Rob turns left into an ordinary street. He parks by the side of the road. As he gets out, he tells us to wait. ‘I’ll be back soon.’
‘Take your time,’ Mum presses his hand.
Take your time. That’s an understatement. We wait and wait and wait. I open the door for air. It’s hot.
‘Good idea.’ Mum opens her door too.
Then we wait some more.
At last, Rob is back. He is carrying a bag and there is Leo walking beside him. He’s skinny and wears his cap backwards. No, he doesn’t have two heads. I can’t help smiling. He looks like the photo on the coffee table. Rob opens the car door. ‘This is Leo.’ As if we didn’t know.
‘Hi,’ we all say as he squishes in between Nanna and me like peanut butter in a sandwich.
‘One big happy family,’ Rob announces.
How corny is that?
As Rob drives off, he starts talking. He talks and talks. It is so un-Rob-like. He makes us talk too, answering dumb questions and giving inside information about what we do. ‘Leo likes swimming. You kids do too, don’t you?’ ‘Leo is good at computer games. Who else plays the computer? He’s brought some games.’ ‘Jack is a scientist, you know, Leo.’ ‘Leo is in the same year as you at school, Jack and Anna.’ ‘Jack made a coffee table.’ Blah, blah, blah. ‘Leo has an aquarium. Leo likes fish.’
Oh no, not FISH. Did Nanna hear that? She is looking out of the window. Phew. I just couldn’t stand a repeat of the fish story, especially in front of Leo. I give Samantha a dirty look. If she mentions fish, she is dead. No, she is too busy taking about her DOG project. Saved by her dog project. Who would believe it?
Rob drives past the look-out. I stretch, trying to get a good view of it. You can see the cliffs running along the coastline for a long way. He veers into the driveway of the holiday house. ‘We’re here.’
At last. This is a great old wooden house. I like its creaky wooden porch with bright red bougainvillea hanging from it. Got to be careful of those bougainvillea. They have bloodthirsty dagger thorns. I fell into the bougainvillea once when I was taking samples for my edible flower experiments.
Rob parks. I open the door as fast as I can to de-paste myself from Leo. Being stuck next to him is not great fun. I am definitely not sitting next to him in the car tomorrow.
‘Minimal luggage tonight. We don’t want to be unpacking and then repacking tomorrow.’ Rob is in his organising mood. His golf ball head bobs up and down in and out of the car like a broken spring.
I start laughing. ‘Hey, Rob, have you taken out your orange juice squisher for breakfast tomorrow?’
His head stops bobbing around and he looks at me, then laughs. He knows he’s an organising maniac and there is NO way his squisher would be left at home. ‘Funny, Jack.’
‘What do you mean?’ Leo slides out of the car.
Rob is too busy to hear him. ‘It’s a private joke, Leo. Between Rob and me.’ Leo scrunches up his face and shrugs.
We throw our overnight bags into the kids’ room. The girls and Leo are getting drinks. I drop a box of groceries into the kitchen, then race into the bedroom before anyone comes back in. I dive for my backpack. Good. My fungus is still in one piece. I hid it in the side pocket. I drag it out. Oh no, it’s looking pale. The white blobs are pink in places, the green looks blackish. I slide my fungus back into the side pocket. Later. Need to focus on now. I open my backpack. Yes, the tin of orange paint, brushes, rags, turpentine are all there.
Samantha has charged in and plunked Floppy on her bed. She is lying on him. That dog is getting flatter by the moment. Anna arrives with bed sheets and Leo. She is laughing at something Leo has said. ‘What’s so funny?’
Anna throws sheets at me. ‘You are.’ They land on my head. Everyone laughs.
We tuck sheets under mattresses. Samantha and Anna are already finished. I struggle with the last corner of my sheet. I hate making beds.
My bed is made. Right. I grab my backpack. ‘I’ll see you later.’
‘Where are you going?’ Nosey Samantha pipes up.
‘None of your business.’
‘Where are you going, Jack?’ Anna flashes her dimples at me.
I’ve got to tell her. ‘The seawall.’
‘I’m coming,’ Nosey says. Then everyone wants to come.
I try to persuade them that they are too tired, that Leo can show them his computer games. ‘What about TV?’ No luck. The more I talk, the quicker they tighten their shoe laces. ‘Okay, if you come, you can’t bother me. Right?’ I glance through the open door at Mum and Rob. ‘I’ve been planning this for ages.’
