nothing in life is permanent. One day everything you’ve got can just be not there anymore. One day you turn around and BANG’—he clapped his hands—‘there’s nothing.’
Next he took out a pair of worn-out sandshoes and a pair of thongs and lined them up along the wall. Then he’d opened a drawer in Dad’s chest of drawers and started putting his clothes into it.
That was yesterday. Hopefully he was home now.
I ran to the intersection and turned into our road. Peter’s truck was parked on the verge outside our house. It had four sets of double wheels and a back compartment like a big removal van, and it had stickers that said ‘Tennant Creek’ and ‘Biloela’ on the back bumper, and ‘Go the Cronulla Sharks’, and ‘No More Nukes’.
I ran on through our front gate and under our house. Peter was at the back stairs jemmying up a rotten step, with a beer and a transistor playing grainy pop music at his feet. He was wearing a sweat-darkened blue singlet and he had a tool belt slung over his footy shorts—the tradie’s uniform. But somehow he didn’t look like a real tradie. Maybe it was his skinny legs, or his concentrating-too-hard face.
When he saw me he straightened up with his hands on his lower back and nodded. ‘What are you up to, Aaron?’ His smell was like a dead prawn left on a salty wharf.
Now, faced with it, it seemed weird to dob on Connor to someone I hardly knew.
‘Nothing,’ I mumbled.
Peter cleared his throat. ‘Your mum’s stayin’ back at work for a bit so I’m gunna get tea. Come on, you.’ The last bit was addressed to the step. He leaned on the crowbar and the nails groaned. The muscles in his arms strained. He cleared his throat again. ‘So what do you want for tea?’
‘Fish and chips.’
‘Nah, we’re not getting fish and chips, I’m gunna make something. Thinkin’ maybe chops and potatoes and peas.’
Before I knew what was coming I blurted out, ‘Connor won’t let me hang out with him and Damon.’
Great. Now he’ll think I’m a dobber.
Peter leaned again on the crowbar and with a loud crack the nails finally gave and the step broke free.
‘Did you ask him?’
‘He said no.’
Peter lifted the step away from the frame. ‘Well tell him…tell him he can’t play with your stuff.’
‘But he never wants to play with my stuff.’
‘Then play by yourself. Or why don’t you help me here?’
Mum never asked you to help, she just told you you were helping.
I said, ‘What do you want me to do?’
He pointed to the rotten step. ‘You can start split-tin’ that up.’
He handed me a tomahawk and I got to work, hacking into the white-anted wood.
‘See how soft it is? That step was gunna break any minute. It was mouldy too, like all the wood round here. Probably should replace the whole lot. Once you’ve got that in little bits we can make a bonfire out the back.’
I gathered up the pieces and followed Peter down the back to behind the chook pen, which was a lot less scary with someone else there. I glanced at the lemon tree—no spider. And no kid’s head above the back fence.
I threw the wood onto the pile Peter had started that was squashing the high grass. And I took the opportunity to retrieve my soccer ball. Peter added some planks that had been part of an old bed he’d found under the house.
‘We should pull the chook pen down, too. It’s probably full of snakes. Better ask your mum first, though,’ he said.
We stood, arms folded, admiring our handiwork. Peter glanced around like he was itching to dig things up, chop things down, get the place shipshape. ‘About that other thing,’ he said. ‘You should stand up for yourself. Show him you won’t let him pick on ya.’
‘How do I do that? He’s bigger than me.’
‘Doesn’t matter how big you are. When I was a kid I wasn’t the biggest bloke either, but no one picked on me and that’s ’cause I didn’t take anyone’s crap.’
As I washed my hands in the kitchen sink I considered how to not take Connor’s crap. My first stupid thought was to ask Connor. If he wanted to get back at someone he’d think of a plan, something clever and evil. But it couldn’t be too bad—I didn’t want to put him in hospital or anything.
I got my double-sided pencil and an old exercise book and lay on my bed and thought, I could do that trick where you put a bucket of slime on a door, and when he opens the door the slime goes all over him. I drew a yellow door with a bucket of green slime on it. But would it work? And he’d know it was me straightaway. I could frame him, copy his writing and write a confession: Hello Mum and Peter, this is Connor. I am writing to say that it was me that stole the rosary beads. I took them and buried them. I feel very guilty so I am confessing. Sorry. From Connor.
I read it back. Obviously I couldn’t use my two-coloured pencil. And it didn’t sound like something Connor would write. It needed more big words. I feel extremely guilty?
It wouldn’t work. I threw the book down.
