I grabbed Jewels' hand and ducked around from behind the door, slipping out between Soren and Egg.
We bolted down the hall, down the stairs, into the hallway. The music was off. The band were leaving. The hail had stopped. Everyone was filing out of the living room through the front doors, dodging broken glass, past the pool where tiles had been cracked and tree branches had fallen.
'You go,' Jewels said. 'They won't do anything to me. I'll go out the front with everybody else.'
She kissed me on the cheek. The same cheek that Cat had slapped. Some other time I figured we needed to talk and find out what was going on here. I heard Egg and Soren on the stairs. Jewels ran for the front of the house and I ducked out through the laundry. The face-suckers were gone. I bolted up the embankment towards the back garden, slipping on ice and feeling the chill through my sneakers. It was still quite light outside as I ran through the hedge and made a dive for the dog hole. If I could make it through, I was safe. There was no way those big apes could get through a gap that small. I jammed my head into the hole and wriggled through. I could hear Egg and Sozza crashing through the bushes behind me. I knew that all they'd see were my legs and they'd pull me back through and snap me in half for gatecrashing the party, busting into The Queen's room and trying to win the competition.
I desperately dragged myself through, clawing at the grass on the other side of the fence. I pulled one leg under, then the other. Just as my foot was coming through the gap under the fence, someone grabbed it. I kicked and twisted but their grip was good. The hands started dragging me back. I turned my foot over and over again and managed to slip my shoe off. Then I reefed my leg through, scrambled to my feet, tripped, rolled down the hill in the empty reserve next to Cat's place. Then stood on my feet again and bolted up towards where the trike was hidden. Home free.
But then I heard the guys behind me and looked back. They were climbing over the fence. Damn. I jumped up a sandstone retaining wall into the yard behind the reserve and ran through the trees. A dog barked somewhere. The light was silvery and dim. I ran up the side of somebody's house, over a road, through another yard, launching off a bin to leap their back fence and landing with a crunch on the hail-covered ground in a laneway. I bolted up the grassy lane till I hit the corner with the pandanus trees where we'd hidden the trike. Most of the branches had been blown off and the bike was in full view. I checked it for hail damage then looked around. No Paul. No Dad. It was only twenty to seven. Twenty minutes before the planned take-off.
'Dad!' I said, as loud as I dared. 'Paul!'
No answer. I listened for Egg and Soren. I could hear some distant voices. I looked out towards the ocean. Strangely, the conditions seemed pretty good for flying but I didn't have a camera, a wing or anyone to help me with take-off. All I really wanted now was to get through tonight without being pummelled. I thought about ditching the flight and just getting on the trike and riding off around the cliff road. But I knew that I needed to finish this. I wanted to do something that my dad had never managed to do – actually complete something.
I heard footsteps from the laneway. My dad and Paul. Dad had the wing in a backpack.
'Where've you been?' I snapped at them.
'Under somebody's carport. We could've died out here,' Paul said.
'Egg and that are coming,' I said.
'Where?'
'They'll be here in a minute. We gotta get out of here.'
Dad was attaching the wing to the bike.
'You think we can do it?' I asked Dad.
'Why not?' he said. 'Wind's dropped off. Right direction. Conditions are good.'
'We don't have a camera,' I said.
'I can try shooting on my phone,' Paul said. 'Even if the light's too low to get a decent image, let's just get this thing into the sky.'
I looked down the hill at the chunks of hail all over the road. I looked up at the clouds, trying to remember some of the cloud stuff I'd learned on the web. Lightning flashed on the horizon but it was a long way away. It was fifteen seconds before we heard the tiniest rumble.
I knew I was going to do it.
I stayed on watch for Egg and Soren while my dad and Paul rigged the harness and wing. It was like Paul had totally forgotten that Dad was old. They were working together like cogs in a clock.
By the time I was sitting in the trike, helmet on, ready to rock, a few kids from the party had gathered around, wondering what we were doing.
'Can you help me out?' Paul asked them.