Samantha gets all flappy. She loves plans. ‘Yes, yes.’
‘I’ll give you all the details when we get down there. Just let me talk Mum into letting us go out. Act casual. Hey, Mum, we’re just walking to the port. We’ll be back later.’
Mum crinkles her nose. ‘Oh, I don’t know, Jack. It can be rough near the seawall and it’s getting late.’
‘The sun is still shining, Mum.’ I am only half-listening to her reasons as I strap on my backpack. Samantha, Anna and Leo are right behind me. ‘Mum, I’ve been there lots of times.’ I look at the others. ‘And there are four of us.’
Rob has just walked in. I give him the nod. ‘We’re just going for a walk.’
‘I know the port really well.’ Leo looks at Rob.
Rob is fixing Mum with a let-them-go look. ‘It’ll be a chance for the kids to get to know each other.’
Mum ruffles her blonde fuzz with both hands. ‘Okay, okay. But be back in time for dinner.’
Rob winks at me.
As we escape from the cottage, Anna tries to sneak a look inside my bag. ‘Hey, don’t touch.’ Anna laughs.
‘So what’s in your bag, Jack?’ Leo grabs it.
‘Hey, Leo. Let it go.’
‘Come on, what’s in it?’
I give it a quick yank. ‘Hands off.’ Leo trips.
‘Stop it, Jack,’ Anna pipes in.
‘Just mucking about, Anna.’ Leo kicks a rock across the road.
‘Oh, forget it. Let’s go.’ It’s not far to the look-out. ‘We’re going down the ridge.’ I point to the trail.
Anna isn’t too sure about doing it. ‘It looks rough.’
‘Trust me. It’ll be fine.’
It is steep, and the rocky trail is crumbling in places. The girls follow me, holding on to shrubs for balance. Then Anna lets out a scream. I turn around. She is doing a massive slide, her joggers are like roller blades slipping and slithering. I throw my bag of paint to the side and quickly lean against a tree for support. I hold out my hands and Anna is hurled into my arms.
Samantha is yelling, ‘Anna, Anna. Are you all right?’
I shout back, ‘She’s okay.’ I keep holding Anna until her breathing calms down. She clings on to me. I let her cling for as long as she likes.
Leo comes up behind us. ‘Are you all right, Anna?’
Suddenly she lets go of me. ‘I’m all right.’
We are all extra careful going down the rest of the trail. I keep checking to make sure the girls are managing. Leo is guiding Anna. Why is he holding her hand? She lets go of Leo’s hand when we reach flat land. I scramble next to her. ‘This way, everyone.’
It is late afternoon now, so there are only a few swimmers out in the surf. We reach the seawall. It juts out into the ocean like a spearhead. ‘Looks wild.’ Anna twirls her licorice curls. ‘So why are we here, Jack?’
‘Yeah, why?’ Leo mocks.
Leo is getting on my nerves already. ‘Right, I’ll show you.’ We walk past boulders covered in paint and graffiti. This is such great stuff. Samantha gets very excited at a dolphin drawing. There are heaps of reunion messages and ‘I Luv U’ hearts. Some of the illustrations are fantastic, especially one of Superman. That inspires me.
‘Find a big, unpainted rock,’ I order. Anna locates a medium-sized triangular boulder. I inspect. ‘Good one.’ I take out paint and brushes.
>
‘What are you doing?’ Anna looks nervously around.
‘I know.’ Leo grins.
I ignore him. ‘Everyone does it. What do you want to paint?’
‘Nothing.’ Anna bites her bottom lip. ‘It’s wrong to do it. It’s graffiti. We could go to gaol for that.’
‘It is not graffiti.’
‘Some people say it’s art, others say it’s not.’ Leo scratches under his cap. ‘No one is quite sure.’
‘Well, I say it’s art.’ I open the tin of paint, then look at Anna. ‘It is definitely not graffiti.’
‘I don’t think you’re right, Jack.’
‘It’s only graffiti if it is on fences or garage doors or places it’s not supposed to be. This is supposed to be here.’ I stand up straight. ‘I don’t graffiti.’
‘If you want to do this, then you ARE a graffitist.’ Anna stands with her feet apart and her arms crossed. ‘Once my parents’ supermarket was attacked by vandals. They covered Papa’s sign in black and red paint. You couldn’t even read “Delicioso” or “Fruitologist”. Mamma cried. I did too. We worked all day painting and fixing up the sign.’