Having not heard Connor come back, I decided I’d go look in his room for inspiration. Creeping down the back stairs was more of a challenge now that the bottom three had been replaced with the bed slats. The steps bent and shifted on their braces even under my flimsy weight.
I knocked on Connor’s door.
No answer.
I went straight to his desk. The homework book was there; the ‘Possibles’ and ‘Probables’ lists was striped with red. Crossed off the ‘Probables’ side were: devil-worshippers’, ‘criminals’, ‘the Mafia’, as were most of the ‘Possibles’, and there was a big question mark next to ‘Priest (inside job)’. ‘Stevie Harmison’ had been circled and there was an exclamation mark next to it. ‘Damon’ was still there. ‘Aaron’ too. I considered crossing my name out, but saw straightaway what a dumb idea that was.
My attention was drawn to the mini Tardis on his bookshelf. Hanging off it was a key ring with a miniature Rubik’s cube attached to it—he’d found it in the Woolies carpark. I put it in my pocket. Without it the room looked wrong, incomplete.
I crept back outside, carefully closing the door—I had his cube and there was absolutely nothing he could do about it.
But where to hide it? Connor would go straight to the obvious places. Then I noticed that our ladder, which was actually two separate metal ladders joined end to end, was leaning up against the house. The very first thing Peter had done after unpacking had been to scoop the leaves out of our roof gutter. Consequently, the ladder was still up and a line of dark soggy leaves surrounded the house. The roof! Not even Connor would think to look there.
It was only when I put my foot on the first rung that I considered how high our roof was. The ends of the ladder were so far away they seemed to join at the top. I put my foot on the second rung. It felt solid enough.
I was halfway up before a loud creak made me freeze. My pulse was thumping, and it was sixty slow seconds before I started climbing again, with my face against the rungs, holding on so tight not even a giant could have prised me off.
Going from the ladder to the roof was the hardest part—specifically the letting go of the ladder bit. I was careful not to look down. I imagined the ladder sliding sideways and I scraped my knee, but I made it.
Our roof was corrugated iron. Some sheets looked new and some were rusted, but they all creaked and they all scorched my hands and feet as I inched my way to the top. A gentle breeze with the smell of the sea in it ruffled my hair. There was St Rita’s High School and St Rita’s Primary School and the church not too far away, and the hospital, and past it the tops of some of the buildings of town. And behind me were the mountains of the Misty Range, hazy and unreal. And there were the houses all around. Somehow they looked less significant from up here, like the buildings of Coldy’s dad’s train set, all beside the point next to the train. But there was no train in our neighbourhood. Everything down there was
still, as if waiting for something, each house holding on to some secret. Holding its breath.
Then I saw it—a police car. It was on the street up from ours, next to the school, moving slowly. It stopped. Two policemen got out. Instinctively I knew they were looking for the thieves. Looking for me.
I slipped the Rubik’s cube into the roof gutter. What if it rains? I thought as I got back on the ladder. I looked up—the sky was creamy blue with no clouds, but even so I retrieved the cube and, after climbing back down the ladder, I hid it under the top bunk mattress. Then I lay on my bed trying to imagine Connor’s face when he found out I wasn’t taking his crap anymore.
8
THE BLACK PANTHER
AS I LAY there on my bed I couldn’t stop thinking about the police. They’re coming for you. They’re probably at the front door right now—with handcuffs. Did you think you were going to get away with it, you idiot? It’s all over.
My bedroom had one door, one way in and out: once the police were in the house I was trapped. Get out now, yelled my brain. My self-control was slipping. No. Wait. Calm down. I slowed my breathing. Just listen. If you hear them, then make your run. I listened. The afternoon was full of noise: hammering, some mum yelling at her kids, a car door slamming. Was that a car at our house? Was that voices, or the wind, or nothing? I stopped breathing so I could hear better, then I breathed again. But suddenly there wasn’t enough oxygen. My chest was getting squeezed, and then I was rushing out of the room, gasping, through the kitchen, down the back stairs. My eyes went to the avocado tree, and then the Datsun, but they were just places to wait before I got caught. I needed to get away. Far away: Polly’s Creek, the bush, the hollow with the sheet of corrugated iron over it.
I slipped over the wire fence in front of the chook pen into Mrs Melchiori’s place. Her yard was totally shaded by mango trees so hardly any grass grew there. I commando rolled and darted my way from tree to tree and under her back awning. Then I hurdled her other side fence and found myself on Shoe Street. I couldn’t see the police, but I felt as exposed as hell with nothing to hide behind.
I started to run.
Immediately I realised that was a bad idea—I was drawing more attention to myself—but I couldn’t stop.
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