A couple of them said 'yeah'.
'Good.' Paul gave me five, whacked me on the shoulder and said, 'Be scary, man. We're never gonna have a better excuse than this to get in the air. You do this, we could be made men in this town.'
I laughed.
'I'm serious, man. Made men in New York even,' he said.
He headed off, then he turned and said, 'But I kind of want you to live, too. So don't die, OK?' He went down the hill with his group, clearing branches from the strip. Rather than ride on the road and trash the wing again I was going to shoot down the flat grassy stretch on the left-hand side which ended at the top of the dune. Out over the ocean spears of sunlight shot through the clouds onto the water. Then they disappeared again.
'Hey!' I heard a call from my right. Egg and Soren were running towards me from the far end of the lane. 'You're gone, mate,' Egg yelled.
'Yep, you're right. Go,' Dad said.
And I was. Gone, that is. The wheels crunched over hail. Egg and Sozza ran out of the lane, across the road towards me, so I floored it, pedalling hard. But they were still gaining on me and I had a wing dragging along behind me, bouncing along the path.
I felt a tug. Egg had grabbed a handful of kite strings. I pedalled hard but he was slowing me. I had a flash in my head of him ripping me out of the trike and onto the grass and turning me into Cat food.
42
Coolhunting The Sky
A gust of wind shot up from the beach and tore the wing into the air, probably cutting Egg's fingers up pretty bad and nearly launching him. I pedalled hard, charging down the strip, leaving Egg sprawled on the grass behind. Twenty metres to run and the wing snapped into the overhead position. Suddenly I was steaming towards the dune, wing up, Egg and the other idiots left for dust.
Down near the bottom Paul and his group were holding kids back so they wouldn't walk across my path. A whole crowd was looking on. Up near the rocks at the southern end of the beach I could see a flame spinning around. She said she'd be here. I glanced at the feather taped to my handlebars.
With fifteen metres to go I felt a little lift from the wing and that thrill in my stomach shooting all the way out to my fingers. I bounced once and then I was cruising about a metre over ground level. I worked with the wing and kept it steady overhead as I soared toward the edge of the dune. When I hit the edge I half-expected to drop out of the sky again and face-plant.
But I didn't. I felt another big lift and I shot into the air quite quickly. It was something my dad called ridge lift – air that hits a steep surface and shoots upwards, filling your wing and taking you with it. I looked down below and I was about twenty metres over the dune.
There were cheers from back on the road. I let out a laugh. It was incredible. This was the highest I'd ever been. By the time the bottom of the dune met flat sand I was about fifty metres over the beach. I flew out towards the southern end where my mum was twirling fire. I thought I'd be supernervous when this moment came but I wasn't. The wing felt steady. Every movement of my hands shifted my direction and adjusted the wing. I felt in control. As I soared over my ma she looked up and watched me cruise by. I felt like I could almost feel the heat of the flames.
Now I had to turn. I could either head out over the water or make a fast turn before the cliff face and come back over the beach. I figured trying my luck with sharks probably wasn't the best plan on my maiden voyage so I banked hard, leaning over as the wing swung me around and I went shooting back along the beach ab
ove the edge of the road. I was over the trees now.
I flew over the party-goers standing out the front of Cat's place. Someone pointed into the sky, then another and another. As I whooshed past there were about a hundred people on the stairs, on the road, on the beach all craning their necks into the sky. It was a hell of a moment. I wondered if Speed was down there and I wished for a second that we were filming this on something better than Paul's phone. But then I kind of realised that I didn't care. I was flying. I'd imagined this a thousand times and I wanted to stay up there forever. It was like in my dream. Nothing else mattered. It was just me and the sky.
In an upstairs window of Cat's place I could see a figure. A silhouette with the warm light of a room behind her. I could imagine a thousand pouting models all looking down on her and her looking out at me sweeping through the late afternoon sky. I imagined her smiling. I knew she wouldn't be but that's how I wanted to see her.