‘This is different. Are there any “Delicioso” signs? Are there any “Fruitologist” signs?’
‘I’m going back.’ Her nose crinkles determinedly. She looks at Samantha, then Leo. ‘Are you coming?’
This is looking bad. I didn’t even want them to come, but I can’t let Anna storm off. I’ve got to think quickly. ‘Wait, wait.’ It is NOT graffiti. Have to really think. Idea, idea needed. I look around and see a grandfather-type person walking a dog. Got it. ‘Look, what if I ask him? He’ll know if we can.’
Anna squints at the old man. The dog is wagging its tail madly. It has something in its mouth. A saliva-dripping tennis ball. Samantha doesn’t care. She loves dogs more than she hates saliva-dripping tennis balls. The dog looks up at her as she pats its short brown fur. ‘He’s gorgeous.’ Gorgeous? I don’t think so. The dog drops the ball and licks her hand. ‘What’s his name?’
The grandfather-type person smiles at Samantha. ‘Wrestler.’ I can see why his dog is called Wrestler. Its face is squashed nearly flat and its dribbly tongue hangs out. Its shoulders are huge, with this little body and a curly tail behind.
I squint at Anna. She is waiting.
‘Excuse me,’ I say. The grandfather-type person stops.
Samantha butts in. ‘He’s my brother.’ He smiles at me. Good work, Samantha.
I give him a leading question. ‘Everyone paints these rocks, don’t they?’
‘Yes.’ He speaks slowly.
I stammer. This is the risky part. Hope he is on the side of the town that thinks the rock painting is art. ‘Is it allowed?’ I cross my fingers.
He thinks for a while. ‘Don’t know, but everyone does it. It’s a tourist attraction.’ He laughs. ‘Except some people think it has the opposite effect.’
‘So it’s okay?’
He pats Wrestler. ‘I enjoy looking at them.’
‘My sister wants to paint a picture of a dog.’
‘Like Wrestler,’ Samantha pipes in. Samantha is so useful sometimes.
‘That will be nice. Very nice. A picture of Wrestler? Hmmm.’ He pats his dog, which dribbles on his hand. ‘I’ll look for it tomorrow on my evening walk.’ The grandfather-type person waves as he strolls off, walking beside his squashed-face dog.
‘So, Anna. You have to help Samantha paint the dog for the old man, or he’ll be disappointed.’
Anna still isn’t sure. Leo and Anna stand watching me while I get out the paint, prepare the boulder, wet my brushes.
Samantha isn’t interested in the graffiti issue, because dogs are much more important. She is painting Wrestler with pointy ears. ‘Do you think they are too pointy?’ she asks. She twirls one pigtail, thinking, until Anna gives in and smoothes out the pointy bits. Then Anna writes the name ‘Wrestler’ under the painting.
‘Great job.’ I secretly keep looking around in case the grandfather-type person is wrong. Anna will never forgive me if we go to gaol. Neither will Mr and Mrs Napoli or Mum. Well, maybe Mum would forgive me because it would be an excuse for her to demonstrate outside the gaol. So she probably wouldn’t mind. Rob wouldn’t care.
The girls write their names. Leo paints his own name in big letters. He whispers in my ear, ‘I’ve always wanted to do this.’
I work hard on a ‘SuperJack’ logo. ‘Hey, look at this.’ Anna starts laughing.
Samantha is laughing too. Then Leo. ‘What? What?’
‘That’s super all right. Ha, ha.’ Anna points to the S. ‘If you’re backwards.’
Oh, no. It IS backwards. It was because of all the decorations on the other rocks. I got confused. ‘The S is meant to be that way,’ I grumble as I dump the left-over paint and used brushes in the garbage bin.
‘Sure.’ Samantha and Anna giggle. They won’t stop giggling and saying annoying things — ‘Back Jack’, ‘Super Dumb’, ‘Jumble Jack’ — ‘SuperJack’. It is all very unfunny.
When Leo joins in, it becomes doubly unfunny. ‘Jack’s Super-duper-blooper.’ Leo, Samantha and Anna are falling over each other giggling.
‘All right, all right.’ I start walking towards the house. ‘By the way, let’s keep our painted rock to ourselves. Okay?’ I don’t think Mum and Rob would really be angry but I don’t need everyone telling them about my blooper.
I have to ask them three times before they stop laughing and say, ‘Okay.’ They tease me all the way back to the house until I’m laughing too. It IS funny. Super dumb is what I am sometimes. We go the long way around because of Anna’s near-accident down the ridge trail.
