by Beale, Fleur
He laughed and we headed for home.
I didn’t say anything when I got there because Wally Long was parked at the table, chatting away to Gramps like they were best mates. It was okay though, because Wally was bending his ear about what a fine, upstanding young man I was. I went off to change into milking gear, and didn’t laugh out loud till I had my bedroom door safely shut.
I gave Gramps a cheery wave as we got into Wally’s ute, him in the passenger seat and me driving. The gear lever moved smoothly from reverse to first. Not like the poor old basher.
I snuck a look at Wally, wondering if he looked well enough to start milking again. I hoped he would be. I’d miss the dollars though.
When I finished the milking, I went up to the house as usual to collect Wally.
‘Jake,’ he said, ‘I can’t tell you how grateful I am to you. It’s not right, though, for you to be doing this when school starts. I’m fit enough to take over again, thanks to you.’
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘School starts for Year 13s on Thursday.’ Three days away.
Louise didn’t look thrilled, but she said it was useless to argue and would I be available to help out if needed?
I said yes. I wouldn’t be sorry to be finished with the milking, even though I’d miss the income. And the dog. Even the cows.
I went home, got cleaned up, then broke the news about the army.
I was right about them making a fuss, but I stayed staunch while they hugged me and went on about how brilliant I’d be and what a terrific soldier I’d make. I did notice though that Gramps had an evil glint in his eye and he kept rubbing his hands. Must be the thought of me on the end of army discipline. I wondered when he’d remind me that I’d have to have short hair.
‘I’ll get paid too,’ I said, just to show him where my priorities were.
‘You’ll earn it, lad. You’ll earn every last cent,’ he said, his eye twinkling like the turn indicator on a car and his hands just about bleeding from all the rubbing.
I escaped to the computer and sent Erina a Facebook message: skype at 8 tonite?
I hoped she’d find it in time. She did.
Chapter Twenty-four
FAREWELL
WE TOOK TOOLS and petrol to the paddock the next day and fixed up as many rattles and loose connections as we could. Discovered the petrol cap was bent out of shape and no longer sealed properly. Robbie must have knocked it on something when he flipped the car.
He took it for the first drive, throwing it all over the paddock with maximum revs and wheel spin, but he stayed the right way up.
‘Ouch,’ said Buzz. ‘Hear that gear change?’
No doubt about it, the gear box was on the way out, but at least it didn’t get much worse during the day. All of us drove like there was no tomorrow, even though there was one more day before school sank its claws into us.
The rain came down on our last day of freedom. We went to the paddock anyway. I won first drive. Wow! Slippery as hell! Brilliant. Well back from the fence, I threw the car sideways and skidded a mile before it ran out of momentum. Revved the engine and aimed for the big tree in the corner that the bros were sheltering under. They ran behind it, peering out from either side, bellowing insults at me.
Okay, you bastards, I thought. I’ll give you something to worry about. I slapped on the brakes, tweaked the wheel. Ended up in a dizzying mix of slide and spin. The tree flashed into view. Then the gate. The back fence. The tree again. Getting really close now! I tried a handbrakey, but the whole thing was beyond help. We slid sideways, scraping the right door handles along the tree. And stopped.
The bros came out laughing. ‘The tyres are too smooth for the wet,’ Buzz said. ‘My turn!’ He wrestled Robbie out of the way.
We watched him carve up the grass. I’d already left a pattern of wheel tracks. He laid more over the top.
We used up the whole can of gas before lunch, so we rode into town for a feed for us and the car. The rain kept falling. We were soaked and muddy. So what? A bit of rain never hurt anyone.
Me first after lunch. The gear lever wouldn’t go into third. I revved the motor, took my foot off the gas and shoved it into top. Yes!
Robbie couldn’t do it. He drove around in second with the engine roaring.
‘Won’t be doing it a power of good,’ Buzz said.
His turn next. He set the car waltzing all round the paddock, water and grass spewing out behind him. We watched him flick it round before he hit the fence. Then we heard him rev the motor, no problem slipping it into top.
‘Move!’ I yelled. ‘He’s coming at us.’
Robbie’d already scampered behind the tree. We stuck our heads around the trunk. ‘He’s never going to stop it in time!’ Robbie howled.
I didn’t say anything, too busy wondering if Buzz had lost his marbles. The nose of the Holden dipped as he slammed on the brakes. The car spun. We could see him wrenching the wheel around, trying to keep spinning to scrub off the speed. It didn’t work. No traction on the ground.
‘Brace yourself!’ Robbie bellowed.
The car bucked, slowed slightly and crashed into the tree. The left front corner of the bonnet crumpled like paper.
We popped out from behind the tree. ‘You okay, mate?’
Buzz was already pulling himself out. ‘Better than the bloody car, that’s for sure.’ He crawled over the bonnet to have a better look. ‘Stuffed the front end, I’d say.’
‘Bad?’ Robbie asked.
‘Terminal,’ Buzz said. ‘Guess we’d better get it home.’
‘Call a wrecker,’ I said. ‘Let them haul it away.’ Shit. The car hadn’t been doing too well but we could probably have got a few more days out of it. No use going on about it though.
‘Not a wrecker,’ Buzz said. ‘We’ll get her home. Strip off anything we can use for the next one.’
That put a better spin on things. We collected the bikes and rode home. The rain kept on keeping on.