As I came to the northern end of the beach again I heard my dad and Paul whooping like madmen below.
'You're flying!' Paul screamed.
'I know!' I yelled back.
I turned again and started to wonder when I might land this thing. I'd lost quite a bit of altitude. I had planned on landing at the bottom of the dune at the northern end but I hadn't factored in Egg and the dudes waiting for me. The last thing I wanted was to hit sand and get beaten. I started to panic a little and, in that second, everything my dad had taught me about landing was wiped from my hard drive.
But I did have to get down. Maybe I could land on McMasters and hope that the spectacle of me getting the trike in the air was enough to stun Egg temporarily.
'Bring her down gently,' my dad called. 'Remember what I told you!'
But I couldn't. I couldn't remember a thing. I wanted to stay up there all night, till everyone went home. I looked out over the ocean and I could see a yacht moored out there. Maybe I could land on the deck? Blowing Rock jutted out of the bay a few hundred metres off shore, but that was no place to land. There was a reason why runways weren't built out of jagged collections of rocks surrounded by shark-infested ocean.
My mind was racing through all the options as I slowly dropped. I was only twenty metres off the beach now and soaring along the waterline.
Then it finally occurred to me that with my dad and Paul and everyone else around there was no way Egg would do anything to me. I decided that all I had to do was focus on landing without killing myself and the rest would take care of itself... hopefully.
I turned around and started heading back towards the crowd again. I adjusted the wing and began dropping steadily. Halfway through the turn though, the onshore breeze started pushing me further up the beach towards Cat's place. The soft sand was only about fifteen metres below me and, if I landed on that, things could get ugly. My wheels would bog and it'd be a repeat of this morning but at twice the speed. What I needed, desperately, was hard sand.
I tried turning again and then realised I was heading for the trees. The ground rushed by. I don't know what speed I was doing but I knew it was quick. I don't remember much after that but I do remember coming in towards the pines on the beachfront, branches soaring towards me and knowing, for sure, that it was all going to end in pain. I braced for the stack and tried to steer the trike clear of the trunks of the trees ahead. I was about five metres off the ground. The wing hit branches. I kept flying forward. Then I swung up into the tree. And swung back again. I was hanging by my wing. I waited for the trike to slam into the ground. But, instead, I swung forward again. Then back. And forward again.
The crowd had surged towards the tree and people were standing below, dozens of phones filming me hanging from the tree, a whole bunch of cheering and voices saying, 'Are you OK?' and 'That was awesome,' and 'Let's get him down.'
It wasn't quite the landing I had planned but it was good to be alive.
43
The Real World
I woke and I didn't know what time it was. My bedroom was hot and my head felt heavy. The sun was high in the sky. There were voices and people doing things outside. I crawled to the end of my bed and looked out the window. Backpackers playing volleyball and painting didgeridoos. A girl sitting against a tree, watching everybody and sketching in a notebook. Mr Kim serving coffee to a guy with a white beard and hair and an Indian woman at the café. The bus was silent.
I stepped out of bed, aching, and it took me a second to find balance. I looked at my face in a little mirror. I had crusty stuff everywhere. I gave my face a rub. I wandered downstairs. Stumbled, really.
The clock on the wall over the stove said 1:00. For a second I wondered if that was in the morning or afternoon but the sun kind of gave it away. I felt weird.
There was a message on the kitchen bench. I read it, threw on some clothes and headed out.
44
A Meeting With Speed Cohen
Seagulls fought over chips. One fat gull chased the others with an evil squawk, daring them to try to steal his fries. Kids kicked water at each other. Frisbees crowded the sky. A dog panted nearby, desperate for a drink. I shoved the waterbowl towards him with my foot.
I was sitting on the surf club balcony wearing some new clothes that Ma had left out for me. Ironed and everything. I didn't even know we had an iron. They weren't new-new, but op-shop new. Only one previous owner, I reckoned.
'Mac Daddy!' said a voice.
I turned, stood and shook hands with Speed.