Mum and Rob are waiting for us on the front porch, drinking coffee. ‘Did you have a good time?’ Mum bubbles.
I stare at everyone. Don’t say a word. I don’t need Rob teasing me. Mum never would. ‘Sure, great time.’
No one says anything, at least for now.
Anna’s parents call. What a surprise. Not. Lucky Anna doesn’t say anything about the rock painting, because Mr Napoli would worry about the vandals that attacked his shop and this is NOTHING like that. Anna starts laughing on the phone. ‘Puss loves pizza,’ she blurts out.
‘Who’s Puss?’ Leo asks.
He doesn’t know anything. Samantha goes into a long, boring description of Puss. Nanna joins in. I am over it and go and help Mum prepare lime cordial to have with dinner.
Rob arrives with take-away fish and chips. Mum complains that it’s not very healthy until Rob tickles her so much she says it is okay ‘this time’, and we all end up laughing. We eat on the front porch, overlooking the park. Samantha brings tomato sauce to the table. You can’t have good fish and chips without tomato sauce. Nanna has a battered frankfurter. That needs tomato sauce too.
Samantha starts telling Mum about the painted rocks on the seawall. I give her a kick under the table. She flashes me a grumpy look.
I watch Nanna try to eat her battered frankfurter. Oh no, the frankfurter has slipped out of the side of her mouth. Her teeth go the other way. I tap the front of my teeth with my finger. I am going to brush them twice tonight. Important things, teeth. I look at Anna. Her teeth are small and white. She flashes them as she eats a hot chip. Hey, Leo is looking at them too.
When we finish dinner, Rob just gets up. ‘Jack, you’re in charge tonight.’
What’s that mean?
Rob leaves the table. He doesn’t even pretend that he is going to do the washing up. Anna is already clearing the dishes. ‘Just want to catch up with Leo for a bit. You understand.’
Leo gets up really quickly. He looks at me, smiling. He’s going to tell Rob about the orange rock painting. He’s going to tell Rob about how I’m super dumb. I can tell. Rob has his arm on Leo’s shoulder as they walk onto the porch.
Samantha nudges me. I nudge her back. Something is wrong here. Rob always does the washing up.
Chapter 7
Jelly Snakes
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Morning. Mum swirls through the cottage doing a last-minute tidy-up. She star jumps onto the porch. Of course, Samantha copies her. I ignore them and just carry the bags out to the car. You can’t do anything about Mum when she is in a star jump mood. Anna is helping Nanna struggle into the back seat. I don’t want to sit next to Nanna. She’ll snore and tell that dumb fish story. Anna hops in beside her. Oh no, Leo is already sitting in the middle seat, next to the window. He’s sneering at Mum. I can see it. I don’t want to sit next to him either. Oh, the other window seat is free. ‘I bags the other window,’ I shout.
Samantha is standing with Floppy under her arm and her legs glued to the ground. ‘Rob and Mum said I could have the window seat.’ Her nose is crinkled and her beady eyes are crunched. I shove her, but she won’t budge. ‘No, and I’m going to tell Mum if you push me again.’ I won’t win this. It’s turning out badly. I plunk myself next to Leo. Samantha jumps in after me and shuts the door. She pokes out her tongue. ‘I’ve got the window seat.’
‘Me too.’ Leo smiles. No, I mean, smirks. I elbow him in the side. ‘Hey, that hurts.’
‘Sorry, Leo. It’s a bit squashed in the middle seat.’
Rob revs the car. I look out past Samantha’s head through the window. The sky is blue, the sun shining. Oh, who cares about dumb window seats and dumb Leo sticking like glue? Not me. Rob zooms off, heading north. Yes, north. Beaches, fun parks. I nudge Samantha and stick my thumbs up. ‘Goodbye house,’ I shout.
Samantha points Floppy’s paws out to sea. ‘Goodbye look-out.’
‘Goodbye ocean,’ Mum sings.
‘Goodbye teeth,’ Nanna gurgles.
Suddenly, there is dead silence. Everyone turns to stare at Nanna except Rob, who is driving. Mum’s hands bounce around like jumping beans. Everyone knows. We HAVE to go back. Nanna without teeth is a BIG problem. She would only be able to eat porridge and yoghurt. Rob groans, then slows down, ready to turn, when Nanna announces proudly, ‘Just joking.’
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