Frank made us stay outside while we talked to him. He laughed when he heard how the car had died. ‘Didn’t think it’d last that long, to be honest. Go inside and dry off. Get the ute ready in about half an hour.’
We got some food inside us too, then as usual Robbie and I rode on the back of the ute.
The car was well and truly stuffed. It was a hell of a fight to drive it onto the trailer — had to do it in reverse in the end.
Robbie and I squashed into the cab on the way home, watching the battered old Holden bounce around on the trailer.
The rain eased to a drizzle as we rolled it off. We had to use a crowbar to get the bonnet open. The battery was still okay. We took the wheels off. Took out the diff and the starter motor. Took the seatbelt out.
‘We’re keeping that dizzy,’ Buzz said. ‘I bet the old coot hasn’t got another one.’
And that was about it. ‘We’ll sell the rest to a scrappy. You never know, it might earn us a dollar or two.’ Buzz kicked at the damaged front, and the rest of the fender fell off.
The same idea flashed into all our heads at the same time. Robbie vaulted onto the roof. Buzz and I followed him.
‘One. Two. Three!’
On three, we jumped. The roof creaked under us, but stayed firm. ‘Again!’
The metal buckled. We lost our footing and fell in a heap with our feet in the huge dent we’d made.
We sprang off. Robbie snatched up the crowbar, held it in both hands, swung it and thumped it onto the boot. It left a narrow dent the full width of the car. We cheered, Robbie lifted it for another bash and Buzz vanished into Frank’s workshop. I didn’t hang about to see what he was after, but went hunting for my own weapon — and found Buzz’s old baseball bat.
Buzz ran back holding a heavy mallet. He swung it up, crashed it down. Wham! Slam! The driver’s door folded into a different shape. The bat didn’t do as much damage as the crowbar or the mallet. I didn’t care. I kept swinging it, thumping it onto the metal, listening for the crunch and crack.
Frank turned up at one point. He stood there shaking his head, then left us to it.
We gave up after a bit, worn out and sweating in the rain.
‘Awesome,’ Robbie said.
Yeah.
Buzz hopped up and again disappeared into the workshop. I looked at Robbie. He looked at me. We both shrugged.
Buzz came back grinning. He was carrying a paint tin and a brush.
‘That won’t stay on,’ I said. ‘You mightn’t have noticed, but it’s raining.’
‘Who cares?’ He dipped the brush in. The paint was yellow.
‘It’ll go nicely with the rust,’ Robbie said.
I thought old Buzz must have dented his brain when he hit the tree. That was a teensy little brush. If he was going to paint the old girl, why not use a decent-sized one. Or better still, a spray gun?
He started the paint job at the boot end, working his way along the side.
We started to laugh.
Buzz was writing words. True, the letters were running in the wet, but we could still read them.
Hop Out Lads Damn Engines Nackered.
‘That’d be right,’ Robbie said.
We went into the house to ring the scrappy.
The End
BUT WAIT — THERE’S MORE
The scrappy gave us $150 for the car. We put it in a kitty to help fund the next basher.
A guy in the Automotive class bought the wheels for ten bucks each.
I cut my hair off myself before the army could get at it and before Gramps could go on about it. Erina said it made me look sexy.
I did all the application stuff for the army. They sent me a letter saying they accepted me and I could start the basic training in August. Yes! My regular income was on its way.
We didn’t get another paddock basher. We bought a little Toyota for 200 bucks. It needed work to get it going, but we could do some of it in Automotive class. The idea was to compete in hill climbs and car club gymkhanas.
I kept getting enough milking jobs to save me from being broke.
In April, Dad gave me fifty bucks for my birthday. He got the day wrong but I didn’t bother reminding him of the right date. I gave the money to Mum.
I got my restricted in June.
We got the car going the weekend before I left for the army. It didn’t have a warrant, but we snuck out onto a back road behind Buzz’s place early on a Sunday morning, just to make sure it went okay at speeds above 10 kph, which was all we could get up to on Buzz’s driveway. It did.
Acknowledgements
A HUGE THANK you to my nephew Tim Corney who, along with a bunch of mates, pulled an old Holden out of a ditch, drove it up onto the trailer by using the starter motor to power the car, got it home and made it into a paddock basher. Thank you Tim for your generosity in sharing your story, and for your time and patience with my questions. Just for the record: Tim certainly isn’t Jake.
THANK YOU TO my brothers Mike and Ben for answering yet more questions.
THANK YOU TO Joshua Long, and to Jimmy and Lucas Lipidis: I’m very grateful to you all for your technical expertise.
TO THE BOYS of 9VM and 10BC of Rongotai College: you’re awesome! Your comments about titles and the cover were insightful and a great help in figuring out the final design. Special thanks to Sep Ryder for your title suggestions.
Copyright
A RANDOM HOUSE BOOK published by
Random House New Zealand
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For more information about our titles go to www.randomhouse.co.nz
A catalogue record for this book is available from
the National Library of New Zealand
Random House New Zealand is part of the Random House Group
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First published 2011
© 2011 Fleur Beale
The moral rights of the author have been asserted
ISBN 978 1 86979 547 4
This book is copyright. Except for the purposes of fair reviewing no part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Cover design: Gary Stewart, Gas Project
Text design: Megan van Staden
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