'Hey,' I said.
'You want a drink?' he asked.
'Yeah, just water maybe.'
'How do you feel?' he said.
'Weird.'
'Yeah, well, don't worry about it. That'll pass.'
Cat's vlog the previous night was her in her room, the wall of pouting models behind, putting her case for why she should win: 'Please, please, please. I want this more than anything else in the world. I will beg you for this. The past week has made me feel like the centre of the universe. I was made for doing this. I am truly destined to be famous. This is my life,' and on and on it went.
Paul and I had submitted the sketchy vid he'd shot on his phone. It was pretty bad but then we had a whole bunch of comments on our page from people who'd been at the party. They included links to video shot on their own phones of me in the sky. There were about eighteen videos. Most of them were dodgy and low-light but some of them were good with me sweeping over the party, lit by the streetlights below and the orangey-grey sunset behind. If you watched a bunch of these thirty-second or one-minute vids you got a pretty good sense of this amazing homemade flying machine cruising the night sky.
On Cat's vlog there were links to vids of the hailstorm, the band getting hit by massive white stones while they dragged their gear inside. There was some pretty cool footage. But it wasn't enough.
'How d'you think Cat's going to feel?' Speed asked me.
I shrugged my shoulders and had a flash of her sitting there, watching from the window. I kind of felt sorry for her. She didn't mean to be who she was.
'You ever been to New York before?' he asked.
I smiled and shook my head. 'Never been anywhere,' I said. 'Never been on a plane.'
Speed laughed.
'Where's Paul?' he said.
I shrugged. 'Home.'
'Well, I want to talk to him, too,' he said.
'I thought you –'
'I was wrong,' he said. 'Subscribers love him. He's an odd guy but he's got something, y'know. He's got a weird kind of charisma.'
I stuck my fingers in my mouth and gave a whistle.
'Paul!' I said.
Paul came around the corner from his hidden table inside the surf club.
'Me?'
Speed laughed. 'Yeah, you,' he said. 'Take a seat. You're going to New York.'
Paul flashed his crazy teeth and pumped Speed's hand. I couldn't believe he'd touched him. Speed had to be thirty-five at least. And Paul actually made eye contact.
'Do you know who's gonna chaper
one you?' he asked.
'Um, yeah. I think so,' I said. I whistled again. 'Dad!'
My dad came out from where Paul had been. He wore a tie-dye T-shirt and some jeans cut off at the knees with bare feet and he had a shoulder bag. His hair was mad but he'd shaved off his beard that morning. His face was all tanned, apart from where his beard had been. He cut a pretty wacky picture.
'Speed, this is my dad,' I said. Speed shook my dad's hand.
'I know. I'd like to see your lightning farm sometime,' he said. 'Genius, mate.'
My dad just sort of grunted. He didn't take that well to flattery.
So we all sat there, talking to Speed Cohen about coolhunting and New York and Cat DeVrees and that whole insane week and what the future might be like.
'Does this mean we don't have to work at Taste Sensation anymore?' Paul asked.
'What's Taste Sensation?' said Speed.
'Don't ask,' I warned him.
'Well, you're on the payroll now. I don't think you'll have time for another job.'
'You seriously have no idea how much that means to us,' I said to Speed.
We watched kids flying kites and gulls hovering in the wind and a kid running down the sand dune holding a beach umbrella, desperately trying to take to the sky. And I told them all for the fifteenth time what flying had been like. And landing in a tree.
At one stage my dad and Speed got talking and I looked over at Paul and he slid me some skin. I'll never forget the look on his face.
'We're going to New York City,' he said.
'And we can fly.'
MAC SLATER, COOL HUNTER
Hunt cool.
www.macslater.com.au
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Read on for a sneak peek from Mac Slater, Coolhunter 2
Chapter 1
Paul and I bolted the last fifty metres up 32nd Street towards the box office, dodging through the crowd. Dad lumbered along behind.
Mac Slater Coolhunter 1 Page 12